Just getting started with this blog. This page will be devoted to my passion for the El Camino. Thus far, i have owned 3 of them.... The Original Wldtime 79, a 1983 V-6, and my current 1979.
My current car had been sitting in a parking lot for over 7 years. And through a little horse trading she came home with me in May 2009. And now, the transformation begins.
My First Car
This is the second day of ownership. It was late september of 1987- i was 17
Same girl- New dress
Still my first car, but with improvements. This shot was taken in 1991. Dad and i stripped off 3 prior paint jobs and got it to bare metal. We took off every piece of trim and removed all the glass before it went to the paint shop and was sprayed in 1991 Corvette Turquoise Metallic
hit counter
Current El Camino
This is #2. I picked this car up in May of 2009 (wow, 30 years old) Follow the interior transformation below.
Homecoming 88
yup, monochromatic paint schemes were in and so was pin striping. so i painted the grill inserts and windshield wipers, and then pinstriped the windshield and rear glass. What was i thinking???? Well- i was young
models
About Me
clear coat
It was 7:45PM tonight when i took this picture. Long day. But you can really see how the car shines compaired to previous pictures. I'm really happy with the way the color turned out. I think i've gone inside the garage to check on it probably 10 times in the last two hours. I soooooo much want to go and start stripping off the masking and start putting parts back on the car right now but I am excercising a little patience..... let it cure Bill..... let it cure. Man!, when all that polished stainless steel trim goes back on its going to look awesome with the Green paint and pearl. I'm dying to see it in the sunlight
base coat
Yup, everything is installed back on the car minus things like door handels and mirrors etc. this this after i had re shot the entire car today with the base coat. The color i chose is 1995 Impala SS Grey Green metallic. Something i found interesting today was that i used Omni paint and U Pol reducer. the color was much darker. But when i ran out of U Pol, and used the Omni medium reducer, the paint color was lighter and more correct to what it should look like. Not sure why this would have an effect on how the color layed down but it did. So my advice..... stick with the same family of products. Lesson learned
radiator support
I thought i would do this later in the project... after the fenders and such had been installed. But i found some time and got after it sooner than later. Now i don't have to mask off any body parts!! Looks nice
Hood
Can you imagine trying to sand all of this with the hood propped up and on the car??? No way! so while it was off, i prepped, primed, sanded, painted, and cleared the underside of the hood as it rest on some plywood ontop of the pickup bed
fenders painted
every surface you see here would be almost impossible to paint and clearcoat without removing the fenders or doors, Its now done right
parts stripped
Everytime i look at this picture i can't believe what a mess the car looks like
Dad starting the door removal
drivers side
yikes. well, this is what removing two layers of paint reveals. All those spots are filled with bondo. The filler all looks good and intact so i'm going to leave it there and just go over it again with a topcoat and sanding.
Starting Bodywork
What else can i say? I'm sanding body panels because i was bored and have no money to hire someone to do it for me. Besides, this will be good experience. I really want to learn how to use a hammer and dolly to straighten out the car rather than filler. Its like concrete in the building trade.... i just don't understand how to do it and therefore want to learn
Interior shot
I've been waiting for day when it WASN'T RAINING here to take this picture. So when the clouds parted i pulled the car outside and took this. This picture shows how it all went together- the Caddy seats, the console, and the radio/heater controls. What can i say... i'm really happy with this set up
door panels
here is a shot of the passenger side door panel completed. I wanted the carpet for the lower panels, so i got "newer" panels that already had carpet on them. Then i cut my upper panels for the window switches and put it all back together
Window and Lock retainers
if you are converting a manual window/lock car to power, you are going to want to find some of these. You can get away with just cutting your door panels for the locks but the window switches will need these to keep them in place. Also, the lock retainers are both the same but they are different from the window retainers
Black and Blue Interior
Gettin after it. blue interior, blue seats, blue steering wheel. and everything else was painted with black spray paint. I had a lot of sanding ahead of me to get all the flaking paint off the plastic trim panels
stainless window trim
here is the difference between the old window trim and the freshly polished trim. Do you know how many hours it takes to sand off Anodizing??????????? I lost track but i can say that each of the 11 total pieces took me about 2 hours to strip and 15 minutes to polish. I won't be doing that again!!
Rust Bucket
look what i found under all the carpet? Oh well. What do you expect from a 30 year old Washinton car. Not the end of the world- just need to break out the grinder and the Rustmort.
sealed floor
After the rust prevention was applied, I went to the local parts store and bought a couple cans of spray on bedliner and sealed the entire floor. Now it starting to look decent.
86 window regulator location
I found an 86 El Camino that was turned in on the Cash for Clunkers program. Someone had already beaten me to a lot of the good parts but they left both doors on the car which had power windows and locks. Score!!! I also picked up the tilt steering wheel, cruise control assembly, exhuast, and some seats (will get to that later) for about $100. This was taken to show the window gears for referrence with the window all the way up. I had to swap the parts from the 86 to my 79 and couldn't use these doors.
running wires
here i took the dashboard out of the car. Not hard to do. 4 screws at the defrost vents, drop the steering column, remove the screws at the ground straps by the floor lights, take the gauge cluster out, disconnect the heater controls and radio. And don't forget to remove the power for the glove box and the buzzer/chimes screwed in from behind the dash just below where your light switch would be. My dad and i removed the dash early summer in order to totally clean it and spray it in SEM's Landau Black
fuse box
The doner 86 El Camino had a nicer fuse box with all the lettering than what was in my 79. So i took this picture for reference before i started the long and tedious process of pulling everysingle pin connector out of the 79 and transferring them to the 86 box. I also did this because the 86 utilized a couple spots for fuses dedicated to the computer which my obviously does't have. the two "new" fuse locations would be used later for the seats.
Cadillac Style
On my second visit to NW Auto Recyclers in Lake Stevens, Dad and i swiped these out of yet another Cash for Clunkers car.... a 94 cadillac eldorado. we also grabbed the wire harness and center console. Got all this for about $75. You must have the console because it contains the heated seat control. These babies have power, lumbar, and heat.
test fitting the seats
After I connected the wiring for the seats and heater to the new fuse box locations and painted the seat track brackets, i put the seats in for a test fit. They sit up a little higher than i like but its a small sacrafice for heat/comfort/ and style
seat tracks
Ok, i'm not a welder. I'm a carpenter. But my buddy Blake loaned me his welder and i went to town. I bought some box tubing from Everett Steel located in Woodinville and made these. I had to get the seats up high enough so that the soloniods would clear the cross member. Note the notches in the front track- these are so the hooks in the Caddy seats could simply slide into these notches and then be bolted down to the back tracks
caddy seats
Here i changed the seat color...yup... you guessed it- SEMs Landau Black. This took lots of prep time. Acetone, scotchbright, SEMs Vinyl/Leather prep. Sure i will have to touch up the seats but i can buy a lot of paint for the $1500 i was quoted to re skin the seats
console mockup 1
here is the stock Caddy console. i had to trim the plastic down so that it matched up to the top of the radio/heater pod on the dash. I used 3M blue tape on the dash to protect it from the mayhem that would follow. Notice the space in front of the lower portion of the console.... we'll take care of that next
Console 2
i used some of the trimmed plastic pieces from the console and pop riveted them to lengthen the console. Then i took fiberglass mesh tape and draped it over the top of the dash to get the shape. Followed by lots of fiberglass and resin, Duraglass for strength and basic shape, and Bondo to finalize the shape
console 3
Again... i'm a carpenter, but I'm trying to save some money and decided to wrap the console myself in black vinyl. it got cleaned and prepped with Acetone (my new favorite cleaner) and i used 3M super adhesive from Wesco auto paint. Lots of stretching and a heat gun got it done. And a beer for courage. I went right over the top of the factory vinyl and covered the bondo and factory plastic with 1/8 inch matting (like what is used on your mouse pad) for a little cushion
console 4
I took the center portion of the console and sprayed it to match the rest of the interior. Since i didn't need the shift lever, i built a box out of plexiglass. i used the mounting point for the light on the shift lever, cut it down to fit the width of the box. I then used 1/8 tape and covered the box where the light would shine. Followed by painting the exterior portion with gloss black. That way, whatever i put inside the box wouldn't scuff or scratch the paint off. And the tape allowed the light to shine in the box. looks kind of cool at night
Console 5
this was the TOUGH PART. All along i felt there was enought room to bring the heater controls and radio into the factory cadillac radio opening. Lucky for me it worked out. I didn't have to modify much. i just had to trim enough out of the factory radio mount to get the radio down and then located the heater up as high as it would go. I used plastic again to build up for mounting locations for the heater. Made a radio/heater face plate from plexiglass and back painted it in gloss black. Put everything in place and finished it off by using the stock Caddy radio trim plate. Honestly, the hardest part of this was the cable for the temperature control. it needed to be extended by about 3 inches since the heater control moved forwards that much. I bought a universal choke cable from the parts store since it had the solid cable inside, cut it to length removed the factory El Camino plastic cable mounts with a heat gun and fused them onto the new choke cable. Now everything goes in its stock location behind the dashboard. I also tapped into the cigerette lighter to bring power forwards so i could hook up the Caddy lighter which is located below the radio. I need to come up with something to trim out the radio better but there isn't much room.
console 6
console 7
armrest/cupholder is installed. Heated seat control is mounted
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