68 el Camino Resto-Mod

Drove the car about 10 miles to the muffler shop to have exhaust installed.
Nothing leaked, smoked, or burned up, and I didn't get pulled over for having an insanely loud car, so that is all good :D And it was fun. Lot's of looks . . .
I thought about getting a kit and doing it myself, but heard too many stories that the only thing with worse fit than repop sheet metal is an exhaust kit :oops:
Plus, the kits I looked at were about $1000 and the shop is doing it for about $1300. All custom bent and fitted perfectly.
They recommended either 2 1/2" mandrel bent, or 3" compression bent. Actually cheaper to go with the 3" compression bend so I did.
Mufflers are "Flowmaster" type, but by a different manufacturer that Victor recommended (he is highly respected in the area and is the GO TO exhaust guy."
Feels a little weird to have someone else working on my car since I've put every nut, bolt, screw, washer and part on it. But, they know what they are doing and are very careful.
Can't wait to see and hear the result!

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pretty much what i was back and forth about. the exhaust shop i wanted to use is 1hr away driving, probably add 20 mins towing. i ordered a kit but im going to trim it and make it fit better than it was designed to. i wish i had a muffler shop around my that i could trust.
 
Dean Jenkins said:
Drove the car about 10 miles to the muffler shop to have exhaust installed.
Nothing leaked, smoked, or burned up, and I didn't get pulled over for having an insanely loud car, so that is all good :D And it was fun. Lot's of looks . . .
I thought about getting a kit and doing it myself, but heard too many stories that the only thing with worse fit than repop sheet metal is an exhaust kit :oops:
Plus, the kits I looked at were about $1000 and the shop is doing it for about $1300. All custom bent and fitted perfectly.
They recommended either 2 1/2" mandrel bent, or 3" compression bent. Actually cheaper to go with the 3" compression bend so I did.
Mufflers are "Flowmaster" type, but by a different manufacturer that Victor recommended (he is highly respected in the area and is the GO TO exhaust guy."
Feels a little weird to have someone else working on my car since I've put every nut, bolt, screw, washer and part on it. But, they know what they are doing and are very careful.
Can't wait to see and hear the result!

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We used a 3 inch Flowmaster kit on my son's 67 Camaro and it fit great.
 
Got the car back from Victor with the exhaust installed. 3" system, compression bent, with handmade X-Pipe and Street Max Mufflers.
Man, he does nice work! Perfect fit and all his welds look like "stacked dimes." I'm envious of that! :D How do you get a perfect, full circle weld, overhead???
And, as a bonus, he put in flared joints right in front of the rear axle, so if I ever need to drop the tranny, the middle exhaust system can be dropped, instead of having to pull the whole tailpipes out. Nice! Not going to get that with a kit.

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Here is a quick YouTube of how it sounds. My Camcorder didn't really do it justice though, it sounds much deeper and tougher in person.
**The motor is a GM crate LS3 with a "Hot Cam." I think you can hear the cam :cool:


That is the good news.

In the "I'm an idiot" column, the drive home was not so smooth.

I put on the Holley Mid-Mount Serpentine system, which included an alternator. When I wired the car I saw one big terminal and said "great, a one wire alternator" and connected a big 2/0 wire to it. Turns out, under that big terminal is a 4 pin connector that needs an "ignition on" signal to turn on the alternator. Duhhh! Totally missed it.

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I keep a battery buddy on the battery so never saw any drawdown during testing. But when I drove it the alternator was never turned on.
Two big electric radiator fans, big arsed stereo amp, ridiculous amount of electronics, and . . .
The battery died on the way home :mad: All my fault for not getting it hooked up correctly.

So, called my daughter to bring out a spare battery, put it in the "trunk," and used jumper cables to connect it to limp home. Only about an hour on the side of the road. Pretty embarrassing since this was a simple thing that I missed.

And, on the drive home, the right rear brake caliper started getting hot and dragging. Maybe I have the parking brake adjustment off, or something else is going on. By the time I got home it was HOT! Gotta look into that and figure it out.

Just remind myself, I put an entire car together from scratch. Bound to be a few issues to work out. Overall very fun to drive and I love how it sounds now.
 

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Looks great. I did a Pypes kit 2-1/2" diam (SGA30). It was quite alot of work, cutting, welding and tweaking. I used band clamps to that system could be disassembled. I thought 2-1/2" diam was large.
 
Wired in the "Alternator On" signal and now it charges just fine.
Still feel pretty dumb to have missed that.

Spent a few hours taking back brakes completely apart, which is a total PITA. Rear end is "Large Ford 9 Inch" housing, made by Speedway for GM A Body. Parking brakes are little drum units inside the rotor. Pretty complex assembly.
Actually had to pull the axles to get at them and inspect. Turns out I had one of the adjusters in backwards, but that didn't cause my issue.

Problem turned out to be the pushrod from brake pedal to master cylinder was too tight. Backed it off a few turns and got about 1/16" end play on the rod and problem solved. It wasn't allowing master cylinder to retract fully and release pressure.

Overall pretty simple and had a great little test drive with no further issues.
 
Front wheel wells and frame had some grey 2K overspray, so time to clean that up.

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And had some self-tapping screws sticking through, so hit them with 36 grit Roloc disks. Gone!

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Quick 180 scuff (red pad in crannies,) then masked and shot 2 coats of epoxy.

Wait 48 hours and the Raptor on the inside of wheel houses.

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After 48 hour epoxy cure, sprayed Raptor on the front wheel houses. That stuff is really cool, I think. Came out nice.
Since I had the front blocked up and wheels off, decided to put the wheel house trim on. It's been on the shelf for a year and was kinda dreading it, figured like most aftermarket stuff it would be a hassle.
Turns out it fit good and was pretty easy. Went so well I did the back as well.
I like it!

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