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1968 Camaro Convertible RS/SS 'Clone'

19K views 107 replies 21 participants last post by  thefley 
#1 ·
Hi,

A friend of a friend, of a friend (always love starting out this way) has a 1969 Convertible Camaro for sale. He had it on ebay & was looking for 30k out of it, he didnt get it. I was told his bottom line price was 22k by a third party.

The camaro is supposed to be perfect. Mechanically, cosmetically, etc.

It is not an actual RS/SS based on some of the owner / friends comments on the restoration history (such as the new SS hood, the light covers, etc).

I have always wanted a gen 1 Camaro Convertible & I am not sure if I could get my money out of it in a few years. I do have a photo of the vin which starts with: 124678n.

If the Camaro looks as good as its photos/description, is 22k a fair price, overpriced? Could I get my money out of it?

I am looking for a driver, not a show car, though i could end up at a car show from time to time (not really my thing).

Question for seller I have:

1. What gears in the 10 bolt rear?
2. What carb is it running?
3. Is there A/C (I dont think there is)
4. Is there power steering or disc brakes?
5. Is there a powerglide transmission? - if not what is in it?


Thanks,
Rich







 
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#2 ·
Looks like a nice car to me. The shifter looks like it is for a 3 speed automatic, so it probably doesn't have a powerglide.
I see no evidence of the car having A/C, and to really clone an SS Camaro a 12 bolt should be the rear end choice. I guess he pretty much just put the hood and emblems on the car and says it is a 'clone'.

I would think the car is worth 20-22K if it is mechanically sound and the car looks as good in person as it does in the pics. It would surely cost that much to buy a project and get it close to that condition.
 
#3 ·
It has power brakes; the round gold colored thing on the driver side firewall is a power booster. Cannot see if it has the holdoff valve that would indicate front disc brakes,

The lens on the shifter shows three forward gears; if the car has a TH350 (which is likely) it is not OE. OE auto trans with a small block would have been a Glide.

I can see the vacuum valves, lines, and reservoir on the underhood pic which make the RS headlihjy doors open and close. If it is an original RS car (there are ways to tell, such as stamped [vs. cut] openings for the reverse lights in the lower tailpan, the way/location the wires are routed to these reverse lamps in the trunk, and a stamped/punched [vs drilled] hole in the firewall to the side of the fuse block/bulkhead, where the vacuum lines to the headlight switch go through the firewall.

I can't count the number of coils on the hood springs in the pic; an OE SS hood had springs with 28 coils (vs standard hood 26 coils) to support the extra weight. Many who swap the SS hood on do not know about or bother with the springs.

http://camaros.org/underhood.shtml#HoodSprings

Other useful 68 model info:

http://camaros.org/diffs68.shtml

If the rear spoiler was OE (more than likely was not), the pass side trunk spring will be slightly heavier duty than the other, again to support the weight. Adding a spoiler without doing anything with the spring is common, and a good way to get a concussion...

The engine will have stamped assembly coding and a partial VIN matching the car if OE http://camaros.org/drivetrain.shtml

That front stripe would make me nuts. It is not a correct D91 "bumblebee" stripe, and depending on the car's build date, it could have had the D90 stripe (the style that turns and runs back at the body line and onto the door). I doubt you can really fix it though; that body color (which does not appear to be a factory 68 color) would probably be hard to match.

The condition of the rocker panels are particularly important on 1st gen verts. There are the inners (but up to floorboards) and outers (below the doors), and then another rib inside you cannot see. Because the outers are missing the chrome spear that all 1st gens had and the car does not have the RS-specific moldings on the lower body, I am betting that either the rockers are full of plastic filler or have been replaced. Take a magnet and a soft cloth to check. Also check inner rockers; original floors turn down and are spot welded at intervals to the inner rockers. If the joint looks different than this or there is a bunch of filler in the inners, that's not good.

While we are talking about rockers, open both doors and look at the area at the front where the panel the door hinges mount to meets the outer rocker. Cars with weak rockers develop stress/fatigue cracks at this joint.

There are also several convertible specific underbody reinforcements that need to be there and in good shape. There is a brace that is welded to the floor under the seat mounts and runs from rocker to rocker, wrapping up into the driveshaft tunnel. There is a removable "X" brace that bolts to this welded brace with three bolts per side, and the driveshaft and exhaust runs above this removable brace and in the tunnel. There are other vert specific braces that can get "lost" during resto; a couple of good, clear under body pics posted here would allow we vert guys to tell you if anything looks out of place.

The floor kickup over the rear axle under the rear seat brace panel is another common rust area on a vert, because there are 4 or 5 pieces of metal that join in this location.

A 1st gen vert should also have a "cocktail shaker" at each corner of the body; these are fluid filled and contain a spring with a counterweight. In the front, they are bolted to the rad support and through the inner fender at each end. The pass side will be hidden by the battery, and the driver side will be behind the RS vacuum tank. In the trunk, there should be one on each side, easily visible bolted to the sheetmetal around the trunk opening and to the trunk floor, just ahead of the taillights. If any of these shakers are missing, they can be pretty expensive to buy and ship.

IF the car is solid and drives well, and the top is in good shape, I wouldn't think $22K would be a bad price. But your best bet would be to read the info at the links I posted and on the CRG main page, and then post back here with as many pics as you can and as much info as you can get (drivetrain numbers, engine/trans/rear info from owner, etc) and we can have a better idea what it is you're getting yourself into here.
 
#4 ·
Nice car to say the least. Intake is not a '68, present intake has a AC bracket boss on drvr side, see it between air cleaner and valve cover.
Also, '68's have oil fill tube in manifold and would have the heater hose nipple out the front of the crossover, not out the top.
Still, a nice car for $22K, if all else mentioned is in good shape.

First item I suggest in replacing are the battery cables with molded in post clamps - remove the potential problematic clamp-on post clamps, 1 GA cable min.
 
#9 ·
$22K is a fair price given the look of the car and unless the market drops further you should be able to get your money back out as long as the car stays in similar condition.

Other things to look at.

- Condition of the top. Look for tears along the fold points at the hinges. Condition of the top seals.
- Does anything leak when the car is hosed down ? Top seals, trunk, etc. Check the trunk for water.
- Cocktail shakers. All 4 corners should have counter balancers called cocktail shakers.
- Hard to tell from the under car pic but looks like the chassis cross brace may not be there. Easy item to add or upgrade to an aftermarket one.
 
#10 ·
It looks like it's worth 22K, but really you need to put it up on a lift and inspect the floor and trunk pans for signs of rust or shoddy rust repair. The underside of a first generation convertible makes a huge price difference.
Also, 123 VIN's bring less money, even on clones.
It looks to be painted late addition 1968 Camaro/Corvette British Green. Is the trim tag code Z?
 
#11 ·
Hi,

So I was able to go look at the camaro today. It is definately a plain-jane (non-rs, non-ss) camaro that was dressed up. It started life as a Blue, then Red, now its 1999 Audi Green (I dont mind the color, its a forest green).

The top looks perfect & overall the car looks amazing to me.

I think the seller basically just wanted to 'make' a Camaro as he liked it. I have the following information:

Gears in 10 bolt are 3.08’s
No posi in 10 bolt
Engine is a 327
Transmission Turbo 350
Carb is a 4 BBL Quadrajet
Fisher body
Power Disc Brakes in front
Power steering
Color is from a 1999 Audi Green?
Cocktail Shakers installed on all four sides
X-brace near exhaust

Trim tag:

05E
68-12467 NOR144661
712
L2
ST
TR
99

Vin from window reg: 124678n445092

Trim tag does not match Vin.

There is a slight problem with the paint near the passenger door frame, he will fix it before i buy it. I am going to see if he can fix the stripe as well & maybe I will have him put a 350 emblem on it vs the current 396. He was planning on putting a 396 & didnt get around to it.

It is very clean & the car started right away. He mentioned it has a slight exhaust leak which he would fix it & also mentioned there was a noise in the rear bearing & he would address that too.

He is a full time mechanic who owns a shop in the area - he has a good mechanical reputation.

Here are the pics:

















 
#14 ·
Rich, I would be careful with this one. I always get a little suspicious about a car with shiny fresh paint - you never know what is hiding underneath. There are hundreds of horror stories on this site by guys who bought similar cars that looked great when they bought them, only to have rust bubbling through the paint, rivets popping out of poorly installed quarter patches, and bondo showing up years later. Then they get to completely tear the car down and spend a ton of money doing it the right way.

Does he have any pictures of the restoration of the body as it was progressing to show what was done? How badly rusted was it before the paint, and exactly what metal was replaced on the car? You might do well to find someone who is experienced with paint and body to look at it with you. Does the bodywork look nice and straight when you look down the sides, or do you see ripples from bodywork underneath? Are the gaps of the doors, hood and trunk consistent? How do the doors shut? Check the gaps on the back side of the doors - if they are considerably closer at the top versus the bottom, this is often a sign of worn out hinges or, worse yet, a sagging body structure. This is especially important to check with convertibles. At the very least, get one of the bondo checking tools or a fridge magnet and check for excessive filler, especially in commonly rusted areas like around the wheel openings and along the rockers.

Good luck. It may very well be a nice, clean convertible, and in that case it would probably be worth around $20K, but if there is a lot of crummy rust repairs hiding under that shiny green paint, you will end up with at least another $10K in it to fix it right. Do your homework.
 
#15 ·
Looks like from the power train it isn't a hot rod so it probably hasn't been beat on much. Looks like it is a pretty good deal to me. Of course excercise due diligence as Tom noted above. good luck!
 
#17 ·
So the holidays have slowed me down a bit but I am making some progress. I have a buddy who has a number of early 50's cars (merc, chevy, & some sort of muscle station wagon) who has been helping me out a bit with this. He has a friend who is a camaro "expert" - at least in his group.

It turns out my friend, knows the guy who did all the body work on the sellers car & he even remembers seeing the car in primer when one of his was being painted. My friend stopped by the shop last week to take a look in himself & speak to the seller on my behalf. We are planning on making an offer/test drive later this week - if we can get these things straightened out.

So his perspective on this is to make sure that I dont overpay for a "plain jane" camaro that happens to be dressed up as a SS:

The bad or questionable:

1. The engine - the seller says he 'thinks' its a 327 however, it doesnt look like the other 327's (to me). My friend says it could be a 327 block but it could be a 305 too. We are trying to figure how to get to the bottom of that mystery.

2. The 10 bolt rear - the seller says it needs to have a wheel bearing fixed. The seller also doesnt know what gearing it has as he has never opened the rear. The seller will fix the rear himself.

----- Since I dont know if I want a 12 bolt or to keep the 10 bolt my friend figures I should leave the rear end as is with plans to change it out to a 12 bolt for a reduction in price.

3. Door scratch - The seller is going to have a door touched up before the sale.

4. Exhaust leak - The seller will fix the exhaust leak before the sale.

You probably wonder why this seller (who is a mechanic) doesnt just fix this stuff? It sounds like he has a bunch of projects & doesnt want to put money into this car until he is ready to sell it in the spring - unless i buy it now of course.

5. Front stripe / 396 part - It sounds like the seller is willing to get the front stripe fixed when the door gets fixed. For some reason (probably you guys) the stripe bothers me as an obvious flaw. Why the 10 bolt, wrong engine, SS emblems or any of the other flaws dont bother me so much, i dont know.

The seller has extra paint from when it was painted 6 years ago. My friend is concerned that when the front stripe is fixed, that if the clearcoat isnt pretty exact, that the clearcoat could start to chip off (he showed me his work van after a 5 year repair started to fall apart with the clear coat).

Basically my friend doesnt want the stripe fixed as he is afraid the front end could look like crap in a few years & had I left it alone (though it looks incorrect) it would look the same as it does now (with the clearcoat looking fine). In the end he feels its just a plain camaro that looks like an SS & I shouldnt worry about it.

Any ideas of what is actually important? None of these repairs will add to the cost of the camaro but I dont think he is going to go down much - if at all if we skip the repairs.

Again I mostly think it looks amazing & I am a bit more emotionally tied than my buddy.

Thanks,
Rich
 
#42 · (Edited)
The seller has extra paint from when it was painted 6 years ago. My friend is concerned that when the front stripe is fixed, that if the clearcoat isnt pretty exact, that the clearcoat could start to chip off (he showed me his work van after a 5 year repair started to fall apart with the clear coat).

Basically my friend doesnt want the stripe fixed as he is afraid the front end could look like crap in a few years & had I left it alone (though it looks incorrect) it would look the same as it does now (with the clearcoat looking fine).
How much basecoat does he have and what manufacturer's product line? For example; If PPG, is it DBC or Omni? A properly prepped repair will not fail, it's done every day. And that includes very expensive brand new cars.

It won't match with a quickie or a quality job if the color is not mixed right. Lower line paints do not offer the same tints and don't match well. Quality basecoats match much better but may have to be tinted nonetheless for a blendable match. Cheap paints have poor coverage, greens especially. If the owner has enough paint leftover, it can be used as the last coat when blended. The blend should be done over a wet bed. A good paint shop knows all this and should not need any instruction, it's their job. If the car owner knows this he may not want to fix the stripe problem. A quality repair takes time and money. Another buyer may not care about the stripe, the owner won't have to repaint the car for them and reduce his wallet thickness.
 
#18 ·
#1 - casting number off back of engine near bell housing should tell if it is a 327/350 block or a 305 or 307 or some such.

#2 - wheel bearing shouldn't be a big deal to fix. If not worried about originality, I think one of the later 10 bolts out of a 74 or thereabouts vintage Nova is nearly as strong as a 12 bolt for little cost.

#5 - I would have to see the stripe in person to see how tough it would be to touch up, but as a Camaro purist, that would just absolutely drive me crazy. I would rather have no stripe at all instead of one that screams out that the guy who painted it had no more knowledge about Camaro factory stripes than a guy who paints Fords or Mopars. Don't get me wrong, the color looks nice and the paint looks pretty good in the pic's, but the stripe just ruins it for me. If I was going to fix it, I would blend the base back into the fender where it is supposed to break for the engine size emblem, and then re-clear the whole fender. If done properly there is little chance that you will have a problem with the clear lifting.
 
#21 ·
1. Can you get to this casting number without pulling the engine or putting it on a lift?

2. Is it worth swapping a 10 bolt for a 10 bolt? Could I just pull the inside of my 10 bolt & put it into a 74? Do I need to swap spring mounts, etc?

5. I am pretty undecided on what to do. I keep hearing do nothing but if the seller is willing to fix it, is it dumb not to take him up on it or am i opening a can of worms.
 
#19 ·
You know, after looking at the stripe on the car again, if it was mine and I was going to take the trouble to correct the stripe, I would make it into the D-90 "SS" stripe that goes down the fender and door. It might actually be easier to do it this way - you wouldn't have to blend the "cut" for the emblem into the rest of the fender. Just take the 90* turn down the side of the car, and repaint the lower edge of the fender below the stripe back to body color. I think in the end it would turn out cleaner than trying to stick with the D91 Bumble Bee stripe layout. I think the D90 looks better on a 68 anyway - it is the stripe most people think of for a 68. Although the D91 was also available with the 68, it is usually seen on 67's.

Here is an example => http://www.69pace.com/images/Paint/1968_GG_ashgold/1968ashgoldSS396.jpg
 
#25 ·
Rich, I looked at the engine bay picture again, and the pad in front of the passenger side head where the engines codes are stamped looks too wide to be a 305 to me. I am pretty sure the later 70's blocks that were used for the 305's used a smaller pad here, but someone with more small block experience can correct me if I am wrong. The casting number is the only sure way to tell you what block you have. Keep in mind that the same block casting was sometimes used for different displacements, for example, the "657" block was used for multiple engines that all had the same 4" bore but different stroke cranks - 350, 327 and 302 all had the same bore.
 
#26 ·
If you can live with the stripe... to me it looks so wrong in so many areas (I think it is even too wide across the header panel) it would be better to just have it gone.

But, I doubt the seller would agree to do any paint work involving the stripe without a sales contract of sorts, saying you will agree to buy it if the stripe is "fixed".

At the top of this page, Scott said the paint can be matched and blended, and he is a professional, so you can trust the info. In my experience, colors like that green are difficult to blend and match, because common blending techniques can actually make things worse. The 68 I had was painted some bright metallic blue, and when a tire separated and took the quarter panel with it, I had to try to have the color matched and blended. Even during the blending process, just blowing a little new clear coat over an existing previously painted panel can drastically change the color. I ended up with some of the existing blue paint becoming brighter just from the new clear.

You can see this even on newer cars that have had collision repair, where the front sheetmetal and the doors back are just slightly different shade/brightness.

Maybe the shop that did my 68 just did not blend well, and/or maybe Scott or a shop that would do the work for the seller knows a perfect way to do it. I just have never seen one match exactly with a fairly "quickie" repaint.

Have you found out how solid the "bones" of the car are? If the car has rockers full of bondo and/or floors with lousy patch jobs, you should be walking away regardless.

IMO, it would have to be a very solid car before I would go anywhere near that price, and I think you have to be prepared for the paint to be mis-matched in some way.

Maybe someone here could help you with some legal language to be used in a contract between you and the seller that doesn't stick you with an awful looking repaint.
 
#27 ·
Echoing what Eric said... Have you taken a magnet to the car along the rockers and bottoms of the fenders and quarter panels to look for rust? Have you determined how much rust it had before the restore, what panels were replaced, and how it was done? Full quarters or skins? This is the kind of stuff I would want to make sure of when buying a first gen - especially a convertible. Thinks like what engine displacement is in it and minor mechanical fixes would be secondary to making sure I have a good, solid body and floor pans.

Eric, in reference to matching paint, my friend (MrMuncie) is a painter by trade, and he will tell you that color matching of the newer colors with all the pearl and metallic can be very difficult. Most of the new colors have a basic color, and then multiple "variations" in the tint and amount of metallic in the paint. However, if he has enough of the original base left over, he is ahead of the game, provided it is still good. That is one of the reasons I would go with the D90 type stripe that curves back. With that you don't have to do any color blending on the top portion of the fender. The only body color you will have to apply is below the stripe, and that will be separated by the white stripe, so a slight variation would probably not be noticeable. The solid white of the stripe would probably be much easier to match. He could probably get away without having to clear the rest of the fender this way.
 
#28 ·
Rich, in the first picture of post# 12 on the first page of this thread, you have a shot of the passenger quarter. Is that a big gouge in the paint toward the top of the quarter, bird poop, or just a reflection? Is that sanding marks showing through the paint, or is that just an illusion from the reflections? It is really hard to tell how straight the panels are from the pictures because of the brick driveway and all the objects in the background. You probably think I am trying to pick the car apart. ;) Actually, I'm just trying to help you avoid making the kind of mistake I made when I bought my first 'vert. :(
 
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