How to Plan a 1969 Camaro Restoration

The first thing that you should look at, is this is this a standard 1969 Camaro, or is it a special camaro, allow me to explain the difference between them, a standard 1969 camaro would be a camaro with Z/28, SS, RS, RS/SS, SS/RS, or just a camaro name plate, these should be pretty easy to get parts for.

A special camaro would be a camaro with a ZL1, Yenko, Baldwin-Motion, Berger, or some other rare camaro that they built very few of, these could be very hard to locate some of the parts for, and you need to pay extra attention to where you get your parts from.

Your parts list should always be the first part of your 1969 camaro restoration planning, make sure that you know where your getting all of the parts from, and how hard they are to find, your going to need to get the hard to locate parts first, so they don't get sold before you buy them.

For this article we'll assume that you have already bought your 1969 camaro, and your getting ready to restore it, the first thing that you need is a place to do the work, if you have a garage at your house, this problem is already solved, beyond that you need to have the tools to to the work.

Once you have a garage, and the tools to do the work, we'll move on to the inventory process, this is where we'll decide what parts need to be fixed, and what you have to replace, keep in mind that you'll save money by fixing as many of the parts as you can.

For the inventory process you'll need a notebook, and you take the notebook separate a page in to three columns, and you need to name the three columns, the first one re-use, repair, replace, I think that this is pretty self explanatory.

You'll be creating a list of the parts the your going to re-use, fix, or replace, you need to pay close attention to the parts that go on this list, as they can make, or break your 1969 camaro restoration, so please take your time while miking this list.

After you have made your list you can begin your parts search, you looking of course for all of the parts from the replace column of your notebook, once you get this done, you should have a pretty good idea of the price of your parts.

At this stage of the game nothing is set in concrete, your parts is most likely going to change, you'll add to, or remove parts from your list as you go, once you get the basic list you can begin to order your parts, or you can do this as your go.

Then after I get everything that I can see added to the list, I lift the car off of the ground and inspect all of the systems under the car, like suspension, brakes, steering, rear end, and sheet metal, once I have the inventory completed I can get on to the tear down.

Planning a restoration on your 1969 camaro is no different from planning one on any other car, the first thing you need to do is take an inventory of the car so you can list the tings that need to be done to restore the car.

During the tear down process you'll be adding a lot more parts to your list, so keep your list close to you, there are things that should always be replaced in my opinion, if your looking for a professional restoration when the car is done.

In my opinion, you should always replace all of your brake lines, your rotors and calipers, you should also replace all of the components that make up your brake drums, you should replace your engine compartment wiring harness, and your under dash wiring harness, for the best results.

A complete restoration takes a shop about 600-800 hours, and it's will probably take you longer at home, so prepare yourself for it to take some of your time, and know that it will, if you rush it, something will go wrong, so don't.

If you take your time, and put in the hours that are required, your project should look great when it's done, it should be a car that you can be very proud of, a car that you'll love for years to come, get the family involved, and you can make a great family project out of it.