After getting the car sort of running, I tried to take it for a drive. The car refused to move. I let it sit for a while, and then tried again without touching the brakes and it rolled just fine. A common cause of the brakes locking up is rotted flex hoses. I replaced the hoses and that fixed the locking up problem.
The back seat was next to come out as there was mouse damage in it…although i did put the front seats back in so it would be easier to sit and work inside.
Re
Before the engine foam cleaning:
…during…
…and after:
The chrome on the valve covers and air cleaner is terribly pitted and ugly, but it’ll work for now.
After several days in the hot sun, the carpet was definitely not drying out, so…out it came. It smelled pretty ripe.
The floor pans have been replaced from the inside, and there is ice shield on top of that acting as sound deadener.
A lot can happen in 50 years, so there was some investigation to do to see what the car really was
the build date is 06A, first week of June (1968) which would make it relatively late in the production run. It has a NOR designation, so it came from the Norwood, OH plant.
68-12427 translates to 1968 Camaro V8 coupe.
The paint code is UU, which translates to blue. The butternut yellow was not the original color. The 712 interior code checks out as a black standard interior though.
The transmission pan gives it away to be a TH350, not the original powerglide transmission.
The block application code is CKL, which decodes to it originally being a 1973 350 from a California application. Not a particularly rare or high perf model, probably 175hp originally.
The heads are 3998920 castings, low performance smog heads
The Carb is a Holley list 80457, generic 600cfm vac sec with electric choke.
The intake is an Edelbrock Performer, with a 1″ carb spacer.
The seller hauled the car in an enclosed trailer…then we pushed it out into the driveway
The tape in the cassette player is Beethoven symphonies, including Beethoven’s 5th.
Water had been sitting in the trunk, but most of the stuff flaking off looked like many layers of paint.
The battery cables need work…
We went to look at a project car that was advertised on Craigslist. It looked decent in the pictures, so I arranged to see it. When we got there I found that it had been sitting outside on the edge of the woods for nearly a year. There were a lot of interior parts from another car stored in it, and from the smell, the mice had definitely moved in somewhere. The seller was able to get it running after splashing some gas in the carb, and hooking up a battery charger. it didn’t run very smoothly, and the exhaust definitely had some leaks, but the valvetrain sounded quiet. A bit rough, but a good starting point. After a few days, a price was negotiated including delivery by the seller.
