The Beatles sang Yellow Submarine. Is this yellow project car sent in by Roger too far underwater to save? It is a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 located in Dolton, Illinois and can be seen here on Craigslist. The car is listed for sale at a price of $4,500 and includes several pictures of the exterior, interior and frame. The seller states that he doesn’t have the time to restore it.
The car has a 350 cubic inch V8 engine that is said to be a 4 bolt main block with Weiand valve covers and an aluminum manifold. The seller states that the engine was rebuilt 1,000 miles ago and has new brakes. The odometer reads 44,192 miles and the yellow color was repainted once in the late 1980’s. The body shows rust bubbling through the bottoms of the doors, around the rear window and along the lower quarters. The frame is a frightening sight and is more than pitted with rust cancer.
The interior on the other hand looks surprisingly in good condition. The car is equipped with an automatic transmission and once had air conditioning. The rear gears are 3:42 inside a 10 bolt rear end with posi traction. The car has new P235 tires on the original aluminum finned wheels and the car comes with an extra set of 14″ Centerline wheels and tires.
The 1979 Z28 only produced 175 horsepower but this one looks to be modified to produce more power. The car has some good elements but the rust is pretty widespread underneath the car. There is no discussion of the floor pans or trunk pan. Is this a project for only a body guy or have prices increased enough to make this car the beauty it once was in 1979?
Looking at the photos, I would fix the frame rails, a/c setup, and remove all the smog crap. Interior looks clean and overall body is not a hot mess. Drive it and fix as your budget allows.
Also Happy New Year!
We’ve all seen much worse and for the
price and I think its a good deal. The engine rebuilt saves some heavy coins leaving ones budget.
I definitely could see slowly removing rust and putting this one back together . I would pull the chrome around the rear window to stop any major cancer now then bucket sand blast those rails and repair or replace and paint .
The engine with a four bolt main sounds like a decent item to continue to build but a good driver for now.
If this was an old mopar the starting price would of had six grand added and more rust to start off with 😊😉
Its a good starter collector car or a memory lane car to the good old days to the future owner.
HAPPY NEW YEARS DAY!
Love the color.
Might be a good buy if floors still OK
This was a 4 speed car originally. Clutch pedal is still present.
I was curious how many colors were available for the ’79 Camaro, so I looked it up. There were 14 different colors, not sure if they were available to all models.
It shows how diverse your choices were back then. Compare that to now and it was a much better time back then to express yourself.
The 2 rarest colors, of course, were the 2 choices of green.
http://nastyz28.com/camaro/camaro79.html
Correct. Dodge offers some neat colors on the Charger and Challenger but just a few. And even those cars are mostly white, black, silver or dark grey in real.life.
I will never understand why the first thing to get trashed is the A/C system in most cars. Just looking at the different cars on this site every day, you see a plethora of missing compressors, sawed off evaporator cores, missing accumulators, and the like. Are there really that many hacks in this world?
I agree on the AC cleanse of many 1970s cars.
America saw late 70s engine horsepower reduction ….some took them off with smog to gain back some power…
I tried finding information on
a 1979 gm car but no luck on horsepower pull down or losses.
I did find a newer test but it probably was more efficient with less horsepower consumption that still lost ten horsepower.
One outlier not approached is wind drag of windows down 😏
This car lost ten hp with ac on.
https://youtu.be/zkK5Ip0ADRk
So ten percent is why some yanked them off ..
1979 Camaro options..
The base engine was a 229-ci V6 rated at 115 horsepower, while the California version was a 231-ci rated at 110 horsepower. The Z28 brought its buyers the power they sought: a 350-ci V8 rated at 190 horsepower.
Todays cars have much more than double the ponies and more effectiveness too.
Hence my gut or quick research hypothesis is :
—-more efficient cars with more HP and better dynamics keep ac units on cars.
—The other gut is more people cant take no AC as our parents grew up with too.
—Possible last issue was cheap @ss GM compressors failed and were yanked too . 😊
**disclaimer. This was a quick swag gut analysis and a more effective approach would of bern interviews with older folks and dyno testing low horsepower mid 70s cars .
The other would have been sifting through same years AC Delco compressor quality to see failure rates. 😏🤔😂
The one thing you’re not taking into account, is all you have to do is turn the switch off. Then all you have is an extra belt on the water pump. That’s it! No power drain. No lost horsepower or torque. That’s as stupid as removing a smog pump. There is no loss.
ACZ
I disagree with your response. A electric switch still leaves the belts in place.
Are you saying that a rubber belt wrapped around a pulley moving an object that has internal parts with weight has no drag or pull?
If that’s the case why do i see electric water pumps and electric power steering pumps that run away from the engine created? Its to not pull against the engine and reduce power.
Hmm..i guess these other companies are selling on a wrong assumption too . ..
“
Features and other Benefits:
More power is delivered to the rear wheels because the engine is no longer spinning the pump.
The contact area of the belt is improved eliminating high RPM belt slippage
Eliminates high RPM pump cavitation
Can be setup to run after the engine is shutdown eliminating heatsoak issues.
You can return the coolant temp to ambient in a matter of minutes if the cooling fans are also running. “
Url
https://www.rx8performance.com/products/electric-water-pump
Have a good say everyone 😎
What internal parts? Do you understand the construction of an A/C clutch? You have a pulley and a ball bearing, no more. And the belt is right next to the power steering pump and shares the load with it’s belt. The result is marginal. We are talking a street driven car here. Not a 9 second drag car. You’re trying to compare apples to oranges.
I owned a 1978 Z28 back in the day with factory air and the compressor froze up. It wasn’t cheap to replace the compressor. Not only did you have to buy the part but you would have to recharge the system. So I just cut the belt off and did without it.
So I imagine that this would occur and then eventually the owner just said heck with it and took the stuff off. I think that might have been less about weight savings and more that it would make it easier to change spark plugs and work in the engine bay. Plug changes were a PIA on cars with air conditioning.
Just a guess based on experience!
A/C is pure comfort not necessity, so when it fails it is often more expensive than necessary. At some point fixing the A/C was equal or more than the vehicle’s value. But you are completely correct rolling a pulley still takes effort and that costs power and money.
Pontiacs especially for some reason…?
These Camaros of this vintage were pretty darn good cars, especially WITHOUT the T tops, they greatly limited the amount of usable HP you could build under the hood the great point as a 300 HP nice driver they did awesome but they were very heavy and rust was the end to a lot of them! With that said it’s got lots of potential!
You could part this car out for more than $4,500.00. Good deal.
Thousands of these for sale. Why waste time and money repairing frame rails on this heap? People have no idea how much work this is. Buy a better car. And I agree every hillbilly hacks off the air conditioning parts and throws them away. $1,000 car tops.
Have to agree with you, George. These cars are as common as they come so spend a little more for a better example. If you like repairing rust (I personally don’t know anybody who does), go for it. I try not to buy rust, that always works out better in the long run. Ask anybody.
These cars are 41 years old now. The good ones are going up in value now.
True. You would spend a ton on paint, body, and underneath rust repairs. Factor in all the other unknown issues and it’s a money pit. Unless you enjoy spending more on a car than it will ever be worth, find a better one to start with. There is a reason it’s still available.
Show me a rust free $4500 78-81 Z28 and I’ll have a bridge to sell you.
Your “Show me a rust free $4500 78-81 Z28 and I’ll have a bridge to sell you” comment makes no sense. $4500 gets you the rusted one shown. Any idea of what it costs for rust / body repair and paint? Add in all the unknowns you discover and then tell me what you find for the over $20K you’ve spent. A little research and you’ll find plenty available in that price range.
The last time I commented on one of these I ended up with a couple trolls who irritated me to the point I cancelled my membership to this website lol. I’m not gonna comment on this one other than to say this car, in general, strikes me as a pig wearing lipstick.
Dealer license plates, so the guy knows his cars. He is trying to sell it cheap instead of restoring it himself. As a dealer, he gets parts and labor at wholesale. Yet he is trying to fire sale it. To me, that says enough.