Our 69 Yenko Chevelle restoration

[SS427]

Thanks to Chris White for the belated birthday gift. MUCH appreciated.

Thanks to Dwight for your continued V.V. Cooke support. This key chain is a reproduction but Dwight has come up with some amazing original V.V. Cooke memorabilia and NOS Yenko crests for the car so your efforts and kindness are greatly appreciated.

[SS427]

I thought I posted these already but did not find the mounted photo. Dwight supplied me with the plate surround (NOS real one) and knew of a gentleman who took the USA-1 plate off his car the day he bought his 69 El Camino SS and then put it in his sock drawer. 50 years later he took it out of that very same drawer and sent it to me to put on the car. Notice the unique Chevrolet decal. I have not talked to anyone who has seen this before.

[SS427]

There was no front clip with the car other than the fenders so I cannot say for sure on the grille mounting nuts. What is currently in place are aftermarket ones.

Regarding the headlight buckets I did find the originals in the garage and they were galvanized steel. I have found this on other Chevrolets and believe it to possibly be a supplier thing. A good friend of mine who also has a Baltimore car has the black buckets in his. As I have said many times in the past, I restore our cars how we find them if we are reasonably sure the parts are original. In the case of our headlight buckets I have no reason to believe they were not original to the car as they all had slight damage from the accident.

The other difference is the galvanized buckets take a closed stainless trim ring spring hook hole and the tension spring attaches to it (also found in the garage) whereas the painted buckets have an open spring hole and the tension spring attaches to the bucket. I can post pictures of each tomorrow.

[SS427]

I thought I had taken several photos of my buckets as found and during cleanup but could not find them this morning. At any rate, the uninstalled buckets and light show how they looked in their natural state prior to installation. The second two photos show the difference between the trim ring on the galvanized bucket vs the trim ring on the painted bucket with regards to how the headlight adjuster spring attaches. The galvanized bucket has an open slot where the spring would normally attach so without the trim ring there is nothing for the spring to hold onto.

[SS427]

I had a very nice pedestal tach that I had bought from Dana and was pretty happy with it but thanks to Mark Bulow for pointing out that the face was somewhat abraded and the needles were faded I went out and found one thru Albert G. It does look much better so I am glad he pointed it out. In addition and thanks to Jason I was able to trade up for an NOS monitor and as of two nights ago we got it wired up. A little neater than what Yenko did but safer and we used the same style connectors, tie wraps and tape that he used. The exact same wire loom he used (Ma Bell phone cable) and yellow 'lights' lead to the fuse panel was used exactly like what was done at Yenko.

Also, the original hole that they punched thru the firewall was reused. Oddly enough, the triangular plastic factory plug that is on the other side of the wiper motor and had an "X" cut thru it as if to run a cable thru it was not used. Maybe they did not have enough length in the wire and said screw it, lets just punch a new hole in the firewall and run it thru there. Right, wrong or otherwise that is how it was found so that is how it got restored. HOWEVER.....and I just realized it while posting these photos that the yellow 'lights' lead was electrical taped to the main harness so that will need to be corrected.

I fixed and updated the wiring and it now matches the original. See last photo.

[SS427]

I thought the 70 grilles and headlights were a b!!ch to align and make them aesthetically pleasing. Damn these 69 grilles and headlights really suck. Not covering the time put into restoring an assembly line grille (NOS end pieces) I have just over 6 hours invested in installing and fine tuning the grille, headlights and headlight surrounds to make them as perfect as possible. I am close but without major fabricating being done to the core support this is a good as it gets.

Centering headlights in the core support is almost always an issue and they rarely if ever fit perfect out of the box. My previous painter/bodyman from Minnesota taught me a neat trick. Using washers as spacers glued to the back of the headlight buckets you can move the buckets up, down or over either direction. The down side it is also moves the headlight forward so it becomes a compromise. I was able to lessen the huge gap I was having in one side of each surround by at least 1/4" and while not perfect it is pretty darn close.

I know there are some that will not sleep tonight knowing there are washers glued to the backs of the buckets but rest assured, I will sleep great knowing that I now have gaps I can live with.

[SS427]

An assembly line correct heater hose bracket was found in my inventory (as I did not find one with the car) and after much research and thanks to several members, I determined these were used on the 69 Baltimore cars so it was restored and will now be installed.

The assembly line fuel Y block I received from Chris.

[ZLP955]

Rick,
I just completed reading this entire thread again, after deciding to go back to the beginning to make sure I missed nothing.
What you and Annie have achieved in such a short time is staggering, a tremendous effort that sets the restoration standard most of us can only dream of. Congratulations!

[SS427]

A little no brainer common sense technical advice. Obviously I lack in the common sense. Do not wait till you have the engine painted and installed in the car to remember to remove the plug in the head and install the sending unit. This plug REFUSED to come out and required that I remove the tire and wheel house and progressively drill out the plug, hack saw two slots and remove the plug. Then dress the threads and install the NOS sending unit (thank you Grady Burch). All in all it only took about two hours but just a stupid common sense move.

[SS427]

A good friend, Mark Prunesti noticed that I had repop hood grilles so if he noticed so would others. Of all the repop parts I am forced to use on some restorations these were in my opinion as good as they get. However, I could not refuse Mark's offer on a pair of replated ones. Upon receipt I masked them off and sprayed flat black on the grille slat slide and installed them. They are not perfect and some pitting still shows but at least I now have another part I can call a true GM piece. I think I can count on 1 hand how many non GM parts are on this car.