Thrift Shop Camaro by Payton King

7 minute(s) of a 124 minute read

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys.  

Here is some of what has happened up to this point. Once I got the car back to my house in September, I noticed a few things right off and broke out the tape measure.

First issue was he built/ordered my rear 2 inches too narrow. He did correct that problem but it took me 6 months to get it...and then he did not weld the lower TA mount on so I had to have that done.

At the same time I noticed that he built the "bird cage" for the watts to close to the stanchion tubes on the rear end housing. I have 1.25 inches of compression travel before it hits. The shock mounts are on the inside of the frame rail an is part of the "bird cage." The mount is too close to the frame so I cannot attach a shock without it hitting.  

While we are still at the rear, the mount for the fuel cell was built to the wrong measurements. No off the shelf fuel cell will fit, so that has to be remade.

Front LCA that he fabbed are too wide. Can only get 18 degrees of turn at ride height and about 8 degrees at compression. I let him know about the problem and told him he needed to move each side in a minimum of an inch. Had a conversation and sent pictures. Where the wheels contact the control arm is 9 inches wide; on the same spot as a stock C5/6 arm it is 7 inches. He made me a new set of arms and sent them when he sent the rear end. The new arms are still not correct. He moved the leading tube in but left the back profile of the arm the same, essentially no correction since it was hitting in the rear.

Everyone knows that the car's wheel base is 2 inches too long. I texted Jake and asked "so how are we going to resolve this?" He said to move the entire clip back 2 inches. I asked who is paying? He said "I will to a point of what makes more sense of me doing it or someone there."

We will see if he steps up and pays for it to be corrected. I know for sure there is no way my car is going back to his shop with as many issues as it has now and the time frame he is on to complete anyone's work.  

In the next couple of weeks we are going to level up the car and start pulling measurements and checking geometry, so I will keep you posted.

Almost forgot, to add insult to injury, he cut out my gas fill location off of the tail pan and used it to make a part for another customer without asking me.

7-22-2014

Minor update...wheel base is actually 111 inches. I am looking for a long wheel base C10 to put the frame under.

Should be cutting the front clip off and moving back 3 inches and up 2 inches. The cutting starts Saturday.

7-23-2014

Moving it back 3 inches to get the wheel base to 108, where it is supposed to be.

Moving the front clip up 2 inches so I can get my LCA's to a more level postion. I am wanting to travel my tire around 3 inches and Jake has it set up where I am already compressed 2 inches at ride height. If I try and travel it 3 inches where it sits now I have bump, camber issues, Etc. and it will be out of the designed range. He assumed that I was going to travel the front 1.25 inches. I told him before he started that I wanted the control arms level at my 4 inch ride height...

Ride height will still be 4 inches at the rockers, relocting the shocks with some trick adjusters from Ron Sutton.

9-29-2014

I have been pretty slack lately...I spend most of my free time trying to clear out all of the texts coming into my phone.

I will try and do a big update this week. Front clip has been cut off and moved back. Cut out the firewall and tunnel to move the engine back. Going to run the oil pump on the right side, so we are in the process of making a new motor plate.

Things should start moving quickly.

11-20-2014

and have been called out more than a few times. In this soap opera that I call a car build, it was discovered that the wheel base was 3 inches too long. Time to roll the car out of the garage and get it to someone that actually has a brain and a boat load of talent. Jim Pettigrew to the rescue!

Car waiting on the roll back

First We had to get the car up in the air and level and Jim made a jig for the front. I am glazing over this, but great care was taking to insure the car was perfectly level, secure where it would not move and referenced on the floor in case it did move that we woulld see it and could move it back to the correct position.

Before



After