A couple of weeks ago I shared a current picture of the El Kylemino. After two years of ownership, I’ve made a number of cosmetic changes, both to address degraded paint and minor rust issues, and to improve the overall appearance.
At present, I don’t want to invest in a new paint job, as I still use this car as a truck. I’m hard pressed to spend several thousand dollars on a paint job and then expose it to parking lot dings or other in-use damage. In other words, I wanted to fix things on the cheap.
As this collage shows, at purchase the paint suffered considerable sun damage. In several spots the paint had worn down almost to the metal, and the sharp character line running along the top of the tailgate, fenders, and doors also suffered from thinning coverage.
Despite its desert origins, rust had made an appearance on the hood, cowl, and A-Pillars. In this picture you can see some minor rust under the windshield trim, and there was a spot about the size of a nickel a bit further up.
This image shows the left edge of the hood. The red circle shows an outbreak of surface rust, while the blue circles show where that nice, flat hood panel saw several solid impacts, leaving small dents and enough paint damage to create crescent shaped rust spots.
This is the worst rust on the car. While relatively minor for most climates, the rust had attacked from the back, and perforated the sheet metal right at the very leading edge. I’m not sure why the hood took the brunt of the rust damage on this car, but it’s possible forty years of morning dew gained traction below the shut lines, since that paint lacked any wax coverage or other protection.
Outside of a couple nicks I’ll cover later, those were the major paint and rust issues on this big blank canvas. I wanted to address the issues inexpensively (no trips to the body shop), and also develop an approach that maintained a period look and feel.
Thinking about how to cover the hood and roof, this Camaro Rally Sport came to mind. A product of the GM design studio, replicating this layout would give my Chevy a sense of brotherhood with the F-body. Even better, the design laid black paint over the same surfaces as the burned paint on my truck and used body lines as a masking guide. Suitably inspired, I grabbed the masking tape and a few spray cans, and got to work.
Here’s the result. Prior to laying down the paint, I removed the windshield trim, sanded the rusted areas down to bare metal, leveled the dents with plastic fill, and laid down rust converter and primer on all exposed metal. I don’t consider this a permanent fix, but it will be some years before I attempt a major restoration, and the new paint seals over the previous damage and improves the look (at least to my eye).
Here’s a closer look at the design. In addition to the black out paint on the hood and roof, I laid a narrow accent strip of blue between the black and the factory paint, then used 1/4″ pinstripe tape to cover the mask line between the blue and brown (similar to the accent lines used on that ’78 Rally Sport).
While it’s certainly not the greatest paint job ever, if you’re going to use a rattle can go with a semi-gloss black. It lays down very nicely, and makes it tough to spot repair work. In this portion of the hood I removed rust and cut down to bare metal along the edge, then filled several dents near that character line. By and large, you can’t see this work.
I suppose with a couple hours of work I could wet sand the hood, lay another layer of paint down, and color sand the final coat for an even better finish. But I really hate finish sanding, so I’ll live with things as is.
Unlike the Camaro, I carried the black paint past the B-Pillar. To make the transition, I terminated the blue accent line at the drip rail, and switched to a pair of pinstripe lines along the paint line moving towards the rear.
Here’s a close up of the pinstripes. You can also see there are a few spots where the damaged paint is still visible, but the black paint covers most of the issues.
To help the Olds wheels “pop” I decided to paint them blue as well. With a new coat of paint, the aftermarket center caps looked a bit cheesy, especially with text in the center telling the world they were a “Special Edition.”
To fix things, I picked up some reproduction Z-28 center caps. A cleaner design than the Olds cap, they ALMOST fit the wheel. I opened up the center hole about 3/8″ of an inch with a jigsaw, and used a big o-ring in the back of the wheel to cinch the caps in place. As a bonus, the caps also used blue as an accent color, and included a bow-tie. Score!
In addition to fixing the paint issues, I made several strictly cosmetic changes:
- One piece headlamps (glass, off a late eighties Celebrity)
- Diamond grille insert
- Reproduction front spoiler
- Cutlass sedan front bumper (with turn signals)
- Collapsed the front bumper shocks (moving the bumper back about 2″)
- Shaved hood ornament
Plus a couple of “262” engine badges, which has confused a number of bystanders checking out the car-
Them: “262? Is that a V-8?”
Me: “Yeah, not so much…”
So that covers all the cosmetic changes except one- Those blue stripes on the rear quarters. They serve a purpose as well, and were also inspired by the GM design studio as I’ll explain below.
First the why- The rear quarter badges on an El Camino used a funky script that had to go, and one badge covered some surface rust, which I wanted to repair. Using a heat gun, I successfully peeled them off, but the process removed some paint, left some mounting glue, and exposed more rust. I ended up with an ugly patch similar to this image.
Thinking about how to cover the patch, this “Feathers” paint job came to mind. Also a GM design, but busier than I liked. Using the concept as a starting point, I designed a simplified set of feathers for the El Kylemino.
The final result covers the scar left when I pulled off the badges, and adds a nice graphic element. I also think it helps the visual balance of the car, but that may just be me. So with the feathers, I had addressed every cosmetic issue except one…
This gnarly dent and scratch. They were present at purchase, and were the only significant body damage on the car. I sanded out the rust and laid down some paint to protect the clean metal, but the dent remained. Adding the blue stripes covered up part of the scratch, but I felt more could be done.
Voila, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to the rescue! The shape of this $12 sticker perfectly covered the damage, and nicely matched up to the blue stripe. The blue accents also help disguise the grey paint peeking out from between the stripes, giving them sort of a “cloud’ effect. Additionally, while your finger can still feel the dent under the moon, the artwork hides it almost perfectly. It’s a little cheesy and may fall off during the next car wash, but was much cheaper than panel repair and a new paint job.
As I said up front, all this work was done on the cheap. It took about 6 or 7 cans of spray paint, 5 rolls of blackout tape and some tape and sandpaper (call it $60). I bought the headlights and bumper at the junk yard for about $85, which means the reproduction spoiler and center caps were the only big ticket items. As I recall, together they set me back about $250. It’s not Concours quality work, but for the price I’ll rock the look every day.
Black, big flat surfaces and spay cans is a tough set of criteria to get a nice result. Yours came out rather well.
Nicely done on the centre cap – it makes it look closer to the Chevy wheel used on 70s Camaros.
Looks really neat.
Between cleverness in design and your skill, you created a gem!
Very nicely done. Exactly how I would have done it.
Excellent work and a very nice result if you call it only interim. Great selection of colour scheme for the hood, Camaro inspired too.
Well done sir!
Definitely looking forward to the write up on the install of the Celebrity headlights. To me those are the most dramatic changes.
Question about the rear bumper.. Cutlass sedan? I can’t for the life of me think of a Cutlass sedan that had lights in the rear bumper. I thought the only A/G bodys that had the lights in the bumper were the Elky and the wagons, which all shared the same bumper. Can you show pics of it?
“I can’t for the life of me think of a Cutlass sedan that had lights in the rear bumper”
I was referring to the front bumper- on the El Camino and Malibu, it’s an all chrome piece and the front turn signals are mounted under or beside the headlights (depending on the model year- see pic).
The Cutlass coupes use a different style front bumper, but the sedan bumpers match up perfectly to the Chevy mounts. On my car, I blacked out the original turn signal lenses, but I could have gone all family truckster and lit up the grille and bumper lights at the same time.
I guess that tells us the Cutlass bumper looks about as factory as possible. To avoid confusion in the future, I updated the text to say “front bumper”
Happy for you if you’re happy with it.
Please put me down as someone NOT liking your changes. None of them. I liked the “before” state much more. Sorry but the blue details look like they have been applied by an amateur, as do the stripes at the rear. The blue is a wrong colour in combination with the gold and black. Why the front spoiler? Even the one piece headlamps looks cheap while the twin look more classy. I am not a fan of colour coded wheels.
You would have been much better off doing tiny paint repairs. Results will not be very perfect, they will be visible but I rather see an honest vehicle than a car in your current state. Or to say it differently – as a buyer I would definitively be interested in your “before” car but not at all in your current car.
So, sorry for my negative comment but I feel it is fair not to see/read just positive comments. I promise my next comment will be more positive – not wanting to get a “grumpy negative” label 🙂
I think you have a wonderful, individual car. Do with it what you want because it is your car but be prepared that not everyone will like your changes.
“be prepared that not everyone will like your changes.”
No worries, I’m very aware that almost all modifications are polarizing- people either love or hate them.
As far as maintaining the “before” state, I’ll just point out that out of 25 or so 5th generation El Caminos at the 60th anniversary, FIVE of them came from the factory painted the same medium brown as my truck. Now when you see it driving down Figuroa, you won’t confuse it with the other 4.
That wolf decal is basically peak El Camino.
LOL- I had the same thought when I bought it, but the shape is perfect for my needs-
Hopefully when I get around to a complete paint job, I can avoid such cliches.
I understand the “cheap and cheerful” effort and I like the new center caps. But other than that, I would have simply matched up a small can of factory paint and did some minor rust repair with touch-ups, preserving the original appearance. Another non-fan of amateur custom work here. Doing something like that to my ’79 Monte Carlo would be blasphemy to me.
Then again, your sticker and stripes are exactly what a certain kind of person would have done with this car back in the late 1980s, so it elicits an ironic smile rather than total condemnation.
The only quibbles I have w/ your changes, is that I would have made the front angle of the stripes align more closely to the angle of the wheel lip; and squared off the back end tips. Good job on your “for now” fixes! 🙂
BTW: I’d also scrub the tires and spray w/ Armor-All, but then, that’s just Me!! 🙂
The most important thing that you did is arrest the progress of rust, that wasn’t going to happen by itself. I like the customization, the two tone paint looks good and I like what you did with the wheels. You personalized your vehicle and it’s apparent that you’ve got a personal relationship with the Camino, always good to see. There’s no reason to worry about lowering the value of it as a collector vehicle as they aren’t worth much now and probably never will be hot collectibles. I don’t mean that as a slight. You might as well have all the fun you can, and get the use out of it. I’ve got a bunch of cars that aren’t worth anything either, but I like them anyway. Good Job!
“There’s no reason to worry about lowering the value of it as a collector vehicle as they aren’t worth much now and probably never will be hot collectibles.”
My thinking exactly – I don’t stress about changes I make, something I couldn’t do if I had a limited production high-dollar collectible.
I really like the celebrity headlights, did you come up with that yourself or see it done elsewhere?
As a salt belt resident I was chuckling at the sentence ‘this is the worst rust on the car ‘
“I really like the celebrity headlights, did you come up with that yourself or see it done elsewhere?”
Well the choo choo custom trucks have composite one piece headlights from a Monte Carlo SS, so that may be the inspiration, but here in LA the Celebrity headlight conversion is very common.
So to answer your question the inspiration is from others, but I did the actual fabrication.
Glad you picked up on my irony- I lived in the Rust Belt as a kid.
Hard to get even coverage with rattlecans, cheap enamel from hardware stores and a spray gun is my usual method though Ive been slack for the last few years and both my cars need a tidy up, that ute is looking good though.
Nice work Dave! Great to see someone fixing up an old car using DIYer techniques on the cheap. I like the semi-gloss black over the brown, it’s a nice combo. And the composite Celebrity headlight upgrade is sharp too. The Cutlass bumper works well for the new signal lights. Overall it’s looking good.
For me, the only criticism I have, is I can’t say I like the blue accents, I just would have kept everything black and brown. I would have just separated the black paint with a pin stripe like you did along the quarters. I wouldn’t have used blue though – it just doesn’t work for me. But if you like it’s, that’s all that matters. And at the very least your repairs will keep the rust at bay until your can do a full restoration.
Funny about the 262 comments and people asking if it was a V8. There was that short lived SBC 262 V8 for the H-bodies, but in this case, I’d rather have the six. The 4.3L six put out significantly more power than the turd 262 V8 which only made a feeble 110 hp!
Vince, thanks for the overall positive review, and let me take this opportunity to address the one concern your brought up:
“I can’t say I like the blue accents”
You’re not alone in that opinion, so let me dive a bit deeper into my concept-
If you look closely at the Camaro Rally Sport, they also used a contrasting red stripe to create a visual break between the black and the main body color. I liked the look, so I replicated it.
But the real point is this- I bought this car based on condition, not color. In ’87 Chevy offered the El Camino in ten colors, and if I were to rank them from best to worst, I would rank this brown about 12th out of the 10 choices. Since I had no interest in complementing the brown, I went with my preferred color.
I hear you about the colour limitations of the brown. I am the same way, colour is my last consideration when buying a car. I noticed the red strip on the colour break on the Camaro and figured that’s what you were going for with the blue. At the end of the day, it’s your car and you’re happy with it, so that’s all that matters. And all your changes have preserved the car and only made it better.
I am looking forward to further installments.
I think the black upper paintwork looks like it belongs (and I agree with you, satin or semi-flat black is the easiest spray paint to work with). Nice job on the trim details and the wheelwork. Very clever hiding of the quarter panel flaws! I likely would’ve gone a different route with the headlamps—are they properly aim-adjustable in their new home here?—or maybe tried to move them forward to eliminate dead space. And I definitely fer sher wouldn’t have collapsed the bumper shocks or changed the grille.
But it’s not my car, it’s your car, so my votes don’t count—and that’s as it should be. I don’t understand the mentality of people who scold you with long lists of everything they feel you did wrong. It’s not their car, either! Maybe a fine distinction, but an important one between “I would have done ____ instead of ______” and “You screwed up ____ and did _____ wrong, and _____ looks stupid”, etc.
“are they properly aim-adjustable in their new home”
Daniel- I knew this would be a concern for you, and the answer is “Yes.” The Celebrity lights have a 3 point mount, using a fixed pivot at the bottom and two threaded rods providing vertical and horizontal adjustment.
The threaded rods are part of the factory adjustment system, and by using a nut front and back to clamp the rod to the front bulkhead, I have the same adjustment range as the factory system. Because of clearance on the back side of the fascia, it’s kind of a bitch to adjust, but with patience I’ve got them dialed in.
You can also move the mounting points to position the lamps to your preference. Personally I prefer recessed, but here’s a picture of a car using the flush mount and the factory grille.
Thanks for the kind words! D/S
This flush mount is what I had in my mind’s eye (but painted bumper? Squack! No! Chrome!). But I can see merit in the recessed mount as well; I’ve often thought a ’77-’78 Caprice would look keen with a set of ’87-’90 Caprice composite headlamps neatly grafted into the original recessed position.
You knew aimability would be a concern for me…? Are you saying I’m, like, predictable or something? 😉
” Are you saying I’m, like, predictable or something?”
I would go with “Passionate about safe and effective vehicle lighting.”
Hey, dammit, that’s my line, you…stealer! X-)
I’m so in awe of what you’ve reported already–functional work to fix/upgrade the car–that I’d feel like a nitpicker critiquing stuff reported today. The vehicle is in appreciative hands and is getting looked after thoughtfully. I’m not a Chevy guy, but I could learn a lot looking over your shoulder!
As someone who has picked up a rattlecan for some automotive improvement, I salute the quality of the job. Black paint on a big, flat horizontal surface like a hood or roof is a tall order, and it looks like you got a really nice result. The semi-gloss is probably what made it work.
I will join some others, as a personal taste matter I might have gone with a deep red/burgundy for the accents, but then it isn’t my car. I will agree with you on that factory color – not a fave of mine. But isn’t that the rule? How often do you get lucky enough to find the right older original car that is in the color you would have chosen?
The prior owner of my 96 Odyssey used your stripe trick to cover some shallow dents low on one rear door. He used a series of thin black tape stripes (on a platinum silver-ish car) on both lower bodysides, sort of reminiscent of the striping on the Olds Silhouette dustbuster van of the 90s. I didn’t like the stripes and peeled them off. Of course, I didn’t notice the reason for them until I was already into the job. Oh well.