I personally like the updated look with body color or charcoal, fitted bumpers and without trim. I might also do an updated door handle or do body color for the door handles, too. the cleaner the better in my view. I'm new school, I guess.

Doug

 

I flush mounted the glass in my car and shaved the drip rails. I LOVE the difference it makes. Would never own another classic without doing it again, personally.







Unfortunately the pretty black paint you see surrounding the windshield (special primer made specifically for this)....will not stick to glass that does not have the special, modern ceramic coating. I tried is several times before figuring it out. I had to resort to the butyl tape, and eventually I will cover it from the outside with glossy black vinyl to keep the sun from eating away at it.

 

I am extremely tempted to do this Dave. A couple questions:

1. I think you just ordered larger glass, correct? Who does this and will they do it for any car?
2. Any idea on cost?

 

they make larger glass packages for the early Camaros only (as far as I know). It's little more work than that. I had to fill in around my glass with round rod, weld it in, and then do some bodywork to make it pretty. I also welded in some steel to raise the glass in the frame. it's easier than you are probably thinking. I have a pretty extensive post on it in my thread here:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversio...-3-swap-7.html

Link is to the correct page, just scroll down a little bit

P.S. cost is probably $30 in materials.

 

That tinman piece looks cool, I'm wondering if it could be put in with panel adhesive instead of welding it. Since I can't weld this would save me a large amount of time and money.

 

Are we in paint jail currently or have you any updates on her?

 

I am not sure as I have never used adhesive. On top of that, you have to do a fair amount of cutting to open up the sides a bit, so you'd probably need to make some additional pieces as well.

No updates. Haven't worked on the car for a bit...too much traveling for work. There are still a few small items to address before sending it to paint.

 

So the Chevelle went off to paint last week. No idea how long they will take. It's a smaller shop, but I trust the guy doing the work. May be a bit slow, but I'm not in a hurry. I decided not to shave the drip rails or flush the glass. It wouldn't look right on the rear glass of the 66. And if I'm not shaving EVERYTHING, then I might as well leave the chrome on there since I'm leaving the bumpers chrome as well. Only thing that will be shaved is the door handles (going with Kindigit handles), door keyholes, side emblems and lower rocker moldings.

 

Well sir, it's looking great. If you ever feel in a giving mood and want to donate the car to me let me know!

 

My personal opinion leave chrome and stainless as is you are eliminating a bunch of it and i like the less trim look . on my 67 I was trying to make it look like a 300 ( although I have an ss hood ) JOHN

 

Bad news from the body shop. While working a tradeshow in Vegas this week, the body shop sent me a not to make sure I was coming by today so I could "look at some things". I asked him if it was bad...he said "it's not great." So I am thinking the worst and start looking for donor bodies. I knew this car wasn't perfect, but I didn't know how bad. At any rate, I went by the shop today thinking the worst. It is definitely bad, but not as bad as I thought. Apparently, this car was originally a vinyl top car and we all know what that means...rust in the roof. He's going to dig into it more, but I may need a new roof panel and some others. If I do a new roof, I'll shave the drip rails. If it's patch panels, I may still do it as the patches are close to the drip rail. Pics:

Driver's roof at windshield:


Driver's roof at quarter:


Tail light panel at quarter:


Passenger inner quarter:


Along with the roof, the decklid has about 1/4" of filler on it with a couple holes. Probably a new decklid as well. Time to start ordering parts. At least I'm not trying to buy a new body...

 

One things is for certain, I have seen a whole lot worse. The car is 50 years old. I have seen people spend 10k just to get rid of the rust, that does not include body work and paint.

 

Here is my project. It has a 1997 LT-1 that later I am thinking of twin turbo's. A working cowl induction hood. I have vintage Air with a factory looking air dash.
Got most all parts.

 

Yeah, I think I look worse and I'm only 40! At any rate, It's really not too bad for 50 years and an ex-vinyl top car.

 

Making some progress and found a couple more issues. Taillight panel removed and welded a couple spots in the trunk floor. Found that the rear OUTER quarters needed replacing too:



From the picture above, you can see the Eddie Motorsports billet trunk hinges. Beautiful pieces, but the gas struts interfere with the rear tubes of the TigerCage. Body shop is spacing out the brackets that mount the down tube to the frame under the floor. Not a big deal, but something to note if anyone else plans on the same stuff.

Damage to passenger rear quarter (far rear lower section):


Slow process by body shop, but I'm not too anxious. Of course I want the car ASAP, but it is allowing me to amass more parts and prepare for when I get it back. Best estimate is that I'll have it back in 6 months or so and hopefully on the road for next summer.

-Jim

 

Quick update. Body shop sent me a text and a picture making sure I wanted an El Camino...LOL. Package tray out and ready for replacement:


Got tired of not working on the car myself and decided to tackle the dash which I had in the garage. Livorsi gauges, blinker, high beam and check engine light LEDs, keyless start button, Vintage air controls, vents and accessory switches. I didn't want to use standard wiper, headlight, etc switches, so I'm using lighted (fake) carbon fiber covered toggles. The last toggle is momentary up and down for locks.



Finally, received my Holley LS forward bias engine brackets:

 

what body shop? also.. trade show in vegas... were u at blackhat/defcon?

 

KARS of Leander is the body shop. It's a small shop, but I like the painter / shop foreman. I was not at blackhat. Our customer/partner conference was the same week as blackhat. I will be at VMWorld.

-Jim

 

The hits just keep on coming. The body shop is taking quite a long time, but I'm OK with that as I'm not in too much of a hurry. I am really hoping that the will stop calling me with bad news and start putting parts ON the car. 1st it was the windshield channel, then the dash had 1/4" of body filler. After they cut off the dash, they found more bad stuff:

This is at the corner of the A-pillar. Other side is just as bad


Here's a shot of the other side, but in the upper left of the picture, you can see where the windshield channel is supposed to fit. It's like that all the way across. Since I can't get these parts, they have to fabricate it. Gonna be longer...

 

Ouch ! That sucks