BARN FIND 1979 Camaro - Will It Run And Drive After Sitting for Years?

foreign there's something up there oh hey bud Howdy Folks welcome back to another exciting video today we've got this 1979 Chevy Camaro that's been sitting in the spot for over a decade at this point but it needs rescuing and we're going to dig it out today we're going to see exactly what we have and I want to see if we can actually make it run and hopefully drive for the first time in all that time so stick around at the end of the video and see if we can achieve it that's right folks Dylan here with another fantastic barn find for you today this 1979 Camaro was owned by a gentleman who unfortunately has stage four cancer and isn't able to use the car anymore as intended he parked it about 10 years ago with a brake line issue and with his declining Health he's unable to bring the car back to its full potential so I purchased the car with the promise that I would return to him after I worked out all the bugs from one more Ride Like the Glory Days but first we have to get it home I think it'll be a muscle car once more well here she is you see how dirty this thing has been sitting here I mean just 10 years and it's just turned to dust and poop all over from birds I mean it is just nasty but I think it can clean up really nice because just looking at the car with a flashlight you can really see some paint shine through it's got t-tops I took one off so you can see in the interior and it's all there minus a little rip on the front seat here it's not clean but it's really complete and I think it can clean up pretty nicely we've got two problems right now one can't find the key two the door does not open and well I guess the key problem is also this problem I don't think you can take it out of gear unless the ignition switch is turned so I'm not sure we've got a couple issues here I'm going to see if I can wiggle this door open and try to open it up at least and the latch is broken but this side over here at least for the key I I don't know what to do he said he thought the keys that are in my hand here were one of the keys but unfortunately it did not work either one [Music] thank you foreign [Music] goes that this car was running and driving but a brake line went out so it was no longer able to be driven so we parked it and it sat here since at least 2013 or longer or before that at least but as you can see it's just been you know sitting here at least it's been dry unfortunately this side of the window was rolled down but look at how clean the paint is like I think it'll shine I cannot wait to see this thing washed because the tires they're still holding air surprisingly so again this car from all the things I can see was running and driving we did find a key he gave me a new one we're going to see if this one works stick it in the ignition somebody say a prayer real quick okay oh thank you so much okay oh now can we take it out of gear there we go now she's in neutral that just saved me a bunch of Heartache got the car hooked up with a chain got my trailer backed up here so we're gonna see if we can pull it out of here I've just got this new winch installed I cannot wait to see how it works so we're gonna see if this thing will roll oh I'm so excited I'm gonna take and preserve this tea top here the door won't open so I gotta use the T-top so I can get in and out of it oh be gentle be gentle there we go just lay it in the seat like that and we'll probably pop both of them out and put them in the truck just in case we get any crazy winds all right here we go [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] see if it helps any clear it up a little bit see if it gives us any extra clearance here [Music] that's better I'm gonna try it again though [Music] now we can bring it back down to earth well that's where she was and this is where she is the strap her down we're going home [Music] [Music] well folks we made it back to the shop finally good to see it back inside here in a new space with a lot of room to work on this thing and see if we can make it run so I don't think it's going to be too difficult to get it to run I mean fingers crossed it's probably going to be terrible once we figure that out we can diagnose what else we need so let's get this hood popped and see exactly what we have going on foreign look at that under the hood here we have a 305 small block Chevrolet and from what I can tell it's probably pretty much original as it came from the factory I mean everything is there we've got power steering power brakes no air it's fine by me don't care about it and we got an original smog pump I mean down to that it's all original look at that and I believe from what I can tell all the exhaust is original because it's got dual exhaust going out the back but when I was under the car it looked all there so this is pretty much an untouched Survivor Camaro we get a lot of work to do ahead of us because it needs a lot as you can see let's see what we got under here for a carburetor I believe it's a two barrel oh yeah little baby two barrel that's a good thing though we like those only one dirt dauber nest on the inside of the air cleaner take that and create a vacuum leak real quick forgive my ignorance on this one I'm not too familiar with these gm2 barrels but to me it looks like a Quadrajet cut in half if that's the case it should be pretty simple to work on luckily we've got HEI that's the easiest stuff to get running known to man I love that so we'll see if it's locked up we'll check for oil check for spark check for fluids and make sure this thing is ready to go before we even fire it up nine times out of ten if the throttle linkage isn't locked up which it's not and the fan is locked up it's going to run I'm seeing some massive dirt dauber nest on the crank pulley so if this thing does fire up we're gonna have to take a step back and run let's turn the fan oh yeah it's not locked up at all no that thing spins real smooth what's going on here we've got popsicle sticks zip tied to the fuel line oh that's just to keep it off the uh the heater hose there interesting little technique I like it reckon he was worried about the heater hose getting the fuel hot as it was coming in because they were probably touching so he made some popsicle sticks some zip ties and made a little makeshift spacer kind of respect the Ingenuity pretty slick let's check our oil real fast to see if it has any and what we can do yeah well it's about a quart low but it's enough to start it especially on a small block Chevrolet of course we'll change it once we get it running but you don't want to waste an oil change in an engine that's dead but I don't think it is at this point so we'll stick that back in there and since we have rotations we can actually check for spark 2 just so we don't waste any time let's just pull a plug wire and I'm going to stick a spark plug on it and see if it'll spin over and make something happen before we go any further though we need to disconnect this fuel line first thing this thing's going to do is try to suck up a bunch of gas from the fuel tank and I guarantee you we've got a soup going on in there a mixture of varnish and Jello and it's not a good thing to run your carburetor on either one of those you know the problem is the stupid smog pumps in the way thanks government for making us do crazy stuff with our emissions get a freshly charged battery here looks like a ground cable put on right before it was parked because that looks brand new power wire it's okay it'll do the trick I'm thinking should we have a little fun before we get serious see if any lights work I see a light down here at the heater controls I don't see any of the gauges oh turn signal headlight marker light look at that oh that looks cool that one works how about the rear uh oh heck yes that is fantastic folks we've got lights all the way around that's rare to see he was right I mean he told me he said he was running and driving all the lights worked let's see if the turn signals do anything oh hey Dixie I'm not seeing any turn signals could be a bad flasher or maybe it's just because you'll have the ignition in the right spot oh I do and it just went over okay so it's not locked up and the starter works cool okay well we've had our fun wait most importantly no well never mind scrap the whole project or it doesn't work I'm kidding I'm kidding I'm kidding I'm gonna spin it over and see if there's any spark on that plug wire oh yeah yeah she's firing she is firing and the starter sounds good that's fantastic okay I say we just fill it up with some gas and let it run nice my buddy Jonathan and a long time viewer felt bad for me for using just gas bottles whenever I felt like it whenever I could find he got me this if you'd like to send something to my P.O box as well it's down in the description below I'm Gonna Fill Up This float bowl with this thing get just a little bit of gas in there I don't know about any coolant situation but just want to see if we can make it run a little bit down in there as well and flood it perfect all right now for the moment of truth will it run foreign [Music] wow sometimes it is just that easy I guess that goes to show you the greatness of a small block Chevrolet dang been sitting for that long and it just fired up and idled I ran out of gas of course we didn't have enough in there but I think we bottle feed a little bit we can make it idle before we go any further we do need to check coolant make sure everything's okay had a little bit of a rattle a little bit of a tick the oil probably isn't all the way up to the top of the lifters or anything just yet so um you know give it a little time and I'm sure it'll clear up but that was awesome that was fantastic carburetors seemed like it wanted to run man you gotta love old cars don't you that was great yes this time we're going to give it a heck of a lot more gas because like I said oh we have a vacuum leak too oh I forgot it yeah let me cap that real quick and then we can see if it'll run any better we've got a lot of fuel in the bowl oh and we're only running on seven spark plugs that's what happens when you get excited you start to forget things so it ran that good on seven spark plugs in a vacuum leak wow it's pretty good finish these little gas let me get in here the problem is is the door's broken so I really can't get in gosh T-tops something sounds weird but it runs ran out of gas again I'm sure but it runs now if we get a more permanent fuel solution and we get some coolant in there I'd like to see if this thing could actually idle for a while yes oh I love it oh t-tops are so cool also shot at A Rat's Nest on both exhaust pipes that's good at least we cleared it out no fire hazards here but it went golly it's all the way back here well sorry guys hate to ruin your habitat there but I kind of need it whoops well this is something I've honestly never seen on a car that sat this long it's absolutely full of coolant and it's green and it never ever happens that's rare so that's good that's a good sign so I don't feel bad at all for running it any longer than we have so I say we get this thing running and let it idle what I'm think I'm going to do is I'm going to try and Bank on that mechanical fuel pump I'm going to get up under there and disconnect the fuel clamp from the pump itself get it to run again and run it off an auxiliary jug well we're doing it the lazy way I don't feel like crawling up under there to actually disconnect anything because we're going to replace the hose so might as well just wait what we're going to do is disconnected from the carburetor well I say that also this line here is kinked probably got to replace that too all right we're just going to peel this away until we get an exposed fuel line there we go okay oh that's not even flared yeah we're going to replace that that's okay though we can do that not too bad sticker electric pump onto here this is the part where we figure out if anything's wrong with the carburetor I'm gonna see stuck floats and handling seat issues leaky gaskets we'll see if it'll hold [Music] oh oh okay well it filled up I said we just leave it running ah t-tops for the win oh don't kill the mirror I really don't want to get all the way down in here [Music] then we've got a vacuum weight [Music] it'll run if I keep my foot to the floor and then idle it up there we go there there we go clear it out and that's what we needed that was the ticket right there oh wow it's smooth now whoa It's smoky look at her Idol I think the choke is on so the fast idle is working but it's running it's smooth too just get a little fuel in clearing out the cobwebs did the trick we got some smoke in the shop oh wow shout out some more rats nests all the way out there too all the way back in the back a little smoke you got to clear out that one side it should get better I'm gonna go open up the big door on the other side we'll get some airflow through here we've got some blue smoke and is that some steam out of that exhaust pipe this is blue over here but that might be white I'm hoping it's just condensation but it's only coming out of one side I'm hoping we don't have a bad head gasket situation here I mean that and the Rings need to be receded too and it could be blue I can't really tell it it's kind of blue it might have a stuck ring on one side burning a little oil but once it kind of warms up and gets some of the you know all that excess oil and stuff burn off which it was a little low on the dipstick so I mean there's a good chance we could have a you know a a weaker engine but we'll see what happens let it warm up and kind of do its thing and work some stuff out we have some exhaust leaks on both sides we're getting blue smoke out of this side too see if I get the fast idle to disengage come on back down to Earth please [Music] I don't oh the choke's not even hooked up it's broken see that right there there's no way to heat up the choke wire because there is no choke huh well I might have stick a screwdriver down in the carburetor to get it to do that yeah the fast idle will never come off see if it'll idle normally now there we go let it just warm up sounds pretty good yeah we're choosing a little I think that's blue smoke honestly guys I don't think it's head gasket just got some rings that need to be ringing again sounds good doesn't it though tough like I said I think it's original exhaust we've got that big giant canister Muffler in the back there I don't know if you can see that or not but it's running it is currently running and idling for the first time since well it was parked in 2013. so that tells you anything [Music] that's genuinely impressive I've honestly had a lot of good luck with these Quadrajet carburetors and that's kind of a you know half so what do you call that a dual Georgette yeah that makes sense to me but it's idling there we fixed that choke issue I think we'll have a lot better running carburetor especially for you know just idling around you're going to see if any of the gauges work we only have dummy lights for temp uh charging and oil pressure so I don't think any of those are working says we have unlimited gas that's good we're showing 49 000 miles but that's probably 149 000 if I had to guess 130 130 mile per hour speedometer that's pretty cool I'd love to see if any of that works I doubt it being an aftermarket radio but we could check for taking gear it's probably going to need some kind of transmission fluid but that's okay for me I can't beat that at all folks we got the Running part down see if turn signals work now we've got something moving oh there we go look at there a little slow but that's okay still works how about the rear yeah look at there let's go over to the right side now right turn signal not on that one there nope no luck there could be a bad flasher I've seen that happen I didn't really hear it click so we could have a bad flasher well yeah see it wants to come on so that tells me that it's probably a flasher situation and those could be bulb situations up front too so we'll have to figure that one out and what I love about these is the hidden gas cap door and then you get the trunk right there about to dig through this car when we clean it all up and it needs a gas tank I am sure of it let's give it a whiff oh Barbie I went up we run out of fuel oh that smells bad oh that was wow that was toxic jeez nope I've seen a little smoke up here I'll rev it up a little bit gotta get it to come back down to earth and it might be idled up a little bit on that screw I'll have to check all that [Music] it's a Quadrajet without all the good stuff like the secondaries that are giant hey it's clear now though I mean I don't see as much smoke anymore do you that's good I mean look the smoke around the shop is gone I think that helped it a lot just letting it idle we got a little smoke coming out from this side but you know again an exhaust leak and heck the exhaust could be stopped up honestly I'm not going to check that I mean it has exhaust coming out here I can feel it oh actually it's still stuffed up hold on there we go now we're getting exhaust out that was still in the exhaust pipe oh that could have been a fire hazard how about over here let's make sure we can feel it coming out of the back yeah we can feel that so now we're good maybe that's why all the smoke was coming out of one side okay that explains our head gasket Theory but look it's clean now no smoke at all a little rev let me check for smoke out back no I had a little Chooch but not near as bad as what it was a second ago I'm getting a really strong scent of like Mouse rodent area living so it's it's not very pleasant you can hear that smog pump just doing smoggy things these things just sound terrible I wouldn't mind getting a new belt or something or disconnecting that completely look at that dirt dauber Nest hanging on for dear life how about the upper radiator hoses see if we're getting warm it's getting there thermostats kind of opening no dummy lights coming on yet that's really good though really really really really really good I want to see if I turn it off and turn it back on will it run oh look at there again it needs some tweaking probably you know clean up the carburetor because I'll tell you right now that's not helping but it's looking better it's running better it's sounding better might back off the idle screw just a smidge because it's idle up really really high and the timing could be off too for all we know I need to check all that good half turn will do it see how it runs down oh yeah much better it's much much better hey stinky what are you doing all right let's check the transmission fluid I'd like to see if it'll move forward and backwards bone dry a little bit of residuals on it but yeah well it's barely touching the stick so before we get too crazy we need to actually fill that up my funnel is Too Tall I'm gonna make a quick funnel out of this bottle here [Music] I don't have a short funnel that would work for that so we'll cut this one off and there we go that'll do the trick stick that in there and it's too big and try not to spill any of it it's still it's still probably a quart quart and a half low door lock was there any pedal there's a brake pedal wow huh reverse oh the brakes are holding I'm stopping the car and it's a new it's in Reverse right now neutral Drive oh whoa the brakes are holding hmm that is strange I mean he said something about a brake line or something being bad that's reversed and it's working huh I guess what we need to do is uh get it on the lift and just kind of check everything out I'd hate to go out driving this thing and there'd be a brake line that's literally pouring brake fluid right now that's rare too the fact that the brakes work gosh this car is good it's good that it was kept in dry storage all that time let's shut it off again oh the generator light came on that's nice will it start oh fires right up that is awesome okay let's get out easier said than done I mean that's how the owner said he did it crawl in through the T-tops I don't see any way different well I got to thinking about it and if the brake line did go out this proportioning valve up under the master cylinder will keep that from being a problem so what happens is if one side front or rear goes out and has a leak there's a rod in there that'll shift back and forth and close off either the front or the rear believe he said it was to the rear of the car so we're going to find that out we're going to put it up on the lift and just check everything out before we get too far what I'm thinking though is we can make a temporary fuel system get my small little gas jug I want to see if I can drive it out here in the yard turn it around and come back into the shop and face the other way see if it'll start again okay I've realized that I can't see in front of me so we're just gonna have to really be careful we're moving forward though oh brakes are working yeah the pedal feels a little loose so I'm assuming that we've got one end of the car that doesn't want to work can't see out of there but I can see out of here hey it's driving for the first time in 10 years look at there you just gotta have to use a T-top to your advantage I'm gonna take it and we're gonna turn around I don't want to get too far power steering's working the brakes are somewhat working okay get her turned turn turn turn too much power steering whoa she's got throttle holy moly this car wants to go this is how you drive a Camaro you stick your head at the t-tops and wave at everybody right on my legs okay I'm falling into the nasty all right we're up on the lift which sounds mean thank you well she's bleeding a little bit that looks like oil that's probably why the level was so low it happens we'll just have to make sure we keep her topped off probably a rear main seal and notice that the exhaust tips a little wonky that's okay though but it drove up on the lift I mean it has had brakes it actually has brakes and it stops itself I'm just thinking that he's probably right it's just a proportioning valve is not doing what it should do and or it actually did do what it should do we just won't have brakes to win into the car all right let's cut her off what do you think Dixie you like it you like it I think she does I like it too I'm eager to see what we find out under here as the car goes up I have to assume the official lift position I cannot wait to see what we find out of this car I'm hoping to see you know some limited slip action but being just a regular old Camaro is probably not going to be anything fancy I mean it's not a Z28 the stripes were added in after the fact that hey I love it a Camaro is a Camaro first things first I noticed on the back side we've got a little bit of a muffler issue check this out that's you know not really doing anything this side isn't doing anything so I guess it was okay that this thing was jammed up tight because it all comes out of the same Muffler this probably is full of trash so I would say you know cut it right there and not even deal with that as we move forward the floors are so clean no rust there's one spot that I found right here this is it a little soft right there other than that I don't see any rust in this car none whatsoever that's nice now you mentioned a brake line in the rear I'm wondering if this is it because it's kind of wet right here but I also wonder if it's slinging off the pinion because look at that I'm not sure I'm really not sure so what I see us doing is replacing all the soft parts for the brakes like the wheel cylinders and checking which one actually works if there is a leak if there isn't a leak look at this dinky little exhaust that's huge whatever this catalytic inverter thing oh that is terrible golly the thing is massive look how big it is it's just like a pancake pretty much and here's our oil leak looks like I'm guessing rear main is just gone but it's okay it's really okay not a big deal the oil looks like it was changed not long before it was parked that was good but we'll change it anyway just to be on the safe side there's a shifter of the cable and stuff but you can see there's this Rod it goes up from the transmission to the steering column and that keeps the key from being turned when not in park so it's kind of a mechanical neutral safety switch so it's pretty cool you can't bypass it unless you just break everything so I mean GM kind of made it difficult for you to start the car without the key so I guess that's a good thing up front looks like we have some new shocks or New Earth shocks hard to see in there but the red I don't know if that's a GM thing or not overall it's it's really good like really really really good we got drums in the rear we've got disc up front kind of see the rotors I cleaned them off you know when I did the stop so we at least know the fronts are working that's good no idea what kind of rear end we've got as far as like ratio ranking we can get this party started with a little oil change never hurts to have a nice fresh oil change after all these years excuse me break her loose yeah nice tell you what this Wildfire lift tray makes oil changes very very easy and mess free look at there not a drop spilled a little nasty but that's okay that's why we're changing it at least it was mostly full like I said it was a quart low but again our rear main seal is leaking pretty good yeah that's a that's some gassy oil I can smell it it's got a micro guard filter on it I wonder what year it's from but obviously before 2013 [Music] has a nice new Wix filter to go back in its place now for some of that delicious Liquid Gold five quarts of the good stuff a little STP for the Zeke gonna give this a little clean spot here to work with now we can see what we're doing on top of that I rolled both windows down took out the t-tops now we can go riding and you're probably wondering Dylan why aren't you cleaning up the whole car right now wash it start fresh that's because this car is so dirty I don't think I can fit all of it into this video we're going to do a whole separate dedicated video of cleaning this car front to back top to bottom and detailing it to make it look fantastic so make sure you subscribe and turn on those notifications so you don't miss that coming off the lift exploded yet I tied a gas jug up to the very front of the car that's our fuel tank for a little while we got two gallons worth of fuel it's idled up high again so figure out that we're looking good air up some tires before we get too far El Dorado Legend GT these are serious they're rotten but they've got tread I'll be good enough to get us going around where we need to they're 225 70 14s factory size I'm guessing I wish I could see a date on here but I don't see anything anywhere we are backing out of the shop now it runs it's it's smooth the power steering isn't making any noise uh I mean I don't know what else to tell you guys sometimes you you come across something like this that it just turns out it is that easy it really can be that easy sometimes it's weird you don't really expect it when you see it but I mean a car like this it's just been sitting only because one small issue and we still haven't looked to see if we found that issue but we've got breaks at least on one half I'm assuming front because well at least I'm hoping it's at least the front so we can do some burnouts you didn't hear that from me maybe I should have cleaned the spot off in the back glass because I can't see anything oh gosh she wants to spin the tires I mean I don't know what else you're supposed to do except see if it'll hook a donut Maybe oh okay it's a Camaro after all it's supposed to do that right a little wobbly though probably dry rotted tires we have a speedometer that works these tops are fun except when dust is everywhere in your eyeballs we're doing about 45 right now according to the speedometer okay okay slow down too much dust maybe this was not a good idea well we know at least it drives now except I can't drive this thing without cleaning it out there we've got a lot of work left ahead of us and I think that the brakes they still do need attention all 150 horsepower is pretty good you know it's pretty decent I like it there's what is that sand I don't know what that is something stuck in my ear s the way we go she's a little squirrely okay I'm gonna stop that okay okay everything's fighting the front wow okay the front end was doing this motion I can see the hood shaking I think we need some new tires or wheel bearings or something but I don't want to get too squirrely with that kind of thing that's kind of weak that's what you do when your tires are out of round like this car is you spin them and you true them up I just really can't believe though that this car right now considering what it looks like where it came from genuinely runs and drives fantastic it doesn't make sense to me well I guess it's just because it's a GM that's what all the comments will say and I I'd have to agree I mean GM made some really good cars and this Camaro is one of them they were across the road to the top and then the other neighbor was outside so I hope they don't care spinning tires did it only spend one tire oh that's weak gross [Music] it's a one-wheel hunting so weak well consider me impressed the old girl runs it drives it stops does burnouts you know decently and for sitting for 10 years I can't lie I'm pretty impressed by how good this thing actually runs we have a lot of work left to do as you can tell the car was disgusting from the moment we picked it up we've got to clean it out top to bottom front to back we're going to disinfect this car make it look brand new again but you're gonna have to wait till the next episode next Friday we're coming out with a new video detailing this whole car as you can see it's already gotten pretty serious and if you know these cars and you know the doors are off hinge pins are a big problem we're fixing everything that I can think of on this car we're going to make it brand new once again put it back on the road where it belongs and use it for a car once more so thank you guys so much for watching I appreciate every single one of you thank you guys for sticking around to the end we're going to really try and get this car back to the original owner let him go for a ride in it so make sure you subscribe turn on those notifications so you don't miss the next episode or any future episodes at all on any car of us getting it back on the road and putting them back where they belong t-shirts and stickers are down in the link below Roadster Racing stickers as well because all the money that goes to that goes directly back into cards just like this and fixing them so thank you guys so much again and I'll see you in the next one foreign

Channel: Dylan McCool

Views: 311,703

Keywords: restoration, will it run, will it drive, custom, revival, will, it, drive, can, we, run, mccoolauto, patina, rust, vintage, glasspack, exhaust, ford, chevy, ford f-150, off road, 4x4, mud truck, swamp truck, big tires, mud tires, 4WD

Id: RRO9EIDsbvI

Length: 44min 20sec (2660 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023