Sue's 59 Corvette project....

[Belair-o]

Hi Richard,
Good to hear! I love those GEN1 Vettes, and appreciate your posts and pics.
Thanks, Doug

[TrifiveRichard]

Spent most of the time since we returned from CO fixing 63 year old fiberglass, including repairing cracks and filling holes not needed. We have also applied a filler skim coat to the body and most other fiberglass parts, as well as blocking it down.

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Overall, the 59 body is in nice shape with little delamination problems. Given that, there must have been at least 20 stress cracks, most on the lower rear body, along with the deck lid that fits behind the seats. In addition, we glassed over close to a dozen holes that weren't needed.

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We've got probably another week's work on the body and it'll be ready for another sealer epoxy coat and high build primer again. Then fitting doors, hood and trunk. Final blocking on this should then get us close to color time. Thanks to Gary, BamaNomad, for helping with most fiberglassing work.

There is one outstanding item left before painting, the door handles. Sue doesn't like the factory ones. She's been looking on the web for ones she likes, and it looks like she's settling on Mini Cooper handles. They will take some modification, since they are cable-attached to the door mechanism. I'll have to see how difficult this will be to adapt.

[Belair-o]

Hi Richard,
Lots and lots of work you and Gary are doing. Love seeing that classic shape. As I see your shop organization again, I again see what a great example it is.
Regards, Doug

[BamaNomad]

Just a couple of comments:

1) Dick's level of 'organization' is certainly at a professional level ... and he's got enough room in his shops, and enough 'plastic containers' to make sure he continues that!

2) I have only spent 4 or 5 days helping do the fiberglass repairs, and I don't mind that as I like working on Dick/Sue's car projects in his shop; he has much more resources in his shop (except for fiberglass repair materials) than I Do in mine! I do wish the 25-26 miles between our shops were less and we didn't have to drive thru Huntsville to 'visit' and help!

3) Dick assists me in my shop on my 'custom Nomad' whenever I have to deviate from 'original restoration' type tasks! He's my 'customization' expert and his help has been invaluable to me on my Nomad!

The following comment/suggestion is for anyone preparing to restore a Corvette (or other fiberglass car):

1) BEFORE you strip the old paint off the car, examine the surface and paint carefully to find/identify/record Any/all cracks in the paint! The cracks in the paint are due to cracks in the fiberglass, and if they aren't repaired properly then the NEW PAINT will crack in the same locations pretty quickly! So this step is important...

2) photograph the paint cracks after circling/marking them with a marker. Retain the photographs for later use during repair efforts.
3) After stripping the paint from the fiberglass, REPAIR the fiberglass First before doing anything else! Refer to your photographs to make sure you find them all. Grind out the cracked fiberglass and around the cracked fiberglass so you have sufficient good area for the new fiberglass to hold on, and remember that you'll be finishing the surface back to the original surface height - you don't want to grind/sand off all your new fiberglass when doing that! If the back side is accessible it is even good to build up the back side the same way to provide increased strength for the fiberglass in that area to handle the future stresses.
Stress cracks generally occur near to the point where the body is attached to the frame - and also sometimes where heavy trim items are mounted directly to the fiberglass, and also in areas where the body stresses are concentrated (in the curved openings of the body around doors, deck lids, trunk lids, hoods, etc.).
4) Our repair efforts on this car were hampered a bit by NOT following the above steps and also by 'applying epoxy primer' to the body before the cracked areas were located and repaired, which caused Dick more effort to FIND the stress cracks.

I hope this note helps those of you who do this in the future..

[TrifiveRichard]

Hi Richard,
Lots and lots of work you and Gary are doing. Love seeing that classic shape. As I see your shop organization again, I again see what a great example it is.
Regards, Doug

There’s actually 3 of us working on the 59: myself, Gary, and another friend Trey. Trey is an excellent painter, as well as body prep. He’s doing the blocking. Appreciate the comments on the shop organization Doug. As I’ve said elsewhere, it helps me keep track of all the many parts to a nut and bolt, body off build.

[markm]

I bet its going to look better than new.

[TrifiveRichard]

Hopefully it will, Mark. We’re finding a number of spots in the factory body that ‘dip’ enough, some close to 3/16”, that they need to be filled with glass before filler. We’re getting there though and should be nice when done.

[TrifiveRichard]

Making progress a little at a time. Fixed some cracks in the rear trunk area and continued with skim coating and sanding the body. In addition, I worked on the rear wheel opening lower fender lips.

I initially saw a few small cracks in the rear of the trunk spare tire well. I started grinding out the cracks and tapering the fiberglass. It turned out that there were really two longer cracks almost all the way across the bottom back.
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I cut a few strips of fiberglass cloth, enough to cover the cracks twice, applied activated resin to the body and strips, and put the strips down. This is a messy process, and latex gloves are a must.
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After 3 hours or so, the resin is cured, and the glass can be sanded. Putting two layers of glass down ensures there's enough to sand without going through.
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The final step was to apply a little Vette panel filler and sand and it's done. Also, you can see in the picture at the center, bottom, another sanded, repaired area. This started out as a small, about 1/2" square area that looked like a small delamination. By the time I ground off the delaminated area, it was probably a 6" square area! Again, it took two layers of glass cloth and filler to build it back up.
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Another problem I ran into is the Corvette doesn't have a rear wheel opening fender lip for the last 8" or so, and the fender merges cleanly with the wheel well. This creates a problem when painting the body and underside different colors, there's no natural paint line divider. In order to fix this, I built up a fender lip out of fiberglass for that last 8". This gives a clean paint line divider.
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We're about done with the skim coat/blocking for now. Hopefully, we'll apply another coat of epoxy and a couple of high build within a week or two. It depends on how many other surprises we run into.

[Belair-o]

Hi Richard,
Stinkin' surprises! Good job on getting it sound and cleaned up.
Noticed your drop light - is that LED - do you like it - manufacturer/model?
Thanks, Doug

[BamaNomad]

Richard, beginning Monday we're supposed to have a great weather week! .. almost 70 by Thurs/Fri...