Nope. But on corvettes bonding strips on the backside are required to avoid cracking at the joint in the future. If you splice it there, you will have to make your own bonding strip, and probably still use bondo. The factory seam locations are carefully chosen to have an almost flat surrounding area with minimal curving.

Dynamic Corvettes has some excellent "how-to" videos online.

My Corvette has a 45 degree home made splice in the right rear corner, complete with home-made bonding strips. Done around 1980 or so and has held up well even if it is in an unorthodox location. It starts at the top center of the right rear fender lip and travels 45 degrees up and thru the decklid all the way to the lock and license plate in the center of the tail-light panel. Nothing shows on top thru the 30 year old paint. But since I can see the unusual bonding strips underneath, I just wonder what I am going to find when I strip the paint.....

 

Yes, the previous flares had home made bonding strips on the back side, and I've seen them made from strips of the portion of the quarter you cut off. Fortunately, the last ones installed weren't fiberglassed on the outside, or they'd of been hell to remove!

That's an interesting repair you had on yours! Likely going to find a bunch of bondo on yours like I did on mine, which makes razor blade stripping almost impossible unless you use the heat gun and plastic blades like I did on my front clip.

 

I'm currently contemplating cutting out the rest of the quarter, and have found the below as a VERY helpful guide with illustrations:


https://www.corvette-restoration.com...-installation/

 

Wow; I'd forgotten about that site. I used to refer to it years ago. It looks like his most recent updates were in April, 2017. I hope nothing bad happened to him.

 

Same, it's a REALLY good website with excellent documentation! I hope he is okay! Anyone know his handle here on CF?

 

Well I did my homework and thinking last night, then went into my shop and did enough staring that I decided to remove the rest of the quarter panel to install the full piece of the new one I bought. This would give me fresh fiberglass and get rid of the hacked up pieces I had covered in body in filler. What could go wrong? You can fix anything with fiberglass!


This last section of the quarter was factory and had never been removed, and it took a lot more hit and force to break free from the factory bonding strips. I then took my 3" grinder with 36 grit to clean down all the bonding strips. then hand sanded the quarter above it to get rid of all the filler.





I clamped my new quarter on to start lining things up and taking measurements on trimming it on the rear. This is where I started marking it up to decided where I would trim.





First round of trimming complete and clamped back in place: we're pretty close!





Next step is to put the wheels back on and ensure it's centered, then make my final marks and adjustments. Getting really close to being able to bond it in, and this is going a lot smoother than expected!

 

I think you made the best choice.
It looks good, nice work!

 

Thanks! It's definitely worth the time and money!

Here's a comparison of what I'm removing - these vintage flares just didn't have the right lines compared to the modern ones!

 

Nice work!
Looks like it is going pretty smoothly.
And I agree it looks way better than those old flares.
There was something about that flat "shelf" above the tire that just didn't flow with the curves of the car.

 

Thanks, it's going smoother than expected so far. Yeah those old flares just weren't right , and I'm so glad i'm putting forth the effort to remove them!

 

Things have slowed down in my shop, as I've returned back to work and am preparing to be out of town for the next two weeks. But not all is lost, it's my annual New Year's trip to Mexico so we can unwind by drinking margaritas on the beach for a week! Then I'll have to go to Houston immediately after for our Sales Kick Off Meeting. My poor car won't get the quarters finished until later this month!

I'm waiting for a couple of things: 3M 08115 Panel adhesive to come in, and I found out my exhaust valance I ordered is the wrong one, so exchanging it to have fitted to my new quarters. I'm using the valance with ears to fill in the exhaust holes since I'll be running side pipes.

I talked to Josh at Custom Image last night, can't praise him enough to taking the time to talk me through his process! He also uses the 3M 08115 and screws his quarters into the bonding strip to allow to cure for 24hrs. He then comes back and removes them , then makes a mixture of shredded fiberglass and epoxy into a jelly to fill the holes and where the sections meet as well. After this cures, block it down and shape it back, then perfect with body filler. So this will be the process I use later this month when I return.

 

Enjoy your vacation and work vacation.
It sounds like Josh gave you some great pointers.

 

Well folks, we had an absolutely wonderful vacation in Mexico! Enjoyed 80F days in the sunshine sipping margaritas with my bride and we got the R&R we needed! we ended up coming up two days early; long story short: we've been trying to have our first kid for the past year with complications and we're starting IUI. This is a moving target and had to come in to start on Friday or risk missing the window until March! Fortunately, things went well in her appointment, so it was more than worth cutting our trip short!

Not to waste the time now open weekend at home, I got back busy in my shop: Cleaning and organization was needed and also got busy making some wheel cribs to make the body work easier.

There's a lot of websites on how to build wooden wheel cribs, I'll share what I used:

(8) - 2X4X8

(40) 10" pieces and (32) 14" pieces

I used my framing nail gun because I had a bunch of 3" nails and glued them as well - it ain't going anywhere!






front wheel is turned because I need to do a serious alignment apparently lol




Next work was removing the exhaust valance and fitting the new one to fill the exhaust holes. As you can see, Bubba the Bondo Artist , put bondo on the edges here. I had to make a cut and work it all loose.



The other side as even worse, Bubba put Bondo over the bolts!!! Easy to fix and cut through though.



Here's the ne valance from ACI that fills the exhaust holes. I later realized that this panel is for a factory side pipe car, but since I'm changing the quarters, they don't have the exhaust cut out and they'll fit well.



After some fighting with the new panel, it was quite obvious fiberglass work is required to MAKE it fit correctly. Pretty disappointed in this piece, and wouldn't recommend getting one since I'll have to hack this up to make it work.. You can see below that each side on the license frame in the middle is off by 1/4" , not to mention the curves don't fit together well. I have two options:

1. Cut the new valance don the middle and make it fit from there. Will have to add a 1/2" strip in the middle, but it's hidden and no big deal.
2. Use the middle portion of the old valance that fits perfectly , but cut off the ends and put on the ends from the new valance to blow off the exhaust holes.

Both options require lite fiberglass work, but will be easy. Might try 1 first then switch to 2 if I can't get it to line up!

 

Thats some fine quality from todays generation.....typical..
Good luck, I agree with your plan, atleast the plate will hide the bonding strip

 

Yeah I guess this is what you can expect for hand laid fiberglass these days! I'm just glad the quarter panels were correct!!

 

That make a rear valence panel like that that has "ears" on the side, to fill the rest of the factory exhaust hole on the quarter panels.
Wouldn't that be easier?

 

That is the correct valance, but the replacement quarters are filling the exhaust cut outs so the one I have works perfectly to fill the cut outs on the valance end. Basically I accidentally ordered the correct part! lol

 

So realistically you have 9 months + or - to finish the corvette and any other projects you are in the middle of.
Once you have a new born in the house, your free time will fail to exist for about 4-5 years.
Start getting sleep now in advance, because that will soon be non-existent as well.
Its all worth it and you’ll find all the other things are much less important than the new life you’ve brought into this world.
I’m a grandparent so I’m entitled to sit back laugh, give advice, and remind the kids, “pay back is a beach”, LOL.

The new wheel cribs look great!
I love mine and use them like jack stands right now.
Much more secure.
I slid wheel dolly’s under mine and strapped them to the chassis so I can roll it all around the garage.
I wouldn’t do it once the body is on.

The body work is coming along nicely.
When I bought my new front bumper cover and hood, I thought they aligned and fit really well.
Once the body shop put them up to the body, they showed me just how much work they would need so they fit properly.
I would call AGI and show them how much your lower valance is off from your oem.
Maybe the sent you the wrong part but with the right part number on it.

Great work and keep us posted!

 

Okay, I was wrong, I do need the one with the ears as expected! I looked at returning this thing previously and it as $100 to ship it back! Looks like I might be doing some more fiberglass work..

 

Yeah I'm gonna be crushing it to get this car done by late spring/early summer!!!!

I've been spoiled with the free time and financial freedom without kids for a long time! But I'm approaching 40 (fortunately my wife isn't!) and we're ready to start a family. Going to be a drastic change in life for me! My wife actually owns a new born baby day care , so it'll be a walk in the park for her! She's agreed to take 6-12 months off work once the baby is born, so she's going to be a huge help in the beginning and help get me transitioned into being a parent.

I like the wheel cribs a lot and wish I would of made them sooner! I've been looking at bolting casters to them so I can move the vette around, we'll see...


I'll call ACI, who knows, maybe they'll surprise me with their customer service?? (not holding my breath..) lol