Thought you guys might want to see some of Nick's work. Beth's 70 Chevelle is sure looking good! The "before" pic is how I delivered the car to Nick's shop. I had already replaced 3/4 of the floor with both inner rockers, 1 outer rocker panel, the entire trunk floor, the panels under the rear seat, pieces of both inner panels where the conv top bolts in, and the entire header bow over the top of the windshield. Plus other small areas. The after pics are from a few days ago. Enjoy. Duane PS. The only 2 original exterior body panels left on the car are 1 rocker panel and the panel between the convertible top and the trunk lid.:laugh:
She is coming along great Duane. I saw your car in Nick's shop before & during the work. Nick is one of the best!
That "before pic" was the first time the car started looking decent, as all the rotted panels were finally removed and only the "good stuff" was left. James Weinman saw the car while I was tearing it down and told me in Texas they strip better looking cars then that. What a bunch of lightweights.:laugh::laugh: Sometimes you need to put your foot down and refuse to let something die. Duane
Duane, Great results, very nice .....where did you find the Chevelle.....Buffalo, Duluth or New Orleans after Katrina :TU:
I bought the car locally in "1994" but it lived it's entire life in the Wilkes-Barre area. That's up in NE Pennsylvania in the Poconos. I bought the car because the quarters looked really good, as in replaced. What I didn't know at the time was there were 2 quarters on the driver side and 3 on the passenger side, plus the entire trunk floor was welded over top of the existing rotted out one. The day I looked at the car I unbolted the top, and pulled the roof back to look at the windshield header panel. It was so rotted that I reached up and crushed it with my hand. Needless to say the car was a mess. Anyway, I buried it in one of the garages and only started working on it in 2008. That's when I saw how bad it really was. The idea was to either make it into a rust free car (which is what it is today) or throw it away. So I stripped it down to the bare shell, welded an entire "roll cage" into the shell, then pulled it off the frame and stuck it on my body rotisserie. I had tons of sheet metal from other cars, as well as some NOS panels so I figured what the Hell. I will post a few pics of what I started with and some "in process" shots so you can see how I got it to the "as-delivered" condition in my first post. Duane
OK, Here are some pics to show the "saga" I am not sure how they will go in the site but the sequence is listed 001 thru 010. The first pic shows where I crushed the header panel with my hand (in 2 places) the day I went to look at the car. As you go thru the pics you will see the new header bow plus the installed donor floor pan. That pic is when the "roll cage" leaves. The 3/4 donor floor was very nice and was installed in 1 piece, with all the brackets and inner rockers attached. The rocker panel was NOS, and the trunk and under rear seat panels were from Dynacorn. They were so nice I could not see any differences from the original panels. Nick had the bottom blasted, then finished off the floor. It now looks like the day it was made. The Engine-chassis shot is how it looks now. The original frame was junk, so I cut the boxed sections off and Kenny/Nick welded them into a nice coupe frame. Then the frame was powder coated and I brought it home to build the engine and fit out the chassis. It has taken me a long time to do all this as I have so much on my plate right now and have little personal time left, so I took next week off as vacation. The plan is to pick up the chassis tomorrow and mate it with the body. Then we start throwing parts on the shell. Should be a fun week. Enjoy. Duane
No, the entire chassis is basically a stock A-body disc brake set-up. I used a Quick ratio box I had laying around so it should be fun to drive. The reason it looks so low is the chassis is sitting on 4 spare donut tires. By using them I only need to pick up the body so high to roll a frame out from under it. Makes it much easier. This is going to be a fun driver for my sweetie Bethers. Duane
Here are some progress shots from yesterday. I have been up there every day this week and we are getting a lot done. Today we assemble the convertible top mechanism and Nick is painting it. Enjoy. Duane
Wow! I saw this car with my own eyes back in February 2008, and I'm telling you 99.99% of the "car guys" in this world would have scrapped it. I can't believe it is the same block of swiss cheese I saw back then. This thread should motivate some guys to save these cars and not scrap them. Great job Duane and Nick. :TU:
This thread is one of the contributing factors that helped me decide to save my GS. Great work Duane.
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