Читать книгу How to Restore Your Corvette: 1963-1967 - Chris Petris - Страница 11
ОглавлениеYou need to be realistic about completing the bodywork yourself. Ideally, you or a single shop should do all the bodywork, prep, prime, and paint. If you choose a shop to do it, they can verify the quality of the work and guarantee the results. Completing the bodywork at one shop and having an owner participate in painting at a paint shop are two scenarios that rarely work out well. Bringing a completed, ready-to-paint vehicle to someone for paint is a tough proposition. No painter wants to take a chance on whether someone else has done bodywork and prep work correctly. It does not matter if you or a professional shop has done the work. Even if you tell the painter that there will be no responsibility on his part whatsoever, and that the outcome of the paint job is solely your concern, many paint shops are still reluctant because there are no guarantees.
The vent window has the door glass vertical run channel attached to it with an adjuster screw to control glass in and out angle. It takes some twisting and finagling to remove the vertical run channel with the adjuster screw in place from the door, but it is well worth the additional effort. Typically the adjuster screw is corroded to the run channel making it much smarter to take the assembly out and free up the adjuster screw while it is on the bench to avoid breaking pieces.
Let’s face it, bodywork is an art that requires patience and feel. You either have patience or not, and “feel” is something that’s developed over time. Experienced body repairers have a touch or feel for straight panels. They can feel a rise or dip in what should be a flat surface. They can also feel when body filler has a noticeable transition edge from the repair to the panel surrounding it. Some of us can quickly grasp this acquired talent, while others take years to fully master, if at all.
If you have trouble with feeling the wavy panels, blocking shows you where the spots are. Blocking refers to taking a long straight wooden or plastic block, applying sandpaper to it, then using it to sand panels. This finds any high and low spots in the panels. The unfortunate part is that you may spend plenty of extra time and body filler taking the waves out until you get the “feel.” Experience really pays off here, and this is why professional body repairers have a distinct advantage.
Professional body repairers also invest continually in the latest products, tools, and equipment to hone their craft. This gives them another advantage in using the latest technology in tools and repair techniques. The Environmental Protection Agency restricts the use of many of the early chemicals and products, and this is another reason why the cost of owning and running paint and body shops is so high. Cheap estimates equal low-quality work, and there is no way to do the job correctly without paying a reasonable price for it. Low-balling an estimate to get work in when every other shop is considerably higher, means the work will either be lower quality, or you will be hit with a supplemental estimate.
Be sure you are comfortable with your decision of how much you farm out and how much you do yourself.
Let’s begin with the birdcage, which is the steel cage that surrounds the passenger compartment. It is where the Midyear fiberglass body panels are attached. Coupe and convertible birdcages integrate the windshield frame into the assembly. Coupe birdcages are stiffer than convertible cages because the roof structure connects the windshield frame to the rear section. Major fiberglass body panels comprise the exterior to avoid as many visible seams as possible. The roof (coupes), upper rear surround panel (convertible), and front surround panel comprise the majority of the body.
From the preliminary inspection, I found a distorted body line so I immediately removed the paint to identify the problem. Once the paint had been removed, I discovered previous major collision repair. With this Midyear, an amateurish body repair or Bondo body filler repair techniques were destined to show up again. Fiberglass should have been used to fill the splice joint and reconstruct the peaked line.
Fenders and upper surrounds are bonded together with bonding strips to reinforce the body and seam. Fender break points start about an inch below the upper surround, following the crown.
Doors have steel framework with fiberglass skins. Working with the Corvette fiberglass bonded panels is quite different than repairing metal panels. You don’t unbolt fenders for replacement, which many do-it-yourselfers are familiar with.
You need a good idea of what repairs were done over the years and this is why all the paint was removed. A detailed inspection gives you a good indication. Make a plan of attack and stick to it. Once you know which structural parts of the body need to be repaired, you can proceed with the restoration.
After finding the splice in the center, I knew there had to be another seam. To find it, I rubbed my hand across the rear deck area. This was not a factory seam, and it became very obvious as the repair shrank.
Underside
With the chassis out from under the 1963, I raised the body up on the lift to do a thorough inspection of the underside. I found some hidden, unknown fiberglass patchwork had been done at the rear of the car. It appeared that years ago, someone had spliced a rear section of another car to the upper roof panel. The center repair seam was located over a frame crossmember, and it would have been difficult to find with the chassis in place. That is, of course, until the paint stripping phase began.
I also uncovered this splice seam on the passenger side, going down into the side fender. Butt splices like this require specific repair procedures or they haunt you until the repair is correctly done. Cracks develop along the splice seam from road vibrations. The edges of the butted fiberglass panels become visible as body filler shrinkage occurs. In all cases the body filler shrinks in the space between the fiberglass edges, causing a noticeable line. Fiberglass must bridge the splice seams to prevent noticeable lines as the body filler shrinks. This area needs major fiberglass work.
The underside inspection revealed another area of concern: the passenger compartment tub had broken loose from the upper surround. I had not noticed the compartment tub bond issue from the interior, so removing the body was the right choice because it was very obvious with the body lifted. This is significant because road noise would be heard and air would flow unchecked through the passenger compartment.
I also found what appeared to be all-metal body filler used for bonding the body panels together. With this type of problem, you need someone with experience to help make the right decisions. Does all-metal body filler suffice for panel bonding? All-metal body filler was devised to strengthen the plastic filler commonly used and to inhibit water intrusion. I am concerned with the bonding strength of the all-metal filler. Does it perform as well as the prescribed fiberglass panel bonding adhesives?
This all-metal body filler is an oozing mess that’s coming out of the rear inner fender reinforcement panel. I found all-metal filler used as adhesive on all the panels that had been replaced or repaired at the back end. A technician was able to grab this reinforcement panel and pull it off easily without damaging it. The upper left corner shows the gap between the upper surround and tub.
Although I’ve been in this business for years, this was something I had never seen. I consulted with Al Sowash, who ran the body shop at Eckler’s Corvette Service Center in the ’90s. Al inspected the Midyear to determine the best solution to this problem. This Midyear had multiple experts discussing its fate. My next call was to Seth at Lucky’s Customs to let him know that Al would be coming by to take a look at the project in the coming weeks. After a through inspection it was determined that someone had indeed used all-metal filler. To be safe all of the suspect filler was ground out to be replaced with fresh bonding adhesive. By now you are probably wondering, why are they going on and on about this bonding adhesive and filler that was used?
This body filler issue is important because body fillers shrink over time. Also, fiberglass bodies show more of the effects of body filler shrinkage than do metal bodies. When a fiberglass seam or hole repair has been incorrectly repaired, it eventually shows up and is noticeable through the paint. Even when performed properly, there is a possibility that the seam or hole will show up after a long period of time.
You may have seen minor imperfections while looking at really nice Corvettes at car shows. Then you may have wondered, “Why is there a divot here and there, or a sunken line running alongside the fender where the upper surround meets the side fender?” This shrinkage phenomenon is seen more often in the South because heat certainly brings out the worst in any questionable repairs.
You don’t want to smooth a body and eventually have it show every repair that was made. Cracking occurs when a fender or inner support panel comes loose due to poor adhesion. The best possible techniques must be used to minimize shrinkage and fix loose panels. General Motors and AO Smith supplied bodies that used a specific bonding adhesive, but not “bondo,” to adhere the panels to the birdcage.
The story is that asbestos-reinforced resin bonding adhesive was used in the early years of Corvette panel assembly. No one can verify when this lethal mix was used, or if it was used for sure. Multiple sources have said that Midyears have been assembled with this bonding adhesive. In addition, no one seems to know for sure whether all of the 1963–1967 Corvettes were done this way.
The use of asbestos also has not been absolutely verified, but it makes sense to be very careful during sanding or grinding. Wear breathing protection and contain and dispose of materials properly.
Paint
Next, I need to find out how many other repaired areas are lurking under my ‘63’s aged paint. I cannot stress enough how important it is to remove all the paint down to the raw fiberglass because the best surface for primer and paint adhesion is raw fiberglass.
I once had a Corvette painted for a customer, and the body shop insisted that they had the perfect primer-sealer that allowed them to keep the old, underlying paint in place with minimal sanding. I urged them to rethink the job and quote it with complete paint removal.
After it had been painted and before I finished assembling the exterior pieces, door handles, etc., the paint was lifting. What made a bad situation worse was that the new “silly putty” paint took nearly 40 hours to remove. In some areas (not near enough) where the urethane and underlying paint were compatible, it came off easily in with a razor blade. Consider yourself warned; don’t make a similar mistake.
You can use abrasives or chemicals to strip the paint. First, you don’t want to cut into the fiberglass panels. But some won’t chemically strip the paint because they fear chemicals will leach into the fiberglass and prevent proper paint bonding. Done properly by the directions, chemical stripping yields good results. With media blasting, plastic bead or baking soda are most popular for fiberglass bodies. The plastic bead process removes most of the paint without damaging the fiberglass, but I had to sand quite a bit to remove all the remaining paint. The blaster said that they could remove all the paint, but they were hesitant because fiberglass damage could result. Soda blasting is less abrasive on the fiberglass, but sanding is required to get all the paint off.
This 1965 Nassau Blue coupe with original paint shows seam distortion. The bonding adhesive has shrunk at the left rear upper surround and side fender. You might say it is a badge of honor having the original seam showing because it means this Corvette has withstood the test of time. After 44-plus years, all of the original untouched fender-to-upper-surround seams should look like this.
Steel
