1973 Camaro Type LT

Firewall Smoothing and Front Undercarriage Stripping and Coating (June 14, 2006)

This page documents the stripping of the undercarriage from the rear framerails forward and the smoothing of the right side of the firewall. Of all the jobs that I have had to do for this restoration, stripping the floorboards of undercoating, rust, paint and road grime was the absolute worst. I used a 4 inch grinder with a knotted wire wheel to strip the undercoating. I used paint stripper to remove and soften the primer before hitting it with the wire wheel too.
Stripping the firewall was a much easier task. The paint came right off with aircraft stripper and then the wire wheel brush. In the photos you will see that I am going to weld a steel cover over the right side of the firewall. This will cover all the holes from the factory AC system. I am doing this to make some space under the hood. The factory AC system is huge, inefficient and takes up a lot of space in the engine compartment. I plan on using an aftermarket hot rod system like a Vintage Air unit. These units are completely self contained and sit in the passenger compartment behind the dash. The only issue in putting the cover on was in the center area. The factory firewall has a couple of raised ridges in the center. I had to cut these out so my panel will sit flush.

Status photos as of 6/14/2006:

Here are a couple of before photos of the underside of the car. In these photos some of the undercoating has already been removed.

Here are a couple of photos of the floorpan nearly stripped.


Here are some shots of the firewall stripped.


Here is a picture of the template I made for the right side firewall cover.	Here are some pictures of the firewall cover test fitted into place. Before I weld the cover on, I want to coat the back side with ZeroRust.


The following pictures are from right before I sprayed them with ZeroRust. All surfaces have been stripped and wiped down with a surface cleaner/degreaser.


Here is everything after being coated with ZeroRust.

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