Sue's 59 Corvette project....

[TrifiveRichard]

Spent the majority of the last couple days bolting panels in place on the Corvette. Once these are in place, we will work the gaps and body lines.

First up was the deck lid behind the seats. The hinge assemblies for the deck lid and the trunk lid are packaged together and interact to keep the two from hitting each other when open. These were previously cleaned up and painted satin black. Putting these inplace under the center divider turned out to be a chore, since they wedge under the top lip and need to be forced in place, then bolted down. I noticed in the assembly manual, the design was changed for the late 1959 Corvette, and the assembly is shorter, slips right in, and steel spacers are put under the assembly, then bolted in place. Turns out, there are a number of small, but significant, changes made mid year. Naturally, we have the early 1959 car, oh well!

Once the hinge assemblies were in place, the deck lid bolted down easily. Next was the deck lid latch. it is located on top of the center seat divider/glove box, so that was installed, latch mounted, and deck lid is solid.

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Next up was the hood. It's been on a few times, so we know it fits fairly well. We just used paint stir sticks to center it, and bolted it down at the front from under the grill area.

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From this point, we continued to the trunk and the doors.

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I'm sure we'll be moving things around some by the time we're done, but at this point, we're ready to start working the body gaps and lines.

[Custer55]

Looking good. Sometimes when working on these old cars you have to wonder what they were thinking the way some of the things were designed. I have had a few choice words for Ford designers while working on the 39 Ford as well as my son's 59 Mercury.

[BamaNomad]

It's looking good Richard! Let me know if you need a couple of extra hands!

[TrifiveRichard]

Looking good. Sometimes when working on these old cars you have to wonder what they were thinking the way some of the things were designed. I have had a few choice words for Ford designers while working on the 39 Ford as well as my son's 59 Mercury.

thanks Brian, agree, sometimes I just scratch my head and wonder what they were thinking.

[TrifiveRichard]

It's looking good Richard! Let me know if you need a couple of extra hands!

will do, Gary, thanks

[markm]

Looking good. Sometimes when working on these old cars you have to wonder what they were thinking the way some of the things were designed. I have had a few choice words for Ford designers while working on the 39 Ford as well as my son's 59 Mercury.

Been saying that about FOMOCO most of my life.

[TrifiveRichard]

We're about half way thru aligning panels and getting clean, straight gaps and panel alignments. We have about completed the doors and hood, and have the deck lid and trunk lid to do. We also have the front grill area to work.

The doors gave us a bit of a challenge. Turns out the top of both doors were about 3/8" lower than the front fender tops, given one lines up the cove top and bottom lines, as seen in the following picture (you may need expand the picture to see the difference).

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Looking back at pictures of the old front end and door alignment, the tops were the same height when the cove lines were aligned.

The new frontend is a 3 piece installation: first piece is the frontend fender tops, with the front grill area and the dash top. Second and third piece was the cove section for each side. What appears to have happened is the first piece was installed about 3/8" higher than the old one. Then, the cove sections were installed, aligning the cove lines with the doors. Thus, creating the problem. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter how it happened, just needed to fix it and move on.

So, the first job was to add fiberglass to the tops of the doors, then add fiberglass filler to even out everything. We still have a little filler work left.

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After this, the edges of the door were worked. You can also see in the next picture, the corners of the gas door were worked, following the contour of the door. This picture also shows the cut in the center dash section. This is discussed later.

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Next, the hood was installed, aligned and gaps and lines worked. This turned out to be pretty straight forward. The new later model hood pins and receivers fit great and we had no surprises.

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The next problem was with the dash top. It's part of the new frontend, being integral to the press-molded top piece. The problem here was that the dash top was not level. The end closest to the seats was off level by about 1/2" over the approximate 8" end. This too was most probably an installation problem putting on the new frontend. This can be seen in the next picture. The picture was taken looking to the rear of the car, from in front. This was fixed by slicing the dash, as seen in an previous picture, then clamping and fiberglassing the high side down. The difference shows in the last picture.

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Now, it's on to the deck lid and trunk lid. Both have some fit problems we have yet to work out.

[BamaNomad]

Good write up Richard! While I've been miserable sick at home, you guys have been working and getting it done!

Gary

[busterwivell]

Get well quickly, Gary. My wife just got put back in the hospital yesterday, so my days will be tied up there for a while.
Absolutely beautiful work, Richard.

[BamaNomad]

Thanks Bill. I'm getting better.. today is my 11th day of being 'laid up' (no able to do anything), but the past 24 hrs I've laid off the meds to see if I'm getting well or not.. ( a bad head cold with sinuses draining like a river or all plugged up!). With the amount of pollen lying all over everything, my allergies might also be a part of this.. Anyway Thanks. I hope your wife is better soon!

Just a comment about Richard: He uses the word 'we' a lot when describing his work, and he does get some help - occasionally from me and another friend who does his painting (and some sanding?).. but Richard is there working on his 'current project' essentially every day (7 days a week) from 6-8 hrs a day and sometimes more. As a long time retired engineer hobbyist, he's more dedicated to his auto hobby than most people are to a full time job! It inspires me to see him work like he does, and being as organized as he is doing it.

I haven't been over to his shop in probably a month, so I've been feeling left out.. He's also volunteered to come and help me pull the '350 trans (for rebuild) from my '56 Nomad, which hopefully we can do if I ever get over this crud! .. and of course, he is my 'go to' guy whenever I have anything 'custom or modified' that I have to do to my car(s)...