Good shots priya, it's going to be beautiful!

 

It's not easy for some of us to do Priya, but don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.

It's looking great.

Do the front and paint it! You may be pleasantly surprised!

 

Four or five days ago I got the rear to the point where I was afraid to look at it any more for fear of screwing it up. Yesterday and today I was back looking at the tail light panel and thinking "I can improve on that" and I figure I did. I think I'm done again, but we'll see when I get a chance to put primer on it if I can resist touching it again.

 

It seems like you have a better eye for this stuff than me, but when I filled my bonding seams on the fenders with VPA, I kept putting more on there trying to get them perfect, sprayed it with water to make sure there was no distortion in the reflection, ran my hand over it a million times to see if I could feel anything, thought for sure I had them perfect, then I shot primer on it and I could easily tell where the bonding seams were. Luckily when I block sanded the primer, it came out smooth without sanding through the primer, and now that it's painted I can't see them at all. So I guess my point is, if you're happy with all the body lines and are just trying to get the little stuff here and there, primer sands a lot easier than VPA (except maybe some epoxies from what I've read) and guide coat makes it easier to see where the imperfections are.

 

i think Priya has been letting perfect get in the way of good for a while now. but her car. her call...

 

I doubt that. From the start and all the way through I've struggled to see imperfections. In many (most?) cases it's taken me several days/weeks to figure out where to put my head to see a reflection in the water I sprayed on and where to put my head and hold the trouble light rod to see the shadows when I'm using that method of checking my work.

It remains to be seen how good of a job I've done, I think I've done pretty well but I'll only know for sure when the paint goes on and I'll not be surprised if it doesn't turn out as good as it seems it will at the moment. Certainly before I figured out where to hold the trouble light rod to see the shadows in the curve around the wheel openings I'd have been pretty disappointed in how that would have come out. The painter asked if I wanted to work in a body shop but he really didn't check most of my work, he only ran his hand over 3/4 of the driver's fender (and not at all in the curves around the wheel openings) and along the part of the upper deck that rises into the ducktail so I really don't think he was in a position to judge the overall quality of my work.

I think I told the painter I had sanded to 120 grit but since my husband asked me about it I'm not 100% sure I did mention it to him. He said put 4 coats of the 2 part high build primer on it. The instructions on the can say to sand to 180 grit and then apply 2 or 3 coats but I think I'm inclined to leave it at 120 grit and put on the 4 coats, I'm pretty sure that's going to cover it.

 

In some cases, yes, in other cases I think I'd have been pretty unhappy with the results if I had primered it at one of the several times people (including my husband) were telling me it was good enough, just get on with it. I struggled to see the shape of everything and several times after I thought I had it good enough over the next several days I'd be looking at the panel, or spraying water on it, or using the trouble light rod and I'd see things that were a long way from where I previously thought I had them. Certainly I overdid it on the passenger side bumper corner when I decided to move the fiberglass mounting area outwards the 1/16" or less that it needed to be to be touching the steel mounting pad on the bumper itself. I lost a full year trying to correct that mistake. Then I lost roughly a year to depression and six months to time spent on the 69 convertible rear clip I eventually decided was too rough to use and then there was when I forced the tail light panel together with the exhaust filler panel at the license plate and that pulled all manner out of stuff out of proper alignment resulting in me cutting and re-welding the mounts on the bumpers, so all kinds of time wasted there too.

I think it's pretty hard to judge how good my work is unless you're here to see and feel all of it yourself. I was pretty disappointed in how my Eagle came out after the paint went on. We were in a hurry on that car to get it primered and painted and I didn't get to spend the time on perfecting it that I wanted. The car I did before the Eagle, a 75 Buick LeSabre I didn't set any deadlines and had at it until I didn't think I could improve it any more and there were no flaws in the body work that I noticed although I never severely scrutinized my work as I was nothing was readily apparent after the paint went on (unlike with the Eagle).

I want to do the best job I'm capable of and no doubt that's added a lot of time to the job. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't. Now with having the back end converted to chrome bumper but not the front I don't think the overall look can be any better than it would have been if I had left the car alone and just put the pace car spoilers on it, which is a fantastic look. I've been driving a rusty old Oldsmobile for the past 6 years when I probably could have been driving a nice pace car style car after perhaps only a couple of years doing just a colour change. I figure it'll still be a couple of years till I have paint on the car.

So, yeah, I wish I had just changed the colour and put the pace car spoilers on it and saved the thousands of dollars in parts and materials and years of labour. But, nevertheless here I am so there's no going back now

 

People with skill, patience, and focus that you continuously exhibit leave me speechless. I've known a few. I grew up beside the guy that ran the model shop for Polaroid Camera. Ed Land would dream it up, and this guy would make it.

There was, to the best of my knowledge only one thing that didn't go right. He was building a car which, by his design, would be at the top of the class. While in process, the SCCA rules were changed, and his car was bumped up a class. That was the end of that!

Don't kick yourself!

 

Well, I will say I never gave up even during the winter when it seemed I was working and working and getting nowhere.

 

A few days after doing my best to wash off the penetrating oil I used to loosen the front bumper cover bolts I discovered that the oil between the bumper cover and body was creeping back onto the body work as you can see in the picture below (blue arrow):




In the same picture you can see a bit of casting flash on the bumper cover in the same place as the penetrating oil:

I cleaned the bumper cover again, focusing on the space between the bumper cover and the body and sanded away the casting flash that was making the gap between the cover and the body tighter than I would have liked in that area for painting the car with the cover on:




The bumper cover had a few tiny nicks and stone chips on the forward edge which I sanded off. Later I noticed that edge was sharp in places and more blunted where I had sanded (blue arrows in picture below):




I could have bought some rubber bumper patch and added fill to the blunt parts of that edge to make them sharper but adding fill to an edge is a lot tougher than adding fill to a relatively flat area so instead of doing that I decided to sand down the rest of the sharp edge so it was evenly blunt all the way along. When the car is painted no one is going to notice that that edge is not as sharp as the factory made it:




I'm hoping to avoid removing the headlight buckets for paint as it looks like a big struggle to get to the bolts holding them in place and they are nicely lined up already and I don't want to have to get them back into proper alignment if I remove them. The problem with that is the part of the headlight bucket shown in the picture below (blue arrow) which would be difficult to paint on the car and wouldn't give as good of coverage as it would if the buckets were removed:





So at this point I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to remove the headlight buckets for paint.

When I bought the car I noticed the hood was misaligned note the gap at the front centre of the hood (green arrow picture above),

You can also see the gap between the back edge of the hood and fender and between the headlight surround and the centre front edge of hood in the two pictures below:






Since I bought the car I had been thinking all that was necessary to fix those gaps was to lower the rear edge of the hood which would bring the front edge of the hood back up into alignment. Now I'm not so sure that's going to fix it. The front centre of the hood is 1/4" or more lower than the centre of the head light surround while the front corners of the hood are level to the head light surround (blue arrows in picture above).

I think lowering the rear of the hood will help with the alignment on the front edge of the hood but I don't think its going to make up all of the quarter inch or more of gap there. I can't just raise the hood at the front until the front centre is in alignment with the headlight surround because doing so will raise the front corners of the hood above the fenders. I don't know if the hood is bent or the headlight surround is in the wrong place or both. I thought about adding fiberglass to the top of the hood to make up the gap at the front but that would take a great deal of mat and resin which would have to cover almost the whole length of the hood which would be a great deal of work and would make the hood pretty thick at the front. I think I'm going to have to lower the rear of the hood and hope for the most possible rise on the front and live with the gap at the centre front of the hood that remains.

 

This is true, but the chrome bumper look is so much better, and as far as I can tell, there are only 3 fastback vettes with chrome bumpers, and that's a something I'd feel good about.

As an aside, since fastback chrome bumper cars look so good, I'm thinking of mimicking the fastback "look" with the sugar scoop buttresses, by extending them almost all the way to the rear. Going to mock them up on my parts vette and post pics.

 

Yes it will be nice to have a rare chrome bumper 79 fastback. I would like mine better than a 78/79 with pace car spoilers if I converted the front end to 69 chrome bumpers but with just the rear end converted I'm not so sure its any improvement with that '73 kind of thing going on - it'll look as good but I'm not sure about better. I'm a big fan of the 78/79 with pace car spoilers, I love that spaceship look! Dodosmike has a 78 silver anniversary with pace car spoilers on it and I find it to be an exceptionally good looking C3: I seriously considered adding the spoilers and giving my 79 a silver anniversary paint job.

 

Yeah...well...
I like the 68-73 rear with the front rubber bumper OR the chrome front end...it's unique.
Do whatever makes you happy to the front end...it will look great!

I have plenty of Crazy to spare...IF you need some............

 

I see that, lol! I've got to hand it to you, you're not afraid of jumping into major work!

 

I think you made a good call on rounding the edges of the front rubber bumper.
The prior owner of my 73 added some of that rubber bumper filler when he had it painted twenty years ago.
The front bumper on mine looked horrible and that filler was cracking all over the bumper edges.
I like the front bumper on my 73, because to me it has better cleaner lines than any chrome front bumper model.
The one thing that does bother me is that the chrome rear bumpers don’t flow good when looking at the car’s lines.
I decided to replace the 73 style front bumper with a new fiberglass piece and remove the chrome bumpers, fill the holes and mold in the valance on the rear.
The guy who will be painting my car said this is something he has done many times over the years.
He showed me on a car in his shop where he welds in a crossmember directly behind the rear valance which supplies the same protection as the bumpers and brackets would in a rear end collision.
I can’t wait to see what you do next!

 

hood is low. raise the hood by shimming the hinges. if the center of the hood is then high, i did a bubba thing and put a threaded rod between bumper brackets and put a turnbuckle on the threaded rod. attached the turnbuckle to a bracket i attached between the headlight relays and cranked the turnbuckle up until alignment was perfect.

 

I'd be a lot happier about not doing the chrome front bumpers if my front rubber bumper cap looked like the 73 one. The bumperettes never used to bother me but as I heard people complain about them and talk about the better looking 73 & 74 front bumper cover I started to really prefer the 73 & 74 front bumper covers. After I decided not to do the chrome front bumper on my car I spent some time thinking about if there was an easy and cheap way to put a 73/74 front bumper cover on the front of it - I don't think so. I've seen at least one C3 with the chrome rear bumpers removed, the holes filled and the valance molded in, it looked pretty good, it was a red car but I don't recall who owns it. If we can afford it I'd like to put the pace car front spoiler on my car, I think that would better balance with the chrome rear.

I don't know where the headlight relays are so I'm not 100% clear on where you attached the turnbuckle, not on the front of the hood, but on the headlight surround panel in front of the hood?

I've been also thinking I could take the hood off, add mat and resin to the undersides of the front corners and then shave them down from the top. The only thing with that is I don't know where I'd put the hood, there's no room in the garage to put it without having it on it's side. That was a hurdle on doing the chrome front end too, I know the 68/69 front clip would have to come off and on the car several times and I didn't know how I could do that with no were to put the front clip when I needed it off the car.

 

That would look cool.
Check out Stinger Fiberglass Design/American Sports Car.
I purchased my new hood and fiberglass front bumper from them.They manufacture the fiberglass pieces for most of the vendors, their quality is flawless and they have been in business for decades.
They offer several different front bumper design’s and spoilers for C3’s.
If I remember correctly they also have a Pace Car spoiler.

 

This project is amazing and very fun to watch. That car is going to look so awesome!

 

never mind my previous. your hood lines up good at the sides. hood is what it is. it is possible the bar the back of the headlights bolt to has been bent up in the middle. sit between the headlights. if that doesn't help, maybe bounce up and down a bit. it is not a very strong piece. there are stories of the hood surround being bent down by a conjugal visit between the headlights... climb under the nose and look straight up through the center hole in the valance. you will see the support member and the horns and headlight relays. in fact if you are messing with the bumper cover, life is a lot easier with that valance removed. also a lot easier to paint lower valance and the spoiler when off the car. and is hanging the hood from the overhead to get it out of the way a possibility?