OneStopRestoration's Special Orange 69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Coupe

[OneStopRestoration]

This is the real grind of any restoriation. It doesnt help that I only get nights and weekends to do it. It can take me a half a day or more to fill, sand, and prime say this firewall section. Im about 2 weeks into my trunk at the moment and its almost done.

I think this is the dirty secret many dont know, this takes alot of time and effort depending on how perfect you want the car to look in the end.

[scuncio]

Can't explain how inspiring this is. As a middle aged guy with 12 cars and three kids, I can't even imagine having the bandwidth to restore a car to such a high standard, but this is definitely my retirement goal.

[dykstra]

Looks great Rick!! Coming together nicely.

[OneStopRestoration]

Anyone that does there own body work will understand that eventually body work becomes your life. Body is nearly complete. A few more sandings with finer paper both above and below and it will be moving onto doors, trunk, fenders and hood.

Took a break since the heat somewhat decided to give things a break and layed down color on the rebuilt door hinges. The paint is pretty transparent, so 6 plus coats of based followed by 2 light coats of clear. There body hinges, they really dont need that mirror finish the rest of the car gets. First color pictures is laying down the dull coat of base, and the final is after clear coating.

[OneStopRestoration]

I feel pretty comfortable as well with my research on carb Chromating. I can do the lighter yellows all the way to the darker greens i commonly see on say 66 or 67 Chevelle BB carbs.

In the spirt of making sure this info doesnt die, PM and I will gladly share how to do it, including materials.

[dykstra]

Drove past your place the other day Rick.
You had the Chevelle out on the rotisserie and looked like you were prepping for something, so I didn't wanna stop and impede your progress.
I always like hearing the updates on the car.

[OneStopRestoration]

So I think i have said before NOS sheetmetal doesnt always mean your getting something new and perfect. In many cases as i have been told numerous parts that never meet production standards were sent to the parts counter.

The passenger side fender i sourced clearly was an NOS over the counter part as noted in the first picture from where a gm sticker once was.

The main brace on the upper side of the fender that you see in the engine bay was installed more than a 1/4 inch off location. The nut for the front valence panel was so far off you couldnt get a screw in the hole.

In the second picture you can see the before and after i pulled the spot welds and moved things around. Even the location pin holes were either ignored or not noticed.

Clean new sheetmetal is great, but there always seems to be something you need to fix to make it right.

[big gear head]

I bought all new GM sheet metal for my Camaro back in the '80s and none of it fit correctly. It didn't take a huge amount of work to get it to fit, but it certainly didn't work right out of the box.

[cheveslakr]

That's the method I used on my '69, but it was a KC build.

[OneStopRestoration]

Finally getting down to a few last bits of body work. Before getting to the topside of the hood i had to fix some previous owners butchering of the insulation coves. The left and right had to be cut out in the center and repaired from another non SS hood. The lower one towards the back of the hood was completely cut out. I assume for an air cleaner that didnt fit underhoood.

3 pictures in sequence of getting my repair piece sized, then cleaning up the hood before welding and finally dressing/metal finishing the piece, like it was never cut out to begin with.