Day 36 - 9/25/11

A very quick update, and yes it has a picture! Had some previous family functions today. Went out in the garage this evening and looked at one of the taillight lenses I polished awhile ago. I managed to get to polish caked up in the crevices. That's kind of trailer trashy. So, promptly got my bucket, water, and a tooth brush to get what I could out.

Backwards: After and Before. The polish is crazy stuff. It shined up the lens, but it will also allow the lights to shine brighter.

Day 35 - 9/23/11

Today is Friday yet again! I've heard that school is kind of important, so that's partly why I don't get many posts up during the week. But hey, at least I'm making progress! I've been wanting to drive the ole Chevelle since we picked her up. So I made a goal to get the motor back together. Reached that goal, and made another one. Got the goodies out of the way on the floor in the car and got the front seat in (some what easier said than done). Got it started on the first crank, and went for a very quick drive around the neighborhood. No windshield, plates, brake lights, insurance, or seat belts. NICE, that's why it was a quick drive. But we'll get lots of drives sometime soon.

Back from our drive, shiny front end looks good!

Beaches - 9/21/11

Dad and I went to the second to last Beaches night of the 2011 season this evening. It was good to go, haven't been in 3 years! There was a ton and I mean a ton of cars there. They had to park way out in the far field by the finish of the drag strip! We were on the look out for 72 Chevelles and spotted a few. Looked at all of them, and mine seems pretty nice for what it is. Some were real nice and others were some '20 foot' cars. I'm going to have the best fitting bumpers in town! It was fun. I'm looking forward to going to the next season with the guys, but we have to get our cars done, or at least driveable!

Day 34 - 9/18/11

Got the rear bumper ready for reassembly. Replaced some of the bolts on the brackets I took off. Cleaned up the bumper guards to put back on the bumper. But the rubber bumpers aren't very nice at all. One of them has the top corner ripped off, and the other the whole side is ripped and falling off. So, they will stay off for now. I can still get them on with the bumper already in place. So I'll be on a quest to find some better (not perfect) rubber bumpers. I've checked ebay, they only had the fronts and the Car and Truck Shop in Orange County has a new set for $36. I'll be out on the look out at Chehalis Swap Meet.

Putting the brackets back on, ready for assembly!

Finding the mounting points.

Group effort.

Successful! Doing the final gap comparison. Fits a little better than it did before. Hey, we got time! Joe on the line in '72 didn't so much.

Day 33 - 9/17/11

Today was a fix and reassemble kind of day. My dad brought home some 2-part epoxy to glue up the headlight door clip and park light molding. It seemed to work, I'll let it set overnight. In the overall quest to reassemble the car and get excess parts off the ground, I started to put the rear bumper back together. I'm not sure why, but I've been putting it off. It is now underway. The plan for tomorrow is to get it back on the car.

Some 2-part epoxy, great stuff.

Saving original parts!

Bumper ready for wiring harness.

Wires back in, flipped it over to put the lenses in to see how they fit. I was debating on putting some washers in to make the gaps more even but they are fine so chose not to.

Day 32 - 9/16/11

It's the weekend! Time to block party. Parental units out for the evening, thought I should work on the car. I decided to put the rocker panel moldings back on. Dad polished them awhile ago, but they weren't up to par. So I used some 4/0 steel wool on the bottom lips for all the road grime buildup. Then I threw them on and said there!

Getting ready for it.

All bolted on!

Day 31 - 9/11/11

Today was an extension of yesterday. We got the bumper figured out and put back on for the 30th time. Finally got it to where we like it. I'd say it's even better than it came originally! Then kind of an all afternoon project was putting the manifolds back on the car. I really wanted to get the motor back together and at least running, and we reached that goal. I didn't take very many motor shots because I was all greasy and y'all know what it looks like so there.

Dad came up with a great idea to 'slot' the holes on the front bumper brackets.

So ideally, the brackets stay where they were but the bumper slid over to the driver side to split the difference on the gaps.

Giving the final torque on the bumper!

On to the manifolds. Fel-Pro gave me a gasket to go between the manifolds, I thought that was sure nice of them.

Ready for some parts!

Almost there, you get the idea, but the manifolds are back on, got all the vacuum and fuel lines as well as the linkages attached. And yes, it did start! It was quieter from the exhaust switch, but it still needs a tune-up. Sun went down, time for bed.

Day 30 - 9/10/11

Already 2 weeks of school gone by, time to go to work! Busy productive weekend. During the summer I could get up at 10, polish some stuff, think, hang out with Dad when he got home, clean until 11 or later and repeat! It happened! During the beginning of the project I was up until 1 a few nights polishing bumpers and moldings. Can't do that anymore, but we'll still get'r done. So today, a somewhat major day, got the grill put back on, and the front bumper figured out. 

Getting the front bumper ready for reassembly, the bumper guards need to go on, so I cleaned them up and put the rubbers back on.

These Chevelle grills are very brittle especially on the bottom where the body color is, we had to do a little super glue fix.

Jacked it up, ready for the grill and bumper!

Got the grill placed in there with  a few screws we'll have to realign it many times.

Putting the cleaned up bumper guards back on.

First attempt of bumper placement.

Got it just sitting there for now.

From the beginning when we got the Chevelle, I noticed the bumper was hanging way to the passenger side. So I said, "Ok, it probably got hit in its previous life". Then my Dad confirmed she hasn't been hit so I said, "hmm...oh". What actually happened is that the sheet metal wasn't squared on the front end. Dad thinks the whole body could be off a little on the frame as well. So dad used some body man tricks. But we did a no no, sacrificing hood gaps for the bumper to fit, so we had to adjust most of the mounting points. Back to square one, the bumper still didn't fit up to our standards, we'll have to tweak with the bumper brackets tomorrow.

Day 29 - 9/9/11

Believe it or not, today has been 2 months since we picked up my Chevelle! As my dad says, "time flies, bud". 

A little blast from the past:

Day 28 - 9/5/11

Posts are going to be a little slower, school started a few days ago. So I'll have that to worry about. Its probably more important, just a little. But anyway on to today's update! During the process of helping put in the motor of my dad's 34 Ford, I did a little steel wool in the corners of the park light moldings and got those ready to put in. Then I spent some time and polished the sides of the park light lenses. I wanted to polish part of them, but not the whole thing. The front of the plastic has many many 'crevices' and I really didn't want to throw 3 weeks and 2 bottles of polish at it, + it's not a show car!

It's kind of hard to tell, but the one closest to you is the before and the other it the after.

A closer look, all done! They were really hazy, and there's all those crevices.

Thought I should probably check the bulbs before reassembly. I replaced the old 1157 bulbs to 1157A or 'amber'.

Got all the dash lights and radio lights working too while I was at it as well.

All reassembled! Its cool to get these back on, I haven't had them on since a couple weeks into the project!

Can you say patina? It was a daily driver, and will be again!

Day 27 - 8/31/11

In my quest to get the front end buttoned up, I got major progress in the polishing of the grill. It's kind of fragile so I had to be careful and not push on it too hard. I used a little masking tape on the ends on the stainless strips to minimize scratched plastic. Then in between this and that, Dad got the sandblaster up and working again so I blasted the new A pillars that we cut off. He brought a more powerful vacuum home from work to see if it is better than the previous 5 gallon Shop-Vac. Well, it somehow blows the 'sand' and debris right out the top vent so it filled the shop with lots of dust. We managed to get my project done but he decided to take it back to work.

Here's where I worked on it.

A little before and after all in one shot.

Green Monte Carlo paint? Not for long!

All blasted, the excess black stuff is rubber from the windshield. I'll have to manually clean that off.

Day 26 - 8/29/11

Well today, was a big fab day. Dad came home from work and wanted to start hacking on the roof we bought. So I said sweet, lets do it! Peter and I brought the roof sections out from the back yard to in front of the garage and put the bigger one on a jack stand, after I scraped off the roof insulation. Basically, the amount we need out of the roof sections I bought is a very small part of them. But very vital to the project!

So we brought it out, ready to be worked on!

Just for fun, I scraped out the old insulation.

Put it right side up on a jack stand, so the rear didn't collapse on us.

Grinding the lead off to expose the weld of the seam.

Weld found, and wiping the goop off so we can see the spot welds.

Using a scotch-brite pad attachment on the angle grinder to make the spot welds more visible.

Starting to drill out the spot welds.

Starting to drill up the pilot holes to 1/4 inch.

My dad borrowed a saw from work. It was quite loud, the neighbors shut their garage door!

Cutting the front part of the roof!

Breaking the seam where the spot welds still have a little hold.

Got it apart in one piece!

All done! Well, maybe not...

Putting the new A pillars away so we don't lose them.

Cutting the outer skin around the rear window on the smaller roof.

Trying to get the outside skin loose on the smaller roof section.

Pounding the roof apart.

There you go!

Drilling out the rear spot welds.

Cutting the rear skin around the window.

Trying to get the outside skin loose, the seam area was holding it in place.

Oops

After all that work, that's what we got! Plus the front part not shown.

Final grinds of the evening, getting dark, done for today.