And it begins....Body off

Thanks,l I tend to take plenty of time working on other projects which means I can clear my head. Unfortunately it also means the Vette is taking longer, but that's ok cause I don't have the money to do it fast anyway!

T

Well took a bit of digging to find my thread but here we go!!

Over the past 6 months no much has been done. I cleaned up the birdcage and scraped the tar crap out of the wiper compartment. That stuff was tough. Pretty much had to chisel it out. Gave it a good power wash and then it sat collecting dust.

Now long story short...I need to fit the truck into the shop for the winter now that I am daily driving a different vehicle. And right now the corvette is taking up an insane amount of space because of how many parts it is in. Sooo...incentive to work on the car!

I finished cleaning up the firewall and fixed some of the flanges I broke during removal. Then after much debate (like 3 months of deciding) I removed the stick air vents in the kick panel area. I figured I never liked them open and I am putting in A/C anyway. This should also help my combat against mice. So some more glass work happened this weekend to prep the firewall for reassembly.

After a quick sanding and clean up I masked the edges which will be bonded to the floor pan and gave the inside and outside a quick prime (so I could feel better). Sorry no after pick of inside primed...trust me it is!


The next day I recruited some help (wife and kids) to do the gluing and aligning. Had a 7yr old photographer who did awesome so I might even make an appearance in the shots! I decided to use a smc bodypanel glue, which was very pricey, supplemented with a construction adhesive and a bead of silicone for extra sealing.


The silicone is not on yet in the last pic.

And then with a 30min work time we got the firewall on.


Used large head rivets for all the holes just to be safe. Went on really nice, although I had dry fit it many times. Decided to not bond the floorpan on the initial go just to give me some flexibility for fitting the door sill body panels back on. All in all it fits great and looks great.

T

More next post

I had decided a while back to use truck bed liner in the wiper compartment. Bought a couple cans from Crappy Tire and went at it. Again had help from the wife masking.



As you can see I had other help as well! Results are satisfactory. I thought it would build up a bit more to cover the old goo that was left behind. All in all though, for a location which is really unseen it turned out good.

Hope I can keep up this pace through the winter. Next step is to get all the door sill panels and floorpan re attached.

T

Well here is a mini update.

I sold my rally rims to my Dad earlier this spring with the condition I could keep my car sitting on them until he needs them. He was planning to use them on a 67 Camaro he is working on and it doen't need wheels just yet. In a twist, my mom's cousin (who I bought the rally's from originally) called and asked if I still had them. I redirected him to my dad who sold them back to him. Problem....he wanted them right away.

So I debated buying spacers and putting the 1998 Camaro wheels on but I didn't want to buy spacers for them and them be the wrong size for the rims that I have yet to decide I want. So I called in a favor at work and got some plates cut to the bolt pattern and mounted them to my wheel dollies. Seems to be working great!



So on the plus side I now have to buy wheels for my car. The downside is I am nowhere near needing wheels yet.

T

Wow... I cannot believe how long it has been since I worked on the car! Life just gets in the way with family and other projects. HOWEVER:

I am back into the car rebuild. It is back in main spot in the shop. I got it up on the rotisserie so I can work on the underbody (eventually).


Before that can happen the floor pans (s) need to be reattached to the firewall and door sill covers. I dry fit the door sill covers:



Once happy ,I glued the firewall to the front of the floor pan. I am using Evercoat SMC and bodypanel adhesive. It has a 40 min work time, 24 hr cure. To hold the joint I am using hex head sheet metal screws (but both parts are just SMC) sprayed with WD40 before install so they do not adhere to the panel glue:



After the front edge was secured I aligned an fastened the door sill covers in the same fashion:



SIDE NOTE: picked up the Milwaukee caulking gun in a random pallet of stuff at an auction. It works! This glue is damn near impossible to eject from the tube through the mixing nozzle as I learned from the firewall install. I had pliers on the handle of the caulking gun just to get a little out at a time. This powered caulking gun made my life so much easier (although even it was struggling).

The door sill covers were glued down and riveted into place using some of the original holes and some newly drilled holes in the repaired portions of the rockers.

Next I glued on the pieces at the back of the doors:


As I am sure I mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread I am kicking myself for where I chose to cut these pieces off. I am not sure how to glass the small inside corners I left. I have a cousin who does body work for a living and I am sure I can get him to come out and give me some advice. Besides that they fit not bad and are now on the car!

The passenger side did not line up perfectly. none of the floorpan, door sill cover, nor back door piece lined up to where I removed them. Now that being said I did a pile of rework on the rockers and windshield frame so I have no idea if things were straight before the teardown. I re-measured everything and I am confident that my repairs are better that it started for straightness and squareness. I guess only time will tell as the body work goes on.

My next plan is to remove all the holding screws, flip the car over, and glass all the joints I just made. During this process the under body will get scraped and cleaned up for treatment. I have many parts to remove which were fastened with solid rivets so I will be doing some experimenting with setting solid rivets. That's all for now.

Hope to keep the momentum up!

Also...sorry about the picture quality. I think it is the dust in the air in the shop.

T