Disassembly: 1969 Camaro Restoration Remove the Front End

The first time you look at this it seems like a pretty daunting task, the process really isn't that hard if you just take your time, and pay close attention to what your doing, the first thing you want to do before anything else is take pictures of it before you take it apart.

The first thing that we'll look at is the valance panel of the car, that is the part of the car that sits the lowest to the ground, unless the car has a front spoiler on it, if so you'll need to remove that before you can remove the valance panel.

Valence Panel Removal:

The valence panel is held on the car by bolts, and speed clips, if it were my car I'd plan to replace all of the speed clips, some of them will break as you remove them, make sure that you put all of the nuts and bolts in a plastic bag, and label it so you know where they came from.

You may think that your brain is sharp, and that you'll remember where every nut and bot came from, but I assure you, you will not, so take a lot of pictures off all of the parts, back to the valence panel, it is held on by about four 7/16 head bolts along the top of the corner on each side.

It's also held in place by two bolts in the front that are speed clipped to the center of the valence panel, the center of the panel also holds the running lights, and you need to remove them before you can remove the center piece of the valence panel.

If I remember right these are held in by simple Phillips screws, and can be very hard to remove, but don't get upset with it, just take your time, if you strip the herds, you may need a screw extractor to remove these screws and take the running lights out.

Once you have removed the running lights from the center piece of the valance panel, you'll find that it's held in place by if I remember right eight 7/16 head bolts, once you remove all of these bolts, that valence panel should come off, if it doesn't you need to look for more bolts.

Since the valence panel sits so close to the ground, it will probably be one of the hardest panels to remove from the car, so make sure that your patience is tuned up and ready to go, there will be rust on some of the components on the valence panel.

Front Bumper Removal:

The next thing that we'll look at here is the bumper, on a 1969 camaro the front bumper is held in place by pan head bolts that go through the top, and through the bottom of the bumper of the car, and like the valence panel, these will probably have rust on them.

If you look the the bumper of a 1969 camaro, you'll find square holes in the top, and in the bottom of the bumper, these holes are what is used to stop the pan head bolt from spinning as you remove it, and some times these holes get rounded out, and this makes it really hard to remove the bumper.

As I have said earlier just take your time, and look at the problem, if you do this, and don't get upset, or get in a hurry, you'll get the bumper off of the car just fine, if the holes are rounded, or the bolts square shank is rounded, you'll probably be grinding the bolt head off, be very careful here.

If the bumper is still usable, you don't want to make unusable, so take it easy if you need to die grind these bolt heads, the nut that holds these bolts in place is a ¾ size bolt, and behind it you should find a lock washer, and behind that a flat washer, if not the bumper has been removed before.

Once you remove the bolts that hold the bumper in place, it will fall off of the car, so make sure that you have a friend there to help you, in the next article we'll remove the grille, the header panel, and the front fenders, but for now this article is done, I hope it helps, stay tuned for the next step.

Author David C. Atkin
Title: 1969 Camaro Restoration
Site Title: Car Restoration - A How To Blog