#and the shop is called Fred's Automotive Repair

[theserpentsadvocate]

Flipping The Script (Jade/Eli)

I promised @feeisamarshmallow that I would work on my depressing longer project all weekend and then I wrote this instead. It's my first fic for this fandom so I do take concrit, but, like, accompany it with hot chocolate or something.

Summary: Jade gets her mother's car fixed. She meets a guy.

*

All Jade wanted was to get her mother’s car and drop it off with enough time to get to the library before it closed, and since the library was open late on Thursdays and she’d stopped to pick it up at 4 PM, it hadn’t seemed that difficult. But somehow it was starting to seem impossible that she would make it, because she’d spent the last seven hundred years staring blankly at the high-school-age garage employee while he badly flirted with her by implying she was a car thief, and that meant the library was definitely closed.

“I mean, not that I really think so,” he said, laughing at his own joke. “But you could sure get away with it! Nobody would suspect you.”

She forced a pained smile, cursing herself internally. Her coworkers said she was just the sweetest, because she was too nice to ever say the kinds of things they did about annoying guys or bitchy guests. Really, it only meant she got just as pissed off on the inside, but she’d had ladylike manners drilled into her so deeply that she always ended up standing there and letting it happen. Three years in customer service didn’t help either, any more than the fact that she was used to dealing with this kind of thing from the other side of the counter.

One day, she thought a little hysterically, she was going to become some kind of crazed murderer, stabbing every guy who came onto her while screeching “That’s not polite!” And on that day, she might actually get her mom’s car.

“If you could just check?” she asked for what had to be the fourth time. “I know she spoke to someone about it.”

“Sorry,” he said, not checking. “There’s nothing under Jade.” A smirk. “But I–”

She cut him off before he could say but I could be and make her actually throw up. “Did you try ‘Gutierrez’, because–”

“Listen, we got these policies for a reason,” he went on. “I know it’s a pain.” The condescension was almost worse than the lechery. “Maybe you call your mom and let her know she’s got to come in herself, but hey, if you need a ride somewhere, I could take you. I’m off soon.”

Oh, God. “I really need to pick it up today.” She leaned on the firmness in the way that always surprised guests who thought being pretty and polite meant she had no backbone at all. “I know she cleared it with someone, so could you get your boss, please?”

“Fred’s not in on Thursdays,” he said blithely, and Jade could have screamed.

“Then could you call him? Or just get a supervisor, maybe?” She forced another smile so he wouldn’t think she was trying to get him in trouble. “If they authorize it then you’ll be in the clear, right?”

“He doesn’t like to be bothered at home.” The man eyed her up and down in a way she would have objected to even if he wasn’t barely legal. Jade took a deep breath, trying to prepare herself to go around the whole carousel again, but –

“Mike, what the hell are you doing?”

One of the other employees was frowning at them from the side door, annoyance plain on his face. “I need you on that Camry; Luis is busy with the bikes and we already told the owner he can pick it up tomorrow.”

“I’m helping a customer!” Mike insisted, seeming to actually believe it.

“For almost an hour? Is it a flying car?” Her saviour came a little closer, and Jade could see he wasn’t as old as she’d initially thought, maybe her age – one of those young guys who shaved their heads, rather than a thirty-something with unfortunate follicular genetics.

“She wants to pick up the car, but it’s not hers. I’m trying to explain it, but, you know…”

Only her utter disbelief prevented Jade from saying something really terrible that she would have regretted later. Was he really suggesting that she was stupid?

Mike winked at her. “I bet she doesn’t get a lot of people saying no to her, and I mean, can you blame them?”

His coworker – his boss? – stared at him in a way that blessedly reminded her that sanity existed. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Mike indicated Jade’s entire body with a wave of his hand, as if she was Exhibit A, and she felt her face burning in spite of herself. How was she the one embarrassed right now?

“You know we can’t give out the cars to just anyone,” he went on, and then turned back to Jade, seemingly oblivious to the other man’s incredulous displeasure. “But since I gotta get back to work, maybe I can trade it for your number, beautiful?”

“I don’t think so,” Jade told him stiffly, but it went unnoticed, since his coworker chose that moment to exclaim, “Are you fucking serious?”

It wasn’t very professional, but she decided to forgive him, especially when he followed it up with, “You can’t fucking talk to the customers like that!”

He took a couple steps over and dragged Mike out from behind the counter by one arm while the younger man protested the injustice of being denied whatever opportunity he’d somehow thought he had. Jade was polite enough to pretend to look elsewhere, as much as she desperately wanted to gawk, but even with several feet between them for the illusion of privacy she could hear the resultant conversation.

“What the hell, man, you’re not my boss!”

“Yes, I am, you dumbass. That’s why it says supervisor on my uniform! You think I’ve been chasing your ass all day for the hell of it?”

“Look, just because you’re always sucking up to Fred–”

“Fred’s not here, genius, that’s why he made me a supervisor, so he could take a fucking day off! Do think you just have no boss on Thursdays?”

“Man, you’re gonna screw things up for me here, will you quit it? I don’t have to listen to some loser who never finished high school.”

Jade risked a sideways look at them, and she saw Mr. Supervisor take the kind of deep breath that was an alternative to punching someone.

“I finished high school,” he snapped. “In fact, I’m about to teach you something. Listen up. Number one, you never had a chance with that girl because you are a dumbfuck who couldn’t even get into an automotive course and is about to get fired from the only shop in town that does on-the-job training because he doesn’t do his goddamn work and hits on the customers, and she is someone who wears pantsuits to work. Number two, you wouldn’t have had a chance with a girl like that anyway because she’s…” He inclined his head in a much classier version of Mike’s wave, which Jade probably should have been offended by, but wasn’t, “and you...” He snorted. “Number three, if you lived in some fucked up universe where she was somehow into you, you still don’t ask for her phone number, because you’re on the clock and it’s un-fucking-professional. Stand still and don’t say anything while I try to fix your mess, and you better watch closely because this is how you speak to every goddamn customer until Fred comes in on Saturday and fires your worthless ass.”

He took a breath, forcing his shoulders back and clearly trying to put the Customer Face back on – Jade had done that particular shoulder-roll enough times that her back straightened in sympathy even as she looked away for real to give him a moment of privacy. This man was her new favourite person and she had no intention of making him pay for Mike’s crimes, but he didn’t know that, so she could at least make things easy for him.

“Excuse me,” he said with a straight face, replacing his coworker behind the counter. “Unfortunately we had a miscommunication. Let me see what I can do for you, ma’am.”

The painstaking professionalism felt incongruous coming from someone who had dropped at least five F-bombs in the last two minutes, and all the more so when they both knew he was blatantly lying, but it was also pretty delightful after slogging through all of Mike’s nonsense, enough so that she even forgave him calling her ma’am. It was about making a point, anyway.

“Thank you,” Jade said graciously. “My mother brought her car in on Monday, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to pick it up, so she arranged for me to get it for her. She told me she spoke with the owner, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Absolutely,” Mike’s boss returned, almost brightly. It felt a little like having a conversation with an exaggerated version of people who did her job at places like the Grand, who spent all day honing their obsequiousness on rich people, except that the concierge was a Latino guy with neck tattoos and slightly wrinkled coveralls that said – she squinted for a moment – Eli. “If I can just get your mother’s name, I can access our file and see if there’s a note attached.”

Points to him for saying access the file when there appeared to be one oversized notebook planner and a lot of loose paper on the desk, and no computer at all.

“Certainly!” Jade said, matching his tone with the same enthusiasm she’d use on a particularly stubborn guest. She thought she saw him hide a smile. “It’s Rita Gutierrez, and the car is a Fiat Cinquecento.”

“One moment, please.” He flipped open the notebook, paging through with enough purpose that it had to be organized in some coherent way; Mike had only shuffled the loose pages around. “Gutierrez, came in on Monday. Oh, yes!” He said the last part with such overacted eagerness that she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “There’s a note right here.” It was a sticky note; Jade knew this because he peeled it off the page and held it up so that his coworker, still sulking where Eli(jah?) had left him, could see. “From the owner. ‘To be picked up by daughter Jade Gutierrez’ – do you have identification, Miss Gutierrez?”

“I do.” She’d had her driver’s licence ready since she entered the building and finally handing it over was a relief. “Do you need anything else?”

“This should cover it,” he said, actually looking at the ID and at her face. Then the ultra-professional façade slid back down. “I have the breakdown for you here –” He removed one of the papers Mike had been sliding around and handed it to her. “Your mother paid our estimate when she dropped off the vehicle, so there’s only a small amount outstanding. It’s in good shape for being ten years old.”

“She has it serviced regularly,” Jade said with affected gravity, skimming over the details. Forty-eight dollars and sixty cents over what her mom had already paid, mostly for also changing the serpentine belt as well as the alternator, which was a relief. Her mom always spun out about car repairs, and she’d had Jade half convinced they’d be demanding a few more hundred dollars.

“I can take care of the balance right now,” she told him. Her mom would probably insist on paying her back, but it was worth it either way. The first forty-five minutes might have been torture, but the catharsis of seeing someone actually yell at the creep, paired with some appealingly collaborative back-and-forth with, honestly, a pretty attractive guy – she’s noticing right now that he has very nice eyelashes, which is almost as appealing as the tattoos – has been satisfying enough that it might have actually raised the tone of her evening. She’s definitely calling Trish and hashing the whole thing over later, and she’s actually looking forward to it.

Mike sighed and huffed as Eli(as?) ran her card, thanked her with elaborate courtesy, and asked if there was anything else he could do for her.

“No, thank you so much,” Jade said, taking the keys from him – and then, halfway to the door and wanting to do something to show just how much she appreciated all this, wanting a little bit to piss Mike off, and definitely wanting for once to be the kind of person who did that kind of thing, instead of thinking wistfully about it later, she doubled back, heading him off before he could re-engage with his less-than-abashed coworker. “Actually, excuse me – I’m sorry, I know this is inappropriate, but since I’m not really the customer, and since the transaction’s been concluded – I was wondering if I could get your number?”

Mike produced an outraged squawk that made them both avoid eye contact for a moment, trying not to ruin the moment by laughing. Then Eli(ott?) cleared his throat. “You know, I think that would be okay, just this once,” he told her, grinning, and if she wasn’t sure a moment ago how much of this was about proving a point, well, that was definitely coming in a distant second now.

She waited for him to write something on the flipside of one of the business cards on the rack, took it with a smile, and strode out before her nervousness could catch up with her. She didn’t look at it until she was safe in her mother’s Fiat.

Eli Navarro, 555-3407. No frills, no flirty message underneath, and it seemed like his name was just Eli.

She liked it.

[stone-man-warrior]

April 21, 2019: 5:53 pm:

(April 21, 2019: 4:40 pm:

Today I am getting surveillance visits from the Harold and Joan Phillips terror flock leadership at 507 “MyStreet” and from the Janice and Bruce Freeburg Erickson Air-Crane terror cell at 535 “MyStreet”.

There is a man at the Monroe terror cell who looks similar to both Jeff Monroe and to Bruce Freeburg at 434. That man is walking around like he owns the place and is pretending to be engaged in some projects.

I have not seen Jeff Monroe, nor Bruce or Janice Freeburg in at least two months. I believe these people are impostors, however, I do believe that when I saw Joan Phillips here in my yard earlier, that it was indeed Joan Phillips. Joan uses a trademark disguise costume she calls “Dust Bunny”. The costume disguise makes her appear as a large wadd of hair and gray fishing line. She was here at my door and announced herself thinking I was dead as a result of Wal-Mart visit yesterday. She comes here from time to time when she thinks I have been killed. She comes to “pillage” my house, and that is what she and the flock do when Americans are killed. The “pillage” the houses for valuables.

Yesterday's Wal-Mart trip included a number of things that I did nit mention.

I will explain briefly just to preserve my own memory:

The newest house on the road I live in was built about four or five years ago. I don't know the last names of the people, they built, or most likely, took, the home that is at 315 “MyStreet”.

I should know the names of the people. It turns out, and I verified yesterday, that there is a woman named Debbie there. Not the Deb from 434. This Debbie is about 5'9”, 180 pounds with kind of an orange complexion. She has black hair that is curly and shoulder length. I should know her name because it turns out that I have known that family since I was a teenager. The circumstances are complicated and contain personal information. That woman, Debbie is part of a large and powerful Jihad terror cell in Van Nuys California. Long story, the story version is that I killed Debbie's Husband, and her husbands brother about ten years ago in defense.

Hamid, and Aziz, but I do not know their last names. Hamid and Aziz where acquaintances of my father. Hamid and Aziz operated a automotive repair shop in Van Nuys California, where my father used to take his cars for repair, and then when I began to drive, I too, would bring my cars to their shop in Van Nuys. The shop was called Mid-Valley Automotive and is near the Van Nuys Courthouse and adjacent to the railroad tracks near where they cross Van Nuys Blvd near Arminta Ave. There came a time when I visited Mid-Valley Automotive and found out that the place was loaded with explosives, rifles, kegs of gun powder, hand grenades and a lot more other stuff like that. I saw all of those things and a lot of it stacked from floor to ceiling at Mid-Valley Automotive. I asked Hamid what all of that was for, and he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at me. He was telling me that I did not see anything like that. I was very strong in those days, I mean lethal strong. I took the gun from Hamid and shot him in the chest. Then I went to where I had seen a keg of gunpowder, grabbed that and opened it while others from the building were treating Hamid for wounds, and still more people were running over from the building next door where narcotics are made. It turns out that Hamid and Aziz were Jihad terrorists and were also in the business of making narcotics at the place next to Mid-Valley Automotive.

So I ran around the building, inside and outside with that keg of gunpowder, leaving a trail of gunpowder as I ran around. I went outside and lit the gunpowder trail, it ignited exactly the way you may have seen such a thing in movies, except that gunpowder trails are much faster in real life. That stuff took off like a race car. There is nothing slow about it like they show in the movies.

The place began to pop. I had put the trail of gunpowder all over the crates of ammunition, and all over the guns, and when the gunpowder reached the bullets, the place began to pop, and bullets were ricocheting all over the place.

It was a bad idea.

There was a locomotive on the train tracks behind the narcotics factory with the engine running. Mid-Valley Automotive was exploding with bullets, and all of those people were looking for me, while trying to save some of their guns and stuff.

I stole that locomotive. I got on-board and figured out how to make it move, and did that. The entire place exploded violently as I left in the locomotive.

That happened, and there was no reports of it in any news later on. I called the police after I returned home, to see if they new about the guns. That is another story for a different day.

This story is about Debbie of  315 “MyStreet”.

They rebuilt the Mid-Valley Automotive, but they called it All-Valley Automotive after it was rebuilt. When it was Mid-Valley, it was Hamid that operated it. After they rebuilt it, Azix operated the repair shop. The automotive repair was a front for terrorists.

Hamid did not die. He was shot in the chest but did not die. So, many years later, both of them came to my home in Oregon and tried to kill me. That is when I killed at least one of them, and then later, they built or stole that house at 315, and that is where Debbie lives. I do not know here very well, she just has a knack for being at places when there is a large size attack on me and on others. Including that Debbie pretended to work at the Fred Meyer Pharmacy and would be there when I needed to get my medicine, about two years ago.

So Debbie's husband was either Hamid or Aziz of Mid-Valley Automotive terror cell and All-Valley Automotive terror cell of Van Nuys California, nit far from the Van Nuys Court House, and just down the road from West Valley Police Station. The proximity to the court house and police station are extremely important considerations if there is someone interested in doing national security work associated with the things I report about. If you do national security work in follow-up to this explanation of events in Van Nuys, you will not survive without addressing the problems at those facilities. Be advised that the underground parking at Van Nuys Courthouse is designed as a killing field and there is a terrorists in charge of the parking area inside of the kiosk there.

Debbie attacked me at the Wal-Mart Service Counter along with the gal that said she was going to return the $13.97 to my debit card when I took the short pants back to the store.

There was a sword that the service rep lunged at me, I took that, and cut off Debbie's head with it, then ran it through the service representative. That happened shortly after the store manager had launched to the sporting goods department.

I left the service counter immediately after returning the sword to the service representative, and Debbie's head was on the service counter, she had slumped to the floor and was leaning against the counter there on the ground. As I was leaving the Wal-Mart, I turned around when I heard someone yelling about their heads being cut off, and saw one of the two women, wither Debbie of 315, or the Wal-Mart service representative, launch and fly through the store towards the Jewelry department.

I left the store after that.

Today, Joan Phillips came to my door dressed on a costume she calls “Dust Bunny” and was here to “clean house” but the way the terrorists around here say it, they are “pillaging”, that is the terminology.

So, right now, there is a crew of people at the Monroe terror cell, who do not live there, and I strongly believe that all of the Monroe's are dead. So the people who are there are terrorists of different family cells, and they are pillaging that house for things that they will use elsewhere to kill Americans. There is a lot of recording and surveillance equipment there that was stolen from, or supplied by the Oregon State Police terror cell, who are all impostors with State Police cars and equipment, including the polo=ice stations themselves.

Please send help to Oregon.

[tech1autorepair]

MY CAR NEEDS A DIAGNOSTIC!

 From time to time we will get a call into the shop from a customer asking for a Diagnostic for their car. We will always ask the caller what is going on with their car in order to understand the issue that they're concerned with. We get everything from a warning light being on to issues with how the car runs and even complaints about a strange noise their vehicle is making. Many times the caller has the impression that we have machine or tool that we can plug into the car that will tell us all of the car's problems. Unfortunately, there is no such tool.

While today's modern vehicle has many sensors, computers and miles of wire, it can be very complicated to get to the root cause of a problem. The good news is that while there is no magic box that we can plug into your car, our mechanic has the tools that can communicate with the modules on your car. The tool, known as a scan tool, can give us information as to where the problem occurs. Many times a trouble code will be stored. Many customers believe that the trouble code tells you exactly what is wrong with the vehicle, but this is not the case. Think of the trouble code as a ZIP code. If you give someone your ZIP code, they may know the area in which you live, but they don't know where your house is. Your auto mechanic will use the trouble code along with his knowledge of the system and test procedures as well as meters, gauges, and even a lab oscilloscope to determine what the root cause of the problem is.

The best thing to do when you have a problem with your car is to tell your auto service mechanic what the issue/symptom is with all the supporting information that you can. Resist the temptation in telling them what you think the cause of the problem is. Don't ask for a Diagnostic. Once the professional gets your information about the issue/symptom ,they will offer what test(s) will be needed.

Fred Hules II is the owner of Tech 1 Auto in Peoria. He is an ASE Certified Master Auto Mechanic and recipient of the 2015 & 2017 NAPA/ASE Arizona Mechanic of the year award. Listen to Fred host Automotive Know How radio show every Monday at 4 PM on 1100 KFNX.

Read More: My Car Needs a Diagnostic

from Tech 1 Auto Repair https://tech1autorepair.blogspot.com/2021/12/my-car-needs-diagnostic.html

[itsworn]

Street/Strip 1969 Chevrolet COPO Camaro Lives Again As a Gorgeous Day-Two Restoration

Chevrolet’s Central Office Production Order (COPO) system was originally designed to enable short assembly-line production runs with equipment or paint schemes not normally available to the general public. Think police cars, taxicabs, that sort of thing. But it wasn’t long after the dawn of the muscle car that enterprising Chevrolet dealers like Fred Gibb, Bill Thomas, and Don Yenko used the COPO system to build factory hot rods, stuffing big-inch motors into lightweight platforms like the Nova, Camaro, and Chevelle.

COPO cars were typically ordered to race. And race cars usually don’t live long lives. They’re either hacked up in search of higher speeds, wrecked in that same search, or suffer a combination of the two. That’s why finding a real COPO car these days, like Grady Burch’s Burnished Brown 1969 Camaro, is a big deal.

Back when these factory race cars were new, not many people outside of dealership employees had any idea what COPO meant, or that it even existed. As Cliff Craver, the Camaro’s fourth owner, tells us, “At the time I bought it, which would have been 1975, I didn’t know it was a COPO. Never thought it would have come from the factory like that. We just always thought it was a plain-Jane car, maybe a six-cylinder, that somebody had put a big motor in.”

Regardless of its genesis, Cliff was excited at the prospect of owning the car. “It was a heck of a car, always fast, no matter what engine was in it. My friends and I knew about the car when we were growing up. Everybody knew about the brown Camaro.”

That’s because the Camaro spent the first 44 years of its life in central Pennsylvania. Dick Patterson, a salesman at Williams Chevrolet in Lebanon, special-ordered the car for its first owner, Ned Smith, who raced it “up and down the East Coast,” says Cliff. “He trailered the car; it never saw many street miles.”

The second owner, Eli Dobrinoff, also drag-raced the Camaro, almost exclusively at York US30 Dragway. It didn’t see much street duty until coming into the hands of its third owner, Dick Barcellona, who lived in Harrisburg.

When Dick bought the car it was without an engine. Cliff says Dobrinoff blew up the original 427 (“a picture window in the block” is how he described it) and put a 454 in it to race, but that motor was out when he sold it. Dick replaced it with an over-the-counter L88 crate engine from Sutliff Chevrolet in Harrisburg.

“Dick mostly drove it around town, cruised in it, and kept it in a garage. Never put many miles on it,” Cliff says.

He met Dick through a mutual friend, Jim Gelenser. When Dick decided it was time to part with the Camaro, he offered it to Jim first for $2,000. “But Jim didn’t want that big motor, so he suggested selling it to me,” Cliff recalls. “I jumped at the chance. It was a fast car and I wanted to own it.” He paid Dick $2,500.

Cliff bracket-raced the Camaro throughout 1976. “I’d race Saturday nights at York, then Sundays at South Mountain, in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, about 15 to 20 miles away.” His best time was 11.71 at 117 mph.

Near the end of 1976 the Camaro lost Reverse, so Cliff took the car to Winters Transmission in York, where he was told he should not bother to fix the trans but get a full competition transmission instead. “I assumed they’d use a different case,” Cliff says. “At the time I didn’t know what a CX transmission was. I just knew it was a Turbo 400.” He says that was the “best $275 I spent back then. The transmission worked great. It was a reverse valve body with a manual shift. It would chirp the tires going into Second, and sometimes even into Third when the road was right.”

But the racing, even brackets at local tracks, was hard for him to afford on his mechanic’s wages. So he decided to put the Camaro on the street. “I had a really good race record on the street,” he says, “but after I ‘grew up’ I just maintained it as best I could. I did the cruise thing in Harrisburg, took it to car shows. I’d drive it just on weekends and keep it in the garage.”

That’s how Cliff would use the Camaro for the next 37 years.

In fact, he might own the Camaro still were he and his wife Diane (who helped Cliff with the car’s upkeep) still in Pennsylvania. But when their son took a job in Washington State, Cliff retired early and the couple followed him west. He wanted the Camaro to stay in central Pennsylvania, though.

The Camaro’s fifth owner, Skip Lecates, was from York and was already friends with Cliff, Jim, and Dick through local cruises. He knew all about the car, even knew Eli Dobrinoff, the second owner. “It was a logical thing for me to sell it to him,” says Cliff. “I could not figure out what it was worth without the original drivetrain, but he made me an offer and I was happy. It was a heck of a lot more than what I paid for it.”

Skip bought the car in early 2013, and took it to the GM Nationals in Carlisle that June, parking it in the Solid Lifter Showroom. That’s where it caught the eye of Grady Burch. “I looked at it for almost a day while sitting with the car I brought, and the more I looked at it the more I liked it,” Grady says. “It really started to impress me with its originality and zero corrosion. The only problem was I was told it didn’t have its original drivetrain.”

Grady talked up the car with his buddy, restorer Mike Angelo, “who thought I was nuts,” Grady says. “I think his exact words were, ‘It’s a brown turd. Why would you want that?’”

But want it he did. Skip told him it was available, so Grady worked a deal. He owned a 31,000-mile, 396/375hp 1969 Nova, “all original drivetrain, mostly original paint, almost all the original paperwork, and an Ammon R. Smith car to boot.” Grady wanted to trade the Nova for the Camaro, but Skip wasn’t interested in the Nova. As the two talked, Grady mentioned that the Nova’s original owner, Chick Renn, had shown an interest in the car. Skip knew Chick, knew he was at the show, called him, and shortly thereafter “we worked out a deal between the three of us that left all happy,” Grady says.

After the Carlisle show ended, Grady took the Camaro to Brian Henderson and Joe Swezey at the Super Car Workshop to inspect it on a lift. Knowing the car had race history he was concerned that there was damage underneath, but was pleasantly surprised to find very little bent metal. Even the rear fender lips, which had been rolled to clear slicks years ago, had been bent back into shape by Cliff.

While the car was in the air, Swezey, looking closely at the transmission, spotted the factory’s CX tag on the case. Closer inspection revealed the Camaro’s VIN stamped on the transmission flange. “That made the trade even better,” recalls Grady. All those years ago Winters Transmission put new guts in the Camaro’s original case, unbeknownst to Cliff Craver.

Since the car eyeballed so well, Grady’s original plan was to put the car on a rotisserie, repair what little floor pan damage there was, and let it go at that. But he and Mike realized more than half of the car had been repainted over the years, “much of it was flaking off, and it was too dark,” says Grady. They decided to completely restore the car (Inside the Award-Winning Restoration of a Day-Two 1969 COPO Camaro).

The restoration was just the start. A photo of the Camaro, taken while Cliff was racing at York in 1976, inspired Grady to delve deep in his stash of day-two parts to return the car to competition trim. Gary says, “I have been collecting parts forever. A lot of it comes from eBay, believe it or not. When I see something I want I go after it, whether I need it right away or might need it down the road.”

Just 11 months after Mike began the restoration, the brown Camaro debuted at the 2016 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. Six months later Grady brought it to the Solid Lifter Showroom in Carlisle, where Dick Patterson, who had originally ordered the car, plus owners four through six, posed for a photo.

“Grady and Mike did a remarkable job on the car,” says Cliff. “It looks basically like when I had it, except it’s all one color brown! There were things touched up when I owned it, so it’s nice to see it freshly painted. I was real happy to see the car again.”

At a Glance

1969 COPO Camaro Owned by: Grady Burch Restored by: Mike Angelo; owner; Joe Zeoli, A-1 Automotive Machine Shop, Greensburg, PA Engine: 489ci/600hp (est.) 1969 L88 V-8 Transmission: TH400 3-speed automatic Rearend: BE-code 12-bolt with 4.10 gears and Posi Interior: Black vinyl bucket seat Wheels: 15×6 front, 15×8.5 rear Torq-Thrust Tires: F70-15 Goodyear Speedway reproduction front, 10.00-15 Penneys Foremost A F/X slicks rear Special parts: Numerous N.O.S. and date-code-correct restoration and day two components; original interior; original CX-code transmission case

This photo of the Camaro at York US30 in 1976 inspired Grady Burch not only to restore the COPO Camaro but return it to its racing days. “It was picture day at York,” remembers fourth owner Cliff Craver. “If you wanted a photo they pulled you up to the tower. It was free so I took advantage of it.”

Note how closely Grady and Mike Angelo caught the Camaro’s 1976 look. This angle shows off the BE-code rearend—“all the guts are COPO-specific,” says Grady—with its N.O.S. Cal Custom diff cover, which Grady had “hanging on the wall for years.” Also note the Lakewood traction bars, which came off of another of Grady’s cars and were restored by Mike.

Grady replaced the 1973-vintage L88 crate motor with a 1969 CE L88 block with a January casting date. Joe Zeoli at A-1 Automotive Machine Shop bored and stroked the engine to 489 inches and installed a forged crank, rods, and pistons. The Crane hydraulic roller cam “mimics a ZL1 cam,” says Grady. “It’s a true 12.5:1-compression engine that’s been completely blueprinted and balanced.” Though it hasn’t been on the dyno, Zeoli estimates “600 horsepower or better.” Grady says.

Feeding the engine is a period-correct, Holley 850-cfm double-pumper on a 1969 L88 intake manifold, all capped by a Cal Custom fly-eye air cleaner.

Grady found the Cal Custom valve covers on eBay, “brand new in the box.” The 1974-vintage Hooker headers were also mint-in-box. Stampings on the box indicated that Hooker shipped them to Jacksaw Pontiac, a dealer in Cleveland that did big business in performance parts.

The car having traveled barely 21,000 miles, the Camaro’s original interior was “perfect,” says restorer Mike Angelo. Just the carpet had been replaced. The Stewart Warner tachometer is a 970 model, part of a tach collection Grady’s been compiling for years. This one has been converted to modern electronics. The sender underhood is a dummy.

Though the Camaro didn’t have one back in the day, Grady thought a roll bar would be a nice touch. The vintage Lakewood bar came from the same collector who had the headers. To accommodate the downbar that runs through the back seat, Mike took the original seat out and installed a donor seat modified for the bar to pass through and upholstered with Legendary seat covers.

In the 1976 photo a fuel-pressure gauge is visible on the cowl, so Grady wanted one, too. “I have been collecting those bullets for years,” he says of the housing. “I have quite a few N.O.S. ones in boxes; they’re hard to come by.” He filled it with a period-correct 2 1/8-inch Stewart-Warner pressure gauge.

Among the most eye-catching mods on the car are the 10-inch Penneys slicks—as in JC Penneys, the department store chain. Back in the 1960s Penneys had a performance parts catalog under the Foremost brand. “I believe Mickey Thompson made the slicks for Penneys,” says Grady, “as they’re identical to Mickey Thompson slicks.” He’s mounted them to Torq-Thrusts with gold centers.

Some assume the “by Grady” badge is the ultimate vanity plate made by the owner, but it’s a real-deal brass dealer tag that Grady’s friend Phil Wojnarowski found on eBay a couple years ago. Grady took it to a local plater to have it chrome plated.

At this year’s Solid Lifter Showroom, the Burnished Brown COPO Camaro enjoyed a reunion with (from left): Dick Patterson, who originally ordered the car at Williams Chevrolet; Skip Lecates, owner number five; current owner Grady Burch; Cliff Craver, owner number four; and restorer Mike Angelo.

Racing in 1976

Cliff Craver raced the Camaro for a year in 1976. His best e.t. was 11.71 seconds. Note the daylight visible under the front tire.

Cliff ran a variety of wheels on the Camaro, ending its racing season on Rallys.

At first Cliff drove it with the Cragars that the previous owner, Dick Barcellona, had mounted. “Then I bought a pair of Center Lines for the front [visible in the black-and-white photo elsewhere in the story] thinking I’d get Center Lines for the rear, but I never did.”

The fly-eye air cleaner was key in making Grady’s version of the Camaro look like Cliff’s did in 1976.

Dragway 42

We could not have found a better location to photograph Grady’s Camaro than the all-new Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio. How is a 60-year-old dragstrip “all new”? Ron Matcham, himself a drag racer, spearheaded a multiyear renovation of the facility that literally rebuilt it from the ground up—including changing the direction of the strip from south-north to north-south. The first 750 feet of the track is concrete, the rest is asphalt. In addition to bleachers at the start line (which came from Daytona International Speedway), Ron had grassy berms built on both sides of the track for casual “amphitheater” seating and clear views of the entire quarter-mile. We want to thank the folks at Dragway 42 for their hospitality, and we invite MCR readers to check out this beautiful new facility. Learn more at dragway42.com.

The post Street/Strip 1969 Chevrolet COPO Camaro Lives Again As a Gorgeous Day-Two Restoration appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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