Well, I said goodbye to her yesterday at 1pm.  She'll be out for about two months or so at the corvette spa at Don Huggins place.

While she is at the spa, she'll get a new nose, lower air dam and tail (fiberglass) and new stinger hood.  I really struggled with the hood decision, but the breather I had on was still rubbing and it was the smallest I could find and had cut it down.  I wanted more height and didn't want to sacrifice the intake back to stock, so the only choice was a new hood.  I could have gone with the L-88, but the Stinger really looks cool.  If I don't do it now, I'll regret it and if I do it later, I'll have paint match problems.  (See Ecklers 1980 Stinger Hood)

Tux, she's gettin' 5 coats of PPG Black and 5 coats clear minimum. The stinger and snorkel will be red with a single line pinstripe, but all the rest is black. 

I brought home the tail lights with me to clean up and polish.  I'll bring home the marker lights and side lights to clean the overspray from the PO's previous work.

Door fitment was a problem so the guy is going to shave the drivers fender at the door front, fix the crack in the sidepipe cover and a few other minor issues like the wallowed out antenna hole.  He has already found some cracks where they put the front end on and will work those, as well as re-glass the tail cap strips that the bolts run thru to hold the tail on.  They were all ripped out by the wrecker driver.

Settlement is enough to cover the paint so I'm out the hood.  It took a while to settle, but they were fair.  It helped to have several car guys in the process that worked for the wreckers insurance company and to have 71Shark's wife as a witness to the damage.

I get visitation rights throughout the process, so I'll be posting pix along the way.  I can't wait to get her back.  Hope to have her back by the Hot Springs Vette Weekend, but I would rather have her right and quick.

Good luck, Dennis!!! Hope she comes out looking great, AND...on time!

Dennis, I'm sorry that you have to go through all this in the first place--but just think how beautiful that car is going to be when you get it back!

And I really want to to see the pics, because I really want that Stinger hood for the '78!

Hope it all goes A-OK...

As soon as the Stinger comes in, I'll get pix of it and post.  It was ordered yesterday thru the local shop here (oversize cargo and all) and should be in by next Monday.

I'm excited!  I can't wait to see how she is going to look!

I get to visit her for a bit tonight.  I had brought home the tail lights to clean up and will probably get the markers and turn signal lenses to clean the PO's overspray off with some 0000 steel wool.  If he has gotten anywhere, I'll snap some pix w/the cell camera. 

The PPG paint will do well for you Dennis. That is what I put on my 76. First two coats were PPG Bright Silver Metalic and then two coats of PPG Inferno Red Tricoat. The red is translucent and actually shows three different shades depending on how much sun light is hitting it. Looks almost copper in the shade. Anyway, it's good paint. I went with KromaClear for my 3 coats of clear. Good stuff and nice and hard.