I read through the restoration posts here and and impressed by the extent of knowledge and the length some folks are going to in their restorations.
There are some really incredible cars here.
I have decided to do only a partial restoration on my 1974 Corvette. Two reasons; money and time. I have decided to do the body and Paint myself. I will take my time and practice as I go. I have plenty of things I can paint here before I get to the vette.
I am also going to replace some of the interior. The Seat Belt assemblies are shot and the door panels are pretty beat up. The carpet is iffy. Most everything else is pretty good. old but still ok. I just need to replace all the screws and clips. Most are incorrect.

Mechanically my car is in pretty good shape. It has a few issues but nothing major that I know of. I noticed a little vibration in the rear end the last time I drove it and the rim/center hub on the left rear seemed a bit too warm so I have an issue there. Brake pedal is pretty low but the pads look good so I don't know what is going on there.

My Frame is in pretty good shape from what I can see. Perhaps some day I may remove the body and clean it up but that will have to wait. Funds and space will not allow that now.

I am concentrating on the body right now. I have completely stripped the paint and have the entire car sprayed with a High Build Primer. I used Slick Sand. It worked well. I am not sure if I did the best job of applying it though. I had a lot of "orange peel" or simply a very rough finish. But it sands easily. I have Block sanded the entire car and found a lot of flaws. I am going to spray another coat of Slick sand and Block it again. Hopefully I have all the flaws fixed.

I did some work on the fender top edges. they were really rounded. I wanted a sharper corner. It looks pretty good now.
I don't know if posting videos is allowed here but I will put a link here anyway. If you'd like to see what I did check the links below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=f9smyCEzfLg&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-wWDjLJqSs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ZwgRwjitw&feature=related

Looking good Bill! Lots of love and lots of work. Keep on rolling!

Bill,
I like what your doing. I also have a 74 and its been a great car. They drive excellent and are a lot of fun. Some day I hope to do a repaint on it as well. Looks as though your paint prep is going well. Did you do body work in the past. Looks as though you know what your doing! I think that is harder to accomplish then the mechanical work. Good luck and keep us posted.
Rodney Hake

It's going real good, Bill! Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the encouragement.

I have never done body work on a Corvette before. I did do a 1978 Triumph Spitfire in 1984. I had never done a car before that.
Believe I bought the car for $75.00. The guy that owned it had a bit of a drinking problem and I think he ran into everything he encountered on his way to and from the bar. It had dents everywhere. When I went to pick the car up it was sitting in a foot of snow in his yard. The top was ripped pretty bad. The car was full of snow.
I stripped it down to bare metal, pounded out the dents, bondo filled everything and primered it with......
Epoxy spray paint from cans. Then I painted it with spray can paint.
Put a new top on it and new exhaust.
I drove the car for a year then sold it and bought a boat. That was a big mistake.

The guy that bought the car said it was the nicest used Triumph Spitfire he had seen. I had to tell him it was painted with spray cans. He couldn't believe it.

Ok Back to my CORVETTE

Finally got some time to do some more. Repaired and reinstalled the rear bumper. If all the hardware was still there for the 74 original bumper I would consider replacing it but I'd have to buy everything. Tail light mounts, brackets, Tail lights, etc. Can't afford it right now. So the 80's style bumper will have to do.

You see, we just bought a 35 acre farm and I have to spend what little bit of money I have left to fix up the old house. BUT the good news is it has a barn. Guess what's gonna be in the barn.

Here's the bumper








|UPDATED|7/15/2012 10:07:21 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Bill that was a great video! thanks for sharing it.

Ebo

I have mixed feelings about the bumpers. I never really liked the look of the 74 rear bumper. It always looked like they forgot something.
On the other hand if you want it to look original the stock bumper is the way to go.
But that spoiler is "stylin'

Are you considering regular fiberglass or true flex? I don't know if the true flex can take a minor bump or not. My fiberglass front bumper was really fragile. It only took a slight bump to crack it. Unfortunately the previous owner bonded it on so I couldn't get it off without doing more damage. I fix it in place. It was difficult getting behind it. The rear bumper came off no problem and it was much easier to fix the crack. My grand daughter's boyfriend backed into it.

Poor kid was in tears. I said not to worry it's only a car. It can be fixed.

He said "But, it's a classic"
I replied "No, that's a Corvette, I'm a Classic"

It's all good

For the look I want it will have to be glass, plus I want to glass them in with no seams. So once I get it done I will never take it out of the garage so no one will hit it!

Ebo

That's funny.
I thought about Glassing mine in too, epecially the front since it's already bonded. But I was afraid it might develop a crack at the joint so I left the seam.

But I am with you on keeping it safe. I lived out in the country, no traffic, I never parked it anywhere I thought it could get hit. My Driveway was big enough to do a U turn in an 18 wheeler but my grand daughters 17 year old boy friend managed to back into it, cracking the rear bumper.

Actually you can't worry about that stuff, if it happens it happens. My luck I'd pull a Blue Boy and back into it myself!