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7/7/19: My grandson, who is turning 15 this month, is visiting us for the summer and has shown an interest in restoring cars and trucks. His Dad and him have dreamed about getting an older Camaro and restoring it as a father/son project but finances have long stood in the way. This spring, I invited him to help on our project during his stay with us. He was very excited about helping. My grandson is good natured and always willing to help, and I am thrilled to be his mentor.

When I originally removed the grille to gain access to the harmonic balancer I discovered that the two radiator mounting bolts attached to the frame were missing the nuts. This made removing the grille easy as I was able to lift the front clip to get the clearance needed to get the bottom of the grille to clear the splash pan. After installing new nuts and securing the front clip that was no longer the case. With my new enlisted “Wrench Fetcher”, we needed to remove the front splash apron. This is attached with the bumper bolts, sandwiched between the bumper and the brackets, so the bumper needs to be removed. The nuts were rusted really bad. An impact doesn’t fit it the space so we used a breaker bar and six point socket . After soaking soaked them with PB Blaster, we successfully removed only one. At this point, removal of the whole bumper assembly is our only option. The impact removed the bracket to frame bolts fairly easily and we lowered the assembly to the ground. Now that we could use an impact on the bumper with we were able to remove three more bolts. The last nut was so rusted there was nothing for the socket to grab on to, so I cut it and the bolt off with a wafer wheel. A new bolt and new nuts were in order.

The front splash apron was pretty beat up so I spent some time beating it back into a better shape. The tab that attaches it to the bumper bolt in the middle had broken free from its two spot welds and needed to be fixed. I prepped the tab and its associated mating spot on the splash apron by grinding then mig welded it on. Testing my weld job, it snapped right off. Three try’s later with the heat and feed set properly, it’s finally on. Taping off the patina that matches the rest of the truck on the top of the apron, I sprayed primer on the repaired area. After its installed I don’t think it will be noticeable.

When I was cleaning the bumper brackets, I noticed that the two didn’t match. The drivers side leg was bent in more than the passengers side. I temporarily installed the brackets on the frame and sure enough the drivers side was bent in. Removing them, I put the bent one into my vice and tried to remove some of the bend. These are original brackets made of spring steel so I didn’t want to use heat if I could avoid it. Beating it with my BFH, I got it close. Being a perfectionist, which at times is a curse, I needed to get that last little bit so in the vice it went. Sometimes in the heat of the moment I tend to get too wrapped up into what I am doing so I had forgotten to don my leather gloves. Well one more heavy swing of that BFH and the bracket popped right out of the vice and hit my middle finger. Yeow! The pain! OMG, I can’t believe I just did that! Well, its not broke, no trips to the hospital, a quick trip inside to clean it up a and a bandaid, and it’s all good. OMG it still hurts! Time to call it a night!