68' Chevy II build thread

[napa68]

Lovin the build!

[Crossbreed383]

The car originally had a Ivy Gold interior that someone changed over to Black at some point.
The seats were recovered but the dash pad was incorrectly recovered in cheap vinyl, as well as the car was missing the hard to find A pillar AND B pillar moldings .
The headliner was the original unit that someone had sprayed Black and the package tray and sail panels were pretty rough.
The kick panels, dash top, glove box and ash tray were still Green.... errr Gold as well .
I thought about going back to Ivy Gold, but they are extremely hard to duplicate with aftermarket parts ,due to so many different colors between parts vendors.
Even the OEM seat covers ,kick panels, dash pad, etc, were all different shades or hues of Gold with some metal pieces even looking Green .
So I decided to leave it Black ,and clean it up some.
My son helped me along the way with prep as well.

[Crossbreed383]

Also decided now would be the time to prep firewall as it would be easier for masking off for paint for both dash top and firewall.
I decided to retain the original cowl markings as the letters match the 1st initials of both my son and Mother .
My helper again adding the paint code back to top of firewall as well as the new powerplant code 😎

[Crossbreed383]

Time for some new color ...
Think my helper approves

[Crossbreed383]

This next step was long coming and an exciting one for me.
Time to mate the subframe back to it's body.
New bushings and recoated hardware and presto, it's a roller again for the 1st time in over a year.

[Crossbreed383]

So the car was finally a roller .
At this point I was going to just throw the front sheet metal back on, install the engine and transmission, and try to get the car running.
But the more I looked at the car I was unhappy that everything underneath and inside would look fresh, and the outside would have subpar paint and body panels far from being straight.
The quarters had some pretty good waves and dents, as wel las the doors.
The paint on the left front fender was cracking from what appeared to be a poor repair at some point.
The biggest issue was the paint on the rear quaters and roof was reasonably shiny and looked fresh while the rest of the body panels were dull and had much more orange peel.
I had mentioned early on about the hidden issues and they were about to reveal their ugly heads.
So down the rabbit hole we go.....................
I made the decision now was the time to paint it the way I wanted as it was already half way unassembled anyway.
So tear down number 2 began.
Here I am welding in fender trim holes while making new ones for the BB fender call outs.
Then time to make new holes in the hood for the SS louvers as well as add the support brackets underneath.

[Crossbreed383]

The quarters had some pretty deep dents and the nasty surprise was next ..