1969 Chevelle body repairs

[idrivejunk]

I get it now    ... They were making a mockery of it!    Thats my standard mock-up time wisecrack.

Heres our Humpty Dumpty, back together again.    With 4x4 stance!




I didn't look at it very close. The Painter has it now and is doing his thing all over the place, taking it a little farther.   Its in good hands.

[idrivejunk]

I caught the painter on the Chevelle floor in sock feet doing the seam sealer and asked him if he would like me to switch to the Danny and the Juniors station on Pandora    

Seriously... when that happens, your car is getting close to shiny bath time  



Thank goodness (or Mike) that this area was tended to nicely. Looks fresh as a daisy and the bucket seat brackets are right at home-



Ah, but theres a hitch. It explains some of what may look troubling in the pic stream / timeline. Our guy mocked up the stock hood and found structural problems at mounting areas plus loose hinges so he stopped lining up the front end at that point. A new AMD hood is on-site now, and a maybe better OE hinge is on the way. So I will likely spend some time getting gaps on this front end next week before they yank the body and hose it.

[kb426]

Sealer looks nice.

[idrivejunk]

I was checking out the black 2K sealer on it (generally used outboard from the weatherstrips- 3M Automix, heavy bodied) and thought to myself now theres a thing that sets our painter apart from the crowd. Very neat sealer work.    He cares. Good guy.

I spent today with the Chevelle, fussing over panel gaps. Got the right door set nicely in relation to the rocker then quarter, then got the aftermarket fender to meet the OE door just as nicely in my opinion. I'd welcome yours but the camera batteries were zeros.   :oops:

The driver's door may be worse. It fits the rocker and quarter OK but the OE fender and door don't match up just right. Yet. We shall see. Our hero wants his black car to need no excuses at the show and tells. I asked him what size ball bearing he would like to be able to roll down all the gaps with it on a rotisserie (remember that commercial?).

Lots can happen with the right adjustments, as it did on the passenger side. I should be trying the new hood on tomorrow and do have new batteries. Today I also fixed a right fender-to-header panel misfit on the Chevelle. A little slotting of holes there, as with the right upper door hinge to allow more rearward adjustment. So far so good on my mock up.

Blew an hour first thing, welding up a couple dozen holes in the smog T/A driver's door and fender and straightening each a little so the next guy could proceed with his work on that project.

[idrivejunk]

Did not try the hood on today because man o man that left fender was out in left field  :!:  

Heres the right side door gaps from Monday, no sanding or bending required over here yet. But I'll have to show the customer the little wide spot that remains just up past halfway at the fender, see if he still wants to add rod there. I think its a respectable SS396 gap especially since this fender is aftermarket -






Today's monster here on the driver's side... An OE fender with maybe a 4" patch done at the bottom rear corner. I say OE but don't think on this car. Fender gap did not want to close up at the top, and the middle section was in too far so the door was scraping and the lower character line was way in on the fender. Readjusting the door gained a little in the right direction but that was just a start.

Got out a cushy blanket and laid the fender on it's face, glanced around to see if anyone was looking, then I wailed on the double layer edge at the back of the fender where inner and outer metal meet, with a sledge hammer and me holding my tongue just right. Nailed it on the bottom line first try, no damage.

Higher up, about where the wide spot is on the other side, the spot where they all hit if they hit... same thing but it was harder to get the desired result without making some sort of holding fixture. So gave it a shot but when I tried it on I realized I had to snake a pry bar in to the cowl flange behind the fender with it mounted to be able to really do the deed. Had to be a little mean to it. Worked but I made a little dent and popped some of the filler off. Painter had already been doing filler work there trying to save the gap so no biggie. It also has too many emblem holes so theres more to be done in that spot. But I went ahead and re-did the fill there and leveled out the panel faces at their edges in the process.







Theres a gap at the fender / rocker on the driver's side and not one on the passenger's, and the door / rocker gap is slightly more on the passenger side, but it looks to me like those gaps are plenty good and flush to be trying the hood on next. However I did not measure for centering of the core support yet. I am a little concerned because the fender to door gaps only work with the support blocked to the right. Still within the provided range of adjustment, but only the hood will tell me whats going on. My step-by-step mental process doesn't even recognize hood mounting time until I am at this phase but lots of folks might have wanted it up there already. Stay tuned and see how that goes.

[idrivejunk]

Wow! The new hood fits. That's a mouthful of good news! It fits as good as any stock late model with minimal adjustment. Amazing! It's so good that I am not even gonna hassle the owner about getting all the rubber bumpers and stuff. If he likes how it looks now as well as Mike and I do, it's time to take apart and paint. This job has gone fairly smooth so far but that's easy for me to say, haha. Pics when I can...

[58 Yeoman]

Lookin' good.  In '08, I bought my present house from a co-worker where I worked. Today, I went to a retirement lunch for one of the guys that I worked with, and I saw Jim (the guy I bought my house from) there, and talked with him for a bit. His son had bought a brick house in a small town 12 miles to the east of me...the closing was on Feb.3 this year. Last night, a tornado went through that town and wiped out the sons' house, plus a few others. Jim said that his son's 69 Chevelle was in the garage, and today has some bricks piled on it.

He'd had it restored years ago, and is sick about it, but is happy that no one got hurt. Jim said he is going to look at it tonight after work. I never asked him for details, but it sounds like it's a nice car.

[idrivejunk]

Thanks! Dang it hurts to hear that. Alas, they are cars. I met a cat on another forum who had a fire all around his 69 Chevelle. He went to replace the sheetmetal that was damaged and found a whole world of bad hack job rust fix work hiding. That was a mess. FWIW, tell your friend putting a roof skin on one is something that can be done nice and easy, and that it could always have been worse.  :?  

My 82,000 mile 68 Malibu (in 1983) was rearended by a Datsun 510 going about 50. The left rear tire was stuffed clear up under the quarter window.  :cry:  I'd still have it if not for that.


Well wouldn't ya know... this Chevelle's owner (Ron from Neosho in case any of y'all know him, has a Camaro also) came by today about an hour after my last post. He brought me the hood striker and height adjusters, and we looked at the new door and fender gaps and talked awhile. No plans to do anything to the chassis other than fresh black where it shows underhood, and he plans to take it home after the bedded glass has been installed but thats about all. So it will mostly be assembled by the owner, in the pursuit of frugality. Underneath the car will get just gravel guard and semi gloss black, and we decided to have the smoothed firewall be semi gloss like wheelwells and core support, but to have the hood hinges shiny like the fender and hood jambs.

Anyway... he is still bent on having some welded alteration done to the right fender at the door, for that little wide spot in the gap.  So I shall do that, and fix the last little bit of "fender not quite flush" that still exists at that spot. Our SS396 lover has a good eye.



Still more story words to go, bear with me. The pics below are with it latched and with front height adjusters in and roughly set, but do not show a perfect gap and heres why- When I installed the original hood striker that the customer brought this afternoon, I found that it sat too far to one side. This is common on aftermarket hoods, and in this case as in many others previously, the holes in the mount plate can be slotted a little to compensate for variations in the mounting of the nut plate for the striker which is tougher to mess with. I'm in the midst of that but don't lack much. As a result, the hood still shuts a tad over to the passenger side. But I'll win and I still say this is one of the easiest hood replacements I've done on old junk.

Another thing, the right hood hinge... when Mike tossed the parts on it initially, he said one hinge was bad. Customer had another and thats what I had used. But he wanted to try the first one again so I backtracked a bit there. All 3 hinges are in the best shape I've seen on one of these, and it works fine with either hinge but the one I had up there did have a visually bent look to it.

Hood needs to move that last bit to the driver's side at the front, then it can come forward a little also and that should be good to go. After nailing down the fender gaps I removed the block that was holding the core support over to the right, it barely moved so thats where it stays. Checked the core support mount bolt holes and they are actually still centered pretty well in the frame brackets' holes. Reckon I'll finalize the hood fit then tackle the right fender slice n weld for gap tomorrow. Don't think I'll need to add rod this time like on the 68 Camaro. BTW, I did manage to put in an hour of grinding on the Barfcayne today before our hero visited.

OK now you can looky look. I am amazed how well the sides and corners of this hood just... fit! Nice for a change. It does have an average number of tiny outies and a low spot or two but really small ones were all I saw.

Passenger side-





Driver's side-

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Chevelle looks good at this point.

Repop hood ?   My 1968 SS396 , I had bits of a clutch pressure plate go thru it at the chrome louver area. Raised the section up (bent) and broke the chrome piece on driver's side.  ah memories

[idrivejunk]

Yep, from AutoMetalDirect, I was told. I'm impressed. Thanks on behalf of the crew  

A friend of mine had a GTO same vintage that shot the distributor shaft through the hood.    You boys played rowdy didn't ya? Good times. Heck I was idling in my 68 'bu, talking to a friend on a bicycle and the nylon timing teeth gave out (about 80K on a 307). Just died, no restart and I was 17 and hadn't seen that yet. Bent 11 pushrods but lived on with about 4 new and the others straightened at the coffee table. Then there was this other time...

Just kidding about that other time but each of the lies before that are true. My buds and I had just put a killer Cordovan Maroon / Polar White Lucite job on the thing before the crash. This guys car is going Tuxedo Black with the stripe color still up in the air but dark red.  We (us, here) were and still are... priveliged above the rest of mankind, to have been the young ones when carbed gen 1 Chevys roamed the earth in great numbers. It is a heritage that should be preserved and this car is a fine example of just that.

[58 Yeoman]

I guess Jason's Chevelle got a little more than a few bricks on it.

[idrivejunk]

Oh my.    :cry:  Wishing him a fair insurance value on it and the rest, and crossing fingers for the muscle car damage with hopes that is fixable. I think they might be making replacement bodies for those now  :?:    

[lofat46]

idrivejunk said: We (us, here) were and still are... priveliged above the rest of mankind, to have been the young ones when carbed gen 1 Chevys roamed the earth in great numbers. It is a heritage that should be preserved and this car is a fine example of just that.[/quote]

Yes us "older" folks that were able to roam the streets in factory muscle.  Just in my small group of friends we had three '70 Nova SS's a 396/375 HP 4-speed, my 350/300 HP 4-speed, and a 350/300 HP Auto, a '69 Camaro SS 396/325 Auto, four '70 'Cuda's, a Hemi/Auto, 340/4 bbl Auto, 340/6 bbl AAR Auto, and a 440/6 bbl Auto, a '69 427 Vette 4-speed, a '69 Chevelle SS 396/350 4-speed and a '67 GTO 4-speed.  We used to cruise as a group every Saturday night to the "grudge" races at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin after stopping at the Sunoco station and cranking the dial to the "260" setting. Fun times that unless you were there you can't appreciate it.

[idrivejunk]

Yes us "older" folks that were able to roam the streets in factory muscle.  Just in my small group of friends we had three '70 Nova SS's a 396/375 HP 4-speed, my 350/300 HP 4-speed, and a 350/300 HP Auto, a '69 Camaro SS 396/325 Auto, four '70 'Cuda's, a Hemi/Auto, 340/4 bbl Auto, 340/6 bbl AAR Auto, and a 440/6 bbl Auto, a '69 427 Vette 4-speed, a '69 Chevelle SS 396/350 4-speed and a '67 GTO 4-speed.  We used to cruise as a group every Saturday night to the "grudge" races at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin after stopping at the Sunoco station and cranking the dial to the "260" setting. Fun times that unless you were there you can't appreciate it.

I didn't say anything about "older"          );b(  :0-0  

Thats a great bunch of rides, man.    Dragstrips and well optioned cars were out of reach in most of my memories and still are, but through high school I lived in a small town in central Louisiana where the cruising traffic was remarkably thick. During that time I went through a 66 Tempest Sprint6 (w 5 speed swap), 75 Nova 350 hatch, 68 Malibu 307, 72 SS. One friend had an actual R/T Challenger but it never was fixed enough to drive.

A rusty purple 67 GTO with 428 4 speed was undisputed king among my peers then, a 73 plain but souped 350 Camaro gave my SS heck back and forth, there were a couple Imps with SBs, a 77 Formula, 78 Z/28, a couple 73-7 Malibus, lots of 73-7 trucks and a well abused stretch of four lane. I got caught there in the Nova once but the guy I beat demanded a rematch after some mods. He never found third and scattered it that time haha. On the first match, I got a ticket and he didn't. Dad talked my license back from the judge.

We mostly considered 15 seconds hot and threw 750s on 305s with soda straw exhausts in beater smog bodies but the friends from the private school had stuff like new cowl induction Z/28s. One good friend had a real 68 RS but it was newspaper and bondo from the windshield to the dome lamp. Another had a 383 pistol grip Roadrunner. So I wasn't always at the drags no matter how bad I did wish it. Dreams can come true in a Chevelle under an old bridge or out in a cotton field after dark, too. That was my main concern at the time, finding those carloads of three feisty chicks that wanna go riding around.  

Wait what was I gonna post about  :?  :?:  :?:  :?:



Chevelles yeah. I wandered back to 1983 for a sec. Read on-

Yesterday I said I didn't lack much on the hood gaps. Well half a day I spent, and the driver's hinge is worn and requires assistance to seat (it was blasted and sprayed, never oiled yet) but I am happy with the hood gaps now.

Found the nuts in the hood's front reinforcement to be in the wrong position. The piece is not move-able so I had to solve it in the striker bracket somehow. Ended up cutting the striker pin's welded nut loose and moving it in addition to slotting the mount holes then welding up the slop. It was enough, it can adjust either direction now and still looks OK. No washers hanging off the edge but almost.

So I set the hood front height and dang. Front of hood did not match the back of the header, hood was down at the corners. Placing 2x4s and mashing on the hood got the center down but tweaking the header panel slightly (twist up at rear) was most effective at getting the contour over the headlights to match up. If it lacks anything now, its right there. From low in front you see a tiny bit of hood edge. Blocking with the panels in place might make up whats there, or a dab of filler on the header. Meant to get a pic of that. Of course the new hood will need fill in spots.

Don't have any hood bumpers except the front but I'm happy and here it is. Customer visit tomorrow for final critique.







Thats one of the best fits I've seen with no cutting. Well I did have to make room in the hood structure for the nudging of the striker to the passenger side but thats it. It does say AMD underneath. Does the tape help you see the gap? You can fit one thick shim in it all around. Two thicknesses of 18 gauge fit in there but not three.

This afternoon I sliced the right fender's rear edge, just barely out onto the face of the panel. Between the faint pencil marks on the primer. Stuck a light spoon in and moved the back edge to the desired gap then bumped the panel face in flush with the door, tacked it, ground off excess and welded it up. I have time to add more but there was no rod added here. Kinda looks like the door has a flat spot there now. Putty? Who knows? The owner. Sharp guy. We may have stared at it too long. I will suggest that the painter be given an opportunity to re-check the blocking work in areas I just visited. I am supposed to pass it on if the metal work is done.

Before-





After-





Yep thats not much difference. But its flush (he says but why no pic with block, after? It was 5:10). Fresh eyes will help. Been a long one today  :T)

[idrivejunk]

A little fact checking shows that 1970 Chevelle body shells are being reproduced, not '69s. I had mentioned it earlier  :?  :oops:  

Today I added more on that fender edge. Ready for a bunch more pics of the same spot? Yay! Lets call it thread fluff since we missed out on all the fun stuff on this one.  


















Had my light spoon and hammer out by that featheredge assuring flatness of the face of the fender when Ron showed up. He looked at the area and said "Aw, you haven't done that spot yet.". Ha. Glad its Friday! I put tape back over it and "Ah." the true edges become visible. Cool    On to the next thing.

Showed him the little places on the header where it could be built up more to match the hood. Check. Will block before disassembly.
 






He wishes to have some planishing, trimming, and fill on the spot welded hood flanges at sides and front of the hood, for a better hood-up show appearance. He was all good with what I did on the striker bracket position shift, and OK with the lazy driver's hood hinge. Very hesitant to try aftermarket hinges, almost enough so to put billet there but we're going with these for now. I explained the rear hood height bumper setup to him and we looked at the old hood so he can get those pieces coming. He is being his own parts man on this and thats OK because he will assemble it.

We took our time and looked it over good. At some point he shut the hood himself and walked around the car slow, and I got a drink of water. Then I began to sense satisfaction rather than tenative-ness. I mean he has been super cool all along but the jury was kinda still out, until now. Suddenly he went to the back of one door and said "Y'know what? Yeah lets go ahead and get some more clearance on these", speaking of the top front tips of the quarters where they almost hit the doors. The shapes of both sides were messed up-















I did that after he left and I am done with the car now. Before parting he said "You know what I want." Yep, I says. Week after next he can pick up the chassis to go love on while we spray and rub the body. Theres the plan. Painter goes over it next then it gets hosed. Probably right behind the '33 body and frame. We'll see soon enough.  

Pretty sure I caught him smirking at it. I would, too. He has a fun journey ahead, at home with his shiny muscle car. We spoke of the shows later in the year...



I think my Pontiac might give it a run