Great restoration!!!

This car will be perfect for PSMCDR!!! Have you considered bringing it out to race? (More fun than a basket full of puppies)

What trans did this 300 have new? What trans are you installing?

Ryan W31

Thankyou. I have cars I drive and I have cars I dont. After you spend about 3 years and 1500 plus hours on a restoration like this Im not able to bring myself to even take it down the road. As i work through this particular car its just so clean, it just reinforces the idea of not even risking a rock chip.

Im not sure what the car had for original transmission but kinda assumed it was an M20. When I went digging into my parts I found a very complete orignal Jan date 69 M21, so thats what its getting along with everything else.

I get it.

L89, M21, 4.56 perfect combo!!!

Ryan W31

Anything new ?

Odds and Ends
 

Nothing really too exciting. Alot of prep work for the different resto process. Cleaned bucket full of hardware readied for plating. Pile of Chrome to be stripped, and the always touch and go pressed out the water pump bearings to accept a new rebuild kit.

Hard Work
 

My time is also being spent sanding and filling pits, removing sharp edges, weld spatter............etc. After I get off work I only get a few hours a night. I make most of my progress on the weekends.

Nice weekend for Painting
 

Frame was really easy to work on, sanded twice, and 95% of the light pitting is gone. The nicest frame I have ever worked on. Beautiful morning for some bug and wind free painting.

Moved it to the finish room/paint booth.

Control Arm Bushings
 

Once i have all the chassis parts smoothed out with no rust pits, its time to press back in the bushings. Ive made some simple tooling over years to help. I use the press as much as possible with the except of the rear end, where they have to be pulled into place.

Love this thread, good inspiration for my own builds!

Seat Tracks and Springs
 

Amongst some of the smaller items to redo i blasted, cleared, and painted the seat tracks. Ive seen variations on if the full foot track is fully black, ends black and in a few instances no black. Regardless of how it came, i dont wanna see my feet once installed. The springs got some color because i get tired of everything being natural finish.

I have to say after seeing the pics of the GTO, the previous Chevelle and now this Chevelle, the attention to detail and the high quality of workmanship is some of the BEST that I have seen.

Thankyou. I couldnt take all the credit here. Ive learned the vast majority of what I do from my dad. He has been restoring cars since the early 80s. He could be another several restoration threads, as he has one if not two cars going these days. I think we are lucky in that we really enjoy what we do, and when you enjoy it, you focus on concept of doing the best you can.

Its been some time since we had that GTO. I think we sold that back in 2017 or 18 at Mecum Indy.

Are you familair with SPI Epoy Primer...........Great Quality Product, Much less $$$
than Big BRand NAmes shipped directly to your door............

Im actually not familiar with that product. I tend to keep things simple and purchase products from either the Keystone company for things like lacquer primer and other consumables like lacquer, and then work my way through the ppg and omni or shop lines of ppg for all remaining epoxy primers, topcoats, basecoats, and clears.

300 Deluxe Rubber Floor Question?
 

I was curious if anyone could provide some explination about a few things related to the 300 deluxe cars. Upon getting into the car I noticed that there were small twisted shank nails pounded into the floor board area of the car in various spots below say the kick panels, along where the sill plates go, and even along the back edge of the interior where the floor carpet/matt would have ended just under where the seat frame attaches.

The nails look very factory to me, so im curious as to was this a way to hold down some sub insulation? Where these nails used to actually tack down the rubber floor, or is this just a case of something odd happened to the car during its life? Pictures showing some areas where I found them.

Fixing Speaker Mounts in the Deck
 

Seems like just about every car I restore someone has butchered the speaker holes. Pretty easy fix. Always nice using original metal as it fits into place with no massaging or mismatching of holes and profiles.

I've owned a few post cars, all having the rubber floor and have never seen that before.
One had the original floor covering and I was the first to disturb it......nothing but the same methods that carpet would receive to keep it down.
Nice speaker fix.

Ill have to look as i own a 69 300 hardtop and a 69 300 ss post car! Ill look tonight.

Reach out to Dan Vasic, he's restored several 300 Deluxe Chevelles.

I had to fix the speaker holes in my dad's '65 Nova. I did it the same way you did.

I actually used that same carpet tack idea to do the same on my 72 SS Chevelle back in high school.The carpet was pillowing badly after my cousin used it & left all my windows open overnight during a heavy rain storm.We tried hair dryers etc,but nothing worked.
Drilled holes through the carpet into the floor,and Voila!,it worked.

I have a 69 300 deluxe hard top that had a few of those nails in the floor. I'm pretty sure it was to hold down the rubber mat or carpet in your case. Yours is on only the second time I've seen this.

Is your car a Baltimore built car?

Not sure if you have these photos but i just came across them in my stash. This is when i believe it was on ebay in Nevada for sale if i remember correctly. I do have 4 or 5 pictures

Appreciate it, but this thread was started back a few years ago.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthre...range+chevelle

Your link got me to go back to the beginning, again and THIS pic grabbed my attention this time. I wondered why the column had been changed to a 3 on the tree ?? Looking at it further, it looks original to the car. Since '69 was the first year of the ignition/trans interlock mandate did GM just use this column for the 1st/reverse lever for the lock rod to activate ??? When you removed it, did you see any indication it wasn't from the factory ?

https://www.yenko.net/forum/attachme...1&d=1691723351

The column was clearly removed and the auto unit was dumped back in. Like i mentioned earlier this car was parked on an indian reservation. Probably not much value to that owner at the time.

Color Spray Out and bunch of misc items
 

Weekend of running. zinc and yellow zinc plating done. Radiator being recored. Picked up some sample 72 paint for a color spray out test. Looks very close,

How do you know what nut, bolt, and washer goes where?
Experience at doing these restorations so many times?

When i first started redoing cars I would take pictures of bolt head markings. To be honest when your putting the car back together its process of elimination. The only place that can get confusing is on the interior finish screws but I mostly buy all reproduction of that stuff and everything mostly reproduced is spot on. Ive also kept a bit of a picture catalogue of different gm bolts/fastners with part numbers. This can also get confusing as i find different plants, different years, and even different times of the year bolt head markings changed, or even were mixed as cars were assembled.

Dad and I actually make a game out the pile. I can probably half the time get the location right just by looking at it, Dad is more like 90%.

My best advice is take pictures of the bolts for various assemblies together. If need be put a measuring stick in the picture so you have a size reference. If you dont know about AMK fastners, look them up and utilize there catalogues and other ref material to learn about what bolt was what gm number. Some of there stuff is spot on and some isnt. It also gets a little more dicey as some plants didnt follow the assembly manual and decided on there own fastner with different head, length, etc.

.......and a lot of times you can google the part number in the aim and it'll come up on a vendor's website. AMK is a super resource.
I've always wondered why chevy used washered bolts on plated items and shouldered bolts on painted apps under the hood. Seems backwards to me. This is for black oxide.

Chrome Preparation
 

This is one of those jobs that honestly sucks. I get all my chrome stripped and do some prep work. For this restoration I only grabed the quater window chromes, hood vents, door handles and a set of valve covers. This about the most labor intensive work to do which is probably why nice chrome work costs alot.

Pretty simple stuff, you just need to sand out the pits, and then work your way back to around 400grit before there ready. First picture is a before and after getting the valve covers back stripped, and after is a piece sanded in 400. 2nd picture is about half way through at 120 grit.

Rust Repair
 

Im about finished working through trunk, and floor patching.

Chrome back from AIH
 

Picked up the chrome work pieces I prepped a few weeks back. Admittingly the quality of work on these items are far superior to anything GM did. Noticed the nice thing with high quality chrome is that it wont scratch compared to original or some reproduction pieces i have had in hand.

Fun fact, valve covers were off an original copo Camaro 427

Radiator Recores
 

I had an orignal BO 69 radiator recored. I still need to attach the tags. Also in the mix was another not often seen 68 OJ with the different stamped main tank XM.

Not to be too outdone but had another 3 core 66/67 to add to my collection and the ultimate 4 core 66/67 harrison. Now I just need to find another car for it!

Looking great Rick!!

Thanks Dave, I felt bad for calling you Jake by accident the other day. You should have called me out.

Haha! No worries. I knew what you meant!:beers:

Body Work has started
 

Ive noticed there are a lot of fancy and quick ways to strip the body. Its a slow process for me. Paint stricer and a super sharp putty knife. Someone caved in the roof at one time so pounding out the perimeter denting to get the roof back to shape. I wish the weather was a bit less humid for this type of work.

Get a 50 pint/day dehumidifier. I run mine 24/7 all summer and my shop is comfortable until the temp gets over 75*. I put a mini split A/C in last year and run that sparingly, but it is a huge benefit to work in comfort.