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35 Yr Old Monogram Z to SS Camaro-PROJECT COMPLETED-07/20


mustang1989

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I'm pretty much at a standstill on my current VW Pro Street bus build with trying to come up with a suitable seating arrangement and waiting on all the aftermarket engine items that I've ordered so I thought I'd throw something on the bench that's been catching my interest for some time now. I showed pictures of this bad boy last year after I did some repairs on it but thought it deserved more than that…………so here we are a year or so later to do it some real justice.
Presented here for rebuild is my 35 year old Monogram 1969 Camaro Z-28 which some of you will know the boxing of this kit back in the late 70's/ early 80's:

 

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I'm going to go through this thing I don't even know how deep I'll go with it so I aint even going to say that this'll be a mild rebuild. Anything I touch can't be done in timely manner it seems like but I'm going to TRY to keep as many original parts as I can in this restoration/ upgrade. There'll be some definite changes in regards to the interior as well as the exterior. I'll be changing up the wheel and tire combo and will stay within the boundaries of a street machine using street tires with some Cragar SS wheels and a mildly upgraded Chevrolet 396 with a single four barrel carburetor to top things off. This isn't going to be an all #'s matching build either so while I'll stay within some boundaries of original equipment be looking for me to make a change or two here and there.
Here's a picture of what we're going to start with as it sat on my bench this a few weeks ago: 

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The options were wide open as there hasn't been anything in the engine compartment in 30 years now:

 

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A picture of the interior: (This has definitely ................GOT to go) 

 

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Now apart on the bench:

 

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To start with I have managed to come up with another hood thanks to a friend on the forums:

 

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We'll be going with this 396 from Revell that I had in the parts stash:

 

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Edited by mustang1989
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To be fair, I did take some glamour shots of the ol' girl before I did all of this to do 'er as much justice as I could. It's really not that bad looking for a 12 year old kid 35 years ago. It's withstood the test of time that's for sure:

 

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To be fair, I did take some glamour shots of the ol' girl before I did all of this to do 'er as much justice as I could. It's really not that bad looking for a 12 year old kid 35 years ago. It's withstood the test of time that's for sure:

 

That's pretty amazing for a 12 year old, I know my builds did not look that good at the same age, they were mostly unpainted and covered in gluey fingerprints.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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Thanks Vaughn. 

 

The body turned out pretty good and still needs some cleaning up. I ended up clipping one of the rear tail light openings at the bottom and knocked the thin strip at the bottom of the opening out so I'll have to work some fancy foot work to get that back in line but it shouldn't be all that bad. There are some parts that are missing so I ordered a spare parts kit for fairly cheap.

 

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Body paint is all stripped and ready to go...

 

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I've got the wheels and tires picked out for it now after a few days of searching.

 

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started setting up two different stances but I like the second one alot better so I think we'll be going with that one.

 

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This isn't going to be a "numbers matching Camaro" as I'll be changing a few things up to more of a mild modified street car. I'm currently looking for a blank grille with no Z/28 or RS emblems in it. I had 'em on ebay just last night and forgot to visit when I was supposed to and lost it.emotion-8.gif

Edited by mustang1989
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  Thanks for the good word Vaughn. I'll be dropping it down a tad more in the back and going with 60's there and 70's in the front. I've got another set of Cragars that this fantastic guy named Dee Cee sent me over at Custom Model Society. They are a lot cleaner than the ones in the picture. I'll be going 396 all the way for the powerplant in this one and going from a Z/28 option to the SS option.

 To be honest, the old Monogram Camaro's are the .....how do I put this......the ugly duckling of the bunch as opposed to their new tooled 1/25 scale one but this is my first ever build and it has some sentimental value to it so that's the reason for the resto.

Edited by mustang1989
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Welcome ! The build has got to 'catch' you... gotta have a reason. I personally like taking the older kits and dressing them up till most folks can hardly tell the difference. Plus, If I screw up, I didn't trash a $150 kit... so the challenge is learning, stretching your skills and having fun doing something you are passionate about.

 

:popcorn:

 

Vaughn

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I'm pretty much at a standstill on my current VW Pro Street bus build 

 

Last year, I made some brackets to fit Porsche brake calipers to a split screen VW. I have a pair of Porsche track rod ends and rack arms to shorten for a Beetle conversion to do

 

Old VWs are horrible things...

 

Richard

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Vaughn: I haven't trashed a $150 dollar kit yet thankfully. I've learned a valuable lesson by spending a lot more than that on a kit though. I built a Revell '56 Ford F-100 kit (which is a terrible kit by the way) in a Pro Street theme and was happy with it but I spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money on that kit. I'll post a completed build thread on that one here soon. I threw detail at that thing that I'll never throw at another model. It was just over the top detail wise. Besides that , a little patience until March of this year and I would have had an all new tooled Revell Foose F-100. I'm really looking forward to that!! I'm trying to keep the overall cost of model building within some sort of reason anyways. The one thing that I'm really trying to increase skillwise now is fabrication and body work.

 

Richard: Thanks for the comments and I'd like to see pics of what you're doing with that VW. Yes sir I agree that the old VW's have a weird look to 'em but my goal is to make something totally out of the ordinary with the VW I'm building.

Edited by mustang1989
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To be honest, the old Monogram Camaro's are the .....how do I put this......the ugly duckling of the bunch as opposed to their new tooled 1/25 scale one but this is my first ever build and it has some sentimental value to it so that's the reason for the resto.

 

I was/am building another AWB '66 Mustang kit, as a tribute to one that I really liked as a kid, but butchered the paint. Now that I know better, I've grabbed another kit, and will paint it the same, but hopefully with much better results this time around. 

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