This is my 1968 el Camino SS 396 that I purchased from the original owner back in 1989 when I used to live in Northern California. I purchased it for $3,000 with 47,000 original miles on her. I believed the mileage to be true because of the condition of the brake pedal, it had almost no wear on it. With my experience, a break pedal with 147,000 miles on it would show quite a bit of wear. It had been sitting outside under a large tree on his property for quite some time not being driven. It had very minimal surface rust in the bed and the lower rear window channel. The body was very straight, never been in an accident. However, it did need to be repainted, it was beyond buffing out. I moved from California to Michigan in the summer of 2005 to be with the woman who I fell in love with over the phone. The company I worked for did business with the company where she worked and lived in Michigan and we would speak from time to time over the phone to conduct our business. One day I gave her my phone number and asked her to call me sometime to talk outside of work. Long story short, we have been happily married since 2007 here in Michigan where I landed a good job in the auto industry building engines. When I got to Michigan, I started to finish the restoration that I had started back home in California. When I purchased the car, it was pretty much a barn find. It was all original and had never been modified other than a trailer hitch, that was the first thing to go. The second thing to go was the dealer installed bed rails, I just thought that they made the muscle truck look lame in my opinion.
Shortly after purchasing the vehicle, I pulled the engine to do a rebuild. The SS ran and drove when I purchased it, but it definitely needed a rebuild. After I tore apart the engine, I found that the camshaft had worn lobes, some were pretty bad. I ended up having Rex Hutchinson Racing Engines in Orangevale CA build the engine for me, they did a fantastic job. While the engine was out I went through all of the suspension components myself. It ran a respectable 13.5 in the quarter mile with the TH400 and 3.90 gears. It was nothing to brag about, but it was a lot of fun to drive.
Over the last 32 years of ownership of this el Camino, it has gone through many changes. Engine builds for one reason or another, suspension changes, shifter location from the column to the floor and then back to the column, intake manifolds, carburetors, removal of stock exhaust manifolds to headers, back to stock manifolds, back to headers, mufflers, gear sets, torque converters, steering wheels, cooling systems and wheels. In the trucks current state, I have done all of the work myself except for the differential gear set, headliner and seat upholstery. I also did not do the body and paint which was re-sprayed in Ermine white the way it left the factory. I have either replaced, rebuilt or restored practically ever piece to this entire vehicle during the frame-on restoration over the years of this true 138 VIN SS el Camino.
A couple years ago I rebuilt the engine myself except for the machine shop work. It is a basically stock numbers matching L34 350 hp engine except for the Isky LS5 camshaft. I also had the heads worked to except the larger 2.19 / 1.94 valves and the valve pockets cleaned up in the heads. It has a completely rebuilt and re-colored Quadrajet from Quadrajet power, Hedman headers, Flowmaster mufflers and a numbers matching completely rebuilt and restored alternator from Ken Bruno Motorsports. I also had the block drilled for parallel cooling which has helped out quite a bit. After that, I got rid of my dual electric fan setup and went back to the stock shroud with the stock 7 blade fan and fan clutch, it now runs between 175* and 180* all day with the a/c blowing. I also rebuilt the TH400 myself the other year for the first time, that was fun and not too stressful at all. The original transmission is long gone but it still retains the original 12 bolt rear end.
The elky currently sits on 18" Coys wheels, 9.5" in the rear and 8" in the front with Nitto tires. It has Hotchkis 1.5" lowering springs front and rear, TRW ball joints, UMI performance upper and lower rear control arms and Energy suspension body bushings. I converted the front drum brakes to disc using Wilwood components and swapped out the power steering box to a new Lee power steering unit and upgraded the front sway bar to the larger size. It has a BTE 2800 stall converter that puts the power to a 3.55 Richmond gear set in the numbers matching completely rebuilt 12 posi rearend. While driving around in this beautiful 1968 el Camino SS, I am sitting on a newly upholstered seat that was covered using Legendary upholstery and staying cool with the factory air that I since converted to the R134 system. Some of the components had to be changed and were purchased from Classic Auto Air out of Florida. Those folks there that I spoke with were very helpful and did a great job restoring some of the factory a/c component needed to get the system up and running again.
All of the sheet metal is original to the vehicle except for the front fenders which I replaced shorty after I bought it. They had some rust at the lower portion of the fenders and I just decided to go to the local stealership and purchased two new GM fenders instead of try to repair them. I was young at the time and probably should have had the fenders repaired instead. It still retains the original dash pad and door panels. The pad is perfect while the panels show some minor wear at the bottom edge, but show very nice. All of the exterior trim pieces are original except for the front and rear badges on the grille and tailgate. Also, the upper tailgate trim is original and flawless which you don't see very often. This is a very solid mostly original 1968 SS el Camino that I keep stored in my climate controlled garage when I am not driving it.
My favorite aspect of this vehicle is, besides it being a great looking muscle truck, is that you just don't see that many of them around. It's fun and comfortable to drive and I get the thumbs up every time I take it out. They only built 5,190 SS el Camino's 1968 and when you break it down even further, according to Dan Carr, they only built 288 1968 SS el Camino's with the L34 engine and air conditioning, which makes this vehicle pretty special.
Steve