I am officially inspired. Going to work on the Corvette!

We have had a VERY rainy Spring/Summer so far and I finally got the car outside 2 days ago, to get epoxy sealer/primer on the raw dash/instrument panel. Had a few peeks of sun thru the clouds and it was windier than I would have liked, but ya gotta get stuff done when ya can....
Now to get all the seams sealed up.


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Looking great. How did you weld the dash panel at the base of the windshield - were those plug welds or spot welds?

Most of it I did with the spot welder, you can see the dimples. The left wiper transmission mount prevented me from getting beyond it and there are about 8 plug welds on that side and I think 3-4 on the far right as well.

I see I dropped the ball on this last June. I did get the front area seam sealed and in an initial coat of color. Then this got forgotten about and neglected during the busy summer until last week. Winter is coming and we're back in the rainy season, so dug out the wheel well moldings and drilled the mounting holes for them. These are the GM authorized moldings and are well worth the cost over the generic ones. The left quarter skin is an AMD fit to most of the original outer house and the right is an NOS full quarter fit to the original outer house. The moldings fit VERY well, with only minor tweaking. These are a softer, more pliable material than the cheap ones and lent themselves to the little shaping they needed easily. I'll be purchasing a set of these for the '70 Chevelle in the near future. Probably be years before I use them, but I'll hedge my bet that cost will have increased by then...:cool2:
Realized I needed to locate and drill the holes for the rs panel in the new quarter too. It was nerve racking to drill the first few holes in NOS metal, but it went really well.

Looking good Mitch! Will we be working on it at Karl's on the 16th?

I'm bringing the doors and fenders down for that. The right door needs a whisper more filler on the center style line that runs the length of the door. There is a slight low area that creates the illusion of it not being straight. That door was a total shock after being chemically cleaned and EDP dipped. It had a huge dent right on that crease that NO real attempt was made to correct, just slather filler over the entire door to blend...:mad2: That a was an unpleasant 5 hour drive home from Milwaukee and I was so disgusted, I wanted to just chuck the whole car outside and forget it. Karl talked me down a little and I started working the dent out and actually got it about 90%. No pic of that, as I was still on strike from taking pics of it...:laugh:

The fenders are NOS and have been out of boxes for many years. I want to do a light block sand to find dents that we can tap out pdr style to make better and use less filler for a skim coat.

Love the progress Mitch. Looking forward to seeing y’all at MCACN.

Any updates Mitch?

I disassembled the steering column and glass media blasted it all for paint. I'll be taking those pieces and the left door to my body work/painter's place on Friday morning to get the bare parts in primer/sealer. He wants to put the right door, that we did block sand more last month, in high build primer and block again and it should be ready for paint.

We sanded 1 of the NOS fenders at the club meet and it had a few very small dents that I and a pdr guy in the club worked out, but the consensus is, the original edp is not compatible with today's paints and it needs to be removed completely. The fenders will be going to be stripped and dipped in January.

I got the fenders back from stripping and dipping just before we went to AZ at the end of January. since then, we, body/paint mentor mostly have block sanded the EDP and found a few area he used some filler on to skim over minor imperfections. They are ready for sealer/primer now, but I realized last week i need to drill 13 HOLES in each for emblems and trim ! Yikes ! NOS fenders and I'm afraid to drill in the wrong location. I made templates of the hole patterns from my old fenders and managed to locate them for the V8 flag and 350 emblems, but I am paralyzed to drill the SS emblems at the front. Need help with that. The 3 holes for the rs trim will wait until I can find them and then 2 more for the rocker spear.

Anyway, I helped build the booth in the pics with my mentor. He bought a "prep station" air filtering machine with a small curtain around it, but we expanded it a "bit" to hold much more.

I used the template to locate the holes on the right fender and it took some hand filing with a round jewelers file to get them straight and level, but they look good.
The string on it is on the body line, but there is no reference as to how far up from that the SS emblems go. References in the AIM are for plains that I have no idea how to locate on the fender.

Mitch, I think the measurements are in the assembly manual. The pattern for the holes looks like this.

Thanks, Jon, yes they are, but not where to put them from top or bottom, at least that I have figured out. I have my old fenders to copy the hole pattern, just need to know where to put them.

Would like to see a thread on the booth construction.
Looks pretty cool.

I have very few pics of the construction. Karl has a bunch and I'll see if he can email some to me to post. It's 12X20 and since it is free standing, he went a little crazy with the siding. It's all 2X4 framing and we put 1/2" plywood on the inside and he had almost enough 3/4" sheets left from the construction of the building the booth is inside and used that on the exterior to prevent it from collapsing either way. Pretty certain he could run into it with a truck and all it would do is slide on the floor...:laugh:

Finally, some visible progress besides drilling holes. The NOS fenders have been blocked with 220 and are now in first 2 coats of sealer/primer. I brought the left door home and put it on the car, as it had a high area just below the style line. There had been a deep crease there that I metal worked out most of the way, but it had too much filler yet and needed to be on the car to be sanded down to match the quarter. Got that done too.
The "prep" booth worked really well. We were supposed to turn the air flow off while spraying but had it on during cleaning and tacking the parts and forgot to turn it off. It doesn't expel the filtered air out of the booth, it blows it out the top of the machine and creates a current that sends it back to the floor and back thru the filters again. Fortunately, I had the room clean enough that it didn't pick up any sizable dirt and drop it on the parts, that we saw. "Feeling" with our hands before block sanding may prove there is some, but it has to be very small.
Overall, happy to be moving forward again.

Fenders and extensions were blocked with 220 and then 320. Doors were guide coated and blocked again. Header and lower valance had some "imperfections" filled and then blocked out to 320. Then it all was put into final "primer/surfacer" according to the bodyman. At this point, it all comes home and the car needs to have the running gear installed so the panels can be fitted on the wheels. I guess this means we are starting to get ready for color.

Working on the hood(s) and the deck lid. The original hood has sand blast warping and I now have 2 replacement hoods that were supposed to be "good" but after stripping and edp dipping are as rough, if not worse than the original. We are evaluating our next move on those.
Deck lid was a mess, as was every other panel on the car, so not a surprise, but disgusting and a lot of filler, sanding work to make it presentable.

Looking good. I like when you hit a milestone. Makes you feel like you are actually getting something done.

Bodyman said "it's time to get the body off the roto and assemble this for panel fit. So yesterday, I "discovered" the front subframe assembly under a lot of plastic I had thrown on to protect it from sanding dust and paint overspray. It still had a lot from before it got covered and I spent a couple hours doing an initial cleanup. I then cleared everything out from around, under and in the body to access it with the fork lift.

This morning, I lifted the body off, broke down the roto and hauled it to the back storage building. After I set the body on the floor, I realized it was perfect to get back to work on the roof, which needs more work and was NOT fun to work on after I put the body on the roto. More on that to come.
I rolled the rear axle outside on a pair of wheel dollies and scraped, wire brushed, soaked with de-greaser and then got my pressure washer running after sitting for 10 years...with OLD gas in the tank...yeah, stupid move, took a couple hours and a butane torch, but it does run again.

Cool Tow Motor, is that a single stage mast?

I was thinking the same thing. Here's mine, 1948 Clark Clipper, aka a (rail) "Car loader". It will fit through a 36" door.

Sorry for the hyjack Mitch.

I've seen this thing in the live... it is as nice as everything else Bill owns. I think he even polishes it lolol!

Are those five foot forks on the Clark. We always put 6 foot forks on the 5K forks, so handy!

Ooops didn’t mean to rob your post Mitch, I’ll hush.

Anyone notice the car...:laugh:

Lift is a '55 with a flat 4 Willy's converted to propane, like Bills. Unlike Bill's, I wouldn't dare drive mine on his cement. It marks it's territory almost constantly now from a worn hydraulic pump seal and is it a BIOTCH to change, hence it USED to be less expensive to just keep adding oil. Bought a 2 gallon jug at Fleet Farm Tuesday and about fell over... $35 for 2 gallons of hydraulic oil ?? Might be time to upgrade the pump and hoses, but that requires removing the counter weight....:no: Oh, it has no idea what polish is, or even a bath, it's just a tool...:biggthumpup:


My forks are 4' and I have 2X6 channel extensions for things like this.

Camaro is coming along nicely Mitch!

Great progress Mitch!

Looking good, you’re inspiring me to get mine started.

Roof work was completed to semi-final stage and body was put on running gear. Then I threw a donor steering column in so I can steer it to push outside for paint. It's now in primer/sealer on a breezy day with the first of the bazillion cottonwood seeds to start falling. Lots of other small trash and suicide bugs in it, as it was getting towards evening by the time I got it all ready and outside. It WAS calm and full sun when I decided to get this done, but it clouded over and was difficult to follow the wet line on the roof. Full quart of paint on it, aside from what blew away in the gusts that came up as I was spraying. Should be enough thickness to sand everything out... fingers crossed.

Love seeing the progress, Mitch! Lookin good!

Last week, I was digging thru boxes, looking for stuff I wanted to take to a swap meet on Sunday and came across the steering column parts, I had prepped months ago. Yesterday was calm at 6am, with NO CW seeds flying around yet, so I did final prep, hung them on the parts tree and got them covered. I was in a groove and went to the back building and found the left seat frame I had dismantled about 15 years ago. No memory of the springs, but most of them had the broken stubs still on the frames, so I assume I trashed the old stuff. Anyway, I ran them thru the blast cabinet and got 1 side covered and was waiting for it to set enough to turn over. While I was waiting the wind came up again and they have some trash in them and by the time they were dry enough to turn over it was too windy to continue.
So I went in the house and ordered new springs. They will be here long before I ever order the upholstery for them, but finding the frames bare was a bit of a surprise, so eliminating that repeatable event for whenever it comes about...:smirk:
Before I put the body on the subframe I had to clinch speedo cable tabs over and 1 was directly behind the heater box, so that had to come out. I had replaced the heater core about 12 years ago and had no intention of removing the heater and was OK with leaving it "as original". Oh, well, such is life. It had a turn in the cabinet and is now in new black SPI black. It actually had more of a Bluish/Graphite Gray color, but I don't have any of that, so it will stay black. Hmmm, as I was typing this, I think I MAY have some rattle can Graphite....now I have to go digging in the paint cabinet and see if I do and spray some out to see if it is closer to original. Dang project creep.

Looking good Mitch!

Tell me about it..........I feel your pain :grin:

Yeah, this started as a trunk floor and right quarter with new paint....and look at it now, fresh off the rotisserie. That's why Tim and I tease you about a frame off. You'll have darn near done that without removing the body...:smile:

I like this on heater boxes Mitch...

Project creep??? My most recent restoration began as refreshing a 25 year old restoration. Next thing, the body is off....:beers:

Hammered ?? I haven't been hammered in 44 years, don't think I want to start now...:grin:
I found a can of Dupli-Color Graphite in the cabinet, but haven't had time to try it yet. Spent the day fighting a losing battle with upholstery. Bottom cushion was missing a listing sleeve at the very front that took me a while to figure out it needed one and my wife came to the rescue, again, and modified it for a wire. Waiting on a long nose hog pliers to reach down into the recess of the foam to attach the vinyl to the listing at the sides of the bottom spring. What a fight with a short handle, short nose pliers I have.

Here's the finished product, it matches up well with an original paint box.
The pic doesn't show the full "hammered" effect.

I repainted the heater Graphite and it looks very similar to yours now. I don't seem to have taken an "after" pic... maybe later.
I was starting to install the right fender and realized I hadn't aligned the frame with the body. I had looked this up in the Aim a couple months ago and was going to find some .610 rod for that step and forgot until Tuesday afternoon. I ordered a 3 ft piece of .609375 tool steel shaft Tuesday and received it today and cut it in 3 pieces. I had both floor jacks holding the frame and body with minimal weight resistance and used the pins to move the body around until they would both fall right out. I then held them in place with some blocks and gradually tightened the bolts until I had them torqued to 75 lbs/ft. and the pins still fell out. That should be pretty darned close, but as I assemble the sheetmetal, I will be cross measuring to be certain it is all sqaure.

All but the hood is on, that is still at the bodyman's shop. I'm not impressed with the fit of the NOS fenders. The gaps at the doors are rather poor. I suppose they were stamped later, after the die was well worn and the folds at seams aren't as clean as the originals. Had to do some hammer and dolly work for the door gaps, as they wanted to rub in a couple areas. Anyway the clip is on.