1970 Chevelle SS restoration

[Too Many Projects]

It seems like a customer ordered car, with 4 speed and buckets but no console. Standard 3.31 gear but with posi. No clue if the original gears are still in the diff. The ladder bars could indicate a gear change and some rambunctious usage...

[Too Many Projects]

I had some "decent" front fenders I acquired over time and the Black car had a cowl hood I kept and swapped the power bulge hood from this car onto the Black one. I had ordered Goodmark full quarters in 2003 for the Black car and they supposedly had been stamped with the original tooling in Michigan before the dies were sent to china. They have been sitting here ever since too.
About 18 months ago, I came across an add on Hemmings for both NOS front fenders and a left quarter panel on Hilton Head in SC...NO SHIPPING. I called and explained I wouldn't be down that way until 4 months later, I mid February, but I would pay cash and pick them up. He agreed and when I arrived he insisted we remove the quarter panel for the first time ever to inspect and make certain they were to my liking. He explained that he had bought these parts in 1990 when he lived somewhere up near Virginia, but shortly after moved to AZ for nearly 30 years. He had his '70 SS restored down there and they didn't see any need to use the NOS parts, so he held onto them and even had them transported to SC. Soon after, he decided it was time to sell them instead of continuing to pay for storage since he had no room at his town home now. The quarter looks like the day it had the EDP applied and was put in the carton. The fenders have NEVER been out of their cartons and I can see the EDP is just as nice, with no surface rust visible anywhere !!
I could not believe I had fallen into this dream. That stuff happened to other people.

[Too Many Projects]

And so, it begins. I have been waiting on my bodyman/painter to take the Camaro to his place for interior paint for 2 months now and today I kicked it into the back storage building and brought the Chevelle into the shop to start this project.
First order was to remove the seized calipers, so I can roll it around..LOL The pistons did push back into the bores, so they aren't rusted completely. Then I removed the seats to take them back to the storage shed and get them out of the way. I had procured a rear seat core over time too, but thought ahead and left that in the back shed before I drove the car to the shop building. Thought I took a pic of the interior without the seats, but that is on my phone and NO, I have a heck of a time getting pics from there to here. I'll take one with the camera tomorrow...
REALLY looking forward to get started on this tear down.

[Too Many Projects]

About 10:30 this morning i was going to remove the hood, but decided to see what I could do with the little "bump" on the nose that listed slightly down. Yeah... that turned in 1.5 hours of Pandora's box. Oh well, I took it off at 12:40, after lunch and parked it in the back shed...

[Too Many Projects]

I could see a fairly deep dent and got the DA out and sanded down to it. Found a WHOLE lot more dents and plenty of filler. As I was chasing the grey filler out, I came across something white and at first assumed it was a different filler. After I wiped dust off, I could see it better and it's the original White stripes. The filler was spread right over the old paint and leveled from there. This was quite typical of repairs in the later 70's, when these cars weren't worth much. The repair person didn't bother to even attempt to pull the dents up, just slathered filler in them and moved on... Once I realized the old stripes were under all the other paint, the straight lines of chipped/peeled paint made more sense, as it was the stripes.

[Too Many Projects]

Afte that, I was more careful to preserve the original black and strips to see what was under the filler. Some of the dents were rather deep. The one with the straight edge is on the left side of the center ridge and stretched. That will need a stud gun to pull up. I chipped the filler out of the dent on the nose and dang, that is deep. I worked on it for an hour and reduced the amount of filler it will need to level off, but it's rather crude right now.

[Too Many Projects]

So, after lunch, I got started on what I thought I was going to do with the morning. After I got the hood off and loaded in the pickup, I started draining the coolant and putzing with removing the left fender to sell. I work rather slow, but methodical and after 4 hours, I had the front clip on the floor. I removed the spark plugs and will get a can of fogging oil and spray the cylinders down good for storage this time. The engine runs quite well and I'm glad it didn't seize up sitting for over 20 years. It has been run at times during that period, and I'm sure that helped keep it loose.
I was looking closer at what I had to get yet for parts and discovered someone had cut the rear wheel openings down to nearly nothing to clear tires. There is still black marks in places where they hit. Curious if they just had L60's/N50's for the street, or if this car really did race at one time. Now I'm really curious as to the gear ratio. I never did take on a street to see, as the front brakes either didn't do anything to slow it down or when they did apply, they never released..LOL.
DANG, the wheel house pics are vertical in my file... I can't do anything to get them upright on here... sorry

[napa68]

What is your vision for this one Mitch?