Our 69 Yenko Chevelle restoration

[cheveslakr]

That's simply art right there! Spot on accurate. I'm going to add the orange stripe to my shaft....KC/L78/M21.

I looked up the part number ad added that. I had no visual evidence of it ever being there but since it was an ink stencil, I doubt it lasted very long.
I used a blue ink marker to lightly add the "blueing" of the welds, then cleared.

[SS427]

Next came the interior heater box. What appeared to be a very rough box actually blasted up quite nicely with a minimal amount of bodywork. Next we plated the brackets or brought them back to their natural finish depending on the bracket, painted the housing, applied new foam to the vent door, painted and reassembled it. The 982 was added only because I almost always see a number grease penciled there and it always matches the one that is hand written on the top left corner of the buildsheet. This is the same number we found on the fuel tank. We hope to retain the original 69B dated heater core as well.

Hopefully people look at these photos and understand why quotes to restore these can be expensive as they are very time consuming (to do them right).

[SS427]

Next was the outer heater box. Fairly straight forward as all that was required was blasting, minor body work, cleaning, prime and paint. The bird cage was glass media blasted. I have found that more often then not these heater core covers were dipped in lacquer. Since this is too large to dip I have to spray them and use a fairly high gloss same as the factory. The heater motor (original dated one) was stripped and painted semi gloss black using new dull zinc bolts to attach it. I have found the sealer to usually be grey in color even though it looks black from staining so we now always replace these with grey sealer.

The heater control was in pretty bad shape and required a full restoration (we do that on every car anyway) so this took some time but well worth the efforts.

[SS427]

The last part of the puzzle was the heater control. This can often be tough especially if the clear cover plate is damaged as the replacement ones suck! I was able to clean and then very carefully polish ours and brought it back to original. The rest of the unit was media blasted, the arms replated and cables cleaned. The black backing boards are never in good shape and have always shrunk so I replace mine with some similar material I found at Micheals, cut using the original as a template and replace. The chrome slider knobs sometimes clean up or I replace them with my dwindling supply of originals.

[Woj]

Rock on Rick. You are doing a great job on this car. An inspiration to all of us.

Phil W.

[450hp]

Hey Rick, did they teach paint striping in your Restoration school, or did you just wing it? Also about what rpm was that? LOL

[RST]

You and you're team are doing a fantastic job, love the pictures to document the hard work!

[cook_dw]

Is the inner heater box a textured finish? I know I’m comparing to a camaro again but just curious how similar they are on finishes and markings. I’m not expecting any real findings as I’m sure it’s all been pounded to death by restorers; I’m just trying to educate myself a little on the chevelles.

[SS427]

I spray on a few coats of a very flat black followed by a dry spray to give it a rough surface. It is as close as I can get to the original finish. It is very similar to what I have found on Camaros as well.

[SS427]

Spent the whole weekend at the shop making sure I keep on schedule. Jamie and crew are meeting their deadline on the body and paint so I better not fall behind on my end. Annie and I completed the restoration on the e-brake pedal and brake/clutch pedal. I was very fortunate that both were in excellent condition so after much soaking in Evapo-Rust it was time to do the fine detail and finish work.

The e-brake pedal was pretty much straight forward and just a simple restoration. The pull handle was a little more difficult. The reproduction handles are wrong and though NOS handles are not impossible to find we have been trying to retain as much of the original parts on this car as is possible so we decided to restore the original. Much sanding, buffing and paint filling later I think it turned out ok. The main housing is treated bare steel and NOT painted. The pedal was dipping in black lacquer just like was originally done.