Archives for July 2012

Note: the first letter in the part number for the old delco battery is the battery top color, “Y”=Yellow, example Y-55 and “R”=Red, example R59
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When I went to the 2012 Camaro Nationals in Maryland a few weeks ago, the first thing I noticed is that almost every Z/28 I saw in both the Legends and Bowtie classes had a reproduction R59 or a reproduction R79S battery in it. It looked like there were red top batteries everywhere and no yellow top batteries. I saw at least 5 of these batteries and probably more but didn’t count them.

According to the CRG near the bottom of this page: CRG battery page

No Z/28 is supposed to have a Red Top battery. A Y55 or Y77 is correct depending on the date the car was made. Jerry MacNeish’s 69 Z/28 book on page 18 says the same thing.

My best guess is that most judged cars all have Red Tops is because no company makes a reproduction Yellow Top.

The Y-55 battery I just bought came in on Monday. It’s a little odd that someone would keep a battery around for 35 to 40 years and never use it. It’s in great NOS condition. Never had acid in it.

And…it’s so so pretty…..for a battery….LOL.

Researching inspection marks, I found a comment by a guy with the username firstgenaddict on the CRG.

He wrote: “if you had a time machine and traveled back and bought a brand new 69 Z brought it to the present and put it in a car show…………IT WOULD NOT EVEN PLACE.”

There is some truth to this frustration since people find different undercarriage finishes and inspection marks on their cars and as my friend Jeff said, “I’ve never seen any SPOT regarding correct inspection markings for 1st gen cars.  (SPOT = single point of truth).

To the best of my knowledge there are no published judging manuals or set documents that can be followed for restorations. If I’m full of baloney, hopefully someone will set me straight.

On the Z, there was loads of surface rust and grime and I don’t remember seeing any inspection marks, but I am going to take a much closer look this Friday.

I found an article written by Frank Serafine in the magazine “Camaro Enthusiast May-June 1993” and the title of the article is “UnderCarriage Detailing Component Finishes”.  I think that Frank used to write many articles for Camaro Enthusiast with this title.  According to his bio he ran the judging and put together the certification process for the national conventions probably around the time this article was written.

At least one item,  the color of the underbody being gray is not currently accepted in Camaro Nationals judging in the Concours Legends class.  From what I have seen on my car and the CRG, it is partially true, but not accepted for judging.   There may be more things in this article that are not correct for current judging.

I scanned the article yesterday and cut out sections from the pages that were in color.

pg 33

pg 36

pg 37