EDIT : update for new picture locations - 2/6/09 - Tom

Not really going to bother with a tutorial of sorts, but here are a few pics of
my swap that might be a useful footnote to those considering this swap.

https://www.camaroz28.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=425550

My reason why its getting swapped, figured if I am replacing all these parts, I
might as well end up with the style I like better.



Here is the teardown, I found that the hood bumpers that are WELDED to the
body are over an inch lower on the 93 then the 98. I will have to make some
adapters to make them taller.



















Tom

 

Tom

 

Is that an Avanti in your garage? I've never known anybody that had one of those before.

 

Keep us posted with the end result... I see you got some GM 10 spokes on there as well, I just picked up a set of those myself.

 

Yah, its an Avanti alright, someone else on this forum thought it was a Pacer?
Good eye. Granted it was far away in the shot of the damaged Camaro. Here
is the link I posted up some info :

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showthread.php?t=481491

Got the 10 spokes a couple years ago actually. Got a heck of a deal, & they
came from a CHP officers 2001 Camaro SS. Not sure what that means, but
its certainly worth noting. With the 98 front the rims will look "right", though
I think they looked great with the 93 front. The other pics, you can see that
there are early Z28 rims on the front, thats because a week before the car
got hit on the street, my wife slammed it into a curb and bent the knuckle,
blowing out the new tire - luckily it didnt bend the rim!! To get the car to the
shop for an alignment check, I had to throw the old rims on the front!

Get this: 230,000 miles, original wheel bearings, ball joints, bushings, tie rods,
rack, and even rotors!! Heads have never been off, 4L60 trans rebuilt once.
To repair the damage from the curb, I replaced the whole suspension from a
wrecked 1994 Firebird with 70k on it. Yah .. its a mutt.

Dont worry .. more pics to come!

Tom

 

lol it kind of sounds like a ticking time bomb. Does it leak oil?

 

I beat the heck out of it, and it runs and runs. Heck if I know. It has a very
minor leak from the front seal. I put some stop leak in and it all but stopped.
I used to jump the car on my friends ranch shortly after buying it. I mean off
the ground type of stuff. It goes about 5000 to 7000 between oil changes,
and its only been towed twice, once when the NEW torque converter failed,
and then recently when my wife nailed the curb. I bought it used with 38K.

My Impala SS clone (exCHP car) has 217,000 miles and my wifes 95 Z28 has
171,000. My Camaro will still roast the rear tires with reckless abandon.

Tom

 

You should tell GM that story. They'll put you on one of their commercials.

*"Like a Rock" background music starts playing*
"I beat the heck out of it, and it runs and runs. It has a very minor leak from the front seal. I put some stop leak in and it all but stopped. I used to jump the car on my friends ranch shortly after buying it. I mean off the ground type of stuff. It goes about 5000 to 7000 between oil changes, and its only been towed twice, once when the NEW torque converter failed,
and then recently when my wife nailed the curb."
Announcer: "Chevrolet. Like a Rock."

Everytime I talk to my favorite car salesman, he always comments that the reason you still see so many '93-'97 Camaros and Firebirds on the road is because they just won't quit, and I guess it's true.

 

Here are more pictures, these two "nuts" are already in the front structure, but they are not tapped
for a screw. I guess you could TRY to force a screw into them, but I ran a M6 X1.0 tap into them :











Got the hood and crashbar on first :





These mounts are about an inch lower on the "LT1" cars. I will have to fab something up :



Hood lines up ok, but I had to move the latch down later :



Mounted the headlight up so I could mark the lower hole to drill.



Tom

 

I just used a 1/8 th drill bit, and ran one of the self tapping screws that held the old headlight assy
onto the front structure. BUT .. Do yourself a favor and REMOVE the battery, pull the harness up
out of the way behind the sheetmetal on the passenger side!! I drilled the hole and THEN realized I
might have drilled into some wires!! I got LUCKY ... the bit went between everything. I used a piece
of plastic in between the screw and the harness, and also dremeled off the sharp tip after I made
the tapped hole into the sheet metal :







New brackets ordered from GM. These are the ones that the guy forgot to pull off for me :



That big gray piece holds the nose on, make sure you get that too!







Got the silver fender on :



Got the gold fender on, but there was a problem .....





Tom

 

The gold passenger fender is missing the bottom mounting tab, so I made this from aluminum angle :





Drilled two holes to add some captured nut clips :



And bolted it up :







The styrofoam nose is held to the crashbar with two of those quick clip deals. They are longer then
the ones that hold the nose on :

 

headlights pretty boogered up, foggy, scratched and yellowed :





After wet sanding with 1000 then 2000 grit :



Tom

 

Looking good, seems like a serious amount of work going into that.

 

Overall I wouldnt say it was that difficult, but then I just made those adapter
brackets to mount 03 Cobra brakes on my 63 Avanti.....

I dont think that the amount of work was anything greater then replacing the
existing body panels with the same style. Just the headlights needed a bit of
extra work, and tapping existing holes is pretty simple.

The gold & silver makes me think of C3P0, but then Cinemax had a Star Wars
marathon this weekend.

Tom

 

Man that's some intense work. I always thought the conversion was a bit easier. I bet it is hard as hell to get all of those pieces aligned.

There was a converted Camaro at my school last year. It was really obvious it was a conversion because the fit of the panels was really bad... well... that and the fact that they left the salad shooters on the car.