Sometimes it pays to go to the Saturday Nite Cruise-in. A guy told me about a 69 Camaro in sad shape that had been sitting for a long time in a local car repair yard. I went by on Sunday morning and saw it through the fence. Stopped by today and asked if it was for sale. It was so I made an offer and here's what the tow truck brought me. Have to wait until tomorrow night after work to do any real investigation but first look is that its an early Norwood V8 Coupe with auto and console, front non-power disks, power steering, 10 bolt posi with 5-leaf multi-leafs, factory air and standard interior. It truly is in sad shape but all the basic parts and pieces are present. Can't wait till my wife gets home from work. Hope she's as happy about it as I am, but I'm not going to bet on it.
First Look at 69 Yard Car
Jack Eggers
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Looks like an RS to me. It has the grommet for the headlight hoses where it's supposed to be. It's missing all the headlight parts, obviously. How about the inner fenders; do they look original, and do they have the bellcrank holes?
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Eric, The fenders look original. I checked the AIM but haven't ever looked closely at an RS assembly and am not sure if I'm in the right spot. These photos are from the top and bottom on the driver side inner fender. Is that that hole? There's a similar one but smaller diameter on the pass side.
Thanks
Thanks
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The holes in the pictures are for the parking light wiring, all 69s have that. The bellcrank hole would be forward of the rad support, near where the headlights are. Can be seen from underneath.
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Looks like there are no bellcrank holes or fender codes. How definitive is the headlight grommet hole. I see it in the AIM but seems like it would be easy to drill it. Anyway, thanks much for the help.
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Pulled the backup lights to see if the holes were hacked or factory looking. Both sides are the same and and the lights stamped "Made in U.S.A". Wiring looks like original part of the rear harness. Thanks for the assistance on this thing. I really need to know what I have (or most likely what I don't have) so I can choose a clear direction. Anyway, it's a nice day to work on the car. Going to try and start the engine and then take out the funky smelling interior.
By the way, the E-bay comment was a joke and I'm not selling or trying to sell anything to anyone. I made the comment after I looked at the first photos and realized how easy it would be to make positive use of light and photo angles. A few photos and carefully selected words would make this car look like one of those E-bay "jewels" that turn into a major disappointment when seen in person. If I ever sell any of my cars, I'll tell everything I know about it and then will sleep well that night. Plus, threads like this help keep me honest if I get a little forgetful down the road.
By the way, the E-bay comment was a joke and I'm not selling or trying to sell anything to anyone. I made the comment after I looked at the first photos and realized how easy it would be to make positive use of light and photo angles. A few photos and carefully selected words would make this car look like one of those E-bay "jewels" that turn into a major disappointment when seen in person. If I ever sell any of my cars, I'll tell everything I know about it and then will sleep well that night. Plus, threads like this help keep me honest if I get a little forgetful down the road.
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We have engine start. Came inside to cool off because the outside temp is 88 degrees and rising by the minute. The engine came with the rare distributor delete option so I pulled the one from the 67 car since I know that setup worked. Wasn't sure why the distro was gone and figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a shot. Checked fluid levels and all were pretty close to the right colors and full. Pulled a few plugs and they looked fair and not worth changing. It has braided fuel line from front to rear and the locking gas cap with no key is still in place (and locked of course). Cut the fuel line and flushed it up to the carb by dropping the line into the high-octane lawn mower gas can (don't say it). Fixed a few small fuel leaks and hit the coil with 12V. A quick twist or two of the distributor and it fired right up. 50 PSI oil pressure and it killed every mosquito within 50 feet. Cool. Smoothed out the idle and ran it for 15 mins on jack stands (no brakes front or rear) and the temp came up to 180 and stayed. TH350 has a Hurst Quarter Stick and it seems to shift OK once I figured out how the lockout works. Probably has some kind of performance cam. Nice idle lope that is touch milder than the 327 with the Comp XE268. Probably a 5/8th or 11/16th Race Cam if I had to online bench race a Honda Civic right now. Could probably drive it expect that the car also came with the "front disk brake calipher delete" option. Maybe the distributor and caliper delete options were a special package that only came on the ReallyStrange model Camaro.
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frame off
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One fuel line but no way to tell on the fuel lines because the originals and the clips are long gone. It's got on braided -6 line rear to front. I'll pull the gas tank today and see if the fuel sender has the 2 line hookup. Tank condition is good so I'll guess it's a repro along with sender. Seats and carpet are out now and the floor pan and toe boards are looking pretty darn decent. Glad I got that tetanus shot. Small section of carpet and insulation left to go after I cool down a bit. That's probably where I'll find a surprise.
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731 Posts
Sounds like an original RS to me. Odds are that it was either in a front-end accident at one time, or a previous owner just didn't like the RS stuff and picked up a dog-house from a non-RS car.
The RS headlight switch on the dash would have connections for the vacuum hoses. Not sure if non-RS would have used the same part.
Congrats on an excellent find and in getting her started!
The RS headlight switch on the dash would have connections for the vacuum hoses. Not sure if non-RS would have used the same part.
Congrats on an excellent find and in getting her started!
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172 Posts
Thanks again for the comments. Like many Norwood pre-x code car owners without documentation, I'm an perpetural optimist. Hope it doesn't come back to bite me but I'll cautiously conclude at this point that it's an RS with most if not all of the front end sheet metal replaced and RS headlight components removed. That decision kills the drag car and clone options at least. On the other hand, the missing front end parts probably push the replacement parts bill for a reasonable RS restoration attempt up by a few thousand.
Ran out of energy yesterday in the later afternoon heat. Pulled the rest of the insulation and then suddenly realized why the floorpan looked good. No drain hole openings = replacment pan. Pan install is pretty clean and welds are smoothed for the most part and covered up with some kind of semi-hard filler. Probably don't have to do anything but clean the surface rust, prime/paint and dynamat it. Pulled the headliner and it stripped off the material from the supports without any effort. Roof underside has original insulation that was flaking off bad. Cleaned off the big stuff and found surface rust in some areas, but no signs of roof repairs. Checked the headlight switch and it's for a standard car w/o vacuum lines. Console doesn't have the gauge cluster but does have a bunch more wires and connectors than were present on my other 69 console w/o gauge wiring harness. I'll compare colors to AIM and see what it looks like. Pulled the gas tank this morning and found it's a Canada repro full of nasty gas with a one-line pickup. For those interested, I'll have more photos later and will continue to share "hidden" secrets as I find them.
Ran out of energy yesterday in the later afternoon heat. Pulled the rest of the insulation and then suddenly realized why the floorpan looked good. No drain hole openings = replacment pan. Pan install is pretty clean and welds are smoothed for the most part and covered up with some kind of semi-hard filler. Probably don't have to do anything but clean the surface rust, prime/paint and dynamat it. Pulled the headliner and it stripped off the material from the supports without any effort. Roof underside has original insulation that was flaking off bad. Cleaned off the big stuff and found surface rust in some areas, but no signs of roof repairs. Checked the headlight switch and it's for a standard car w/o vacuum lines. Console doesn't have the gauge cluster but does have a bunch more wires and connectors than were present on my other 69 console w/o gauge wiring harness. I'll compare colors to AIM and see what it looks like. Pulled the gas tank this morning and found it's a Canada repro full of nasty gas with a one-line pickup. For those interested, I'll have more photos later and will continue to share "hidden" secrets as I find them.
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172 Posts
Here's some photo's of the underside and floor pan replacement.
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So what did you get it for??
If you dont mind sharing..
Looks like a good car..
If you dont mind sharing..
Looks like a good car..
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172 Posts
$4500 plus $45 for towing plus one night on the couch.
Stole it! Great job. Very nice. :beers::beers:
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One night on the couch ... Man you got away cheap!
Nice find and good luck on the project.
good score 
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