Saturday, October 22, 2016

Matching Numbers

Matching Numbers engine block.
I think I posted about this in my Facebook fan page about few weeks ago, but now i got better image quality and with that statement I truely have a matching numbers El Camino. Althought it's just a 350 cid, 250 hp with 2 bbl and turbo 350, but it's still a numbers matching engine block. Original block!

T1022CNN stands for T = Tonowanda engine plant, 10 = October, 22 = 22nd day of the month and CNN = 1970, 350 cid, 250 hp, 2 bbl with TH350

I can't remember what website we did use it to decode it, but here are few links to decode your own small block Chevy:

http://chevellestuff.net/qd/index.htm
http://www.nastyz28.com/chevy-engine-code-stampings.php
http://www.1968ss.com/sbcsuffix.asp

Now putting that in perspective it gives me a two choices: Do I want to keep this engine, rebuild and make it more powerfull or put it aside and replace it with LSx-motor as I have planned a long time ago?

Now one thing before you cast your vote, I don't have the original heads anymore, those were broken back in 2009, crack between combustion chambers. Then again engine was 250 HP version so those heads were going to be replaced in some point.

What do you think? Keep it or replace it?

Monday, October 17, 2016

Meijel El Camino meeting at Netherland

I haven't been in the garage due my back pains and I wanted to write about something, since being not able to do to my El Camino anything is kind of killing me. So, I don't have any new news about wishlist or what I am planning to do so I use what I have posted earlier and in my last post I talked about El Camino meeting at Meijel, Netherland.



Found this also:

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

15th Anniversary El Camino meeting Meijel

In the Netherland there is a show held on second Sunday of the September at Meijel: El Camino Meeting, exclusive for Chevrolet El Caminos. Nothing but El Caminos. This was the 15th anniversary and I have made my mind that I will be attending this meeting sometime in the future, when my El Camino is in that kind of shape that it will be reliable for 4000 km round trip. And of course time and money to do so.


Two guy started it all as a joke, but it has now grown in to one of the biggest one car model only show in Europe I think. Is there any other one car model only shows?

Want to read more? Here's the link to offical site.

I've gathered here few photogalleries from this years event:

https://www.facebook.com/gerritcadillac/posts/1447595468600884
https://www.facebook.com/elcamino.meetingmeijel/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1629539397344287
http://www.elcaminomeetingmeijel.com/en/photo-video-en/photo-s-en/category/27-2016-show-impression-15th-jubilee
https://www.oypo.nl/C2A5BE08DF093D15


Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Sneak peek whats up with The El Camino!

My back is aching and I really can't do too much at the moment for my El Camino. I still have gathered parts little by big and up coming winter I'll be doing some modification to my current out and in look. He are few sneak peek photos:


Whats that bulge doing there?

Is there any other colour than matte black?
Whats with the spokes?

And on the other day we had so much raining in short period that it flooded to our garage. Janne was visiting our garage and took these photos and posted them on our garage's whatsup chat:




You can check his blog about building/restoration his 1972 Chevrolet Camaro SS at: http://jakulepi.blogspot.fi/

It is in Finnish, but I think you can translate it through Google translate. A lot of pictures! Check it out!


Thursday, July 21, 2016

It's been a while.

Old look.


We had a bit of tragic spring time and I haven't done anything to my El Camino since March. I even haven't been updating my facebook fan page and I got well over 1100 fans! Thank you all for that!

Yesterday I made a purchase that I have been waiting for a bit over year, I think, well at least an year. I'll post later sneak a peak of what I am planning on doing over next winter. I have come to conclusion that I won't be taking El Camino on the road on this year, or maybe for a quick yearly inspection to get it ready for next spring and driving season.

I also ordered for a first time from Rockauto.com for some steering components that I got a mentioned last year when I was at yearly inspection, didn't get rejection, but notice from the inspector that those are soon to be in dire need of replacement.

Oh, and I have also ordered that sliding rear window that I have been talking about on few of latest posts. Should arrive in August. So, I'll have that too to change, among other things.


Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Sliding rear window part 2

I have posted earlier of an item that is on my wishlist which is a sliding rear window. I have tried to find some pictures about it as installed and I had one kind of in my plain sight. First time I shot this El Camino was back in 10th of the July last year:

And what do you know:

It has that sliding rear window! I didn't remember it until I saw it for sale at FHRA Auction which was held in last weekend at American Car Show 2016.

 
It was sold just bit over 15000 €. Too bad that I didn't have my flash with me so I couldn't any better picture of it than this:


But at least I gotto see it in person and that definately wrapped my head around getting one on my El Camino. Okay, I am running out of time for getting that for this driving season and also I have run out of money too, so it'll have to wait till next winter.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Engine bay dismantle.

Well, I was supposed to clean out engine bay wiring a bit, but as usual I got a bit of sidetracked and started to take off the A/C and valve covers too. Sadly my GoPro run out of battery and didn't catch whole valve cover and windshield wiper motor coming off.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Other Camino part V

I stumbled a cross this Buick long time ago and haven't really thought about it until I started blogging this Other El Camino series, Caminofication. I searched all over the internet and finally I found the man who made it. I contacted him about writing blog post about it and here's his story:

My friends and I are into Buicks; we talk, breathe, and sleep Buicks. This has progressed to such a point that my wife refers to our annual trip to the GSCA Nationals as “Buick Camp”. For years one of our recurring topics was why Buick never built an El Camino, and if they had, what would it have looked like.
I have always liked the 1970 to 1972 Skylark based Gran Sports, especially the GSX’s and thought that an El Camino version would look great. With this in mind I took photocopied pictures of GSX’s and El Camino’s and pasted them together. The resultant car, actually a truck, looked wonderful. I showed this picture to my friends and they all agreed that it should have been built. The more I looked at the picture the more I wanted to make one. Finally, after years of thinking about this, I told my friends that if one didn’t show up at the next Nationals I would make one. Needless to say I was stuck.
One thing that everyone agrees about me is that I am an “originality nut.” I know this sounds strange, because here I am preparing to make a custom car, but that’s how I am. The goal I set for this project was to make a “stock appearing” custom car. I wanted to create a vehicle that could have been built in 1970 and was so correct in detail it would look “factory built”.

I bought a nice El Camino shell from a junkyard and started fabricating the doors. I took Skylark Sport Coupe doors and grafted El Camino inner panels and window frames into them. Once this was done I mounted them on the car and then assembled the front-end sheetmetal. El Camino’s have a wheel base that is 4” longer then 2 door Skylarks, therefore the distance between the back of the doors and the rear wheel opening is 4” longer. To fill this space, the front portion of a pair of quarter panels from a rusty GS were cut out and welded onto the shell, thus creating my own door gaps. Next, a pair of reproduction rear quarter panels were welded on. This left a space of approximately 1 foot at the rear of each quarter panel that required hand fabrication.

At this time the car took its first trip to the body shop. At Iron Hill Auto body the shell and major front-end sheetmetal was plastic media blasted and everything from the rear wheels-forward was epoxy primered. Next, the front-end sheetmetal was painted, “cut in,” and reassembled onto the shell.
Once the car returned from the shop I turned my attention to finishing the rear quarter panels. I figured if El Camino’s used Chevelle Station Wagon taillights then a Buick version would use Skylark Sport Wagon taillights. The taillights and bezels came from a 1970 Sport Wagon that was in a junkyard. I altered the housings and then hand fabricated the pieces to finish the quarter panels. Another thing I noticed was that Skylark wagons had the backup lights in the rear bumper. To do this I removed the backup lights from the tailgate and welded the holes shut. Next I found a pair of 1968 El Camino backup light lenses with housings and installed them in the rear bumper. To keep the GSX stripes clean and unbroken the gas tank filler neck was relocated to the interior side access panel inside the bed area.
While this was being done I cut out the Chevelle dash and upper firewall and replaced it with a dash from a junked 1970 Buick GS 455 Sport Coupe. Next, the firewall was painted and the entire dash assembly installed. Years before I sold a GSX “look-a-like” minus the drive train, so the Stage 1 spec motor, Turbo 400 transmission, and 323 10 Bolt Buick positraction rear were incorporated into the project. With the major body panels completed and the car now in running condition it was ready to go back to the body shop for final painting.
This time, at Brandywine Coachworks, the rear of the shell was plastic media blasted and epoxy primered. Next came the bodywork on the rear quarters, quarter panel extensions, and tailgate. My friend Tim Garland then sealed, painted, and striped the entire car.
At this point it was 6 days before the Nationals and I was determined to take the car with me. The car had no glass, headliner, carpet, seats, door panels, dash pad, exterior chrome moldings, bumpers, lights, grille, hood tach, light wiring harness, etc. However, with the inexhaustible help of my friends Rich Garland, Jeremy Sprang, and Bill Jennings the car was finished in time to leave for the Nationals.



That year at the Nationals it rained, and rained, and… you get the picture. Well the first night there every time we looked out our hotel room window we saw people standing in the rain looking at the car. We have a Restoration Clinic and try to bring in different vehicles every year. For me the highlight of that trip was when my friend Brad Conley talked me into bringing my car into the Restoration Clinic to sit along side his 1970 GSX Prototype. I said it was not a restored car, but he said, “Tonight we’ll have Prototype Night.” I thought it was a very nice gesture for him to place his piece of “Buick History” next to something I pieced together in my backyard from 6 different vehicles, but that’s just the kind of guy he is.

I call the vehicle the “X-Camino.” This name does double duty because it looks like a GSX-Camino while parts of it were an “Ex” Camino. Once the work was finished it came time to title the beast. With such heavy modifications it became necessary to title it as a reconstructed vehicle. With a Buick GS 455 Coupe VIN number and truck rear end it was registered as a 1970 Buick GS Truck. At car shows I hear comments like, “It looks Factory.” or “I didn’t know that Buick built a truck.” but I explain that it’s not a factory vehicle and that I built it. Once, a professional Street Rod builder looked at the car, and told me he knew the amount of work that was involved and was impressed with the fact that it looked untouched. But the finest compliment I ever received was when a friend of mine asked me, “How does it feel to drive a sculpture?” I looked at him and said, “I never thought about it like that, but it does feel pretty good.”

He also told that it was supposed to be a tow vehicle: "The X-Camino was originally built to be the tow vehicle for my 70 Yellow GSX, but I had so much fun with it I decided to sell the real one and keep the truck. I certainly don't want the same thing to happen again, as it took me 10 years to chase my 71 down before I could buy it."

There is a reason that you don't see these kind of custom jobs so much: " Its a ton of work to do, plus the vehicle ends up looking real "hippy", as in having full hips, due to how far the 70-72 GS style wheelhouses stick out from the quarters. (I could probably put 10" or 12" rims underneath it.) El-Camino quarters are flat, GS bodies are "coke bottle" shaped if you look down the sides.

I got away with that due to 2 things,
1. I had to cut the quarter and build my own body line behind the rear wheels. This forced me to pivot the bottom part of the quarter panel "up" behind the tire, and made the wheelhouse opening look more rakish/sporty, and
2. The stripes force your attention to them and not to the bulging quarters."




Thursday, February 4, 2016

Hood off.

It's good to take off the hood when you are working on your cars engine compartment for a long time. Gives more surrounding light and easier access. Four bolts and it's off. It is possible to take off by yourself, but it's recommended that use an extra hand pair to keep it in place while unscrewing last two bolts. First you should mark where those hinges are at the hood so that when your putting back that same hood it's more easier when you can put it close to same position that it was.

Then you should take off any other thing from the hood, whether it be washer jets or cowl induction lines etc. When all is off then you should proceed to unscrew those bolts.

And when you are unscrewing those bolts start with those that are top end of the hinges. Those at the bottom will hold the hood in place as it rest on the hinges. If you take those bottom bolts first then hood will fall down as the pivot point is near the edge of those hinges and as the centre of mass is way beyond off that edge.


Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Grille off.



Last time I was at the garage I did manage to take off the front bumper and now it was time to take off the grille. First I thought how to take of those fender extensions, I wasn't sure how much I need to disassemble. One is inside engine compartment and three screws are behind headlight bezels. So to reach those three you have to take those headlight bezels off and there you go. There is also two screws lower part of the extensions. I am not sure if you can remove those two screws and a plate when you have front bumper on.

Blue circle is available from inside engine compartment and for those red circles to gain access you have to take those headlight bezels off.




Pretty simple to take of those fender extensions and after both of them are off you can take off those six screws that hold the grille in place, two on each side and two in the middle. I guess I could also do a bit of modification to headlight surroundings since I do have H4 lamps on outer and it's pretty hard to reach now that everything is original, but a bit of cutting I could easily change lamps from inside engine compartment and not the way I am now used to, from the outside way.


I really should have written this right after I did this since I can't remember whole deal now and I missed few pictures, which I haven't re-shoot, since I haven't been in the garage for few weeks now. And I should've have planned more on how to and what to shoot before I pick up the screwdriver. 

Updated 01.02.16 Few corrections and added new picture.