#OneMan'sTrash Project Build
09-23-2013, 03:11 PM
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#OneMan'sTrash Project Build Hey there!
So after my 01 Sierra 1500 was totaled in an accident on the freeway I took the insurance money and purchased a 1998 Z28/6spd that I could daily drive while I modify it. It isn't pretty, it isn't the rarest most sought after car and personally, I find that very charming about the car. I found the car on craigslist, it had been sitting a year in a guy's driveway with a blown out clutch slave cylinder.
I bought the car, towed it home and ripped the trans out to replace the slave and master cylinder. I replaced the rear main seal and the rear engine cover at the same time (Puking oil).
After this, I was able to actually drive the car I had purchased. I was pleased to find that it holds a steady 40+psi on the oil pressure gauge, had an LS6 intake manifold already on it and supposedly has a "Very mild Cam and tune" IF it does have a cam, it has to be the smallest one they make because it is hardly "lopey" at idle and I do believe the part about it being tuned due to the fact that the vehicle's rear O2 sensors were deleted and it passed smog with flying colors (Literally almost no HCs or NoX present on the test which surprised me with no oxygen sensors downstream)
The guy threw in a pair of hooker longtubes and catless Y pipe that I have not yet installed.
So, a lot of guys buy new parts when they build their rides and that's fine and dandy on a budget that allows for that but as a service writer and part-time mechanic I don't really have the luxury of spending list price on the stuff I want. There's a solution for this mind you and its a resource that not too many people take advantage of (At least in my town as I'm told by the source that i'm the only one that makes purchases like mine) and that's once a week I visit the local GM Dismantler (LKQ in Rancho Cordova for myself). This car is often hashtagged on facebook as #OneMan'sJunk #AnotherMan'sCamaro as I typically only use parts off of other salvaged Camaros.
I'll show you what I mean. This car, for some reason was ordered with very limited options, I have no foglights, I DO have AC, yet I have manual windows/Locks/Seats. The car also came with the UGLIEST most BEAT tan interior I have ever seen on a 4th gen. I set out immediately to change that.
I love how the previous owner took it upon himself to color match his interior trim pieces to the exterior paint using a very "Ricer" imo technique with rattle can. The center console, ontop of being painted red was absolutely un-usable as the lid was broken and the center area with the cupholder was broken apart ontop of all the shift boot tabs being broken.
I found this center out of a 2000 SS in pretty great shape for CHEAP. I then searched the yard for a red v6 that had a full black interior minus the passenger door panel.
I love that people would regularly disregard this interior for trash due to it being dirty from sitting in a car in the yard for over a year. My mantra with interior piece is simple, "If it isn't torn/ripped/shattered, it can be saved with enough armor all".
So we set about doing the conversion on one lonely Friday night.
Here's something I thought was pretty F-wording awesome; I was fully prepared to run my own harness to the driver seat as it is power. When we removed the carpet there was already a plug from GM that clicked right in! I added 1 fuse to the "PWR SEAT" slot in my fusebox and VIOLA! POWER SEAT BABY. I'm so proud of myself for 2 minutes of work, and honestly kinda relieved that it was that easy as we were probably going on our 5th hour of the swap at 2am.I know 5 hours is a long time for this, but keep in mind that it was Friday night, a few beers were involved and we were swapping EVERYTHING we could get our hands on (Seatbelts included in this).
My friend Mitch is a giant of a man at 6'4+ and I wanted to know if he could feasibly drive the car with no seats in it, alas, he could:
After we were done screwin around we got down to business...
Ok, so at this point I really started to enjoy this car. I've always loved them and wanted one sooo badly growing up albeit I always wanted the 35th anniv. SS but I would take ANY 6spd ls1 I could get my hands on. The interior (as charming as it looks) came with a serious side-effect and that would be the ability to rival the surface of the F#$% SUN WE ORBIT'S TEMPERATURE IN THE SACRAMENTO SUMMER WEATHER. It had to be fixed.
This was one thing I didn't want to chance from the dismantler as I sell auto repair everyday and it drives me nuts how touchy AC systems are when you try to "fix one part at a time" or just recharge it and let it go. I'm a firm believer that if you haven't done a compressor in 5-7 years, just replace the whole damn system. It will not only perform much better (44 degrees F on a 101 degree day) but it will last ALOT longer. My girl always complains that the AC "Works better in that beat Camaro than in my new Honda" and it's true.
After performing this work and turning the car into a pretty comfortable daily driver I just kept hitting up the dismantler for goodies. Here's what I came up with:
I wanted to ditch the oxidized headlamps and took the only aftermarket housings they had in the yard, they came with HID Ballasts and were dirt cheap. I had to repair one of the adjusters but it was worth it and if I ever decide I don't like them i'll swap out for DEPOs or something nice if the car ever gets to a point where I think it warrants buying new lamps.
Next up:
I got this hood for it off of a rear-ended Z again, for ALOT Cheaper than what someone on craigslist would ask for a used SS hood. I removed the grille insert at the same time just to try the look out. Believe me, I am VASTLY aware of how poor the paint condition on the vehicle is, but I don't give a damn #OneMan'sTrash
Next up:
So after my 01 Sierra 1500 was totaled in an accident on the freeway I took the insurance money and purchased a 1998 Z28/6spd that I could daily drive while I modify it. It isn't pretty, it isn't the rarest most sought after car and personally, I find that very charming about the car. I found the car on craigslist, it had been sitting a year in a guy's driveway with a blown out clutch slave cylinder.
I bought the car, towed it home and ripped the trans out to replace the slave and master cylinder. I replaced the rear main seal and the rear engine cover at the same time (Puking oil).
After this, I was able to actually drive the car I had purchased. I was pleased to find that it holds a steady 40+psi on the oil pressure gauge, had an LS6 intake manifold already on it and supposedly has a "Very mild Cam and tune" IF it does have a cam, it has to be the smallest one they make because it is hardly "lopey" at idle and I do believe the part about it being tuned due to the fact that the vehicle's rear O2 sensors were deleted and it passed smog with flying colors (Literally almost no HCs or NoX present on the test which surprised me with no oxygen sensors downstream)
The guy threw in a pair of hooker longtubes and catless Y pipe that I have not yet installed.
So, a lot of guys buy new parts when they build their rides and that's fine and dandy on a budget that allows for that but as a service writer and part-time mechanic I don't really have the luxury of spending list price on the stuff I want. There's a solution for this mind you and its a resource that not too many people take advantage of (At least in my town as I'm told by the source that i'm the only one that makes purchases like mine) and that's once a week I visit the local GM Dismantler (LKQ in Rancho Cordova for myself). This car is often hashtagged on facebook as #OneMan'sJunk #AnotherMan'sCamaro as I typically only use parts off of other salvaged Camaros.
I'll show you what I mean. This car, for some reason was ordered with very limited options, I have no foglights, I DO have AC, yet I have manual windows/Locks/Seats. The car also came with the UGLIEST most BEAT tan interior I have ever seen on a 4th gen. I set out immediately to change that.
I love how the previous owner took it upon himself to color match his interior trim pieces to the exterior paint using a very "Ricer" imo technique with rattle can. The center console, ontop of being painted red was absolutely un-usable as the lid was broken and the center area with the cupholder was broken apart ontop of all the shift boot tabs being broken.
I found this center out of a 2000 SS in pretty great shape for CHEAP. I then searched the yard for a red v6 that had a full black interior minus the passenger door panel.
I love that people would regularly disregard this interior for trash due to it being dirty from sitting in a car in the yard for over a year. My mantra with interior piece is simple, "If it isn't torn/ripped/shattered, it can be saved with enough armor all".
So we set about doing the conversion on one lonely Friday night.
Here's something I thought was pretty F-wording awesome; I was fully prepared to run my own harness to the driver seat as it is power. When we removed the carpet there was already a plug from GM that clicked right in! I added 1 fuse to the "PWR SEAT" slot in my fusebox and VIOLA! POWER SEAT BABY. I'm so proud of myself for 2 minutes of work, and honestly kinda relieved that it was that easy as we were probably going on our 5th hour of the swap at 2am.I know 5 hours is a long time for this, but keep in mind that it was Friday night, a few beers were involved and we were swapping EVERYTHING we could get our hands on (Seatbelts included in this).
My friend Mitch is a giant of a man at 6'4+ and I wanted to know if he could feasibly drive the car with no seats in it, alas, he could:
After we were done screwin around we got down to business...
Ok, so at this point I really started to enjoy this car. I've always loved them and wanted one sooo badly growing up albeit I always wanted the 35th anniv. SS but I would take ANY 6spd ls1 I could get my hands on. The interior (as charming as it looks) came with a serious side-effect and that would be the ability to rival the surface of the F#$% SUN WE ORBIT'S TEMPERATURE IN THE SACRAMENTO SUMMER WEATHER. It had to be fixed.
This was one thing I didn't want to chance from the dismantler as I sell auto repair everyday and it drives me nuts how touchy AC systems are when you try to "fix one part at a time" or just recharge it and let it go. I'm a firm believer that if you haven't done a compressor in 5-7 years, just replace the whole damn system. It will not only perform much better (44 degrees F on a 101 degree day) but it will last ALOT longer. My girl always complains that the AC "Works better in that beat Camaro than in my new Honda" and it's true.
After performing this work and turning the car into a pretty comfortable daily driver I just kept hitting up the dismantler for goodies. Here's what I came up with:
I wanted to ditch the oxidized headlamps and took the only aftermarket housings they had in the yard, they came with HID Ballasts and were dirt cheap. I had to repair one of the adjusters but it was worth it and if I ever decide I don't like them i'll swap out for DEPOs or something nice if the car ever gets to a point where I think it warrants buying new lamps.
Next up:
I got this hood for it off of a rear-ended Z again, for ALOT Cheaper than what someone on craigslist would ask for a used SS hood. I removed the grille insert at the same time just to try the look out. Believe me, I am VASTLY aware of how poor the paint condition on the vehicle is, but I don't give a damn #OneMan'sTrash
Next up:
Last edited by 1BurnedZ28; 09-23-2013 at 03:17 PM.
09-23-2013, 03:11 PM
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I received a call from LKQ saying that they received a theft recovery Z28 but the thieves didn't take the wheels. Yeah, they're knock off C6s and they're a bit curb rashed but if you haven't figured it out yet i'll spell it out for you: #OneMan'sTrash #AnotherMan'sCamaro
Next up was about a week later getting a call from LKQ (Yes i'm on the priority caller list lol) saying that they had some KYBs (ugh) with eibach springs I could pick up for cheap, so I figured why the hell not? I know that everyone who sees a Camaro with wheels instinctively blurts out "YEW GOTTA LOWER THAT THANG MAN" So, i'll try to beat them to the punch..
Last edited by 1BurnedZ28; 01-29-2014 at 02:54 AM.
10-04-2013, 10:30 PM
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Ok, so it's payday and you know what that means...
A visit to my favorite spot. I was browsing the vettes in the yard and noticed that almost all of them had their steering wheels intact on the columns. I have googled "Corvette steering wheel Camaro/swap" etc but I haven't found anything with someone using the wheel on their 4th gen.
I thought this was odd as I really dislike the stock steering wheel on the Camaro and I LOVED the wheel on my dad's 04 z06. I remember from the older chevy pickup days that you could use the z24 Cavalier steering wheel as a direct bolt in.
I figured that GM would be too lazy to manufacture two different splined shafts for their steering columns unless it was absolutely necessary so I figured why not try the swap?
I offered to pay for an entire steering wheel with airbag IF the thing fit my car. The yard agreed as they were just as curious as I was to see if it was possible.
So, I was going to take pictures of the process but my phone died right when I got started on the project.
I will tell you this much, removal of the old wheel is super easy but as far as fitment goes, well... I was correct with the spline theory, The wheel WILL fit HOWEVER, you cannot retain your clockspring. I don't have traction control on mine so really the clock spring doesn't monitor steering angle it just provides the harness to the airbag assembly. The connectors ARE DIFFERENT. So if you attempt this conversion you will have to remove your clockspring and you will not have an airbag. You will get an AIRBAG warning indicator on the dash which is to be expected.
I have to say though, I am really pleased with the looks. The wheel isn't overly bulky or awkward looking on the car as I've seen with some other swaps onto the silverados (think 80s skinny column with the 97 wheel, its very strange looking)
As far as comfort, it is superb. The horn is the same connector and also works.
Now, i'm sure if I were to go and get the Vette clockspring I might be able to adapt it to the harness but thinking back on my technical training I don't think you want to splice into any of the airbag harness as any differential to the resistance in the system can be a really bad thing.
I don't recommend trying this at home, don't do this and sell the car as you would be liable for the disabling of the airbag system. I kept all of my factory stuff and if I ever do sell the car I will re-install the OE wheel/bag/clockspring to avoid a nasty liability.
If you are entertaining a "grant" or "Momo" wheel though I believe this is an exceptional alternative to buying aftermarket as you don't need any adapters or hubs.
A visit to my favorite spot. I was browsing the vettes in the yard and noticed that almost all of them had their steering wheels intact on the columns. I have googled "Corvette steering wheel Camaro/swap" etc but I haven't found anything with someone using the wheel on their 4th gen.
I thought this was odd as I really dislike the stock steering wheel on the Camaro and I LOVED the wheel on my dad's 04 z06. I remember from the older chevy pickup days that you could use the z24 Cavalier steering wheel as a direct bolt in.
I figured that GM would be too lazy to manufacture two different splined shafts for their steering columns unless it was absolutely necessary so I figured why not try the swap?
I offered to pay for an entire steering wheel with airbag IF the thing fit my car. The yard agreed as they were just as curious as I was to see if it was possible.
So, I was going to take pictures of the process but my phone died right when I got started on the project.
I will tell you this much, removal of the old wheel is super easy but as far as fitment goes, well... I was correct with the spline theory, The wheel WILL fit HOWEVER, you cannot retain your clockspring. I don't have traction control on mine so really the clock spring doesn't monitor steering angle it just provides the harness to the airbag assembly. The connectors ARE DIFFERENT. So if you attempt this conversion you will have to remove your clockspring and you will not have an airbag. You will get an AIRBAG warning indicator on the dash which is to be expected.
I have to say though, I am really pleased with the looks. The wheel isn't overly bulky or awkward looking on the car as I've seen with some other swaps onto the silverados (think 80s skinny column with the 97 wheel, its very strange looking)
As far as comfort, it is superb. The horn is the same connector and also works.
Now, i'm sure if I were to go and get the Vette clockspring I might be able to adapt it to the harness but thinking back on my technical training I don't think you want to splice into any of the airbag harness as any differential to the resistance in the system can be a really bad thing.
I don't recommend trying this at home, don't do this and sell the car as you would be liable for the disabling of the airbag system. I kept all of my factory stuff and if I ever do sell the car I will re-install the OE wheel/bag/clockspring to avoid a nasty liability.
If you are entertaining a "grant" or "Momo" wheel though I believe this is an exceptional alternative to buying aftermarket as you don't need any adapters or hubs.
Last edited by 1BurnedZ28; 10-05-2013 at 04:16 AM.
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01-29-2014, 02:38 AM
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Ok, so my buddy Gregg makes custom door panel aluminum deletes for BMWs. I asked him if he would be interested in trying to make my panels since I can't really find a good pair of black panels at the wrecking yard. The result:
Within the next couple of weeks I'll be rebuilding the transmission with the Hawks 600tq Stg2 upgrade and overhaul kit.
Within the next couple of weeks I'll be rebuilding the transmission with the Hawks 600tq Stg2 upgrade and overhaul kit.
Last edited by 1BurnedZ28; 01-29-2014 at 02:47 AM.
02-02-2014, 09:31 PM
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Thanks for the input but been there done that with plastidip. I don't want to deal with peeling all of it off when a paintjob is right around the corner. Basically in order of what's next i'm re-doing the tranny, shocks/springs then paint job.
Last edited by 1BurnedZ28; 02-03-2014 at 01:17 AM.
03-16-2014, 01:28 AM
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Sorry for the long absence but i'm excited to give you a glimpse of what is upcoming for the car in the next month.
First, I took my rusted out hooker LTs that I got with the car to work and media blasted them clean.
I then hit the tubes with 3 coats of 1300-2000 F. High temp silicate black paint.
(Sorry for the crappy photo as it was a rushed one due to it being dark outside)
So basically my plans in the middle of April are to drop the entire subframe front and rear with the motor and tranny as 1 unit. We will acid wash, sand, tac-cloth and paint my entire engine bay gloss black.
The transmission is going out for overhaul I purchased the hawks third gen 600hp/600tq rebuild kit and overhaul kit with all of the bearings, snap rings, upgraded shift fork 3-4, billet keys etc.
I'll be adding these 243s I got as well. I am sending them out to be ported/CC'd and intake polished.
I've got some really big plans in store and will post plenty of pictures throughout the entire process.
First, I took my rusted out hooker LTs that I got with the car to work and media blasted them clean.
I then hit the tubes with 3 coats of 1300-2000 F. High temp silicate black paint.
(Sorry for the crappy photo as it was a rushed one due to it being dark outside)
So basically my plans in the middle of April are to drop the entire subframe front and rear with the motor and tranny as 1 unit. We will acid wash, sand, tac-cloth and paint my entire engine bay gloss black.
The transmission is going out for overhaul I purchased the hawks third gen 600hp/600tq rebuild kit and overhaul kit with all of the bearings, snap rings, upgraded shift fork 3-4, billet keys etc.
I'll be adding these 243s I got as well. I am sending them out to be ported/CC'd and intake polished.
I've got some really big plans in store and will post plenty of pictures throughout the entire process.
03-29-2014, 10:44 PM
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Last night after the shop closed my coworker and myself got busy on removing the engine and trans assembly. I referenced "Kelliente"'s body removal sticky when I wanted to double check connections.
The next day we decided to sand down the engine bay with 220grit and follow up with degreaser, 400 grit, 800 grit and then applied 3 coats of gloss black paint.
this was after the third coat had dried
I then divorced the transmission from the motor to be sent out monday for overhaul and installation of the hawks stg2 kit with full bearing/snap ring kit.
The next day we decided to sand down the engine bay with 220grit and follow up with degreaser, 400 grit, 800 grit and then applied 3 coats of gloss black paint.
this was after the third coat had dried
I then divorced the transmission from the motor to be sent out monday for overhaul and installation of the hawks stg2 kit with full bearing/snap ring kit.
03-29-2014, 11:57 PM
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I'm in Sacramento CA. we have a ton of scrap yards up here but i've found that i've weeded alot of the good stuff, the camaro and vette intake in the yards out here has come to a halt for the past couple months. :[