Yes, am able to work on it, the spousal unit relented this year but I told him next winter if he wants I'll sell my beater Oldsmobile and we'll put the Corvette away for the winter and I'll only work on it in the summer. I have been working on it pretty steady (for me, lol ) but I opened up another big can of worms on the rear bumpers. I had them fitting to my satisfaction and then I noticed that on the bumper mounting area shown by the green arrow (below) that this bumper mount had, perhaps a 1/32 of an inch gap between the bumper's mounting pad and the fiberglass mounting point on the body when the bumper was in place. I was already to modify the four remaining bumper brackets this fall and then I decided I couldn't live with the 1/32 " gap between that bumper mount and the car and decided I'd quickly slap on a couple of layers of fiberglass there and close down the gap. And that's where I've been ever since despite working on the car fairly steadily.

My big mistake was that instead of just working on this fiberglass bumper mounting point I also sanded away the body mounting point for the bumper on the quarter panel as well and so now with two unknown positions for two of the bumper mounts re-glassing both body mounting points for the bumper has been a great deal of fiddling, trial and error, and repeated glassing and sanding away. It had occurred to me before I started work on the (initially) offending bumper mounting point on the body (see below) that I should thicken that area first and only then move to the bumper mounting point on the body panel so I had only one variable to deal with at a time. I had a brain fart and forgot that when I started sanding the first bumper mounting point on the body and sanded the one on the quarter panel as well, making this a much more difficult and lengthy process than it needed to be (thats what I get for smoking that exotic cheroot before I went out to work on the car).

Further, I didn't go "all-in" on sanding away the gel coat initially and then bit by bit I fiberglassed with much of it in place, decided I needed to remove more gel coat and so on and that also slowed the process a great deal (repeatedly trying to minimize the amount of work I was doing ended up creating a lot of unnecessary work and needless waste of supplies). I took dozens of pictures of the process to show people what needs to be done and what not to do in such a situation (a lot of "what not to do") so its going to take some time to winnow those down to a reasonable number and put them in order and so on to show it all.

I've got the two passenger side bumper mounting points pretty close to ideal now so I'm taking it real slow so I don't over sand and have to backtrack. Also I discovered that I was pretty thin in various areas and needed to thicken up the inside of the rear clip around those bumper mounting points so that's added even more time. So, yeah....Body work! Ya gotta love it!

 

Keep up the good work...…..rework...…..work...….!

 

Oh sooooo much rework...

 

May be politically incorrect. But that is a very pretty hiney...

 

Its a single car garage so there aren't many angles from which you can get any picture other than a close-up, but here you go:

 

This is what I've been working on all this time:

From this:




The area between the two green arrows is roughly where the side of the bumper bolt goes through. I wanted that mounting area to be a little wider at that point so the bumper bracket could sit on a little flatter surface than was orignially there. The darker fiberglass is the stuff I've added and the whiter stuff is where the original body line was. I'm shaved a little of the inside of the quarter panel at this point to get the flatter interior surface I was after for the mounting bracket/bumper attachment.



You can see in the above picture the blue masking tape on the inside of the quarter panel showing through - that's how thin it is). I broke through the original fiberglass in a couple of small areas and so reluctantly decided I needed to thicken the original fiberglass on the inside of the bumper mounts as well, so I've done that too:






The modified bumper mounting areas are very close to ideal now. I have a pile of pictures showing incremental steps of how I got from the original aftermarket fiberglass mounting points to where I am now. At some point I'll put that together in several posts (perhaps in a separate thread) for any novice contemplating such a project that wants to see whats involved (if you're no expert, lol!)

 

All this because I thought 1/2 a millimetre of gap between one bumper mounting area and the bumper was too much,

Now I'm stuck doing the driver's side too, although I'm sure I can do it a great deal faster than I did with the passenger side.

 

this is why I cant do body work... prep prep prep prep then sand it all back off and prep prep prep some more... aaaand still not done... T.T

 

As the Auditor General once said "Much was done but little was accomplished."

As an amateur I did a great deal of work that could have been avoided but that's the way it usually goes if you're not a professional with at least 10,000 hours experience.

As my Sweetheart says "Autobody isn't for people into instant gratification."

 

Priya:

That is looking great! They make bodywork look so easy on these cable TV car restoration shows but then, they do it all the time and have a small army working on it and get to edit the footage. I have one more car I will hopefully get done in the next couple years. After that, I don't see me doing another one. Getting old!

Keep up the good work and you'll have a sweet car when it's completed!

Take care, OLE442

 

Yes, that's how I felt about this one - "I think I have one more restoration in me." I'm pretty sure after this one I'll be done, although Hubby's van and truck need rust repairs. I offered to do the rust repairs on his truck for him and told him I could probably have it done in 6 months or so and he just says "no problem", that he can fix it in a weekend.

 

Yes, I was thinking of priming the back part of the car after I'm done the work on it but hadn't thought of using a sealer as a first coat, I was thinking epoxy primer and then a 2 part high build primer so when I come back to it after the front is done and there's dirt and what have you on the car I can wipe it down and sand off the top layer to get rid of the dirt from sitting for a long time.

 

Keep at it Priya….. …….and Happy New Year!

 

I didn't realize/had forgotten there were thinner rubber washers cushioning the steel bumerp mounts and the fiberglass on the side like that. What do you think about using these 1/8 thick rubber washers on the outside of the body at all rear bumper attachment points?

 

Thanks doorgunner, happy new year to you too

 

ok, so the bumper is bolted to the bracket thru a layer of glass body and 2 layers of rubber? how do you tighten the bolts? or are the correct ones step bolts?

 

Priya, just so that you know, the 68-72 Corvettes had solid aluminum body mounts. The only ones to have these, due to so many of them being road raced at the time.
The 73-82's had rubber body mounts, like the 63-67's. You are doing a great job, Priya and Happy New Year to you and your hubby.
My 68 coupe does NOT lean in a fast corner, it feels like a true F-1 race car! Lou.

 

Thanks loup68. Happy new year to you and yours.

 

So, I haven't been working on the car for a week or so. Last time I was in the garage the compressor started banging pretty hard and I was afraid to keep using it. Hubby has a heavy duty Devilbiss two stage head he had machined and is ready for reassembly. He wants to put that on our existing compressor tank in favour of the troublesome brand X compressor head. Its a custom job to adapt it and the new Devilbiss head weighs some 500 lb or so all up so, it'll have to be assembled on the air tank. The air tank is bolted to the floor and also has to be moved as its too close to the wall to allow the new compressor head to fix.

I've got some other things I can work on that don't require compressed air, but its all too easily to get used to this sitting around the house all day thing so I haven't been able to come up with the motivation to change tasks. I'm not a multi-tasker so it always throws me off when I can't work on the thing I planned on and have been working on.

Back here:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1597600889
I was discussing possible colours I was considering painting the car. I mentioned a light silver purple that was my first choice but could not find a new enough paint code for paint companies to reproduce it. To my shock I was digging through some old crap and found this light silver purple test panel that I must have had painted back around 20012:




I really want to paint my car this colour, but unlike the other dozen or so test panels I had painted back in 2012, I didn't write the paint code/ paint name/manufacturer on the back of the panel! So, I have no way of finding out how this colour was produced for me back in 2012.

 

I like that color. A lot of paint venders have computerized equipment where they can set a sample under an "electronic eye" and the computer will kick out a mix formula for the color. Just keep the formula safe for future needs. Just a thought......