For the area I was looking to shave on the passenger side quarter panel I only made two gauges, one about 2 & 1/2 inches down from the top of the quarter panel and another about 6 inches farther down from that:

I only made two contour gauges to try and compare the dips on the quarter panels. One about 2 & 1/2 inches down from the top edge of the quarter panel and another about 6" down from that:



I started out cutting the gauges with scissors and found I couldn't get them very accurate that way so after trimming I took a block and 120 grit to sand down the gauges a liitle more precisely, You can see the "down" gauge still isn't quite a smooth curve, but it was close enough.

On Tuesday I shaved down the dip on the passenger side quarter panel maybe 1/32 of an inch and figured the quarter panels looked similar enough and debated about calling them "done". The next day after I made the contour gauges I found the dip in the driver's side quarter panel was about 1/8" deeper than the one on the passenger side, which is about what I thought it was just from holding a straight edge to the quarter panels. I decided I wanted to get it closer than that so I shaved down the dip on the passenger side quarter panel maybe another 1/32 of an inch for a total of about 1/16 of an inch.

Here's what it looked like before the additional sanding:




And here is how much farther I got into the gel-coat with additional sanding:




The blue arrow in the picture immediately above shows the fiberglass I used to join the two panels showing through, the green arrow shows the gel coat starting to disappear as I removed material in that area. Now that I've shaved down the passenger quarter panel more there is, like the driver's side, very little fill on the panel. I'm confident that almost all the filler is 1/8" thick or less with maybe a couple small areas on the quarter panels having a little more than 1/8" of filler.

I decided at that point going any further would require too much shaving down in the areas outside of the dip to allow the 70-73 ACI rear clip to blend well into the 79 quarter panels. So I was left with the driver's side dip being maybe 1/16" deeper than the passenger side and decided that was close enough. Like derekderek said no one is going to notice the difference unless they have very sharp eyes. So I sanded down a little more with 80 grit the areas where the gel coat was gone and the fiberglass where the join was was showing through the VPA and then covered the area in VPA yet again. Hopefully this will be the last time I add fill on the rear end of the car:



I wrapped the VPA around onto the tail light panel where the ACI mold pieces met and the gel coat had been sanded away so that the underlying fiberglass was showing through so as to have all the bare fiberglass covered by Vette Panel Adhesive/Filler.

 

sharp eyes and a loupe.

 

And just for fun, here was the garage furnace icicle on Jan 6th:




And here it is Jan 27th. Normally we'd have broken it off by now, but I'm kind of curious as to how tall it will get:




Last time we had the gas tank out I couldn't find the cardboard/tar paper the factory put in on the rear frame cross member to cushion it. I spent hours going through the garage looking for that. In the end we put in a piece of gas resistant rubber to replace the factory cardboard/tar paper:




A few months after we put the gas tank back in I found the thick factory cardboard/tar paper hiding in the house. We'll be putting the factory stuff back now.

 

That stalagacicle has a couple high spots on the right side.....


Just picking!
You can always revisit that quarterpanel one more time after you are happy with the other areas

 

I don't see that happening, I'm just soooo tired of trying to get the back end ready for primer! I figure to lower the dip more on the passenger side I may have to significantly rework the surrounding areas, including needing to add more epoxy resin and mat on the inside of the 79's SMC upper quarter panels. A person can do this work themselves as a novice, but you're going to end up putting in at least 2 or 3 times the hours it would take a professional to do it.

 

I had a particularly good day in the garage today. For part of it I think I was even enjoying myself, I started off leveling the mat and resin I put on the inside of the passenger side quarter panel and on the inside of the upper deck between the gas tank opening and the ducktail. This is one of those things where in the past I've frequently sanded too much and had to add more mat and resin to make up for it. I've gradually gotten pretty good with the air sander:




I had an 80 grit disk on there which is coarse enough to allow me to add more mat and resin. It's easy to tilt this sander too much and make big gouges that make the panel too thin. The alternative is to sand by hand which takes a very long time. I managed to do a pretty nice job on the inside of the rear end and get it nice and flat with the air sander above. I feel like I'm finally getting good at this. At first I wondered if I really needed any more thickness on the inside of the passenger quarter panel, but with how much I shaved the dip down on the outside I wouldn't feel comfortable with the job if I hadn't added that thickness. So to my sweetheart - it wasn't a waste of time to remove the gas tank again.

Here's the finished areas inside the rear end:






Here's the dip in the passenger side quarter panel after I've partially sanded down the fresh filler. You can see at the blue arrow where I've got that spot low enough that the white gel coat on the ACI rear clip is showing through. I started knocking down the filler with 80 grit on a manual long board and then put 120 grit on the air powered long board to speed it up and managed not to over sand it anywhere making it so I need to add filler yet again.




Here's the passenger side quarter panel before I deepened the dip in it to match the driver's side. I think you can see in this picture there wasn't much of a dip there and the whole quarter panel appears to be bulging out:




And here's how it looked after today:



I'm really tickled with where I have it at this point, it's looking pretty good and I may call the upper passenger quarter panel ready for primer. I'm not sure if I've refined the lower quarter panel as much as I can so I'll be looking at it carefully and see if I think I can improve on it. I was actually enjoying slowly refining the panel with 120 grit and spraying it with water to check my progress, I think you can see the quarter panel dip in this panel now like it should be. It felt very satisfying to see and know I can get this nice and smooth. Maybe not professional smooth, but pretty close

 

All those pesky curves are what make C3s timeless cars!

 

Oh, that's for sure! It's been a real challenge so far but I think I'm getting there.

 

DEFINATELY! It makes all those days of "it feels like I got nothing accomplished" seem work the

 

Good job Priya! You are really getting the hang of it!

 

By intent or freudian slip?

Priya, as per usual, you are an inspiration.

 

Yes, that's exactly how it feels

I was thinking the same thing. Being able to spray water on the panels makes a huge difference, this would be so much harder if this were a metal car with all those subtle curves.

Thanks so much!

 

Nice improvement and great work.

 

Thanks! Now that I'm closing in on having the rear end ready for primer I feel like I want to go ahead with the front end conversion but the house needs shingles.

 

I’ll be trimming hedges all day today on my 8’ ladder.
I still have two sheds to build and and and!
I get it.
You are still making wonderful progress and it’s good to see your in the garage this year moving forward.

 

It's been pretty hard to get out to the garage most days, especially when it's been -30 C but for the most part I've managed to hold a steady pace since October. I just tell myself I'll feel worse in the long run if I don't get out to the garage than I feel just before heading out there.

 

Me =

 

Been following your process and I'm impressed. Bumper conversions have been quite controversial and popular I've seen in the past 5 years, and I'm looking into doing the same. To do it right it takes a lot of visionary work getting the proportions right without changing the overall profile, and I'm talkin' inches! Keep it up, get her out of the garage!

 

I haven't made it out to the garage consistently for the past month so I'm feeling down about that but I expect to get into a more regular routine again soon

I may have the fill work done on the quarter panels and rear deck, I'm struggling to tell if the sides of the rear deck look the same cause I can't get a good look with the water sprayed on it. I'm going to try holding a light at a sharp angle to it and hopefully I can see it better. After these areas I still need to sand down the remaining areas of brown paint on the rear of the car. Particularly difficult to get smooth has been the line between my body fill and the old paint on the upper deck either side of the fuel filler opening. I feel pretty good about where I'm at, though.

 

That's the best bet with the light, definitely on the right track also with the splicing, great place to be contempt! If those lines are hard to see some black quick-dry rattle can primer can also help with light refraction when wet (Had to do plenty motorcycle tanks and vette like that). Hell at one point my father and I rattle canned a whole '66 stang like that to reveal all the body history hahaha. The primer holds the water quite well on the surface and won't bead off. Can't wait to see more but glad to see you're taking a step away for some recreational refreshment!