Got it...

Well, after a long search, I finally have a full quarter panel for the passenger side. This is the last piece of the puzzle I need for getting the body repaired. I had to drive to Tulsa, OK to get this. It actually came from Alamogordo, NM. Work out a swap of a loaded 396 '67 Caprice parts car for this quarter, some other '68 parts and some cash my way. The seller also drove to Tulsa where the deal went down and I drove home with my take. It's not perfect, has a few dents but is very rust free and solid. It's actually a full factory replacement panel that looks to have been put on the donor car early in it's life...I'm guessing from an accident? So I hope to get going on the sheet metal work sometime in April. Get'n pumped now to start the real work of saving this bad ass black beauty! I did happen to learn that only 1.33 percent of '68 full size cars were Tuxedo Black so doing a little math I'm figuring that roughly only 25 of the 1778 Z24 cars in '68 were black...not very many and probably very few left. Even though I'll end up financially upside-down on this car, I'm glad I'm making the effort to save it.

Going slow...

Well, I haven't added to this blog for awhile. Mainly because I haven't had much progress on the car. Too much going on with other things. I did manage to dismantle most of the green donor body. Thankfully the panel that supports the lower part of the rear glass is looking nice and solid. I'm gonna need it for what I think I'm going to end up doing. So I'm now thinking the best approach will be to section off the cowl of the real car and use the roof and trunk tub from the yellow donor car to end up with a decent body. Cuts will basically be where the rockers come into the hinge pillars and on the pillars along side the windshield. Not exactly the way I would like to go but with the rust and damage to the real car there just isn't much good to work with. I hope I can find the RH full quarter...it will really make things easier I think than salvaging the RH quarter off of the real car to put on the donor tub.

Lucky find!

NOS left side quarter

Haven't been getting much done on the car recently...too buzy with work. However, I did score this NOS driver side quarter yesterday. Now if I can get lucky and find the full right side, the whole project will be looking much better. I gotta believe there is still one out there somewhere.....?

Grrrrrr! More issues!!

Rust crept up into the upper dash panel...bummer!

Passenger side outer wheelhouse damage

Passenger side inner wheelhouse pushed in slightly

Passenger side outer wheelhouse damage by quarter glass

Smog parts

I finally got some time to do a little more digging into the condition of the body. Windshield is out and rust is not looking any better. The upper dash panel will need repair also.

So when I bought the car, I knew it had been in an wreck that took out the passenger side. Whoever repaired it put on a factory fender and full quarter and a salvaged complete door. I was aware that the outer wheelhouse was damaged because they didn't do anything to really fix it properly when the quarter was off. When I got the package tray and rear seat out, I noticed that the inner wheelhouse was push inward slightly. Not a happy camper!

Although I haven't totaly abandoned fixing this body, it's starting to look like it would be wiser to cut the cowl off and use the yellow donor rear clip to do the best repair. I hate that idea because the car gets to be less and less of the original. I think I need to keep in mind it's about saving the car but I need to draw a line somewhere.

On a happier note, I did purchase most of the smog parts which were long gone. All of it needs restoration but it's a start.

I have a junk Caprice body here so I think I'm going to look into how well I can seperate it from the rockers so as to use that as a point to splice the cowl to the donor clip. It will take some time but will be a good experiment before I go cutting up the original. Stay tuned!

Steve

And another...

Quarters are patch panels

Nice reveal moulding and vinyl top trim

Trunk lid trim piece is free of pits, just needs black paint redone

Here's the second donor body that I picked up. It has great trim related to the top that I can use which is much better than what is on the SS427 car. It has alot of great parts to sell. I'm sure I can come out ahead on the whole deal with some cash in my pocket and the roof parts I need. One thing neat about this car is on the tunnel there was a tachometer mounted that looked familiar. Turns out it is for '65 '66 Olds 442's with a console mounted tach. That will be on Ebay soon!

Steve

Heavy metal

 

Picked up this fastback shell to use as a donor for the roof repair. Hoping to just use the roof skin and the upper part of the quarters. It's actually a pretty solid body. Should be able to use parts of the floor for patches. The tail panel and trunk weatherstrip gutter is nice also which I will need to salvage. It's funny how these cars rust...this body is bad at the package tray area of the rear window yet the SS427 is much better despite having the roof completely shot. The dude I bought this from had another body with a bunch of parts so I picked that up too. I think between the two I should be in pretty good shape for taking care of the roof replacement. The timing of this is so weird. Within two weeks of bringing the project home I find the donor cars less than two hours away. Just like it was meant to be.

Steve 

Rust never sleeps!!

Ouch!

Everywhere the vinyl was is toast!

Double ouch!!

Not much left of the skin!

Cheese anyone?

Well, I've done some exploring to survey the extent of the roof damage. It's pretty bad. I'm going to remove what is left of the skin and the sail panel upper areas of the quarters to see what is left of the roof sub-structure. Hoping the structure is ok so I can replace just the skin...time will tell. If not, will need to cut the whole roof off. I did have some luck this last week locating two donor fastback bodys. One is just a shell but pretty solid with good roof skin and the other has good upper quarters and lots of good trim pieces. Same guy had them both so was really a no brainer to get the two.

Steve