bazza77

Hello all,
I have been slowly rebuilding my rusted out 69 coupe. After seeing on this forum what can be done to these old cars to keep them in circulation, I decided to go all the way with this one .
Now trying to get new parts around here is a nightmare , the freight charges to bring good frames and generally just large items to here is pretty much the cost of the part itself .
So , I think I was lucky enough to get a great rust free early c3 frame local to me ( if you call the other side of the country local ! ) .

so it' a 78 style frame that I dropped the body back on after I got my birdcage repaired

bazza77

here it is at its most pulled apart stage.




new sill panels from a 74 wreck ,went in pretty good !



birdcage done , firewall modified and glued back on



back together .

bazza77

"new rolling frame finished ,



body back on with new mounts and shims , got the doors pretty good fit , but they were never real good from the start of my ownership,

bazza77

bazza77

I started to remove the rear guards at each dog leg , a mistake I know now , I am planing on putting new guards all round . Should have left that part until later , oh well.

bazza77

so this car had been hit in the front right corner and patched up , rear also took a hit . So I bought a new hood surround (cast off another 69 apparently ) and some new guards , reused the left inner guard and bought ,what I was told a 69 right side inner ,, but this showed up






so I made it as close as the left as I could for now , it will need work along the bottom to fit .
hood surround was oversize when I got it so I measured the original one and cut it to be same , reused the original bonding strips





so I glued the bonding strips on with Lord Fusor , I measured 1/2 across the strip and glued , another mistake I found out after , seems there only a 1/3rd glued on .

bazza77

ok here's some pics of the guards I want to put on,

edit , seems my internet speed has dropped so it wont load any pics .I will continue later.

bazza77

Here' the front from cic, I have cic ones for the back but that can wait.I have yet to trim these and it looks like I will have massage the inner guards to get these to fit.

bazza77

So getting closer to my question here . The hood surround is bolted down to the inner guards.
Remember this is a 78 frame with my 69 horn extensions and frontcross over and radiator support bolted on.


If I measure from the rear of the 2 hood mount holes in the top of the inner guard to the firewall ( just under the lip thats glued across, which i took off) what measurement should i be getting ?

bazza77

Left side


Right side

Now the other end of the tape measure is right over the centre of the hole for the hinge bolt (rear of the two )

bazza77

Why I'm asking is I'm coming up short with the surround at the door end .


It' the same on both sides , I never trimmed it at that end.

why I'm asking for the numbers is so I can get an idea its ok and all I need to do is lengthen the surround a bit.
I also realise I haven' got the hood on or the front chrome bar on yet as well.
If I need to do those first before anything else then that's what I will do.

DUB

DUB

SB64

Here you go Dub,

bazza77

AH ! Yes its been apart for that long I needed a prompt to get my direction .

Thanks DUB and RVZIO , I was hoping you guys might look at it .

SB64

The picture was still a work in progress but you get the idea. Hopefully you still have the small screw at the end and the snap clips that go on the eyebrow trim and attach to the body.

RVZIO

bazza77

Yes , I was looking at them the other day thinking maybe I should put them on , clips are still on what's left of the original surround ,I haven't thrown anything away yet

bazza77

this and the doors and most of the A pillar /windscreen surround is all that's left of my donor car for this project.

DUB

FROM EXPERIENCE:

In the photo that 'rvzio' posted. THANKS ROGER! You can see the hole where the special clip will go for the eyebrow trim

I will get the hole carefully drilled and making sure that when the drill gores through the fiberglass it does not thread it and it drills it out very clean. The reason for this is the special clip has an internal tang that will go inside the hole and grab and make ti so the clip cannot be pushed off. IF you drill it and mess up the underside of the panel...then this tang will not have good fiberglass to grab onto and push off.

I can install these clips and remove them by using a thin feeler gauge and 'shoe horn' it off. I leave them off until I am ready to paint. So my gelcoat, primer and such is applied and then I install these clips and use a hook tool to further push up that tang to allow it to get even more grip.

The reason I do it this way is that if i have these clips on when I gelcoat, prime, seal and paint the car. There is so much paint that it can effect the edge of the body where this clip is and make it so when I go to slide on the eyebrow trim.I can see that it is a bit messed up there and that just bothers me to no end.

I know that this car shows one hole...and I have seen them with only one clip...but I have also seen where GM put two of these clips together...side by side.




DUB

bazza77

OK , my original surround is good in that area and I still have 2 clips in each side so I can copy measurements across to the new one .

Just waiting for the sun to come up and warm this place up a bit !

DUB

I would not necessarily copy the measurements to the millimeter. Where you drill the hole in regards to the back edge depends on how wide that are where the clip actually goes is.

If that made any sense.

DUB