As you may or may not know the vette was in an accident last fall and since then we have taken off the front clip, bumper, bumper supports, scraped the headlights since they were damaged during the accident and got rid of one of the fender skirt. We then decided to POR-15 all the bumper supports and the main bumper bracket. So we thought while we're at it we might as well take out the outer heater box to save some space and weight, since we had to cut the heater box coolant line due to our new carburator dual feed fuel line (funny how one thing leads to another). Then we saw that the firewall was cracked in one spot and decided to put in 3 aluminum brackets to keep it firm. As soon as we were done with that we decided to cover up the inner part of the heaterbox (since its IMPOSSIBLE to take out) with aluminum sheets. So now we are just waiting to find a front end and some fender skirts to get the car finished. Were planning on getting a one piece front end and making into a tilt front end. Also were hoping to save 100+lbs of weight by taking out headlights and a bunch of random metal.

check out the AWESOME radiotar support straps


The cops said for it to be "legal" to drive on the street it needs to have a bumper, sssssooooo we put one on, and YES we did actually drive it around town, the look on peoples faces was priceless, especially when we passed a cop :D :crazy: :cheers: :cool:

 

Haha, like a Corvette T-bucket

Glad things are comin' along for you :cheers:

 

On the bright side there is no need to worry about hood clearence.

:cheers:

 

LMHO, i actually think its not that bad, luckly theres no frame damage, all we have to do next is fix the rear leafspring, its so low that over bumps our rearend hits the pavement and sends sparks flying :rolleyes:

 

:auto: :thumbs:

 

:eek: :eek: I can only imaging the looks you were getting :lol: :lol: :cheers:

 

why are you not using fiberglass to repair the firewall? It would look a lot better than all those strips of aluminiukm looking like bandaids.

My firewall was in 3 pieces, cracked all the way through and had some 30 other cracks, tears and holes in it. I used fiberglass to repair it and smooth it out and it came otu really nice, it was a lot of work though.

I turned this (don't have an older pic, this one is already reworked quite a bit, all of the damaged sections have been cut off, especially on the left side where it was completely mangled):



into:






[Modified by Twin_Turbo, 3:17 AM 4/1/2004]

 

Twin_Turbo, for the unknowing here, what materials did you use to do the repairs? Heck, that thing looks too good to reinstall. Almost a work of art. I have a few of these "problems" to repair on my '74, but need to know the materials used to do the repairs. Thanks.

 

all I used was fiberglass matte, resin, a lot of c clamps and a flass plate and some wax. I waxed the glass plate and laid the fiberglass on it to make a perfectly straight patch panel for the heater box.

It really isn't that hard, just a lot of work and a dirty job also.

After glassing it all in I spend lots of hours grinding and sanding and reshaping what I didn't want on it (the front bonding strips and part of the wiper area are gone on mine), then I sprayed some body filler (epoxy based) on it, some light sanding and then a nice gloss black coating of PPG Deltron. You do need catalyst and thinner for that paint, you might be able to get a nice result with aerosols.

 

That looks REAL GOOD, but theres no way im about to remove the firewall completly, WAY to big of a hassle, i think ill just keep it like that, maybe spray over the aluminum plate with black enamel or something, plus itd make a great mounting point for just about anything :chevy
That firewal is BEAUTIFUL, hats off to you, if i had the time and money id do the same :cool: :cheers:

 

it can easily be done with the firewall IN the car, the area you would be working on is easily accessible with the front clip off. Just takes some time, hardly any money. Fiberglass and resin are cheap and there's maybe 50$ worth of paint, catalyst & thinner on there.


[Modified by Twin_Turbo, 10:01 AM 4/2/2004]