I am currently reading the book" Corvette from the inside'. In it is shows how poorly doors and trunk and hood parts fit. The gaps were almost 1/4 inch in places. They also said how paint did not take well on the early fiberglass cars. The book says dealers had no knowledge of how to fix the gaps or paint issues. I have noticed at least 3 or 4 54 Corvettes for sale on line by dealers. I must admit these cars look perfect. From paint to door gaps. What is the secret of how today paint and gaps can look so perfect and when Chevrolet built the cars they could not get the gaps to line up or the paint to stop bubbling ?
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
Walter,
Today restorers take 100's of hours and maybe 1000's of hours to make the early Corvettes perfect. Those Corvettes are the way we wished they were when built!!!!
In the real world and on an assembly the worker has about ten minutes to accomplish what restorers take hours to do now!!!!! That's why they charge so much.
A 1953 Corvette cost less than $4000.00 and GM could not give them away. Now after being restored a 1953 sells for over $100,000. That's after someone spending $65,000 plus to make those lines straight and the paint stick!!!!
JR -
Re: Poor Body panel fit
Kind of an interesting high resolution vintage photo of early C1s. You can see how the hood has various gaps from car to car.
A bit off topic but does anyone know the history of this photo?
High Resolution Version
MikeComment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
This is good. It's really amazing how these cars were built back then. We lost points a few years ago for body panel fit on a car during judging. They wanted them closer and they were not bad. They were not perfect back then by any means. This is an original picture of the lady that owned this car and bought it new. Notice the fit of the lid where it curves around. We were told the speaker grill was a little too much out of level for the judges liking also but no deduct. LOOK AT THIS GRILL!! Car had 2K miles on it when this was taken. Also, notice that screw in the passenger door panel at the top. You won't see that in any door panels today. I wish I would have had this picture at the show back then.
1958 Original Picture (800x582).jpgComment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
Body fit is one of those things that a judge will spend some time with. I usually take three laps around the car before I start writing. One of the first things that I observe on over-restored cars is the door fit. Corvettes did not and do not "fit like a Ferrari". If the restorer does get too close he will lose paint at the shadow line on the doors because the hinges are not that tight.Comment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
Hi Walter
In what I guestimated to be 4000-5000 hours in my restoration, no single function took longer or required more focus than adjusting the doors to the body, then the wrap around of the front glass to the chassis / to the front of the doors, to the wheel well, to the bumper frame and then the hood to the front so that all the gaps were within reason. The front got held by straps then drilled and pinned to provide a reference point once the glue was applied. You can only do this once or you face chiseling it off again. I am more than a bit proud of the results but I believe this effort alone took me about 6 months (sorry, I'm slow). (Of course there's lots I'm not talking about like the body mount bushings and shim's and other points that throw everything off - is the garage floor level ... is the chassis level ... should it be ??).
I can't imagine it being done differently since there are no fixed reference points to work from on the C3 or any earlier to my knowledge. Given some of the originals (survivors) I've seen in shows I'm sure no more than 10 minutes were spent at the assembly line.
Michael B.Comment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
At a Southwest NCRS meeting in Sedona in the late '80s we had as guests Jim Gaylord, who had built the Gaylord Sports Touring
car and was an "insider" with Ed Cole, Russ Sanders, a GM Retiree who had been Chevy's chief Chassis Engineer in 1955 and the 1st owner of EX 122, and John Amgwert, with a slide show of the recently restored EX 122 as done by Jon Blanchette (sp?).
During the slide show, there was a view forward at the middle of the body from the taillight. The red paint was beautifully polished and the view forward was superb, thanks to god-only-knows how many hours of effort by Jon.
Jim Gaylord, who had owned Corvettes since an early '54, exclaimed "Russ, look at that. That's magnificent, not a wrinkle, not a dead spot in the paint. I've never seen a Corvette like that.".
To which Sanders deadpanned "Jim, he had a Really Good camera.".
Kudos to Jon Blanchette.Comment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
It didn't get much better heading in to the 2nd generation. The beefy guy on the assembly line whose job it was to stick his knee in the middle of the inside of the '63 coupe doors and bend the top of the doors inboard to get a 1/2 way decent fit is one example. Most '63 rear valances are pretty awful too.Comment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
You are exactly right. I was not born when these cars were built, but I have seen enough in my time to know they were rough. These guys were looking for a paycheck and a trip to the bar at night. Glad you are one of those that like things as they were! I'm only 47 and I do too!!!Comment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
Walter - couple things...today paint materials and substrate materials are far superior to materials available then. 53's where hand laid and the panels where build upside down....so guess what settled to the bottom and corners and edges - resin. If you have seen a 53 stripped the glass cloth is very rough. It takes mutliple coats of a high build primer to get one to block level. Gaps - many guys spend hours and hours and hours getting the gaps right and the panels to open and close right. Many of them just dont fit well and takes massaging. I am currently doing the bodies on 2 1953's, and a 54 and a 59. It takes patience, fore thought, good straight body dollys, and sometimes alot outside of the box thinking......making your own shims, etc.....1954 Corvette #3803 - Top Flight 2012, Bloomington Gold 2012,
Triple Diamond Award 2012, Gold Concourse Award 2012, Regional and National Top Flight 2014
1954 Corvette #3666 - "The Blue Devil" - Pennant Blue - restoration started
1957 Corvette - FI 3 sp - Black and SilverComment
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Re: Poor Body panel fit
When I did my 67 coupe in 71, I spent hours getting the doors, headlight buckets and hood lines right. The door to roof line was perfect till I put the rubber WX strips on. Then the door line rose above the roof. I knew it would eventually take a set but it never got low enough.
This time around when I installed the doors I adjusted the door to be under the roof almost to the point of touching. In other words the top of the door was sprung in. I needed to put a tempory 1/8" spacer between them so they wouldn't hit. When I installed the WX strip I lubed it with WX lube and the fit was great. The top of the door was under pressure to set the WX strip. For about a month the door closed hard. now that the rubber took a set it closes nicely. I also did the hinge trick where you drill 2 holes all the way thru the hinge, spacers and into the plate so you can get alignment instantly. My confession is that I took the doors off to install the WX strip and YES, keep all the glue under the rubber where it was intended to be. A few vettes had to make it out of the factory without the glue slopped all over where the rubber went!
DomComment
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