Excellent work:beers:

Perfecting my Carb Chromate
 

I apologize, never realized i would be a situation where anyone would find what I do that interesting. :)

That said its spring, gotta take care of things around the house and yard first. Car frame is mostly done and its now back to body work and small parts work sanding and painting.

I have actually been just wrapped up in the human are of learning, trying, failing, trying some more and finally learning just enough about holley and quadrajet chromating to be dangerous. Im very driven and I wont settle for kinda right although the process to do it is quite involved and very process driven. Ive attached a few pictures of one of my first full carbs I have done to try out my skills. This is a 69 z28/lt1 holley. I just realized today that the base plate and throttle shaft is wrong so I found another laying around to make it a complete correct carb. Plan is to sell it as I picked it up with a some other carbs like a 70 l78 carb I got for my dad.

At the risk of getting too much honest feedback, any constructive comments?

That's what makes this site so awesome! Like minded individuals with a passion.:worship:
Looks great!!

Looks pretty good to me. I'd love to be able to do that. Maybe when I get my shop finished and I'm retired I can play around with it some.

To prep the casting and do the coating out of anything i have done on a car is a serious PIA. If your a process focused person and willing to do alot of research, trial and error you will enjoy the journey.

Random Painting
 

Just continueing to sand small parts and paint them in batches. Bumper brackets, grille brackets, misc.....

Sanding and Refinishing, the blood sweat and tears
 

This is the real grind of any restoriation. It doesnt help that I only get nights and weekends to do it. It can take me a half a day or more to fill, sand, and prime say this firewall section. Im about 2 weeks into my trunk at the moment and its almost done.

I think this is the dirty secret many dont know, this takes alot of time and effort depending on how perfect you want the car to look in the end.

Can't explain how inspiring this is. As a middle aged guy with 12 cars and three kids, I can't even imagine having the bandwidth to restore a car to such a high standard, but this is definitely my retirement goal.

Looks great Rick!! Coming together nicely.

Continue Body Work, and a break to lay down some Color
 

Anyone that does there own body work will understand that eventually body work becomes your life. Body is nearly complete. A few more sandings with finer paper both above and below and it will be moving onto doors, trunk, fenders and hood.

Took a break since the heat somewhat decided to give things a break and layed down color on the rebuilt door hinges. The paint is pretty transparent, so 6 plus coats of based followed by 2 light coats of clear. There body hinges, they really dont need that mirror finish the rest of the car gets. First color pictures is laying down the dull coat of base, and the final is after clear coating.

Carb Chromating
 

I feel pretty comfortable as well with my research on carb Chromating. I can do the lighter yellows all the way to the darker greens i commonly see on say 66 or 67 Chevelle BB carbs.

In the spirt of making sure this info doesnt die, PM and I will gladly share how to do it, including materials.

Drove past your place the other day Rick.
You had the Chevelle out on the rotisserie and looked like you were prepping for something, so I didn't wanna stop and impede your progress.
I always like hearing the updates on the car.

NOS Sheetmetal and what to know before buying
 

So I think i have said before NOS sheetmetal doesnt always mean your getting something new and perfect. In many cases as i have been told numerous parts that never meet production standards were sent to the parts counter.

The passenger side fender i sourced clearly was an NOS over the counter part as noted in the first picture from where a gm sticker once was.

The main brace on the upper side of the fender that you see in the engine bay was installed more than a 1/4 inch off location. The nut for the front valence panel was so far off you couldnt get a screw in the hole.

In the second picture you can see the before and after i pulled the spot welds and moved things around. Even the location pin holes were either ignored or not noticed.

Clean new sheetmetal is great, but there always seems to be something you need to fix to make it right.

I bought all new GM sheet metal for my Camaro back in the '80s and none of it fit correctly. It didn't take a huge amount of work to get it to fit, but it certainly didn't work right out of the box.

How did you determine the driveshaft paint markings shown in post 276?

Based on what I can find, see in other examples and read on the Chevellestuff website pretty much all 4 spd big block cars should have the same length driveshaft and thus the same colors. I have seen a few exmaples of other baltimore restorations where the Orange, Blue and Yellow are found. I really wasnt so much concerned about being perfectly correct, as I was more about having something on the driveshaft vs nothing.

I agree with your assessment based on build sheets on line showing BY in box 19 for manual BB cars. The orange I guess is an additional balance or inspection mark. Getting ready to redo mine (past owner did it in White Blue White for some reason) in the same colors as yours so I was checking all the most definitive original cars and restorations I could find to confirm my research. Thanks for that.

That's the method I used on my '69, but it was a KC build.

Body Work Home Stretch
 

Finally getting down to a few last bits of body work. Before getting to the topside of the hood i had to fix some previous owners butchering of the insulation coves. The left and right had to be cut out in the center and repaired from another non SS hood. The lower one towards the back of the hood was completely cut out. I assume for an air cleaner that didnt fit underhoood.

3 pictures in sequence of getting my repair piece sized, then cleaning up the hood before welding and finally dressing/metal finishing the piece, like it was never cut out to begin with.

WOW! Looks great! I was just wondering about the progress of this car.

ON The downhill for Bodywork
 

Body is finally complete. Seam sealed and guide coated before paint. First step is chassis black on the floor pans. Seam sealing items like the doors and trunk. Should be putting down edge paint next weekend.

Looks great

Firewall and Decklid
 

Good morning for paint again. Completed the firewall. Deck lid got base clear. Color is vibrant and stunning in the sun.

This car is going to be perfection!!!

Ryan W31