Engine work...

The engine and transmission was pulled and brought back to my own garage.  I had not yet purchased the parts as we needed to know what to buy first.  The trans was pretty easy.  It was just a simple Turbo Hydromatic 350.  I bought a complete rebuild kit complete with all the bands off eBay for about $100.  At that time I also bought a shift kit to sneak in there as well.  My father in law is a master mechanic at a dealership here in town.  He was able to put the transmission together for me pretty quickly.  That was something I didn't trust myself to do.

Here are some shots of the engine on the engine stand.  I wanted to take lots of pics of every angle to know where everything went.

I already removed the AC Compressor as I think it was putting my stand over capacity.  So I wanted to get it off of there before I broke the stand.  So now that I had the engine all documented, I started to strip off the accessories.  Got it down to the bare essentials. 

I decided that machining the block was not something for me to do.  So I asked around and decided to do with IDJ Automotive in Roseville.  They were reasonable in price and the services they offered, and they were highly recommended.  So I took all the internal parts out and took them the block, crank and heads.  I needed it all checked out and cleaned so I knew what size of parts to buy.  I also had planned on them pressing in the camshaft bearings as well.

So IDJ cleaned up the block and polished up the crank.  Due to the miles on the engine we had to go 0.30 over on the bore and 0.20 under on the crank.  Now I was able to buy the complete rebuild kit and get all the right parts.  I bought the rebuild kit also from eBay for about $300.  It was a complete kit with all the internal parts, bearings, oil pump and gaskets. 

It turned out that I had one 350 head and one 400 head.  The heads for a SBC400 has an extra steam port to help cool the engine.  At this point I had already started to buy other Impalas and Caprices for parts, and luckily the one I had also had a SBC400.  So I took IDJ both 400 heads and they picked the better of the three. IDJ put in all new valve seats in exchange for the SBC350 and SBC400 heads.  A good deal for me at the time.

After I got the block back, my father in law again helped put it all together.  I won't bore you with pics of the assembly, we've all seen how that goes.  I went with a Lunati Voodoo cam and 4bbl 650CFM Holley carb.  I bought the cam, carb and intake as a kit from Jegs.  I don't see my exact set up anymore, but I paid about $750 for all of it.  Assembly was pretty routine, no major obstacles.  It was done in a few days.

Here is a shot of the completed engine.

It's shown with an aftermarket timing chain cover, but just before we painted it Chevy orange, I opted for a stock style.  No one was going to see it anyway.  The engine sat on this stand for about 1 year, then it was finally mated to a B&M converter and attached to the transmission.  It came time to put all the accessories back on the engine.  My power steering pulley and crankshaft dampener were not worth saving, so I started to look for those as well.  To my surprise, my buddy at Jay Chevrolet was still able to buy these from GM!  So another win for OEM parts!  We painted most all the accessories black and bolted them on.  Over the months of the restoration, I accumulated many extra parts, including alternators and brackets.  For some reason my alternator is not quite right yet.  Its sitting a little crooked.  We think it is due to the aftermarket Weiand intake.  It may have shifted that bracket in a little bit.  The frame was now done so it was dropped onto the frame.

Here is a shot of it painted Chevy orange.

Yes, OEM exhaust manifolds.... No emails please.

Here is a shot of the brackets and accessories after being painted.

Next up frame overhaul!!!

Frame work...

What to do with a frame this big...   That was my first challenge.  I called around to some places that dip parts to remove the rust.  As a convertible the frame was fully boxed.  Dipping it would have been ideal to get to all the areas inside the frame.  I expanded my search further and further out, but still no luck.  The frame was just too big for any dip tank.  Some places opted to dip it twice, one end at a time, but for whatever reason, they did not recommend it.  I had to find a different way of restoring the frame.

For a 35+ year old car the frame was still very solid.  The only repairs necessary was replacing the back cross member and a couple motor mounts were a little eaten away.  The rear cross member looked like someone at some point tried to tow with it and bent it up.  Luckily I had the spare parts from other clean frames.  Complete frames were not a huge seller so scrapping one out for this part was just fine by me.

Here is a shot of the stripped frame.

In the end we opted to just wire wheel it and use POR-15 on the frame.  

I think it turned out really nice.  We also coated all the suspension components and rear axle.  Everything on the chassis was upgraded or replaced.  Starting in the front, all the control arms got new bushings from Performance Suspension Technologies.  All new ball joints also from PST.  All new steering components including centerlink etc, again from PST.  Brake calipers were new GM parts. 

All the gas, brake and transmission cooling lines are now stainless steel from Inline Tube.  They are somewhat of a local place and they can bend just about every tube out there to the OEM specs.  I bought all the brake lines, fuel lines and trans cooler lines from them.  I was also able to get clips and brackets necessary to complete the job too.  Getting those local was nice as I did not have to bend them to ship them.

The rear axle got new rubber bushings, again from PST.  They were not in the catalog, but they still had them.  I had no issues with the axle so we didn't touch it.  Just cleaned it up and painted it.  We did replace the wheel cylinders (NOS) in the rear wheels.

Springs and shocks also came from PST.  They should be a little better than the original equipment.

That about does it for the frame.  The frame was pretty easy and straight forward.  Nothing really to go wrong there.  At this point the frame would sit about 1 more year until it was finally reunited with the body.  At this point the original body is sitting on a donor frame from one of my other cars.  Luckily the frame was common on 2drs and 4drs, minus the boxed part.  Only the wagons had a different set up.

Out with the old...

Now that the frame was done, it was on to the main part of the body.  At this point my parts were in, and all I really still needed was a passenger rear quarter panel.  I pretty much had everything else I needed.  (I still continued to look for better pieces)  The rear quarter, esp the passenger side, was going to be extremely hard to find in decent shape.  The passenger side is the most likely to get hit of the two sides in an accident.  Also if it was a clean undamaged piece, it was also more likely to rust quicker.  Most cars were not posi-traction, and the right wheel slung more mud and salt up into the wheel well.  As we all know, many cars die from salt rusting a car from underneath, especially true here in Michigan.

The rest of the car needed work anyway, so the passenger panel was something we could hold off on and continue to look for a good donor piece.  So it was on to the other side of the car.  You don't want to cut too much out anyway, as nothing will line back up.  I'm still dealing with 35+ year old steel, so it was never perfect.  I had all the original drawings of the car as well as an assembly manual, but it was best to leave as many of the original lines intact as possible.

Pat cut out the driver side quarter panel, the trunk floor, the tail panel and the front floor pans.   By the time I visited the shop, he had already tacked in the new donor floor from California.  Here is a shot of the barely recognizable car...

Here is another closer shot of the trunk area. 



Paticularly keen observers will notice this is a trunk floor from a coupe or sedan.  Original convertible anything is nearly impossible to find.  The convertible trunk on teh B-Bodies was a little different as the spare tire was not sitting on the rear axle hump.  (Although the jack and tire iron was there in all models)  The top needed to go there, so it was relocated further back and on the passenger side.  So I needed to try and find the spare tire bracket that went over to the side to mount my spare tire.  I was told it was a futile search, as who would care.  "Who's going to ever see it" I was told.  Well I cared.  I wanted the car as close to original as I could possibly get.  I had to try.  More later on what I did there.

With nearly all the major rusted and damaged sections removed, it was on to grafting the new and donor panels back in.

In with the "new"...

Now we can start to rebuild the car.  As mentioned in the previous section, the truck was already tacked back in.  With that lined up we began to work our way around the car.  Hoping by the time we get to the passenger side, we'll find a good donor piece. 

Next up was the driver side rear quarter panel.  Here is a picture with the donor piece getting ready to go on.  This came from a 2dr coupe, but the plan was to cut just below the top edge, preserving the original convertible steel.  The coupe panel was the same as convertibles from the side.

Continuing our way around, next up was the tail panel.  I scored an NOS tail panel off eBay for a great price.  All we had to do was swap out the trunk latch, as it did not come with that.  This was a great find.  The bottom lip of the original trunk was in very rough shape.  All the cars I've seen and parted out had the same problem.  Gunk would build up at that base of the trunk lid and just eat away at the steel.

And now back to that passenger quarter panel.  I still had never found a good one and we almost decided to go with one that I had removed from another car.  It needed some patch work around the base of the wheel opening, but it was far better than the one we had.  Then out of no where, Pat the owner of Pro Street was at a Mopar swap meet.  (He's a Mopar fan more so than a Chevy fan)  He happened to see what appeared to be a quarter panel looking just like mine sitting on a guys truck.  He asked if the guy knew what it was for, (And Pat already knew what it was for...) and the guy said it was for some 70's Chevy.  He didn't really know.  Pat asked to look at it and sure enough it was the passenger side 71-73 NOS rear quarter panel we had been searching for!  Pat got it for only $200 bucks!  Finding that rear panel was probably the luckiest thing to happen in this restoration.  So home it came and it was grafted in place and looked phenomenal. 

Work continued and more steel was replaced.  The floor pans were cut out and donor pans were cut back in.  Again these came from California, and were far better than my original pieces.  When we did the driver side, the donor panel was just shy of a rusted area around the firewall.  Luckily I had two spare firewalls and we cut a section off one of those.

The last major piece to graft in on the main body was a section at the top of the firewall.  This time it was the area where the wiper linkage runs.  Same story again where gunk built up over the years and ate away at it inside.  So Joe did a great job of cutting out a section of the donor firewall and grafted in a new piece of steel.  It was a really tricky part to do with all the layers of metal and all the curves.  Joe did a great job of welding that in.

Earlier I also mentioned the spare tire bracket.  As convertible are nearly impossible to find, at least for parts, we had to make our own.  Luckily I have access to GM archives and I acquired the original drawing for the bracket.  I could still get the hold down bracket for the clamp, but the drawing showed exactly how the big the base was to be.  So I gave the drawing to Joe and he mocked one up in less than a day.  Looks just like the original.

Looks like it came from the plant!

That pretty much completed the main part of the body.  The car was ready to get prepped for primer and paint.  On to the rotisserie!

We have paint!

Now that the car is up on a rotisserie, we can work on the underside.  For the past year or so the car sat on a donor frame from a sedan I parted out.  The underside and firewall were cleaned up and all the imperfections were addressed as this was the last time any major welding was going to happen on the floor.  Also at this point the seams were sealed up as well, making sure no water will ever get in again.

The first coat of primer went on and the car finally started to look like a car again. 

Now you can't just toss a big ol' boat of a car like this on a rotisserie w/o it destroying itself.  So what you have to do is support the car from the inside.  Before the car was removed from the frame, brackets were welded in to hold everything in place.  W/o the bracing, the car would just buckle at the doors.

Once the car is returned to the frame and the rest of the car is lined up, these will be cut back out.

The car sat for about 1-2 weeks so the primer can fully cure.  Then I had to make two very important decisions.

1.  What color to paint it.
2.  Shall I paint the underside body color.

First one was easy, I had pretty much decided a while back to return the car to its original color of Ascot Blue.  I had no idea when I bought the car it was this color.  But if I was doing all the work to return it to its original state, I had to put the original color back on.

The second took some convincing.  The original car was just painted chassis black on the firewall and underside.  However Pat convinced me to make it a little more flashy by painting the underside body color.  This will add a lot more contrast and look a lot better.  I just hope I don't get dinged at car shows for it.

So blue it is on the underside and I gave Pat the go ahead and make it so!

After seeing the paint actually applied, I am glad I did it even if I get dinged for it at the car shows.  It was at this point I really started to get excited to get this car back on the road. 

The car had to sit for another couple weeks for this coat of paint to cure.  After that it got a shot of clearcoat.

Married again... No pre-nups needed

Once the clear coat cured, the car could be returned to the original frame.  Before that however the engine and transmission were reunited and dropped on to the frame.  After that all the accessories were put back on.  There is one hiccup yet to be resolved here.  The alternator is not lining back up like it had before.  This is most likely due to the new position of the alternator bracket.  It is not 100% back in the original location due to the after market intake.  It's not critical to address right now, but we will get it right before the front clip is installed.

With basically 95% of the chassis done, the car was set down on the frame.  Now one thing that took me a long time to find was the body mount kit.  For some reason it was a rare parts set to find.  I eventually found a set from The Parts Place Inc. (Not to be confused with Parts Place Inc for VWs)  Now I'm not 100% sure what exactly happened, but the two bolts that mount the frame at the door sill poked through.  My body guy also made a comment there were two bolts short.  I'll have to look at the next coupe or convertible, as I just don;t recall bolts going under that sill plate.  Plus when he did it, the bolts poked right through. I seemed to recall there were just bumpers there and no actual bolt.  Not real sure.  I also need to consult the assembly manual.  It should say in there.

Here are some shots of the car back on the frame.

Now back in its true original configuration, work can continue on the main body.

Prepping the body...

Work is now concentrating on getting the main body ready for paint.  This time the top side was sealed and the interior portion got a coat of chassis black.  No one will ever see this, it will all be hidden by carpet and trim.

The exterior was sanded and the imperfections were patched up.  It was soon ready for its first coat of primer.

As you can see the underside was sealed off, after all we don't expect to have to spray that again.  Just like the underside the body was left to cure for about a week.

While the main body was curing, we started to address the doors.  My driver side door was in decent shape.  It had one small rust hole forming in the lower corner.  Seems liek everydoor I had seen had this problem.  It was a quick fix for Joe to perform.  As for the passenger side, it was a lost cause.  I had to get a different door.  Luckily I had a decent door to use and it was brought in and restored instead.  This door was a non power window door, so we had to punch the factory knock-out out to allow the wiring to come through.  The doors were soon finished and ready for their first coat of primer.  I still need to address the power window set up.  I'm not sure yet what I need to replace as far as the rollers, track and etc.  I'll likely get to that after the car is painted.

As mentioned previously we never found a passenger front fender.  The one from California was just not quite good enough to use.  I had already found a driver's side NOS.  Actually everything in the front clip was NOS that I accumulated over the past 3 years.  Luckily we found a guy who had a 1973 or 1974 fender NOS.  As best as we could tell the fenders were identical except for the front end section at the bumper and the fender extension.  These sections from the California fender were in great shape, so we graffed the two pieces together.  It came out way better than I had ever thought possible.

This fender still has one minor dent in it, but that will get addressed later when it comes time to put the front clip back together.

Here are a couple more shots of the car after the 2nd block and sanding that was performed on the car.  At this point the car is ready for its 2nd and hopefully final coat of primer.

At this point I'm bringing back all my trim that I had taken to ABC Chrome in Waterford.  The guys there did an amazing job.  I highly recommend them.  He even did my giant bumpers.  Bob at ABC Chrome swore to never do a set like those ever again.  (For the right price he will, as I'm not done with these guys) Anyway, we needed to bring the trim in and dry fit everything to make sure stuff still worked together.  I don't foresee any issues as everything has been going back together pretty well.