Old's Cool Auto Restoration

Old's Cool Auto Restoration Informational page containing pictures and information about our past projects, cars currently being

Sometimes, you can follow all the rules to the letter and always color within the lines and crap just happens anyway. Th...
08/29/2026

Sometimes, you can follow all the rules to the letter and always color within the lines and crap just happens anyway. That is that way with this 1975 Camaro project. I posted pictures of it painted a couple weeks ago and the buyer spent a couple days here color sanding and buffing it. Well, what started as a small chip on the leading edge of the drivers door, lead to a complete clear coat delamination of the entire project.

Jay came in the office with a small little piece of dried clearcoat in his hand and said "check this out!" So I went out and picked at it a little to see what was going on. What ended up was the ability to start an edge and grab the hardened completed clearcoat form the week before and pull it off in sheets - BIG sheets. I think it came off the trunk lid in one piece! I've never seen anything like it and I have literally painted THOUSANDS of cars in my life with all kinds of paint and in all kinds of environments. Never have I seen this.

So this past week we peeled every speck of delaminating clear off the car, which left an EXTREMELY shiny base coat. We scuffed it and I shot 2 more coats of color of a different brand and then re-cleared the car. Basically a complete repaint but without having to do any bodywork -thank goodness.

I THINK what happened was one of 2 things. Either the company that mixed the original paint color finished the mix with the wrong binder (single stage rather than base coat binder) or the generic gallon of reducer had something a little off.

Shout out to PPG on this one. The local regional rep and local store provided a complete package of 2021 clear, DCX61 and PPG reducer for free for me to repair with. This is about $1200 worth of product, so truly a big thank you again. The company I bought the paint from also sent a quart of replacement color and reducer, but we elected not to try it again, so I bought PPG/Omni base this time.

Anyway, car is done.... again. Thrilled we caught it at this stage and not after the car was completely assembled. Also thrilled it peeled as easy as it did, or we would have been forced to do all the bodywork again. If you had a failure, this was certainly the best case for one.

Hope to neve see that again! LOL

..... and then because Jay was not done with the Camaro Convertible due to parts issues, Javier ran out of stuff to do, ...
08/29/2026

..... and then because Jay was not done with the Camaro Convertible due to parts issues, Javier ran out of stuff to do, so I drug the 1965 Bel Air station wagon back in ad had him replace the floorpans. And for those looking, yes, this is a V8 MANUAL shift station wagon. It does run and drive and is licensed and insured. It is also available at whatever stage of completion you would like. It's is currently going to get new carpet and sound deadening Monday.

The hold up on the 1968 Camaro Convertible. Jay was ready to replace the inner rocker panels, and I ordered a set..........
08/29/2026

The hold up on the 1968 Camaro Convertible. Jay was ready to replace the inner rocker panels, and I ordered a set........ they were for a coupe! The only way they sell rocker panels for a convertible that I found was as an inner and outer assembly, so I ordered them now and we wait.

In the meantime, I found a Fatman Fabrications subframe on marketplace for it that I bought that has Mustang II suspension. I ordered the parts to swap it from airbags to coilovers and we will be installing this frame as the job progresses. It should be a nice upgrade to drivability.

I picked up this 1989 Suburban 2WD 1500 this past week. This truck will end up going to Virginia to be used as a local g...
08/29/2026

I picked up this 1989 Suburban 2WD 1500 this past week. This truck will end up going to Virginia to be used as a local get around car for my house over there and to launch the boats, etc. The reason: 8 passenger; easy to maintain; able to be licensed as a historic vehicle, so a one time $50 license fee; exempt from state inspection and smog; $200 per year for insurance for full coverage through Hagerty; front and rear AC too that works. The original owner took it to the Chevy dealer and had them install a brand new engine and transmission years ago, but then didn't use it much again before his death. I bought it from the 2nd owner. Looks like the drivetrain has about 30,000 +/- miles on it, so that's a plus.

So, I plan to go through every inch of it before it leaves here. We already removed the roof rack and some of the aftermarket chrome trim that was covering up the lower body rust. The roof rack holes have been welded up, and patch panels have been ordered. I would like to have it done to take over during either Fall break or Thanksgiving when we go.

I post progress pics as we go, but as you all know, square body Chevys are right in our wheelhouse.

1968 Camaro Convertible progress
08/19/2026

1968 Camaro Convertible progress

Since I sold the maroon sailboat I painted, I decided to paint the one I kept here as well. I shot this yesterday while ...
08/14/2026

Since I sold the maroon sailboat I painted, I decided to paint the one I kept here as well. I shot this yesterday while the crew went to lunch!

I got extremely lucky and found an original 1968 Firebird Deluxe steering wheel here in Louisville! Very hard to find. Y...
08/14/2026

I got extremely lucky and found an original 1968 Firebird Deluxe steering wheel here in Louisville! Very hard to find. Yes, I have to fix a couple cracks in it, but they are super rare. They easily sell for $2000+ when you find one. I also bought some Keystone Klassic mags for the car, because I hate the way the car rides with a 17's on it. Of course, there are problems with the brand new mags. I went to install the center caps and some little dude over in China welded the retainer nuts on all of them off-center, so you can't install the caps on the wheels. If you try and force it, the weldnut pops off. I am awaiting an answer from Titan Industries to see if they are sending replacements or not. At this moment they've gone silent. I suspect they went looking for replacements for me and found the little dude in China welded their whole inventory this way. You can see in the pic they are not even close to being centered. I'd say they ran short on give-a-crap making those..... at $360 per wheel!

2 week span worth of work on the 68 Camaro. Well, not really a full 2 weeks. We raised a sunken 25' boat and did some do...
08/14/2026

2 week span worth of work on the 68 Camaro. Well, not really a full 2 weeks. We raised a sunken 25' boat and did some dock work in between. I suppose really maybe 8 days, 8 hours each. The boar and dock works is slowly winding down for the season. 2 big lake events left this year.
The car looked OK ish to start, but someone years ago installed partial quarter skins up to the body line and covered with bondo. The wheel houses were rusty on the outside. Someone cut up the trunk floor to install a brace for a trailer hitch! I mean, if you want it nice, it really needed to be done like this, or else it would be like the other 80% of the "restored" cars out there.

07/18/2026

Replaced a burned piston caused by a blown headgasket bewteen cylinder 6 and 8. That caused severe detonation on cylinder 6, leading to a melted piston. We replaced the number 6 piston, had the head shaved and replaced both head gaskets. Ready to go back into Pepe's boat. Margaritas all around!!

Address

129 Story Lane
Jamestown, KY
42629

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+12703436868

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