Too cold for sure, I haven't touched my 76 since October...I live in Michigan

 

Too hot down here...85*F last weekend.

 

Wow! I hate to think what it gets like in the summer. We've been having temperatures around -7C to -12C which feels pretty good after the -30C stuff.

 

I have been getting some work done on the car. Last time I posted I said I might be done the fill work on both quarter panels and the upper deck. I've looked at the driver's side quarter panel many times and it's been quite a while since I've seen any room for improvement so I'm calling it done aside from some damage I found just ahead of the rear wheel that I still have to address.

Hubby is going to have one of his autobody friends come over and look at it and give me his opinion on if it needs more work. On the Friday before last I had left the passenger side quarter panel thinking maybe it's close enough to done to leave. As the weekend went on I could see it in my mind's eye and and decided it was no where near good enough but I knew just where to sand it to improve on it. I went back in on the following Monday and looked at it again and decided it was not as bad as I thought over the weekend but did some more sanding and improved on it considerably. Unless the body man says different I'm going to call the passenger side quarter panel done too. It isn't perfect but I think it's close enough. If I wanted to try to improve on it I would need to add fill in the same tricky area shown where the fresh fill is in the picture below (ignore the blue arrows) and I might be just as likely to make it worse as to make it better.



I was pretty happy with the upper rear deck on the passenger side the last time I posted but not as happy with the driver's side. I pondered for several days on whether or not I could improve on it. The filler there is very thin in several places and I didn't really want to get back down to bare fiberglass anywhere again and have to add more filler. I eventually decided I had done much better on the quarter panels than the upper rear deck and decided I should keep at it and if I needed to add filler yet again, so be it. I don't know why I couldn't see the imperfections when I posted last time but this time I was really seeing it. I sometimes find it really hard to get my head in the right position and at the right angle so as to see the reflections on the wet panel. It's really hard to see a reflection in the lower quarter panel in particular because the panel slants downward and light doesn't want to directly reflect off of it into your eyes.

As you can see in the picture below I got back down to the fiberglass again in an area I was having a very hard time getting right (the panel is wet and it shows up more that way):




I sanded the area more with 80 grit to make sure the fiberglass would be below the level of the vette panel adhesive/filler I'd subsequently add and sand back down. The fiberglass spot showing through got a lot bigger although you can't see it as well as the panel is dry:




I've been struggling with the edge of the rear deck where it meets the driver's side quarter panel and finding it hard to get enough filler on the edge to make the right shape:




I was finding my Durablocks too long to sand the way I wanted on the curves so I decided to go for it and cut the flat one and rounded one into two pieces each, one smaller and one larger:



These sizes of Durablock work much better for the curves on a C3.

I spent a lot more time since I last posted on the driver's side of the upper rear deck and I'm much more happy with it than I was. It's now to the point where I need to work more on what I thought was the much better passenger side to get them to match.

I was having a hard time getting the line between the body fill and original brown paint right in the area of the blue circles in the picture below. I could very noticeably feel the valley between where the filler and paint meet. I spent quite a bit more time sanding around the areas of the green lines and making the dip there deeper which considerably smoothed the transition from filler to factory SMC by making the filler there closer to the same angle as the factory SMC immediately above. I didn't even break through the filler (yet) in those areas so I'm pretty happy about that. I still think I don't have the upper rear deck to the same level of quality as the quarter panels so I'm going to have at it a few more times and try to get it there.




As I figure I've got the quarter panels done where I joined the 70-73 ACI rear clip and the rear of the 79 I focused my attention on the quarter panel bonding seams and found this area where the fiberglass was showing through (green arrow) on the driver's side. I noticed that the door gap was also too big at the seam area as well:



I saw colours I hadn't seen before at the blue arrows in the above picture. That was the first sign of any body damage I've seen on the car. Later I was sanding around the wheel well when I noticed this crack in the quarter panel (blue arrow picture below):



So, that's rather annoying, just as I think I've got the driver's side quarter panel done I notice previous damage that hasn't been repaired. Wish I knew the mystery as to how that damage happened. Oh well, surprises are to be expected I suppose when you're doing autobody. Hopefully as I sand out the crack it doesn't end up too big.

It took a few tries to close up the door panel gap as it's hard to get enough fill on an edge:




As things were going well on the quarter panels and upper deck I had another look at the tail light panel and decided to sand further down and add fill to the areas shown by the blue arrows:



I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm at and after I complete that repair in front of the driver's side rear wheel I'm very close to having the entire rear end ready for primer

 

Just another showing me to be the utter lazy incompetent I am. Quite amazing dedication and focus.

 

My drivers wheel well was cracked worse in exactly the same area. l noitced it early on because it was so bad, so I gouged it out and built it up outside and inside with fiberglass mat.
I hope the body man has good news for you.

 

It is looking REALLY good. I know it is important to be detailed oriented, but don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. A danger I ran into when working on my pickup project was to become too perfection focused. There are times to say - hey that is good, and good enough. and leave it there. HAd to rmind myself it wasn't s show truck, never would be and I needed to move on and enjoy. Was soundly critizied by some folks. But set that behind me and simply enjoyed my truck. I know this will be coming on the Vetter too, because even as I have accomplished some things, I have improved my work since starting, and the temptation is to "go back and redo" the things I have already done and finished. SOme folks will say I should. Make it better. Come closer to perfect. ANd I am already telling myself NO! The goal is to get it back together, looking respectable and ENJOY it! It will never be PERFECT. I just need to be happy with it. ANd sometimes I have adjust or rethink what I am happy with. I have told myself there comes a time you just have to keep going forward. You have done so much and it looks so good. I am looking forward to your ongoing progress AND seeing you ENJOY itas your finished baby!

 

Yes, a lot of times I think I've got it good enough only to later change my mind multiple times. A couple of weeks ago I was puzzling over whether or not the upper deck was good enough as I was struggling to see it (the hand held light didn't help at all). Since then I figured out the correct positions and angles from which to look at the wet panel and could see it's not nearly as good as either quarter panel and not really the same on the driver's and passenger's side. Unlike the quarter panels where you can only see one at a time, you can see both sides of the upper rear deck at once so the difference from side to side on it would be much more noticeable. Given that I decided it was worth the extra time to get it closer to as good as the quarter panels because I know I can do it.

I've been alternating which side of the car I jack up to get the water to flow off the upper deck and so as not to leave the car twisted with one wheel off the ground for long periods of time. That has a big effect on which side of the wet upper rear deck you can see better so unfortunately it's you can't really compare sides without swapping which side of the car is raised up with the scissors jack.

 

You are gonna get a LOT of compliments for this...priya, unless this car is being judged I wouldn't stress so much. It's gonna look fantastic, you're good.

 

I would agree to a point, but my OCD would kick in every time I looked at the finished car, knowing I could have done, just a little more and it would be perfect.
Maybe!

 

I figure even if I spend another 8 to 15 hours (depending whether I break through the vette panel adhesive/filler to bare fiberglass and have to add more filler) on the upper rear deck it will be time well spent. I only get one crack at it, I want to know I've done the best job I could on this after all the time I've put in so far.

I haven't been out to the garage yet this week, had a flat tire on the Oldsmobile and had to change that outside twice so far this week. The ice under the car is very bumpy so that was a challenge and a lot of work for me. Tomorrow I've got the Dr. so maybe I get one day (2-3 hours) in this week. I haven't been real consistent on the car since before christmas. Come March 22 I've got to see the Dr. every day for up to two months so I'm not sure I'll have what it takes to put any time in on the car during that. It'd be nice to have the rear of the car ready for primer before then but that crack in front of the driver's side rear wheel is going to be significant work.

 

That's how I felt about the Eagle in my avatar. We were rushed to get it sprayed before temperatures dropped below freezing and I didn't get to spend all the time on it in the final stages I would have liked. Then when the paint went on it was kind of like...ewww. I don't really notice the flaws in it when I drive it as I'm not scrutinizing the quality but I hope and expect to do better on the Corvette. I did a 75 Buick LeSabre before the Eagle and I couldn't see any flaws in the body work I did on that but I spent a lot of time in the final preparation stage.

 

i mentioned before about being too picky on the lower quarters cuz nobody can see them both at the same time. back deck and tail panel? when in paint and glossy it will be like looking at a mirror. this is where you need to be meticulous. and you are.

 

priya don't know how good she has it. working time with resin and filler is about 2 DAYS is Saskatoon in winter...

 

The long working time with the fiberglass resin has been really nice and has shortened the time it took to do the mat and resin work.

 

find what silver linings you can in that very cold cloud...

 

Does the cold, longer working and curing times effect the strength of the fiberglass resins?

 

probably. more time to bond into one big molecule.

 

Update? Was following daily, then nothing since MAR? Hope all is well.

 

X2 Priya should have a you tube channel.
For that matter we should have a forum channel. Everyone take turns.