Garnet Red 69 Chevelle L78 left out to pasture
 

I have decided to share the rebuild of this car.

First a little back story. I decided to buy this car as a beater to have at my lake house. When I got the car home it was rough. Like most of ya'll I like original paint cars so this was the other end of the spectrum for me. Rust, bondo wrong body panels, wrong tranny, front end hit and wrong rear end. But the original engine, a few misc. engine parts, mostly original interior, original glass, and the build sheet was with the car (big deal...that does not outweigh this frankenstein:frown:). I did a little research found the second owner of the car who at the time was living in St. Pete Fl. He told me he bought the car from the original owner one town over who drag raced the car. The second owner used the car as a daily for his job at Logan Airport as an employee for Pan Am airlines. (Vintage Pan Am stickers still on the rear bumper). He owned the car from 1972 - 2016. I am the third registered owner. (The car went through a few flippers who apparently never knew it was an L78). He took the 4 speed out, and put in an automatic, removed the KK rear end, and installed the 67 3.31. He told me he and his wife use to drive the car up to Montreal. That explains the 148,000 miles or 248,000 miles on the odometer!! He also crashed the car and went to a buddies house who had a 68 front clip which they installed. The story gets better, the car sat outside during the '78 Boston Blizzard he was so proud to tell me and during the Blizzard a tree fell on the passenger door. (Man what have I got myself into!!!:ooo:) So I made the car safe, rebuilt the original engine, suspension, brakes etc and enjoyed the car. The car ran awesome with a 67 3.31 rear end, M20 and the fresh L78. I put cut outs on it, headers, bought vintage Ansen slots and terrorized my neighborhood as a 55 year old kid. I enjoyed the car this way but could not stand it any longer. So September 2020 the tear down began at my shop. What I found were no big surprises. Bubba had not been in the wiring, dash, gauges, interior. He had spent all of his time on the body! :no: I stripped the car and took it over to an ole timer body guy about an hour from my lake house. We discovered original rotted out quarters, full floor and trunk pan and trunk extensions that were shot. Laughable fenders, small block 68 radiator support, but original hood, trunk lid, roof:thumbsdown:.
After the body work I took the car to the painter who did my 67 L79 Vette, and 69 Z28 RS. The car sat there for months waiting for him, and things changed for him and he could not do it. So I sourced another painter and he basically kept putting me off. So I finally found a painter and the car is now in paint. Soon the re-assembly will begin.
Big Shout out to Dan Vasic who has been coaching me through this process. I will try my best to re-assemble the car as close to OEM as possible. I sourced a very nice correctly dated KK rear end, and had an M21 built. We will see!!
The body guy did me a big favor and took my original steering box that he was supposed to rebuild to NPD and traded it for a "nice" rebuilt one. He did this because after he opened the box up it was full of rust as he said. So if anyone has a manual box for a May 69 car let me know. I have posted this up in the parts wanted section of the site.

Pictures from the Second Owner.....

Awesome!

Some tell tale signs

Southpark (Charlotte) terrorizer.

Few more pics

Thank goodness for AMD!! And Craigslist for OEM fenders!

Making progress...

Oops something went wrong...no pics...try again.

In color…prior to wet sanding and buffing.

Better sized pics

Sorry for the sideways pics. How can I turn them?

Very cool car and story. Thanks for sharing.

Nice progress!

Where did it sell from new i am in the Boston area

Here you go

This came out of the back seat

Way cool! Thanks for showing the progress.

Great looking car. My uncle bought one new (Garnet Red L78 but with vinyl top). No clue where it has gone now as he sold it and it changed hands 4 times in less than a year.

Here's your photos rotated.

Thanks for sharing your progress. One of my favorite cars. :beers:

Sharp color!

Have a little progress to share. Have the glass in, bumpers on, door handles on, Gardner exhaust installed. Aftermarket wheel well moldings totally suck. Need NOS for sure. I should had bought them. Inner fenders are a joke too. Other sheet metal looks and fits good. The original polished stainless around the glass looks and fits great. I will get better pics next week.

Car looks great! Check you fan looks to be on backwards.

Looks really nice & stock,why the G70-14 tires?

Thanks for the heads up regarding the fan.

The tires are just rollers for the moment. 1972 date codes!!

Looks great! Guessing this is no longer relegated to 'beater' status at your lake house :haha:

It's hard to tell from the pictures but the door handles appear to be angled upward which is incorrect. It's a common mistake I've seen at many car shows. Nice progress on the Chevelle. :burnout:

Enjoyed reading your story with this car. Reminds me of the 69 Chevelle I'm working on now.

Dan V. mentioned the door handles too. I was looking at them yesterday and agree with you guys. Not sure what to do? The door handles are re-chromed originals. How do I fix this?
I bought Gardner exhaust for the car and the tips are so thick I can't get the clamps seized down on the tailpipe to tighten the tip. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the comments. Can't wait to fire it up!

Door handle
 

I asked Jerry Beasley about your angled up door handle. He said common mistake made on 69 Chevelles. The door metal has been stressed in that area and should have been worked out prior to paint. The handle should have been test fit and you would have caught this.
I didn’t ask him how to fix it but can if you want me to.

GL

are you sure the handles are original? a 70 handle will not work on a 69

Donnie is correct. The 70-72 handles have a much flatter mounting area than the 68-69 which is cut at quite and angle. I cannot imagine that the issue is in the door panel as that would be quite noticeable let alone hard to screw up. Look at the angle of the mounting area on this handle in the photo and you can see how much more cut angle it is than yours. Sorry but this is the only photo I have that has an almost straight on shot of the door handle.

here a pic 70 on the right 69 on the left

Donnie, take a shot of the thumb end to show the difference in angles. I have no 69's here or I would do it.

Oh yea forgot to change that!

Thanks for the heads up

Ahhhh....I see what ya'll are talking about. The door handles are original re-chromed but not from this car and therefore I have no idea from what year.
The door handles I took off of this car were very badly pitted. Really not useable. I need a set of 69 door handles now!

I read that some handles had 3.25" shafts and others had 3.5" shafts. This car was made in Framingham Mass. Any idea what would be correct for this plant? Man I wish I still had the original handles :mad2: I usually never through anything away but these handles were hammered so out they went.

Thanks guys! I had no idea.

The glass is in the car. Bought the correct door handles, may have a lead on an NOS cowl seal, ordered tires from Rusty, dug up the original carpet underlayment that I pulled out of the car and put that under the carpet. Going to work on the grill to make it fit a little better with the end trim pieces. Headliner in the car. Moving along.