1969 Camaro bodywork

[chimp koose]

Have you ever seen the ranchero made from a Fairmont ? Ford would have sold a lot of those.

[chimp koose]

I had a friend who made a ranchero out of a late 70s Honda civic . It would fit about one square hay bale in the back . It looked neat.

[idrivejunk]

Have you ever seen the ranchero made from a Fairmont ? Ford would have sold a lot of those.

Yes, and up close. At a local swap meet several years ago-






Fairmonts are alright! That conversion doesn't look all that great especially with department store hubcaps but does appear functional.

I had a friend who made a ranchero out of a late 70s Honda civic . It would fit about one square hay bale in the back . It looked neat.

I've got two late 90s Grand Prix coupes. I could do it but unless it will tote a V8 long block, I'm out. Same FWD theory: tag-along axle with bags under a flat floor, a vertical bulkhead with flat pickup window and roll bar at the B-pillar, leave the unisides alone and just hack roof. Chop decklid under the spoiler and hinge whats left like a tailgate... and call it a "Ute" like Holden does.

Oh no, its Monday. Back to earth! Off I go

[GPster]

Have you ever seen the ranchero made from a Fairmont ? Ford would have sold a lot of those.

If I'm correct there was an after-market attempt to make Rancheros out of the Granada body style. I believe the attempt was short-circuited by the government wanting crash tests an somewhere in that was a need to build about 600 of them. I had a friend that has one of them that had been wrecked and he was wanting someone that could re-do the factory spot welds in it's repair with NOS parts that he had collected. but his health started to fail and his son had sold of most of the parts and it never got done. It's probibably still sitting in the metal garage that he had built to put it in when he got it. GPster

[Beck]

idrivejunk,

Keep the photos coming. I'm enjoying these Camaro builds.

[chimp koose]

we have an amc pacer in town that was elcaminoed , its just ugly.

[idrivejunk]

idrivejunk,

Keep the photos coming. I'm enjoying these Camaro builds.

Can do! :!:      

GPster, that sounds kind of interesting. Hmmm.   Might look better than a Fairmont. Wonder which year it was? :?:

Today's arguably dramatic Camaro episode begins with 'junk in the trunk. Folded myself into the back of that thing again several times this rainy morning, with the ol' bum drillin hand aching up a storm. Heres what went down-

I fussed around re-leveling my measuring setup and the car's body. Measured twice and took a small breath of anticipation before dropping the filler panel in place. Erg, the car was maybe a half inch too wide. Thats when I grabbed all remaining available clamps and screws (also took a few out to allow quarter movement) and dove in.

A fair amount of force was required to bring the quarters in to meet the filler panel edges. In the end as you see, they drew up OK and are held by two screws each side, through the downward flanges at that joint. This joint is seperate and free from, from but adjacent to, the joint where the downward flanges of the package tray and hinge supports connect.

After all that, the window opening was true to within 1/8". Meaning the previous scenario still exists but the difference side vs side is only about 1/8" at the worst spot. Good. Now I took a deep breath of anticipation and we held the decklid up there...







I laughed heartily. It ain't so much the cars or the guys doing these things, its the dadgum parts. They all seem to have the same problems built in. Somewhere in time and space, a reference vehicle was off somewhat perhaps? I just had to laugh. Because I'm looking at something that is obviously a stumbling block about these cars. Every guy must run into this, the wide side gaps that is. I tried a junk OE lid too, same thing.

So I stared and pondered for a short time...



...then the answer suddenly became obvious and I had it going my way in minutes. After of course bringing boss and camera into play first...

CHOP CHOP!





Can you see where I chopped then overlapped the quarters at the tail panel flange and brought the corners inward? IMG_9998 illustrates it best in the poor lighting. Shhh- I / we just learned something handy here. The root of the problem is loose stamping at the rear edge of the quarters there. The flat eyebrow area was anywhere from 1/2" to 1-1/2" wide, see previous pics for reference.

I simply took the screws out of the jamb's back corner, chopped the eyebrows, drilled new screw holes in the qtr jamb, offset from the old, then used a pick tool to pry the quarters inward and re-screwed into the new position on each side. The right was farther off than the left, and the photos above have the lid flush left so all the gap is on the right.

Here is the new gaps from the top. This is probably close enough to work with on the sides and theres plenty of fine tuning left to do, but...





This pic shows a flaw in the new filler panel too.



This right front corner fits too tight.



This one's a tad loose-



I assure you it felt good to be that far along when 5 came. Not a bad day!

[chris spokes]

oh my your clever  

[idrivejunk]

Well if a guy is gonna be stupid he has to be tough, or so they say. Both of those wear off eventually and clever kicks in if he has paid attention.

 

I wanted less gap all around that lid. And I wanted the grey stuff gone so I could see what I was doing. So-

Sanded off the grey stuff and fogged some trim black where it was bare, then...

Got out two small Mo-Clamps (body shop sheetmetal pull clamps, for gripping weld flanges in collision repair) and a friction jack (seen on floor in background), removed the right gutter again, and clamped each quarter. Right in the middle of the trunk opening, on the edge. I set up the friction jack to pull instead of push, and hooked it in the clamps. Took those screws in the jambs out again and used the jack to pull the quarters together.

THAT worked!



















I like those gaps even better now. Got the gutter back in place and shuffled the filler panel a little until we were all happy with it.

Then I turned my attention to those eyebrow area cuts. I can tend to those more when the quarters are off again. End of the day both sides were smoothed out and got a shot of trim black for safekeeping. The decklid is pretty darn wavy. Not sure what tomorrow's episode will cover.

[idrivejunk]

Woops I see photobucket shuffled the order of a couple grinding process pics there.

Never fear, they can be seen in the proper order and with commentary here:

http://www.roddingroundtable.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13887

[idrivejunk]

The spoiler is just in the holes, not screwed down. But I fitted the left gutter and put a latch and striker and weatherstrip on it today.

Got a few pics of the gutter joints and such, too. I'm almost ready to unscrew it. And there may be a secret productivity weapon coming into play. More later-











Nice how that grey primer under the lid flakes off with an air hose, eh?

This bracket sits considerably higher than it used to. Looks more like the other side now.

[UGLY OLDS]

HEY ....Lookie there ..   A body dolly "on a stick"..    
Did you know they come in assorted sizes    :?:  :?:    
 I think that I have most of them ...   My favorite is a bigun stamped "WPA"..

Bob...

[idrivejunk]

I had hoped the sledge hammer handle would get a      Thats my prop rod while the spring rods are out but it has many names  

The expanded productivity experiment failed. I was attempting to improvise a suitable resistance welder from the bits on hand. It was a no-go but worth a try because of how much labor it would save if it were viable with existing equipment. I sure gave it heck.

Here are some plugs for the pluggers. I took the package tray out and prepped then welded it into place. At least the front half, anyway. Next, I may weld the gutters in. If the quarters will slide in and out with those attached, it would help retain dimensions when both quarters are off.

If not that, for sure I'll tack a tab on the right outer wheelhouse I sliced so it holds still. Then off with the right quarter and patch that up, and fuss over the rest of the exposed structure before weld prep.

[UGLY OLDS]

Awwwww.....Geeee...      I thought you was gonna SMACK somethin'.....

Were all those panels replaced with new stuff by someone else & just put in the wrong place  :?:  :?:
 Maybe the first guy should have measured three times before welding once  :?:  
Sure is a bunch of work to make it right ......But then , it's going to be right this time...... );b(

Bob...

[idrivejunk]

I do also love to smash ~:)  :(U)  With that thing its just bonk bonk little love taps. I thought you might also have been pointing out that with the 2x4 chunx on the bench under the tail panel...

It still is a Camaro-on-a-stick (or three)  

The old quarters are deserving of explanation- The owner put rust patch panels (nicely) behind the rear wheels before stripping the whole quarters to discover that those had previously been replaced with overlapped ones. I gotta hand it to him, he knew it wasn't right so he bought the new stuff and brought it in. It was the right thing to do, for the car. I think it sagged while the first quarter replacement was done, and the rust "fix" in the bad window corner was holding it in the wrong spot. Thats from before he had it. Nothing a bunch of work won't fix :!: