Joe's (X66 714) 1969 SS 396 Camaro "The life & times of X66 714"
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Hi Bruce.
Here are a few starter pictures & my story. Thank you for taking a look, Joe In spring of 1981, after trying to purchase this car for the last 2 years, I was finally able to acquire it. A 1969 Camaro SS396 with yellow interior. On the previous day I had spoken with the owner about the cost. He ask me what I thought & I told him, because of some of the problems I would give him 1,300.00. He said he was thinking 1,500.00. We agreed on 1,400.00. The next day my friend Jim & I jumped into my 1968 Z/28 & headed out to purchase the car. When we got there the owner had pulled aside three 14x6 rally wheels with F70x14 white pin striped tires & also a beautiful yellow front bumper. The owner says "if you don't want any of this stuff I'll throw it out". My next question was why the bumper wasn't on the car? He says he likes chrome better. I loaded up everything, fired up the 396 & we drove it home. Never really thought much of the car as my plans were to take the interior & the tilt column to build a 69 Z/28. The car turned out to be a very interesting Camaro. It had the 325hp 396, Th400, p/s, console, tach/gauges, tilt a/c, parchment vinyl top, rear antenna, deluxe seat belts, tinted glass, custom yellow interior & special front bumper. Today I believe the car might've been a dealer demo. It was built August 28th, 1969. Sold new at O'Rielly Chevrolet in Tucson Arizona on July 29th, 1970. I'm the 3rd owner & when I purchased it, the odometer showed 83k. I restored it once & it now has 157k, so I'm restoring it again...the right way...hopefully. More to come (Joe will add the restoration pics as he progresses!) Thanks for looking, Joe Attachment 171869 Attachment 171870 Attachment 171871 Attachment 171872 |
Thanks Bruce and Joe, great to hear the back story to such an interesting car!
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A very cool car that I will be following as it's restored. Joe and I have spoken about the car a couple of times and I'm keen to see the workmanship and the details of its restoration.
Take it away Joe...and thanks for the vintage pics too. :youguysrock: |
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These are pictures of the restoration I did in 1982. Other than the obvious, I also put in power windows, am/fm & JL8. Also moved the antenna to the front fender. Sorry, I can't seem to fix the pictures. Maybe someone could assist :) Thank you, Joe
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In 1982 I also contacted MVD in Az. to do a title history search. (you could do that then). I ask MVD for anything including the MSO not knowing that the original invoice could've been there. Had to wait about 30 minutes. Took everything home to review. There were only 2 other owners. I contacted the first to ask her about the car & to see if any paper work still existed. Took a while to convince her I had her old Camaro. She thought somebody was pulling a prank on her. She told me of the car's history. She was at the dealer getting oil change on he 1967 396 El Camino when she saw the car & bought it. She also told me of running it into the back of a 4x4 when the car had only 16k. Nice that she missed the bumper :) She told me she moved to Colorado for a year. She had stored all papers in the basement & there was a flood. The original owner also told me that other than the El Camino & this Camaro, she also had a 1969 AMX with the Go Pack & a 1969 SCJ Mustang. She went on to tell me of Hemi cars she had owned..Wild....Joe
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That's very interesting Joe. Do you know if she was married or who got her so deep into muscle cars? Sounds like she was every bit a muscle car lover and pretty rare to hear of a woman being so heavily into horsepower. I'm thinking her dad or someone may have been a big influence in that department (perhaps)?
Is she still alive today? If so is she still in the area and do you keep in touch? |
She's in New Mexico last I heard. She was married, I think, for a short time. I need to contact her to see if the wheels were on it in the showroom or did she have the dealer change them. It shouldn't had 14x6...Joe
Thanks for flipping the pictures |
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From 1982 till 2005 I put 74k miles on the Camaro. During that time it was a daily driver & the Arizona sun had taken it's toll. The years before that, I had worked on returning the car back to it's original life. It's harder to return them back as now there's a ton of holes that will need to be fill before painting. The car sat in my garage until 2018 when I decided I would get it running & just enjoy it. One thing lead to another & now it's in a full restoration. In 1982 it was nice enough to be in the World of Wheels...Joe
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Great story, glad you kept it. Joe that is one cool, best option Camaro SS396 to have.
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Knowing the whole history is priceless. Cool car, look forward to the rest of the story as it progresses.
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I love the stories from guys like you that held on to there cars, so many times life got in the way and cars went away. Well done Joe.
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Still having this desirable car that you paid $1,400 for is quite the accomplishment!
Great to hear the story, and thanks for posting Bruce. |
The 2nd owner got a front clip from the wrecking yard sometime in 1977. When I got the car in 1981 I didn't want to work the fenders that were there so I went to Chevrolet & bought new fenders for about 154.00 ea. I think the header panel was 43.00 or something like that. The hood was usable as was the valance. I had just sold a Z10 to a guy which used some parts on another Camaro so I traded deck lids with him....Joe
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Moving forward to this restoration meant undoing everything I had done the first time around. Out came the power windows. Off came the rally sport. Off came the ZL2 hood. I bought everything new from GM when I bought the hood except the harness. Those were the days. No more JL8. Fortunately I kept all of the parts that I removed knowing I didn't want to lose any of the original pieces.
In November of 2018 I decided I needed to install another trunk floor. The car had 3 things that were not in it's favor, vinyl top, trunk mat & bad gaskets on the lid & lights. All of these lead to leaks which rotted out the trunk floor. After some study I decided an aftermarket floor wasn't what I wanted to use. A guy in Phoenix had the rear clip of a 69 with a nice floor & only wanted 150.00 so off to Phoenix. This is the hard way to do a trunk floor but it was worth the efforts to me. 160+ man hours. There was enough pieces from the rear clip to fix the bottoms of the quarters & the section where the back up lights were...Joe |
Wow, kudos to you Joe for not taking the easier way out on that trunk floor, not that any of that is easy. Impressive and keep up the great work.
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Yes, credit to you for grafting in donor metal. That's a lot of detail work!
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Before we did the trunk floor in Nov 2018, all the front sheet metal was removed in May 2018 & taken to the body shop. I still had the engine & transmission in the car until the trunk floor was done. Now with the subframe assm completely removed it was time to get the body ready for the painters....Joe
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Hey Joe,
Great car you have! I can tell by the way you are going beyond the norm to bring this car back, that you are dedicated to making it really right no matter the cost or time. I applaud you. The frame and engine shot showing the curved neck radiator is a good educational picture to show the purpose of the curved neck. Most people refer to the curved neck radiator as a COPO radiator, but cannot tell you the purpose of the curved neck. The curved neck radiator was designed for the B/B with A/C. The purpose of the curved neck is to keep the upper radiator hose from rubbing on the A/C compressor belt. Keep up the good work. - Warren |
^ interesting.
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Warren, bet it has the unique big block A/C pressed in smog tubes on passenger side.... |
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More pictures to come...Joe |
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Here's some more pictures of the engine. The nice thing about this car is the drive train had never been messed with or lost. I had to find an alternator, fan & fan clutch...Joe
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Nice work on that trunk repair! Where was the forward seam?
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That's awesome. I figured you would have had to remove the tail panel. Did you replace the entire shock tower area too?
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Nice work ! Just scavenging the repair panel would scare off many !!
(I did a similar repair on a 68 GTO many years ago). |
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Body all back together. Had to build a body cart which I had never done. Everything mounted at the torque boxes. It wouldn't be till July of 2019 before this part would go to the shop. Doors & lid were taken to the shop a few months back....Joe
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I can appreciate the level of work required. I bought some original GM 'cutoffs' from another Camaro to fix some rust on my '68 L78 car. Disassembling all the welded joints has been time consuming to say the least! But it will have original GM sheetmetal nearly everywhere, so it's worth it to me.
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They stripped the body with some sort of plastic beads which brought it back to the original metal....Joe
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Here's some pictures of the firewall. You can make out 259, C60 & BYEL. On the driver's side I believe it said Z87 but it didn't come out in pictures. Notice during the installation of the a/c box one of the screws went right through the hidden VIN....Joe
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I was looking at these pictures I just posted. In the 3rd picture, next to the wiper mounting holes, above the seam sealer, in pencil, does that look like it says C08? It's real faint. Never noticed that before.
What might be the blue graffiti? ..Joe |
Never seen a hidden VIN there on a '69 Camaro. Wonder if they changed places on the later built cars.
- Warren |
I agree, Warren. That's a new one on me, as well as the funky passenger side smog tube. One of the great parts of the hobby is you never stop learning.
Thanks for all the pics, Joe. Great stuff. |
This is from CRG but they don't show a picture of "with a/c". Another guy in town has his apart. He'll send a picture. His is a Jan 69 from LA....Joe
From CRG "On the firewall below the fan motor opening (non-AC cars) or below the heater opening (AC cars). This requires the heater or air conditioning box removal, and therefore most car buyers will not have an opportunity to view this stamp." |
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If there was ever any question on who & when the PBT was stamped on the Norwood bodies, this should clear it up. These were under the a/c box when I removed it from the firewall...Joe
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Ken Barnharts' 1969 ZL-1 Camaro is similar.The PBT stamps are Under the caulking.
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One thing I hate to see is a nicely done car & a bent up crossmember. Being a big block with a/c is probably the heaviest up front so jacking the car it that point isn't a good idea. I followed something I saw on Youtube. I think it came out good. The 2 small holes are for the big block a/c baffle....Joe
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A couple of pictures of my driveshaft. I put it in a 4" piece of pvc with evaporust for a day. Restriped it & shot it with semi gloss clear...Joe
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