AirborneSilva

dam denpo, those gaps look great, you wouldn't hurt my feelings if you came and helped me with mine

Scotty76

My god. I remember eyeballing your thread when it started.
You are a mad man. Don't you sleep?

I have a 76 too. 82 rear clip, 69 side pipes, all the goodies!

Can't wait to see your ride complete. Great job!

Denpo

LOL, thanks man.

Thanks and welcome back.
Don"t worry, I get my share of sleep, but yeah, lot of people think I'm crazy.

Sly_North

As long as your wife doesn't get on that path - thinking you're too crazy on working on "The Car"
Bon tu la finis ou bien???

Denpo

Mistress : better 4 rubbers than two legs.
Works well ... usually

F22

Wow, great job on that gap. Have to agree with the others, that's for sure. Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one burning the midnight oil on a C3 lately! What color do you plan on painting it?

rogman16

Looks great Denis!!! Ensure you leave room for primer, paint and clear ;-)

Rogman

Denpo

Thanks man, that's appreciated.
Color is supposed to be some sort of dark cybergray lookalike, but recently "marina blue" came out as a possible challenger... stay tuned.

Thanks Rogman, and good call about the additional material, any idea how much a paint job can add in thickness?

bwinterstine

I know a guy who'll be working on a '75s fiberglass soon enough ... I hope he does as good as you!

Denpo

Don't worry mate, you'll do fine.
Fiberglass is (IMHO) easier than metal.

Denpo

Ok, by "finished" I'm sure you heard "the driver side is almost finished".
It's easy to overlook the underside of the body, so, here's the rear quarter all mudded up.




Also, I really wanted to make the door jamb better that stock, so I filled up all the uneven gaps.
Fiberglass was also paper thin in several area, so I had to reinforce here and there.




And here's the front rocker molding mounting tab being redone. Probably the last step, you can see the hole at the left have already been rebuilt.
Same wrap technique, with painter tape on the back to make the setup air tight.


Once this piece is done, I'm pushing the car all the way to the other side of the garage and start the fender job on the other side.

riggs 74

I love your ambition, tackling the fiberglass work like its nothing. Some day I will jump all over mine but until then ill watch and learn from you. Thanks for sharing, you're doing an awesome job.

Terry

Denpo

Thanks you riggs, that's appreciated.

But frankly, fiberglass is not that bad.
Maybe because I'm using epoxy.
It doesn't knock you out with nasty fumes and it cures more slowly, leaving you time to work it.
Anyhow, it's really simple, compared to say, welding, where you can put the whole house on fire.

Denpo

I've been busy wrapping up my driver side job.
Fist I had to fix little nicks in the inside of fender's lip and on the bottom edge of the door skin. Basically I've been working for hour laying down on the ground, hopefully I had a full face mask.

Then I went on to tackle two of the last tasks :
Finish the mudding of the root arch and the sharpening of its edge



Then I did the mudding on the rear bumper seams. The bumper also had a quiet apparent mold seam to assert.




The '80 bumper was a shortcut for me. If I had all the time in the world I would have done it differently.
May I had started my resto laster I would have gone for CI kit.
However, while I was at it, I changed the body line a tiny little to fit my taste.



Not it's done FOR REAL. This afternoon I push the car all the other way and start the passenger side.
May the other side be quicker to do.
It should, it seems to have seen less abuse in it's life.

Last point concerning the paint.
I've stumble open the one year ('70) paint called 'laguna gray', and boy it's close to what I had in mind. Of course asserting paint color from pictures is a crapshoot, I wish I could see one in real life.

brent319

I like the Laguna grey a Lot. I am sure it would look good on your vette.
I bet the other side of the car takes half the time of the first. That is how it usually works for me. I learn enough doing part one of a project that part two is much faster. Hope it works out for you that way. I want to see this thing done!
So anything new with the electronics? I wish I knew more about that stuff. I know just enough about it to come up with ideas, but not enough to execute them so I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Anyway, keep at it. It's looking very good.

Denpo

Thanks Brent.
Concerning the color, I've found a webpage with all the grays used on corvette: http://paintref.com/corvette/gray_corvette.shtml

Alas the electronic is on the ice as long as my bodywork itch remain. Hopefully for me (but not for you) until the trip to the paint booth.
It's getting very hot quickly over there, let's hope it will stay bearable for a while.

brent319

Bodywork itch- that's funny.

AirborneSilva

so is the cold shower to get that **** off

Denpo

With fiberglass it'd better be
To get a real break from work, I taking extra care to make sure I'm doing what I want to do.
When it's the case, I'm a machine, and I know that otherwise I do no good to be polite.
I'm a master at procrastination, when a task become burdensome I suddenly find any mean not to complete it.
Usual gateway is to get obsessive (itch) about something totally different.
So, having so many different task running at the same time ensure me I always engage in Corvette-related activity.

Denpo

To be frank, I was expecting much worse.
The only moment you can catch it is when you manipulate the dry mat, and that's a short moment in the whole process.
Overall, 3M full face mask, hundreds of nitrile glove and frequent vacuuming have kept me rather clear from the fiberglass itch.
My real enemy is sweat, by the liters.