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As I mentioned earlier, I had been sanding the dip in the passenger side quarter panel to get it as deep as it is on the driver's side when I decided the panel wasn't thick enough at the blue arrow for me to continue to remove material from the exterior side:
I was planning on adding 1/8" of filler to the driver's side quarter panel to get the two to look the same but when I was in the garage today I saw I can still get to the backside of the passenger side quarter panel even though the gas tank is in place. So I could theoretically add matt and resin to the inside of the panel where it was getting thin and then continue to remove material from the exterior to give it the same dip as the driver's side. It would probably be torturous to prep the inside of the quarter panel for mat and resin with the gas tank still in place, but it could be done. I like the look of the driver's side quarter panel better than the passenger side, so if I was going to change one to look like the other it would ideally be the passenger side. Putting an 1/8" of filler on the driver's side will be a lot of work given that it's looking pretty nice now. It might even be less work to add mat and resin to the inside of the passenger quarter panel where I want to deepen the dip by sanding away 1/8" more material.
when i was 18 to early 20s doing body work and having a hard time my father in law would always say, you can only see one side at a time, that old memory came back to me reading this post.
keep up the good work and do what you think needs to be done so it doesn't haunt you, even if it means laying on your back cleaning the backside of a quarter panel and loading it full of mat and resin
Is this conversion done yet? Come on Woman! We need to see the end product!
This is taking forever, isn't it? In my defence, the last few years I've only had the summer to work on it. Hubby was trying to convince me to complete the front end conversion, I stressed about it for a couple of weeks and then decided we just can't afford it.
when i was 18 to early 20s doing body work and having a hard time my father in law would always say, you can only see one side at a time, that old memory came back to me reading this post.
keep up the good work and do what you think needs to be done so it doesn't haunt you, even if it means laying on your back cleaning the backside of a quarter panel and loading it full of mat and resin
This is taking forever, isn't it? In my defence, the last few years I've only had the summer to work on it. Hubby was trying to convince me to complete the front end conversion, I stressed about it for a couple of weeks and then decided we just can't afford it.
I understand...believe me. PTSD hit me 6 to 9 months out of the year...and you get snowed in/salted toads about the same amount to of time!
"Deja Vu"....years ago, working on our 31 Chevy, replacing all the wood "skeleton" with 1" square steel tubing, my wife noticed the body lines didn't line up on the passenger side. As hard as I tried to get her to accept it, she wouldn't hear of it. It took two weekends to cut, grind, re-weld, grind some more, to move it a QUARTER INCH. But in the end she was right..... it looked SO much better, & I`m glad it was fixed.
So go ahead & suffer the pain in the *** of adding to the underside, and grinding down the outer passenger side, because when you get both sides the way you want them.....
the feeling of satisfaction & smile on your face will be WELL worth the effort!
I understand...believe me. PTSD hit me 6 to 9 months out of the year...and you get snowed in/salted toads about the same amount to of time!
Having my anti-depressants stop working also threw a wrench in the works. With my mood so much worse it was/has been very hard to do anything. The new anti-depressants have improved things but I'm still not back to where I was before I had the reaction with my anti-depressants in the summer of 2020. I've been able to work to my maximum capacity (although that maybe isn't much for most people) by telling myself when its time to start work and I'm feeling depressed that I'll feel worse in the long run if I don't get out there. I've been able to get out to the garage consistently, but it's still really hard to get out that door. I've been dong Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and am hopeful I can continue to improve my mood over time.
Originally Posted by oldgto
"Deja Vu"....years ago, working on our 31 Chevy, replacing all the wood "skeleton" with 1" square steel tubing, my wife noticed the body lines didn't line up on the passenger side. As hard as I tried to get her to accept it, she wouldn't hear of it. It took two weekends to cut, grind, re-weld, grind some more, to move it a QUARTER INCH. But in the end she was right..... it looked SO much better, & I`m glad it was fixed.
So go ahead & suffer the pain in the *** of adding to the underside, and grinding down the outer passenger side, because when you get both sides the way you want them.....
the feeling of satisfaction & smile on your face will be WELL worth the effort!
I hope you're right. I've filled and sanded both quarter panels more times than I can remember and it's getting pretty tedious, it seems like I work and work and work and have little to show for it. At least if I do this then I've got the driver's side quarter panel close to done (I might be able to still refine it some more with the 120 grit). There's very little filler on the driver's side, I'm very pleased with the job I've done on it. 1/8" doesn't sound like much difference but it is quite noticeable to me and I think as the passenger side is now people would see a dip on the driver's side but the passenger side looks more like it doesn't have a dip at all, at.
Originally Posted by derekderek
priya, don't you already own all the bumpers and grilles for the front end swap?
Assuming I can use my 79 inner wheel skirts I'm pretty sure I've got everything except the front end fiberglass and a vacuum tank although I'm not sure I can repair the 68 front crossmember I have. I figure it would be another 2K U.S.. for the front clip delivered then another 1K CDN for the glue and another 1K CDN for the air powered caulking gun (there's no way I can do enough glue to do the whole front end with a manual gun - it took everything I had to squeeze out the 2 tubes for the splash guards behind the wheels and even then I didn't have enough strength to finish off the last 10% of the second tube).
you can use the 79 crossmember-vacuum tank. in fact it is a better crash bar than the 68-72 stuff. it goes right up to the nose center where the horse shoe goes. and the glass work to alter the existing installed nose is, well you know how cheap that is...you are stuck with a 3/4 instead of 3/8 inch strip between the front of the headlights and the front of the nose. few will notice. and those few will already have noticed the back window... is your front bumper glass or urethane. if glass, pieces can be cut from it. if urethane, a mold can be made for the 3 pieces. mainly the center piece between the lights. i anticipate doing my 75 nose in the next few months. starting to wrap up the move to florida. jersey is too friggin cold. northwest canada? you are just nuts. i know. you live where your life is...
you can use the 79 crossmember-vacuum tank. in fact it is a better crash bar than the 68-72 stuff. it goes right up to the nose center where the horse shoe goes. and the glass work to alter the existing installed nose is, well you know how cheap that is...you are stuck with a 3/4 instead of 3/8 inch strip between the front of the headlights and the front of the nose. few will notice. and those few will already have noticed the back window... is your front bumper glass or urethane. if glass, pieces can be cut from it. if urethane, a mold can be made for the 3 pieces. mainly the center piece between the lights. i anticipate doing my 75 nose in the next few months. starting to wrap up the move to florida. jersey is too friggin cold. northwest canada? you are just nuts. i know. you live where your life is...
The front bumper is the factory urethane. I don't think I want to do all the blending it would take to piece together a 69 look from my 79 front clip and I'm not sure I'm up to seeing that through. If I were going to complete the front end conversion I think I would still want to by the complete 68/69 front clip and do it that way.
As far as the cold goes, I've got it easy in that I don't have to leave the house every day to go to a job - thanks to my Sweety who has allowed me to live a life of leisure for the past 13 years
This is taking forever, isn't it? In my defence, the last few years I've only had the summer to work on it. Hubby was trying to convince me to complete the front end conversion, I stressed about it for a couple of weeks and then decided we just can't afford it.
converting the 75-9 nose looks to be a bunch easier than the rear clip. i will have a blow by blow some time in the next few months.
I'll give it a careful look. The rear clip has been so much more challenging than I thought it would be, just even grafting in the 68/69 gills to the 75-79 clip sounds like a major headache to me, getting everything properly positioned in 3 dimensions and smoothed out. Right now I think its beyond my ability to get the upper deck looking smooth without being able to spray it with water to check and I'll just have to live with what I get. For example, before I applied any filler I could feel big differences in the level, but I couldn't tell which were the high and which were the low spots.
we dpn need no steenking gills! the 79 side vents are an improvement. in looks and function. i will be leaving them on mine. we aren't trying to turn our cars into 69's. cutting your roof off would be the real hard part. and anything short of that is combining the best features of the chrome bumper cars into our 75-9's kind of like the serenity prayer. but you have the ability to change the front 4 inches of the nose.
Last edited by derekderek; Dec 18, 2021 at 10:06 PM.
I haven't considered doing it that way before. As I've ruled out buying an aftermarket front clip and air powered caulking gun and doing it the way I originally planned I'll think more about this. Perhaps I can use most of the 69 front bracketry to simplify mounting all the stuff. I've got the chrome gill inserts, I need the steenking gills, lol!
I haven't spent a lot of time working on the Corvette over the past couple of weeks and it's gotten bitterly cold, tomorrow's high -28 C so I'm finding it hard to get out there.
The more I think about adding fiberglass mat and epoxy resin to the inside of the passenger side quarter panel (blue arrow in photo below) the more I think I'll be effort ahead to remove the gas tank. The inside of the 70-73 ACI rear clip is really bumpy and it seems like less work to me to remove the gas tank so I can use an air sander to prep the inside surface for more mat and resin rather than having to do all that sanding by hand. I haven't been able to break that to the spousal unit yet, I suspect he will not be happy.
I've been thinking more about derekderek's suggestion that I convert my existing front clip to take the 68/69 Corvette pieces as doorgunner and he are doing. If the necessary 68/69 fiberglass could be found without too dear a price that would remove most of the cost barrier of the front end conversion and I might be open to to continuing with the front end conversion.
Priya.....I started out doing my front clip conversion the Easy Way (per Forum members good advice).
Glance at the pics in my thread/use the table of contents to help find "nose pics".
Cutting enough off the nose forward of the headlights was easy.
Then I could have temporarily secured my chrome bumper exactly where it needed to be.
Next I could have bonded fiberglass pieces together that Derek and Others provided.....using my chrome grill trim pieces to help with the bonding process.
WHERE I COMPLETELY CHANGED DIRECTIONS....was when I saw how much bondo was used to convert the nose to "Rubber Bumper" by a previous owner. I knew I had to remove all of the * * * * ! That led me to the complicated process of removing ALL of the nose damage and starting from Scratch.
Had there NOT been so much crap/bondo to remove/repair....The chrome bumper modification could have been done in a month, even with my rookie skills.
I dont regret having to do the conversion the HARD WAY.....but it would have been so much easier with an unmolested nose to work with (like yours).
