Garnet Red 69 Chevelle L78 left out to pasture

[sixt9rsx33]

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). 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!!!) 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! 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.
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.

[sixt9rsx33]

Pictures from the Second Owner.....

[napa68]

Awesome!

[sixt9rsx33]

Some tell tale signs

[sixt9rsx33]

Southpark (Charlotte) terrorizer.

[sixt9rsx33]

Few more pics

[sixt9rsx33]

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

[sixt9rsx33]

Making progress...

[sixt9rsx33]

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[sixt9rsx33]

In color…prior to wet sanding and buffing.