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Way to be brother..that's how you drive'm !!
Looks excellent too !!
Thanks!
Just got back from a two day camping trip, 260 miles round trip in the IROC-Z. Easily twice the longest distance and amount of time I'd ever driven it all at once.
It was hot, about 91F outside, a good endurance test for my cooling system in stop and go traffic multiple times on the freeway. Temps got up to 215F at most, and plummeted to 160 or whatever the lower 1/4 bar is on the gauge at speed. It threw Code 32 EGR Circuit after 100 miles on the way in, and again after 40 miles on the way back, so that's something to look into. I got 21 MPG on the drive down with the t-tops off at 70+ MPH.
The rear brakes are sticky, it's occasionally audible and they pull unevenly under moderate to heavy braking. There's a dead zone at the beginning of the accelerator pedal opening which is sort of annoying, I might need to see if there's an adjustment for that, makes me wonder if I'm getting full throttle with the pedal down. The shocks couldn't dampen the high speed bumps with two passengers and gear without a bit of extra bouncing, getting harder to pretend they aren't tired. The headliner has pretty much shredded itself from being buffeted by the wind for so long .
Overall the car did great though, it was a blast to finally do some long distance cruising with no breakdowns or serious failures.
That Code 32 I am willing to bet is the EGR temp sensor that mounts right on the front port on the EGR if your car is equipped with one. Seeing as how the F body temp sensor is no longer produced I had to get a new one from a Corvette parts place to splice in, around $50, but it cured the code 32 coming on during highway trips. It would not throw the code during in town driving at all. I at first thought it was the EGR solenoid as that was disintegrating, but that did not cure it after replacing with a Corvette one as once again the F body part is out of production. I wound up having to get a new EGR too as the temp sensor was really stuck and snapped when I tried removing it.
That Code 32 I am willing to bet is the EGR temp sensor that mounts right on the front port on the EGR if your car is equipped with one.
I do have it, it certainly is tempting to skip diagnosis and go straight to parts replacement since my EGR valve is new, which means it must be the solenoid or the temp sensor.
Well, my headliner really didn't make it after the extended highway trip:
So I guess the car decided headliner refurbishment is next. Moisture damage is pretty severe on the sail panels and sunvisors, it looks like this kit from Acme Auto has everything I need:
I'm going to repair the factory foam with fiberglass cloth and all that good stuff, and try out recovering the headliner myself. It doesn't look too hard, I'm anticipating the relief cuts for the t-top curves to be the most technical part.
Found some lovely previous owner work. Broke a clip on the seatbelt cover? Obviously gorilla glue is the correct solution.
And a sneak peek at the wonderous rusting antenna blight hole. Stay tuned to discover exactly how the antenna shorted in spectacular trim-melting fashion!
This one is my fault, apparently the dome lights I had laying around are way too hot for this plastic. I suppose some LEDs would fix me up here:
Working on a tedious parts order trying to grab all the missing / destroyed fasteners and hardware since I'm ordering from a restoration place. Can't believe I'm going to spend forty dollars so my rocker panels can have 5.7 Tuned Port Injection stickers again, but I'm a sucker for factory badges. Now would be the time for a new driver's seatbelt retractor, this one works ok when it's really hot, but I've found once they get this far, there's no real coming back. Once it gets cold they just start sticking again.
Well a guy got the headliner out. It's got severe structural fractures, 79.842 different types of mold and invasive fungi, and the dang ol shop vac stole some loose chunks from me, forever lost in the brew of deadly poisons deep inside its plastic carapace.
The headliner fabric fell the rest of the way off almost immediately. It had a strong thrift store with no a/c in August kinda smell if you know what I mean.
I got the rest of the foam powder cleaned up and the structure supported with shop towels. I reached into my 'board hoard and found a nice piece of triple ply cardboard that's just about the same thickness as the headliner foam. I'm trying a custom fit and wood glue approach to try and get some kind of physical space filler for the fiberglass cloth to sit on top of, we'll see how it goes:
I have a few more edge pieces to recreate, but no rush as Classic Industries estimated the fabric is 6-8 weeks out. I got my huge orders placed, all kinds of broken stuff is getting fixed this time around. There's some surprise (not really) rust on the roof, I want to delete on the roof antenna and found a plug for that, I got an antenna wrench to investigate that butchery, ordered an entire interior hardware kit as I keep finding my stuff secured with deck screws.
I was surprised that the headliner contributes to sound deadening. There's a certain whumpyness in the back of the cabin when driving without it.
Wood glue didn't quite fill the gaps between the cardboard and headliner the way I wanted it to, I switched to E6000 which appears to be a rubber cement type deal, and it did a nice job of filling the gap and keeping the minor amount of flex. Here's a corner I recreated:
The fiberglass cloth and resin combo ends up being a lot stronger than the original material. Even with my pretty much cracked in half backing, it certainly seems to be completely structurally sound. This is what the backside looks like now:
I did put a little more cloth on the opposite side to reinforce the biggest crack and the cardboard areas. Overall it wasn't a very difficult operation. Considering everything you need is available at the hardware store, I think this is a great approach to save a few bucks and get a perfect fit headliner.
Headliner fabric, sail panels and sunvisors are still on backorder from Classic Industries but almost everything else has arrived. Hawks sent me the wrong A-Pillar trim but they're going to get the right one shipped out to me. I swapped out my old seatbelts for some nicer used ones:
The old ones operated about as nice as they looked. The belt guide headliner trim piece on the passenger side replacement belt came pre-mangled, fortunately my original on that side was perfect so I zipped a clean cut through it with a dremel on the backside to swap it over.
Next up is rocker decals, rust prevention, and a fresh spring for my center console button. I got a second gen camaro spring because that's all there is available, supposedly it works fine.
The fiberglass cloth and resin combo ends up being a lot stronger than the original material. Even with my pretty much cracked in half backing, it certainly seems to be completely structurally sound. This is what the backside looks like now:
I did put a little more cloth on the opposite side to reinforce the biggest crack and the cardboard areas. Overall it wasn't a very difficult operation. Considering everything you need is available at the hardware store, I think this is a great approach to save a few bucks and get a perfect fit headliner.
So you only put the fiberglass cloth over the cracks, correct? And did you apply resin to the whole surface, or just the repaired areas?
So you only put the fiberglass cloth over the cracks, correct? And did you apply resin to the whole surface, or just the repaired areas?
Cloth goes over the cracks, yeah. Like you would apply tape. It would be overkill for the whole thing I think. The resin seeps in through the cloth weave and essentially acts like glue, bonding the cloth to the surface. You certainly can apply resin to the whole thing, it'll make it stiffer. I was trying to minimize adding weight by using only 1 quart for the whole operation, and so far I've used 1/3 on the back side there, and 1/3 on the opposite side. Just kinda putting it in structural areas and making sure the cloth gets saturated properly. I've got 1/3 left and that's probably enough to hit all the spots I didn't get on the back side my first time, but I think I'm just going to leave it as-is since it seems sturdy now.
Mini update: the second gen console latch spring seems to match the curvature of what was left of my original spring fairly close, and does indeed function properly when installed:
Seems to be a gauge thinner, but whatever. My console lid has been crushed so hard the whole thing has compound fractures in the plastic. I'm pretending I didn't see those and put it right back in. It latches properly and the button returns when pressed, good enough for me.
The derustification is in progress. There was some surprise creeping rust under the paint but overall there isn't too much metal loss.
Used a fancy roloc disc for the first time. Boy did that put a fine layer of powder over every square inch of my interior. It worked well and was very gentle on the steel, but I used half of the $8 disc in 15 minutes so they're pretty spendy. I switched back to my 4500rpm max wire wheel for the back hatch and the same 15 minutes showed essentially no wear to the wires, even at 10000rpm.
At this point I think I have everything roughed up enough for POR-15, here's some under the roof action:
T-top support inner corners, these had some metal loss but I'm gonna pretend my screwdriver didn't punch though that:
Under the hatch, definitely the most surface area but not very serious:
Looking up at the bottom of the roof antenna. It has to go. Everybody on the internet told me not to pull it out. But I'm gonna pull it out. I have a plan involving rtv and a very specific piece of plastic I spent four hours finding on evilbay:
I removed the antenna. It was surprisingly loose, barely past finger tight, and the rubber gasket was cracked which leads me to believe it was a water entry point. All the better that I'm in here to delete it. My plug was just barely too big for the hole, so I did the right thing and made the hole bigger:
That looked pretty scary, but less scary when cleaned up:
As you can see, my 22mm Button Panel Blind Hole Plugs Stoper Sealing Cap has a nice rubber gasket, and I also went way over budget on a $30 tube of seam sealer goo for the final install. Super dirty picture and it's installed crooked due to a interference issue that was corrected before paint, but you can already see how much less of a profile the plug takes up:
POR-15 application was a success, I'd recommend using higher quality brushes than what you can get for $1 as I trapped some loose bristles in the paint.
I deleted the rest of the antenna from the car, no obvious burn marks to go with the warped top panel. It lead back to the lockable storage area. I took one final picture of it, not sure what in the methamphetamines is going on here but it must have been some sort of mount for the receiver box:
Removed all that, vacuumed it out. End of an era, I think that was the last remaining "customization" to be removed.
Next up is attaching the headliner fabric to the core board. I've spent two actual hours ironing out the wrinkles from being packed in a box. Used medium heat with occasional steam bursts, I was concerned about damaging the composite material but it appears unharmed and the wrinkles are almost completely gone. The Acme brand fabric from Classic Industries seems to be very good quality, made in USA and smells nice.
Had the wife shower the roof with the hose while I watched from inside with a flashlight, no leaks of any kind so the antenna delete was a success.
Hawks sent me the cirrect A pillar trim piece, but it had a pretty large grey plastic stain I couldn't remove. I wasn't happy with it, they were understanding and gave me a full refund and paid for the shipping back which was very cool of them. There just so happened to be a fresh Trans Am and IROC-Z in the junkyard, both TPI cars, very sad, but I went to check them out and made several scores:
Spindle that's not stripped out, the A pillar trim piece in great shape, both under dash trims that I don't know my car ever came with but it seems like nice to have pieces, TPI boot to go with the winter project, and non-exploded armrests:
These were from the '86 TA, they are more angular and have that indented stripe instead of being all smooth and a little curvier. Honestly I think I prefer this look for the very angular Camaro interior.
Also installed the fabric on the headliner:
Accidentally cracked it peeling up a wrinkle, had to cloth + resin a small strip on the opposite side but it wasn't too big of a deal. Better than sealing in a wrinkle.
Outside curves are easy, cut a 1/2" strip coming away from the point where the edges of the board meet, fold it over, then trim the other larger edges and fold them over. Inside curves were very difficult. Everybody says they wished they left more material between the relief cuts and the foam, and I also agree. I think the end result looks pretty good:
Glue stresses me out, give me nuts and bolts any day. Whew.
The rain season has arrived, had a break in the clouds this afternoon and put the headliner back in. One of the front tabs separated itself from the headliner as I was fitting it in the back, I think it'll be ok as I still have one tab and the sunvisors holding up the front. The push nut pack I got at O'Reillys didn't have anything small enough to hold the dome light fixture up. Well it held for a second, then fell into my face. So I reused the crusty old ones.
Everything else went right back in. The Acme reproduction sill panels fit great, no problems there. Hard to take low light photos with my cheap phone, but you can get an idea:
Dome light is now a 3500k LED that draws 1.2w as opposed to the incandescent 12w, hopefully that will prevent it from burning up. The brand is Formula J87, got it off ebay for $10. Plenty bright, we'll see how long it lasts.
I got some glue overspray on the headliner that I wanted to remove, so I went to ebay and got a fabric shaver for $4 shipped. Worked to remove the glue mostly, then I looked at my shaggy seats and gave it a whirl:
Before:
After:
Overall things are really shaping up inside, I still need to vacuum it out from the roloc dust and rust chunks but it should be fairly decent after a detail.
Haven't done much to the car since October when I took delivery of my K2500 project. But, that's only because it hasn't broke anything and I've just been driving it. Took it on a two hour parts run trip and it did great, except it was pretty seriously raining the whole time and I had to back out of the guy's driveway with a completely fogged rear window because you know them t-tops be leakin.
If you ever need to confirm t-top leaks btw, whip some donuts in the middle of industrial parks on the weekends, very effective strategy the droplets fly right outta there. Not so much the 180 powerslides, you really need that pretend like you're doing it on purpose 360 degree motion. So anyway that was step 1 of getting the interior nice and hot for the defroster test. I hooked my peepers on the defroster lines and connections, passenger side was unhooked and I can't decide if it was cracked or just melted. Corrosion was present but didn't seem to be a huge factor, so I simply hooked it back up and let the car sit for about 10 minutes at home to build some fog.
I hit the switch, light came on, and slowly the rear window partially defrosted itself for the first time in many years:
I can see some of the splits in the lines that don't power up, probably need a dryer and warmer day for that fix but partial visibility is a huge improvement.
Headliner is still exactly as it was the day I put it in. When people tell me it's a nice car and I respond saying it's sorta average, they will actively argue with me until I concede it's nice now so I guess it's not a beater anymore?
Been putting miles on the car, got 26.83mpg on a mostly empty highway trip up north to fix my buddy's fuel pump that went out at a gas station.
Had a hell of a time starting this morning, battery seemed low or the starter was being sticky but after it turned over things were good. Had to spook the ghosts outta my digicals. Just finished a couple hundred miles one way today. Had an SES light come on about 40 miles after a rest stop, probably the EGR again so I ignored it. Didn't come back.
She loves the highway, allegedly 85+ that TPI starts pullin. Satisfying to put in the work and reap the rewards.
Been putting miles on the car, got 26.83mpg on a mostly empty highway trip up north
She loves the highway...Satisfying to put in the work and reap the rewards.
08-19-2022, 09:14 PM
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