Hey, I've had this '95 Monte Z34 for a little over a year now... And I think it's about time I gave it some love. I'll be posting to this thread as I replace exterior components, and I might make a thread in interior as well, though I'm more likely to just continue posting here for those.

This is the car in question. She's a '95 Monte Carlo, likely built in '94 (earliest records in the user manual are from Q1 '95). She's a Z34 trim with the twin cam, and with a standard cloth interior with power driver seat/manual passenger and no sunroof. Not really out of the ordinary. She's my first car.
On to the damages!


The front bumper was damaged when we bought it, specifically the air dam. Originally, some clear packing tape was used to keep in in place, but that gave up after several moths, so a lot of gorilla tape is now being used to hold it together. Additionally, the two supports that are supposed to hold the air dam up broke, as they do on all Z34s, probably why it broke in the first place. Additionally, this car was bought from an owner in Missouri, so it has the ugly holes for the front license plate. Though to be fair, it would have that anyway, dealerships like to get paid to put a buncha advertising on customer's cars, after all!


The passenger side fender and door were damaged in October of '19 in a college parking lot. The college didn't think to salt the roads when they iced over, and ABS didn't work at that time. Hit the ice patch, panicked, floored the brake, and in the single-width parking lot, hit a truck. The truck had a dent the size of a penny, because I hit the bumper. No airbags deployed, and the truck owner didn't really care all that much about it.



3/4 of the side marker housings are in rough shape. The other housing is fine, it was replaced shortly after buying the car since it was broken.

Headlight housings are original and a little rough. They're better than what they were, but they're still cloudy, with deep scratches and gouges. LED lights for high and low beams, but incandescent for turn signal, which will change.


I may or may not have ruined the rear valence. I attempted to use carb cleaner to remove the ugly dealer mark directly above the nameplate badge, resulting in the cleaner not only destroying the surface, but also destroying the glue on the nameplate, causing it to come off. I proceeded to, in a moment of intense stupidity, remove all the other badges with more cleaner. The rear bowtie was damaged anyway, but the Z34 was fine.

Driver side housing is badly cracked, has been since purchasing the car. It's also slightly messed up from the cleaner. The passenger side has deep scratches, but is nowhere near as bad.





The paint is rough or downright bad in various spots around the car.



The quarter panels are starting to rust. The passenger side is very bad, but from what I can tell, the driver side is just starting. There's some light rust on the quarter windows as well.

The accent line is in rough shape and is in desperate need of restoration.


The wrap on the doors is in rough shape, and needs to be replaced.



I think that covers everything for now. Come on this journey with me!

 

Wow that's a big undertaking. That will be a challenge for sure. You can still get parts at the salvage yards.
I visit the U-Pull it salvage yards several times a year and once an awhile I pick up some stuff I need.
You can get new Fenders and a Hood as well check Ebay as a source.
This one is mine!
I do have some of the Rockers trim and a rear spoiler That would fit your car if you are in need of something like that. It's in Black though.

 

Thank you for the info, I've actually located an '01 Lumina in white at a pick n' pull nearby that I may be able to get a fender off of. The hood's fine, just needs a little touch up.
My rocket trim is good, but I've been considering a spoiler as well. Is it in the style of the one you've got on your car? I really like that style. (but please don't take it off your car, it looks like it fits it great.)
Painting a spoiler wouldn't be that much of a problem for me since I'm already going to be needing to touch up parts of my car anyway. Nice tribute to the intimidator, BTW. Love the 2000-05 monte/impala SS wheels!

 

Minor update time!


Monte's in the garage for some work. (further down the page)


Brand new headlight housings! Actually put these on a week ago, but just now got to starting the thread. These are OEM style EagleEyes. I was going to go with some black-backs, but then I realized that the backs of those housings was made of a different, cheaper plastic.


New clear side marker housings. Red bulbs in the back, nothing in the front currently (due to an issue with the blinker bulb, which will be explained in a future update).

New rear valence came in!


Badge on it is in REALLY good shape, but could use some touch ups. Does anyone know the exact code used for the rim of this badge?


The valence will need a good polishing, and maybe some deeper restoration work. It's cloudy and has PLENTY of scratches.


Target lock: Faulty ignition switch and redneck quick fix. (in order to turn the car on at the present time, I have to turn the key to "on" and then push in this $5 hardware store button, which was used since the previous owner couldn't do an ignition switch himself and didn't feel like paying anyone. That's also probably why my upper bezel is damaged)



Interior lighting: The instrument panel has blue LEDs, the shift indicator the same. The shades are slightly different, so some ice-blue LEDs have been ordered, both sets from the same manufacturer to reduce chance of them not matching. Climate control bulbs are still incandescent, and one of them burned out, so they need replacement. Why not wire in some serviceable sockets while I'm at it? (factory style for the unit requires you to either replace the entire unit, or pull it apart, de-solder the old bulbs, and solder the new bulbs back in- which is kinda strange, considering that the bulbs are actually standard T5 sockets- I already have the wiring harnesses for this)


Interior partially torn apart!
From here, I can replace the bulbs in the instrument panel + climate control, as well as get to the ignition switch (dropped the column for that).
Camera stopped recording before I could take footage of it, but I replaced the ignition switch. There's a safety connector towards the right of the column. Unbolt it and remove the plugs on top and bottom, noting colors and where they go. Then, turn key to "on", which is the only position in which you can remove the shifter cable (for console shift) which serves as the lockout. Then, unbolt the assembly (2*8mm bolts) and carefully remove the actuator rod (it goes straight up into the bottom).
On the new assembly, remove the plastic plug. Here you can go with two routes for re-installation. Both start with putting the actuator rod back in. My method: Put both bolts (2*8mm) back in, hand tight. Tighten one to hold the assembly in place. Turn the key to "on" to unlock the lockout. Push the shifter cable rod back into it's place. At this point, the lockout should function properly. (if shifter is in any position other than park, you should not be able to turn the key off of "on", if the key is in any other position than "on", you should not be able to push the button in.) a good tell to see if the cable rod is back in place is to check to see if it's flush with the hole it goes through. From there, adjust it, using the washer marks on the old switch as a guide for placement.
The FACTORY way... Once you have the actuator rod in place, put in the bolts (2*8mm) back in place, hand-tight. Remove plastic plug, and replace with an appropriately sized drill bit (yikes) to hold the assembly in place. Turn key to on, from there it's similar to my method, but with the added step of removing the drill bit when it's back together. This method is so you don't have to tighten it until you're ready to adjust it, but it still sounds janky to me.

Now, I just need to plug it back in to the starter and test it!

 

Very minor update.


The push-button starter has been unplugged! Red/Yellow wire with fuse went to the pole on the fuse block on the driver side, blue wire went all the way to the starter. In the process of unbolting the blue wire and finding the loosely hanging purple wire (factory wire for starter), I discovered that the factory connector has corroded pretty bad. I'm going to wait for my Dad, since he's a lot better at wiring than I am, to see if we can maybe rob the connector off the blue wire and splice it in in place of the factory connector. Then, we'll test it. If it works, we'll go ahead and take out the button (finally!)
Forgot something in the original post as well. I'm missing the two strut tower braces under the hood. Right now, the hole at the top is proving to be rather handy, as my positive connector for my battery doesn't self retain and it's the perfect size and thread pitch for it, so I'm using that to hold it while the system is de-energized. The reason why I take the positive out instead of negative is because the previous owner didn't know how the terminals worked, and ended up stripping some threads in the negative terminal of the battery itself, so it's a bit touchy at the moment. We're either going to attempt to repair the battery, or just straight up buy a new battery at some point later down the line, but for now, it works just fine.

 

Another update! The ignition switch is wired in, and it works perfectly! Buuuut...


We have an issue. Upon starting it, the car immediately backfired VIOLENTLY, and then died. It will stay running, just VERY rough, with throttle applied, but as soon as the throttle is released, there's a loud pop and it dies again. We started it last night when the push button was in, and it worked perfectly. We believe it's jumped time.

 

Well here is something you can do with the bowtie. I had my rear panel painted all black and left some bowties for the backup lights. I will try and find the photo's. The spoiler is one piece came off of a buddy of mines car that I found in a U-pull it. So I got the spoiler the thing is nice but I imagine the shipping is the big problem in cost.
Timing is off for the backfire.

 

I might hit you up for that spoiler. Do you know who made that carbon fiber badge, though? It looks like they repainted the rim with the proper color, which is what I'm looking for. (my front badge is in poor shape because a previous owner just kinda painted the badges pink)

 

Yet another update! I am impressed with this motor now.
We have discovered that timing is at TDC on piston... 4? which is weird. What's also weird is, given the firing order, this thing is actually probably a flat plane crankshaft. It explains the vibration.

 

Another update. This thing is quickly becoming a problem child.
It turns out that whoever did this timing belt had no clue what they were doing.
The front bank is slightly out of time, the rear bank is backwards... Basically, the rear bank is trying to intake air through the exhaust and exhale through the intake. Hence the loud backfire, and the carbon buildup in the below pic. It's a wonder it was running at all.