After watching my dad do bodywork for my entire youth, I appreciate you sharing all of these great pictures of your work, thanks.

I have been waiting almost 3 years for my Deluxe 300 door panels from SMS.

Thats unfortunate. SMS has quoted me a few weeks for the headliner, 6months for the seat covers, and 1yr for the door panels

OSR have any updates on Engine? I'm close to that time myself

Not really. Still working on the quarter. I stopped work to install a new storgae deck in the attic of my shop. I also worked through starting 3 different l78 motors including my own for my 66. I should be able to get back to the car during the holiday.

The motor probably wont go off to the machine still till the late spring. I wont need it to next fall at the earliest. Here is a picture of me checking out the intake to head alignment. I snagged some 074 Zl1 heads as they are dirt cheap compare to the 842s. They look virtually the same from the exterior. Gonna have to probably get custom pistons made to eat up the huge open chamber these heads have to get the compression about the 11:1 i would like to see. Heads are nice and clean. No fixes to the rocker studs, no porting, and someone didnt deck them down to nothing, although i make have the shop take a heavy cut to shrink the chambers.

Package Tray and Backseat
 

It appears the drivers quarter was hit directly over the wheel. Hit looks like it happend high. The shop that fixed the car just pulled the wrinkled outer wheel house out and dropped a new quarter on. What never seemed to car about was the inner wheel house actually buckled where it meets the trunk floor and shifted into the trunk space. Not hard to fix. I had to remove the package tray outer trunk panel from the quarter/roof section and then after a some thought had to install a bracing setup to allow me to use a hydraulic ram to push back on the wheel house to roof structure. It actually was really easy to get it to move back out. Did a few dimensional checks to the passenger side and it all went right back into place.

I had to remove both the upper package tray wing, and lower wing that mountes to the outer wheelhouse. Once straitented I put them back in place along with a new donar seat back panel.

Nice work!

LH Quarter Work Prep
 

The LH quarter was orginally hit like i have mentioned before. I had some cleaning up to do as the previous body shop hacked off the quarter with an air chisel. Had to replace metal in the rocker area as this was all distorted and then brazed with the new quarter. Just alot easier to remove, and replace with some donor sections of another original. Outer wheel house was crumpled so i cut it back and then brought in a new NOS piece. Trace, cut and install with a few dimensional checks to be sure its all back to where it needs to be for the quarter to fit nicely. Even managed to get this area sand blasted and sealed right before the midwest got that slushy snow storm.

How To Turn a 68 NOS Quarter into a 69
 

Several years back i got a full set of 68 NOS quarters for next to nothing compared to todays prices. I have a 68SS waiting to be restored but its a New Mexico car. It has zero rust so I didnt have much incentive to hold onto them. As many probably know the area where the bumper fits on both 69 and 68 is quite different. The 68 rear lower quarter at the bumper is angled to match the bumper while the 69 is pretty much straight up and down. This procedure was one where I had to take my time, measure, cut, measure, cut, cut some more, cut again, pray a tad and then very slowly weld the two panels together. After grindin down and smoothing the area I just hammer and dolly to get it so nothing but a sliver of body filler will be needed to achieve a perfectly flat lower quarter section. I probably spent a full day just working on this, but it came out REALLY good. I will have to do this to the passenger side as well. I always like using the existing other side of the car like a mirror image to check my work. Did some checking with the other rocker/quarter and found things to almost be within a 1/32" which is honestly just dumb luck. Many a times I find things from side to side to be off by as much as a 1/4"

Driver quarter assembled for the final time
 

Drivers quarter is now on. Happy with the door gap and face fitment. If you handnt already noticed i replaced the entire rear panel as well because of the trunk gutter being all mangled and the fact the the drivers side was wrinkled up and just couldnt be brought back. Got nice fitment beteween the deck lid, quarter, and quarter extension on to the passenger side now.