Survivor '69 Coupe with a 6-cylinder and a 3-speed manual

[68SixBangerRS]

MO...thanks, and nice to hear from you.  I couldn't pass up the tires and feel they will add much interest to the car at shows.  Before I bought the set, I asked the seller, Ed, what the story was on them.  He said that his uncle bought a new '68 red Camaro and switched the tires and wheels for mags shortly after buying the car.  Since the tires were virtually new, he kept them for backups and stored them in the rafters above his garage in suburban St. Louis.  He sold the car sometime in the '80s and the tires remained forgotten until now.  After Ed's uncle passed away, he went through the garage to ready the property for sale and discovered the tires...to my great luck.

Obviously they are extremely old and unsafe (at any speed, perhaps?), and will never go any faster than 5 mph when being driven off a trailer and to a spot at a show.

I greatly value rarity and originality in 1st Gen Camaros and want other such-afflicted aficionados to see a 6-cylinder Camaro as something more than an undesirably-powered car awaiting a glorious LS, SBC or BBC swap.  From my 30 years of lusting after them, I have found that, metaphorically speaking, six-banger Camaros are like the red-headed step-children in the Camaro world...under-loved and often mocked.  Perhaps this is the car that will finally awaken the Camaro community to how special said cars actually are, and "maybe" give pause to someone sitting on the fence about butchering a rare and interesting piece of Camaro history.  There are only a handful of these left.

I bid you all a good evening...

[roadster]

Great car , glad to see it preserved . Can you check date on voltage regulator and post ? I had heard or read somewhere that red mark on trunk seal means it passed leak test .

[68SixBangerRS]

Hey Roadster...the voltage regulator is a 1119515 dated "9B".  The car was built "05E", so it looks like the VR sat in a parts bin for 3 months before being installed at Norwood.  I will be glad to take some photos of it and post them on here.  Good luck with your '69 project!

I snapped quite a few photos of several different parts of the car today and will post them during the next couple of weeks or so.  I'm posting a few pics of the wiper motor and its wiring harness and hoses.  The manufacturer's sticker is still on it and shows that it is a GM number 5045572 motor, that it was assembled on the 119th day of 1969 (Friday, April 30th) on line number 6 during the 2nd shift (denoted by "B") at the Delco plant in Rochester, NY.  The sticker appears to be a silvery gray in color.  Some of the hoses appear to have white or yellow painted lines...hard to tell for sure due to age fading.  The hoses are ribbed and still in pretty good shape.

I don't believe any of these wires or hoses have ever been touched or moved...completely original.  The flat black paint line at the top of the cowl closely follows the cowl line.  The body was apparently painted Frost Green before the cowl and engine compartment were painted black.  The firewall is flat black, while the inner fenders and radiator support appear to have been painted semi-gloss black (the inner fenders are still showing a lot of their original sheen).  The Frost Green paint on the bottom of the cowl vent panel has not been exposed to any sun and it is still bright and shiny and shows how much the rest of the paint has faded.  If I ever get the car repainted, I will have the paint color matched to this specific spot of paint.

Note the upside-down orange "T" below the cowl tag...the final trim inspector's mark from Norwood.  I mentioned the "PTB" inspection marks earlier in this thread.

I am still trying to determine if the cowl tag is a real 6-cylinder tag or has been one of the increasingly-seen "repop" tags.  Now that many members of the 1st Gen Camaro community have discovered that '69 six-bangers are rarer than ZL1s, they are unscrupulously being cloned from the now less-desirable V8s...shameful!  I am really hoping that my car is a "real" six-banger and not just another damned clone!

[68SixBangerRS]

A few more pics of the cowl vent area.

[68SixBangerRS]

Here are some shots of "Charlotte's" steering box and pitman arm.  I am a little surprised that no one commented on its Z28 steering box, but perhaps no one on here knows why the same steering box was used for Z28s and six-bangers (I could find nothing in the '69 AIM showing the manual steering box numbers for various applications...where is the documentation for this?).  The steering box has GM #5679142 and was cast on the 90th day of '69.  The pitman arm carries GM #3953219 and appears to be slightly longer than 5" center-to-center.  I found that it is shorter than a Z28's arm.  My '70 six-banger Camaro also used a Z28 manual steering box...again, not sure why (and no one on the NastyZ28 forum knew why).   Last photo shows the '70 Camaro's AIM page which indicates the Z28 and 6-cyl used the same steering box.

[68SixBangerRS]

The front springs still have their identification stickers...further testament to its low mileage and nearly 4 decades of dry storage.  The stickers show this car was built with "EB"-coded springs...the lightest front springs that were used on '69 Camaros.  This car had very few options that added weight...the "mountain motor" 250 six is supposedly slightly heavier than the stock 230 (but how...it has bigger holes!), and the U63 AM radio adds 6 pounds.  Both stickers are extremely brittle and I didn't want to move them to the point I could photograph the codes for fear of destroying them.

Last photo is Charlotte at my buddy Scott's house.  The "head-of-the-war-dept" (ie: wife) isn't keen on me working on the car at our house...what a pain!

Once up to speed the car has light and positive steering...no issues...a delight to take down a winding road!

[roadster]

Manual steering boxes were same for several years ( Camaro , Chevelle , Nova and full size cars same just different pitman arms ) , longer pitman arm and different steering knuckles made for quicker steering ratio for Z cars and other cars ordered with f41 suspension . Have read if you ordered optional f41 on top of Z28 (very rare )steering boxes were couple turns less lock to lock ( different internals same outer casting and casting # ) and very difficult to turn if not rolling ( no fun at all to parallel park , not even for Popeye ) . Yours looks to be cast on 105 th day . The assembly date was  typically 5 + - days after . Assembly date should be stamped on raised pad ( just need to wipe off dirt to see stamp ) near cover .  Julian date followed by 9 for year . Hope to see this one at WTWW in Fairborn 2022 !

[roadster]

And you can tell the boss that I think she should be honored to have you work on this car at you alls house !

[MO]

Cool story on the tires and thankfully they are going on a worthy car, and yes, be safe on them. I don't see any way your car would have a fake TT. I get that people are faking them, but everything that you have posted about Charlotte adds up to being legit. Great analogy on rarity!

[68SixBangerRS]

Hey MO...it was a joke!!! I like to insert some fun sh** once in awhile. I know there is no way that some fool would convert a V8 car into a 6, but I was nearly fool enough to create my own '69 6-banger from (12337 car) about 15 years ago with an original '69 with a swapped 350, 4-speed (swapped from the original 3-speed), and a really nice blue standard interior.  I had located a donor '69 Nova with a 230 and a 3-on-the-tree column and was hoping to rebuild it to its original drivetrain.  Unfortunately I waited a little too long and the car was sold (maybe it is now a '69 Z...I have that feeling).

[68SixBangerRS]

Hey Dave, it's nice to hear from you!  Please give your lovely wife my kindest regards!  For those of you not connected to Central Ohio, there is a very large hillbilly car show that is held in Fairborn (Dayton suburb next to Wright-Patterson AFB on the west side) that is called the "White Trash and Whitewalls Show", and is held every August (except last year, of course).  My son Alex and I took our very beat-up '70 Camaro survivor with a 250 six-banger and a 3-speed manual trans (aka: Froggy...named by original woman owner from LA)...very possibly the only one left in existence.  Dave was there with his wife and he knew about the car from the NastyZ28 website.  I gave them a spin in the car and I think Dave was pretty impressed at how well it ran (a true 6-cylinder musclecar).

Why yes, I'll be back there again next summer with Charlotte, and I'll take you guys for a spin down the 675.  Happy holidays!

[68SixBangerRS]

Yes, she should be honored...she doesn't "get" old cars.

[68SixBangerRS]

The semi-long-suffering dash project (now over a week) is nearly done...burned some midnight oil tonight while enjoying the great 45 deg evening (temp going down to 29 in the morning...rapidly losing light and the great weather) and got much work done.  The initial problem was that the "inside-outside" air control arm on the left side of the heater control was completely busted.  I called Charlotte's husband Lyle to ask if he remembered how the lever had been broken.  He remembered it well...the car had been sitting in storage for about a year when he got it running on a chilly day.  This would have been around 1984 and the car had received steadily less use and miles as the years passed.  Lyle said the left lever was very hard to move and he tried to force it...and SNAP! 

I got on Ebay and found a nice used unit in Clovis, NM that was in absolutely beautiful shape with its original cables (and no acne on the chrome bezel).  Taking everything out (except the heater box) revealed the cause to be a sharply bent control cable.  The cable is now straightened and lubed with some 3-M light machine oil...it now glides like butter.  Cleaned the other 2 cables and also lubed them.  This will do much to restore the drivability of the car...no fun going for a January warm-up and shake-down with an inop heater.

Note that the ash tray's rubber bumper (only one...other is MIA) is a tiny rectangle and not a round shape like the repops. I love the AAA "Fasten Seat Belts" sticker...put on by Charlotte herself.  The glovebox is removed and you can get a clear view of the heater box, the sound deadening pad, and the top of the carpeting.  The white wire goes to the right door jamb switch.  Note the piece of masking tape covering the white wire's hold down, as well as the very wide piece of black tape to the right of it (purpose for both tapes unknown).  Note also that the heater box is connected to the dash's black paper air duct with a heavier cardboard vertical band held together with metal staples.  I bet this would be a real b***h to properly reproduce (I'll have to go look at Chick's restored Butternut Yellow '68 Z28 to see how this was restored/recreated).  That car is totally INSANE...mind-numbing detail!  Everything under the dash is beautiful and perfect, including the U63 pushbutton Delco AM radio and speaker.  The antenna was replaced by an aftermarket unit after being broken by an unknown jerk 50 or so years ago (an NOS GM unit will replace it sometime this winter).

Next on the agenda is figuring out the engine's annoying timing problem (hey MO, it's not the plug wires or plugs, and not the distributor).  I have an NOS GM 230/250 6-cylinder cam and might swap it in along with a Mellings timing gear set.  I am very reluctant to take the head off as I don't want to break the original head gasket's sealing job.

Late here...must run.

[68SixBangerRS]

One last photo...the instrument cluster's assembly line ident sticker...coded "NA" for a standard cluster without a center fuel gauge or clock.  The sticker is falling apart and will be glued back together...all of this stuff is irreplaceable and will remain as correct and perfect as possible.

[roadster]

I’m not Dave but do know him , I actually live in the fair city (Fairborn ) Dave lives in same county different city. And picture of vr would be appreciated . Thanks .