Well, it finally happened... I hit a deer on the way to work.  On my way to work I drive about 10 miles right next to the edge of a forest.  I've seen TONS of deer over the ~13 years I've been driving this road on a daily basis.  I had a run in with one several years back with the Trans Am... it decided to run into my rear quarter panel!  I almost missed it but not quite :)  There wasn't enough damage to even turn into the insurance company.  I wasn't so fortunate this time because I hit the deer hard with the front of the car and launched it about 15 or 20 feet.  It was dark and it darted out in front of me... I had only a split second to even start applying the brakes (and I've got good Baer brakes too!).  I think it is a good thing I have the Baer brakes because I honestly believe the deer would have hit the windshield had I not been slowing down so rapidly.   Anyway, I nailed the deer and major damage was done to the car.  About $4,800 worth of damage. YIKES!  The damage was so high mainly because of the SS hood.  The SS hood was damaged pretty good (severe stress cracks around the scoop and hinge, chunk missing out of side, and cracks underneath) and it alone cost $1950 plus $255 for shipping from GM!  Lesson learned, if you have an SS and like your hood, you best have good insurance or rely on the fact you'll just get a aftermarket hood for $500 if yours is ever ruined :)  Speaking of insurance, I must give a HUGE thumbs-up to my insurance company.  I was severely bummed out and called them up.  I talked to the adjustor and told him that I take very good care of my cars and don't want shoddy work or shoddy parts used in the repair.   He said he understood completely and told me to get an estimate from the body shop of my choice.  I hit the deer on a Tuesday, got the estimate on a Wednesday, and the adjustor sent me out the check for the FULL amount (minus $250 deductible) on Thursday.   Needless to say, I was impressed!

Anyway, I worked out a deal with the body shop to give them a bit more money and just have the car completely repainted and a couple minor areas of other damage fixed as well.  I didn't want to have a completely new looking front end with killer paint then have the back half of the car with a 6 year old paint job :)   We were all set... until a couple days before I was to drop the car off when me and a buddy took a ride to Tampa in his 2001 Millennium Yellow Corvette.  I was commenting to him how killer I thought his car looked mainly because of the color.   His reply back to me was "You should just have your car painted this color then since you are getting it repainted anyway."  Hmm???  This got me to thinking.  Another buddy of mine had a yellow 4th gen several years ago and I always thought it was an eye catcher even though I didn't much care for the shade of yellow he picked.  But, I did like the Millennium Yellow. Hmmm?  Well, the next day I went and talked to the body shop guy about changing the color to Millennium Yellow and, after a few more $$$ out of my pocket, we decided to do it!

I'm just throwing this page together to show the progress of the car since several people have been emailing me and asking how it's going!

bfranker@tampabay.rr.com

I met up with my body shop guy and dropped the car off late Sunday night.  Here are some before pictures.   It was very hard for me to decide to get rid of the black because I've always loved the way a black car looks.  The thing that finally made me decide to go for the Millennium Yellow was this... if you want a black Camaro you can basically just go buy one because they are a dime a dozen.  If you want a Millennium Yellow Camaro, it's gonna cost you a pretty penny.  If I was ever going to do something like this, now was the time and the expense would be minimal as compared to what it would cost me later.   So, that's my reasoning and time to say good bye to my BLACK SS :-)

And, I also ended up taking some pics of my car with a few different sets of wheels ;)  I kinda made it sound like I was doing PhotoShop but it was all just a big joke more or less :)  I'll post these pictures as well to give you guys an idea of what they'll style wheels look like on a black Camaro.

A little while after I posted those pics, I posted these :)

Anyway, on to the REPAINTING process!!!

I dropped the car off Sunday night, July 28th, 2002.

Days 1-2

Body shop was busy, nothing done!

Days 3-4-5

Wow, they got busy these days!  Stripped her right down.

   
Somebody hit a curb or something (I didn't!) and dented in the bottom portion for about a foot or two.  I wanted this fixed and since this body shop does top notch work they don't drill into the car if they don't have to.  Instead they weld little rods onto the car, use a gizmo gadget to grab these rods and pull them out, and this pulls out the dent.  When complete, they cut/grind these welded on rods off.   It minimizes the amount of bondo needed and keeps you from having to drill holes!

Days 6-7-8-9

Day 6 and 7 were a weekend so not sure if anything was done on the car or not.  Looks like a lot of progress has been made though since the last update!

         
The doors are the only thing what have all the coats of the base yellow.  I asked him how it was going and he said "Pretty good" then frowned and said "after 9 COATS!"  He said this color is more of a tint and it was taking 8 to 9 coats! LOL!  The doors on the stand have 8 coats of base (no clear yet) while the stuff hanging up has something less than 8 :)

 
Here is the car really stripped down and sanded.  Look how dusty the interior is!  DAMN!  I guess there is no sense in trying to keep it clean and it is easier to just clean it once in the end ;)

The painter took a break from painting for a minute so I jumped in and took some close up pics.  Remember, the hanging up pieces don't have all the coats on them yet but the doors do... that's the reason for the color difference.

I had to get this picture.  Not much of a difference between the ole SS and the car pictured off to the right, eh? LOL!

Day 10

They cleared and sanded on the panels hanging up today and determined they needed more paint!  So, they will be putting on two more coats of the Millennium Yellow and then trying the clear again.  They are really having a fun time with this tint paint. LOL!  The owner of the shop told me today they have already used almost 1 gallon of Millennium Yellow and have only done the door jambs on the doors, front fenders, rear spoiler, and rear insert piece which has the CAMARO indentation.  There is still a lot of painting left!  He said he expects to have to use 3 gallons of paint on this project which is considerably more than normal :)  He was laughing when he said that then mentioned how in the paint book when it says this is a "tint" paint they weren't kidding!  LOL!  He'll have 8 or 9 coats of paint on the entire car where it typically takes only 3 coats with "normal" paint.  He said yellow is usually bad but not THIS bad.  He did say that when the panels are in the sunlight they have very good depth to them and are coming out very good.  I'm getting excited about getting the car back and driving this "unusual" Camaro around!

Here are some pics from day 10.  The panels have been sanded down but are looking real good so far!  Repair has begun on the hood and sanding is in progress.

I had to snap some pics of another project they are working on at this shop.  Take a look at this LT1 Powered Street Rod!  I only took a couple shots of the engine because the back half of the car is still in primer.

Days 11 to 16

Yeah, yeah, I'm bad.  I didn't get a chance to stop by the shop much and take pictures... that damn thing called WORK kept getting in my way. LOL!

I am happy to report things are going along quite well!  The following pictures show the removable panels with one coat of clear.   Because of a minimal amount of orange peel, they'll be wet sanding this coat of clear in the next day or two and applying two more coats.  They think when they are done there will be three double coats of clear on the car.  You probably won't be able to see the orange peel in these pictures because it is so minor but here is what they had done when I was there today.

Now are some pics of the car in the paint booth!!!   The top t-top area isn't masked correctly.  I wanted the t-top areas to be painted yellow as well.  They said OK and were going to remask it when I left.   They wanted to make CERTAIN I wanted the door handles painted yellow as well.   They seem to think they would look better black but I disagree.  Also, I told them, if I decide I don't like them yellow, it is MUCH easier for you guys to take them off and paint them black than it is to take them off and try to match this very difficult yellow... if I didn't like them yellow.  They did agree with me on that one ;)

Days 17 & 18

The weather hasn't been cooperating lately but they are still making good progress!  The car has been re-taped on the top so the area under the t-tops will be yellow.  The removed panels have been wet sanded and are awaiting the final two coats of clear.  Now, if it would just quit raining, we'd be in good shape! LOL!

I used to own a detailing business.  Everyone commented on how my detailing van was one of the dirtier vehicles on the block.   Well, I never had enough time to clean my own damn vehicles because I was so busy cleaning vehicles for everyone else!!!  I'm happy to see that somebody else has the same problem I have.  Pictured below is the body shop owner's vehicle.  It has looked like this for many months.  His shop is so full of vehicles he has no time/room to do his own!!!  ;-)  LOL!

Days 19 to 22

Things are still coming along nice.  Looks like I might have the car for the weekend!  They are really struggling with this paint.  They are on their 4th GALLON and don't think they will have enough to finish.   So, the original estimate of 3 gallons of paint is already out the window and now heading towards 5 gallons of paint. DOH!!!  He did say he hopes nobody else wants their car painted Millennium Yellow because, now that he knows what to expect out of this paint, the price has gone up considerably. LOL!

The car is so far looking real good.  Because there are so many coats on the car, there is some orange peel in the clear.  We were hoping to not have to wet sand/buff the car but, such is not the case :(  They will spend some time on it after all the clear is on the car and get it slicked out like glass.   These guys are doing a top notch job and definitely want to make sure I'm happy.   At this point they could be frustrated and rushing as it is turing out to take a bit more work and material than originally expected, but they aren't... they are still taking their time and making sure they do things right without taking short cuts and, to me, that says something about the shop.  This is the first time I've used this shop.   They came highly recommended and I can now see why.

They hope to be putting it back together mid week.   With any luck, I'll have it by the weekend!  I've been driving my pick-up truck for over 3 weeks now... lots different than the SS :)

Days 23 to 26

Well, I'm way behind!  I haven't had much of a chance to get to the shop.  In fact, as I'm typing this there is actually way more done on the car but I don't have the pictures taken yet so, I'm just going to day 26.   I'm going to try and get some more pics SOON and then it'll jump up a few more days. LOL!  The car is really coming together now.

Days - Lost track. LOL!

Here are probably the last pictures you will see with the car in an unfinished state.  It has been a little over a month since they first took the car.  The car would have been done a week earlier but, if you've been reading, they ran into some unexpected problems with the paint and how much was being used.  They tried a couple different things to see if they could determine why so much paint was being used and that delayed it about a week.  Either way, it doesn't really matter because the end result is going to be very good :)  I'm very picky and so far I'm pretty darn satisfied.  Here are the latest pictures I have.  The next pictures will likely be pictures of the completed project!

I had them paint the strut tower brace.  I wanted to offset the all black engine compartment just a little :)

You may notice in some of these pics a difference between the panels.  That's because some of them are in the middle of being sanded down while the adjacent panels have not been sanded.  Hood looks pretty good too, eh?   Can't wait to see it on the car!!!

Sep 8th

Finally picked the car up!  I still have a couple things left to do with the car and still need to shine it up a bit with a good coat of Zaino but it doesn't look too bad right now :-)

Here is the crew at Specialties by Chuck

I'm installing the SS emblems back on the car
       

My buddy John with his red Pro Street SS showed up as did Shawn with my old TA :)
 

I'm trying to decide if I want to stick on the Yellow emblem or the Red emblem.  Decided to go with the Yellow.  I like it!   However, after installing it, it looked "funny" and after extremely close observation of both the red and the yellow laying on top of each other, I noticed I put the yellow on upside down!  Had to peel it off and redo it.  I would have lost money had I betted there was a top and bottom because it sure doesn't look like it by just glancing at it but, believe it or not, there is a top and bottom to these front bowtie emblems!

The Transformation and one last look at the deer hair that started it all!
 

Back in the driveway!
 

Switched out my other wheels with Torque Thrust IIs.  Will run these for a little while then switch out to the Boyds.  Not sure at this point which one I'll like better.  Most my buds are divided... some like these and others like the Boyds.  For now, I like the TTIIs :)  You'll also notice I need to get my rear CAMARO inserts in and get the SS emblems on the back still.

I'm going to try and get it cleaned up and then take some really nice pictures of it!

Well, this has been quite the experience!   I've always liked doing things a little different and this is definitely different.   I know of one other Millennium Yellow 4th Gen Camaro out there and I'm pretty sure it isn't even in Florida.  I'm very pleased with the results and very happy with the color choice.  When changing colors you can do pretty much anything... I don't regret for a second going with this color!

bfranker@tampabay.rr.com