sittnlo

Hey all,

I recently purchased a 72 vette that had been converted to a 73 (why would anyone do that???)

Anyway, I'm going to try and convert it back to a 72 and thought I would share pics of the progress in this thread.

I have started building a body dolly, and hope to pull the body next weekend.

If anyone has any tips/tricks/suggestions I'm all ears.

Here it is the day I bought it


One of the previous owners tried to repair the windshield frame with bondo

Gordonm

You have your work cutout for yourself. Really like the house setup. Nice house with a seperate garage and nice scenery and backup to a lake. Great setup. May I ask where you are located?

sittnlo

That is the house of the guy I bought it from, and yes it is a very nice place located somewhere in Franklin, Maine.

-Chris

Oldguard 7

You stated that this vehicle is a 72 converted to a 72. Do you mean a 72 converted to a 73? Interesting thread. If you are converting the 73 back to 72 are you going to buy a 72 end to end front clip or the individual panels? As you may already know, the fender panels are different and you will have to find the vacuum door, the brackets, braces and the chrome bumper itself along with the grille and grill trim, turn signal lamps, etc (for whatever I may have left out. There is a form member who goes by the name of Patience bought a 73 and was attempting to convert it to a chrome bumper front. Do not know how it turned out. I was thinking of trying to convert a rubber bumper to a chrome bumper car but I don't have the money to do it. Keep up with the great pics. As for your question why would someone convert a 72 to 73? who knows. If I had the money to covert a rubber bumper to a chrome bumper I would start with a 73 which would be the easiest, the 74 would be my next choice due to the frame being similair to the 68-72.

cajos

Goodluck on the conversion!

I have a 72 converted to a 69 and I converted it back. Only to things I did no change back, flares at the end of the front wheel wells and front side markers.

When I bought it!


Work in progress


I was looking for a front clip, but transport to the Netherlands was too expensive for my budget. How ever I have written an RSS news stream to find new front clip offerings on ebay. Here is the link if you want to use it just use a RSS reader and get notified when a new clip is offered.

cajos

Must be a virus!!

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/1972-CORVETTE...:B:SRCH:AU:101

sittnlo

Thanks for the rss feed, I'll probably use that when the time comes.

You have a link to any more pictures of your project?

Wonder why they converted it to a 69? After looking at the price of the egg creates, and replacement front grills, wondering if that played a roll in it?

The PO of my car was guessing that the car had been in a front end collision shortly after it was purchased. He found a receipt for the body work (done in canada) stashed away in one of the doors.

cajos

Yes I do think price was an issue. It also had a poor paint job.

I have several links.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/pain...-progress.html

http://picasaweb.google.com/cajos196...eat=directlink

Easy Mike

Usually collision repair. Based on your pix, a PO went door to door, complete, including the hood.

Good luck with the restoration.

Alan 71

Hi Chris,
Thanks very much for all the pictures. It's always interesting to see what people are working on.
It looks like you have a good bit of work in front of you, but it should be worth it since 72s are very nice cars to have!
I'll be watching for updates!
Regards,
Alan

sittnlo

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Cajos, OMG your car looks great! Can't wait for mine to get to that point!

Hopefully I'll be able to post some more progress pictures next weekend.

sittnlo

Lifted the body this weekend.

Next will be removing all the fiberglass from the birdcage so I can properly repair/paint that.































-Chris

redwingvette

Nice work so far. Thanks for all the pics. Looks like you will have a real nice car when you are done.

cajos

Thank you, unfortunately progress is slow, I can't wait to drive it!

sittnlo

Here is the progress Pics for this weekend

I got the firewall off, and removed the rear access panels. Not much left holding the rear of the car on

Hopefully we are able to fix this.





















Probably won't have any updates next weekend, but hopefully the weekend after.

-Chris

cajos

Geez, seeing those pictures I realize how good my starting point was. Good luck, how you have the welding skills to match.

Alan 71

Hi Chris,
I'd say you're getting to know this car VERY intimately!
In the fourth from the last picture in your next to the last post the front clip is sitting on/in a wheelbarrow... is that one of the 'special tools' list in the GM Chassis Service Manual?
Continued good luck!
Regards,
Alan

CA-Legal-Vette

I just looked closely at your pictures again. Very detailed by the way I don't think any of the individual repairs needed are insurmountable. Some sections will probably even clean up fairly well. What's daunting is the work in aggregate. I agree with Gordon, you really have your work cut out for you. It'll be great when it's done though!

sittnlo

Haven't had much time to update, but here is the progress so far.

We removed both of the rocker channels (one at a time of course)





Nice repair of the #3 body mount hu?







We cut out a bunch of the rusted metal




Did some quick painting of the fiberglass where the new channels will be going.


Primed the new rocker channels


Welded/primed/painted the new rocker channels to prepare for fitting



Cut some new material to take the place of all the rusted metal we cut out


More test fitting


Temporarily installed the new firewall to make sure the front mounts lineup
(We also did a LOT of measuring using the frame.)


And everything welded in (Please be kind, dad is teaching me how to weld, learning slowly)







Now for a lot of grinding/painting, then we will be tackling the upper windshield.

More to come….

-Chris

beachcomber

Hey I think it's looking great! Very cool how you and your Dad are working on this car together and he's teaching you welding skills. You're going to have one special car when it's done. Great job and keep the progress pics/updates coming!