L-78 intake gaskets/paint

[Keith Tedford]

I will say enough is enough when the restorers start duplicating the poor finish of the leaded roof joints, and so so paint jobs. Hey, I might just have the talent to pull off an original restoration. Not too good on the lead, and not too good on the paint. The roof joints on our Chevelle were obvious from ten feet away. Rick and others have done a ton of research into how the cars were put together. The look isn't tidy but if you want original then that is the way it is/was. Back in the day, the line was running close to one vehicle a minute, so you know how much time the operators had to do the job. I worked in a lead booth for about six months. There were four operators on each side of the line. Each man down the line had a disc grinder with a successively finer disc. There was approximately four minutes to rough down and finish the joint before the vehicle went out the other end of the grinding booth. Not much time for a good job. Every so often a new operator was added to the mix and there would be some poor workmanship until he learned the job. Same with the paint.