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I've been a long time lurker and really love the variety of rides seen on this site, so I thought I'd give it a go too.
I love all cars in general, but my real passion is in old vettes. I have build many of them, but the project I'm working on now is something that has been in the works for 7 years now. Due to lack of motivation & time it has been a on&off project for me. But just after the new years I sold my 1956 Vette and realized that I didn't have a running open top Vette for the next summer (I'm restoring a 1954 and my 1965 is a coupe) so I made up my mind that the old shop project needed to be put back together finally.
So for the past couple of months I've spent all my spare time in the shop trying to put it back together.
Here's my starting point:
My personal bonfire night, fuel line decided to give up during a drive back from a cruise night. It was gone in minutes, not much I could do, but watch and take pics...
After the FD had left the scene it was looking pretty bad.
After getting it back to the shop, it didn't look much better.
Not much was left, so I took it all apart and went on from there.
You can see in this pic the first piece of the new body put on for mock up. This was 7 years ago.
Even these are fiberglass cars, there's still a metal structure inside the body (called birdcage) which the glass pieces are clued/riveted to. So I had the cage and frame metal blasted and then welded all the old seams.
While I was at it, I modified the frame to fit a 5-link rear suspension, which is quite a transformation from the old one. I'm using coil overs all around to get the right handling, ride and of course the right stance.
I made a stronger cross bar for the birdcage and removed the old and flimsy z-bar.
This is the cross bar where the gauges, pedals etc are bolted to.
The stock drum brakes will not be enough to the power levels I'm aiming at, so a set of 14" rotors and willwood calipers are going on.
This is pretty much the stage I got with the car 6 years ago and it has been sitting still ever since, while I've been working on other projects.
But now, it's taking shape again.
Body work has been a nightmare. I decided that there was no reason to go back to stock with the body, so I bought a Grand Sport body panels for it. It came from a well respected shop, but the quality was just horrible. The body was the reason this project has take so long, I test fitted and test fitted everything zillion times and modified the pieces to make them work together, but after about a year in to the body work I gave up and the project was put to sleep again.
Now a good friend of mine who's also into these plastic pigs said he'd be willing to give be a hand and he's been helping me at least 4 nights a week and it's really shifting now. Hood and doors are already in the paint shop. Here's a quick shot of the body as it sits now:
I'll do a more in depth update on the body work later on.
Thanks again for this great forum.
I love all cars in general, but my real passion is in old vettes. I have build many of them, but the project I'm working on now is something that has been in the works for 7 years now. Due to lack of motivation & time it has been a on&off project for me. But just after the new years I sold my 1956 Vette and realized that I didn't have a running open top Vette for the next summer (I'm restoring a 1954 and my 1965 is a coupe) so I made up my mind that the old shop project needed to be put back together finally.
So for the past couple of months I've spent all my spare time in the shop trying to put it back together.
Here's my starting point:
My personal bonfire night, fuel line decided to give up during a drive back from a cruise night. It was gone in minutes, not much I could do, but watch and take pics...
After the FD had left the scene it was looking pretty bad.
After getting it back to the shop, it didn't look much better.
Not much was left, so I took it all apart and went on from there.
You can see in this pic the first piece of the new body put on for mock up. This was 7 years ago.
Even these are fiberglass cars, there's still a metal structure inside the body (called birdcage) which the glass pieces are clued/riveted to. So I had the cage and frame metal blasted and then welded all the old seams.
While I was at it, I modified the frame to fit a 5-link rear suspension, which is quite a transformation from the old one. I'm using coil overs all around to get the right handling, ride and of course the right stance.
I made a stronger cross bar for the birdcage and removed the old and flimsy z-bar.
This is the cross bar where the gauges, pedals etc are bolted to.
The stock drum brakes will not be enough to the power levels I'm aiming at, so a set of 14" rotors and willwood calipers are going on.
This is pretty much the stage I got with the car 6 years ago and it has been sitting still ever since, while I've been working on other projects.
But now, it's taking shape again.
Body work has been a nightmare. I decided that there was no reason to go back to stock with the body, so I bought a Grand Sport body panels for it. It came from a well respected shop, but the quality was just horrible. The body was the reason this project has take so long, I test fitted and test fitted everything zillion times and modified the pieces to make them work together, but after about a year in to the body work I gave up and the project was put to sleep again.
Now a good friend of mine who's also into these plastic pigs said he'd be willing to give be a hand and he's been helping me at least 4 nights a week and it's really shifting now. Hood and doors are already in the paint shop. Here's a quick shot of the body as it sits now:
I'll do a more in depth update on the body work later on.
Thanks again for this great forum.
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