'69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

[Kevin S.]

Hello NCRS,
Looking for some guidance and recommendations with what I should do with a poorly repaired lower rear filler panel on our 1969 Coupe. Back story: this car had been hit in the rear end I believe sometime in the mid 1970's.

I would eventually like to have this car NCRS judged at some point and I am wondering how much the poorly repaired inside lower rear valance panel will hurt me in points.

I removed the chrome exhaust bezels many months ago and had them re-chromed. Now I am ready to put them back on and cannot decide what to do with the rear valance panel. Options: replace the panel and try to source an original, NOS , or reproduction (always concerned about how things fit or don't fit these days with repro parts) or just do a much better job of repairing the fiberglass so that the #8 - 20 x 3/4" zinc-plated screws actually go through the U-clips and go through the fiberglass on the lower valance panel by extending and reshaping the fiberglass around where the exhaust bezels are secured to the valance panel and the rear quarter panel.

The chrome bezels are original and correct PN's, the #8 zinc polished screws are original and correct, the #8 U-clips were sourced and should be correct, and the six bolts securing the rear valance panel are all original RBW bolts and should be NCRS correct.

Seems like a good time to fix it right while I have the gas tank out.

Included photo of BEFORE I removed the chrome bezels with the old LH exhuast tip so you can see how they were held in place with just the old U-clips on the inboard side. Other photos show the poor fiberglass repairs and then LH and RH pictures where you can see that the chrome exhaust bezels do not line up on the inboard side of the bezels because the old fiberglass repair was not done correctly to reach far enough to screw into the repaired fiberglass.

FYI: the lower rear valance panel has a part number stamp, "PT. NO. 3948133 SPEC. 40-2351 GB 69" in 1/4" tall letters and numbers right in the center of the rear valance panel behind the license plate on the lower lip of the panel if that helps at all.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and recommendations. Seems like at the very least, I should rebuild and repair the bezel areas so the chrome exhaust bezels fit right. Guess I would still loose some CDCIF points for installation and / or finish due to the rear end damage and repairs.

Kevin

[Dan B.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Whoever did that Bubba repair did not know how to work with fiberglass. That panel as far as I can see is very fixable if it's just the area around the bezels you show. Get rid of all that poorly applied fiberglass cloth, grind a V into the edges and repair it with properly saturated fiberglass MATTING.
I think that's your best bet as availability of many fiberglass parts now involve long wait times. Additionally, you may be able to avoid painting the panel (unless there is damage on the front side that can be seen) which puts you ahead of the game.

Can you post a full picture of the outside (painted side) to give a better idea of the overall part condition?

Dan

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Hello Dan,
Thank you for your comments.

As requested, here are some exterior pics of the painted side of the lower rear valance which is not too bad. Little paint damage on the outboard side of the LH exterior bezel area from the idiots who installed Flow Master mufflers on this car in 2010.

I also included pics of the inside LH and inside RH rear quarter panels where vette bond was applied to the rear wheel well air damn. I think that area could be repaired better too, especially the LH side where they just went crazy with the vette bond. Paint on the exterior side of the rear quarter panels is in good shape. Car was repainted once - best guess mid 1970's as a result of the rear end damage.

What do you think? I can easily get caught in the "while I'm at it" mentality when working on this car but I do want it to be as good as I can get it and I am not getting any younger. As mentioned before, the gas tank is out so there's plenty of room to work on the inside quarter panels and inside rear lower valance panel.

Kevin

[Dan B.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Kevin,

Are you planning to do the repairs yourself and are you comfortable working with fiberglass? If so, I see no reason you cant fix all of that yourself. It's mostly just labor and patience that's needed from what I see. I've done some fiberglass "scar revisions" which is what I would call this with excellent results. Fix the bad areas and avoid the project creep. With care you can blend the fiberglass to a near invisible repair.

See photos below of repairs I made to a BAD job (Seat belt outer corner on C-2). First photo shows a still tacky gooey patch after who knows how many years and covering a big hole. Photo 3 shows sanded and blended repair. You can repair yours similarly and with plenty of room to work now.

DSCN8498.jpgDSCN8513.jpgDSCN8516.jpgDSCN8517.jpgDSCN8520.jpg

[Michael L.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

It's definitely doable but it will be a fair amount of work, especially since there are the specially formed cutouts for the u-clips to install to. You can definitely make it look much better but it will be hard precisely replicate the exact perfect look of the factory piece. I would suggest looking to some of the vette boneyards to get a perfect OEM rear panel off a front wrecked car will be MUCH less work. Just my 2 cents.

Mike

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Hi Dan,
Lucky for me I have a retired mechanic friend who used to work in a custom hot rod shop for several decades (body work, painting, and mechanical) and he is 100% comfortable making the fiberglass repairs. Bobby has experience with all sorts of fiberglass repairs (minor and major body repairs to Corvettes, wheel well flares, custom spoilers, hood modifications, etc. on Corvettes). I can do the rough sanding work. I would leave the finish sanding, final prep work, and fiberglass matte work to him. BTW - the fiberglass repairs you did look great. I'm hoping to have a similar result, something that blends nearly perfectly and is not an "eye sore" like it is now.

Thanks for your comments and the photos.
Kevin

[Dennis M.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

From what i can see it looks like there is also a repair on the fender side i have seen this before and it turned out to be a side pipe car. It is a 69 so its possible that someone changed to a underneath exhaust. And done some horrible Glass work. Good luck Denny Marshall

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Hey Mike,
OEM donor valance is certainly worth considering. So far, I have not had much luck finding a '69 rear valance panel but I also have not made that many calls either. Three calls to be exact in the past 2-weeks. No luck so far. I have not posted anything yet on Corvette Forum in the Want to Buy (WTB) section for C3's or even looked on eBay yet.

Do you, or does anyone else reading this, know if the lower rear valance panel on the car now is original? I assume that it is a GM Service Replacement panel but I don't know for sure. Embossed stamp on the inside lower lip of the valance panel located center below the license plate portion of the panel. I have included a couple of pics to get your opinion. The decision to repair or replace might change things a bit if the valance panel on the car now is OEM?

Kevin

[Michael L.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Kevin,

I did a quick search of the internet and scanned my AIM. It seems to me that the Dennis may be on to something about this being a sidepipe car. I'm no expert but it looks to me like the part number of your piece, 3948133, indicates no exhaust cut outs, like with this eBay listing:


1969-1973 Corvette Filler Panel 3948133 Rear Valance w/ Side Exhaust Black Glass | eBay

My AIM lists the standard rear exhaust valance as being part number 3947974 (page J131)

So I think this may be OEM for your car but your car may have been a side pipe car. If you plan to stick with rear exhaust you would better be served with getting one of the 3947974 pieces.

Mike

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Hey Mike,
Interesting what you and Dennis mentioned. Never even considered side pipes. Thank you for the search information. I have no idea about this being a side pipe car? I have not seen anything else or any evidence on the car that would lead me in the side pipe direction. There is no tank sticker or build sheet rolled up and stuffed under the dash panels to answer that question and clear up the mystery. I'll check the AIM (J131). Thanks for the help. I did go look at a Duntov '69 yesterday so I have a better idea of what a correct rear lower valance panel should look like for a rear exhaust car.

Kevin

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Update on rear fiberglass repairs 11/14/2023:

I have continued to work on the lower rear valance panel and the rear LH splash shield. I have now determined that PN 3948133 is indeed the lower rear filler panel for a side pipe car. This car was hit in the rear end in it's past life, there is no build sheet or tank sticker and no duplicate build sheet up under the lower dash panels up or around the speedometer or tachometer area behind the dash so there is no good way to determine why there is side exhaust lower rear valance on this car. Could have been a side pipe car from the factory? Maybe a prior owner decided to change from side pipes to rear exhaust as part of the rear end body work repairs? Don't know for sure? Either way, someone decided to add fiberglass and vette bond and actually took a OEM rear quarter panel bonding strips off of a donor car and globbed on the fiberglass to build the exhaust bezel area....rather than just purchase a NOS rear exhaust filler panel with the correct fibergalss bezel area already intact. I have order new rear exhaust quarter panel bonding strips for the rear filler panel.

On another note. I did mention previously that I suffer from "while I'm at it" syndrome. I spent several weeks, a few hours here and there, sanding and cleaning up all the vette bond globbed onto the LH rear splash shield only to discover two things: there was a huge 1/2" by 6" crack in the rear LH wheel well splash shield and the LH spash shield had almost no bonding strip on the rear LH splash shield on the car. I assume that the lack of bonding strip means that they cut a LH splash shield off of a donor rear clip in the past and then globbed on the vette bond to cover the huge crack and also to secure the LH splash shield to the LH quarter panel.

I removed and replaced the LH rear splash shield with an OEM / NCRS correct splash shield that I sourced on Corvette Forum. The PN is correct per the AIM and there was a bonus white grease pencil "1968" hand written on the rear top of the splash shield which fits with my October 31, 1968 build date. I also cleaned up the RH rear splash shield "while I was at it" and added a bead line of fiberglass adhesive to the rear of the RH rear splash shield so that both sides would look the same.

I am interested in your opionion of the repair I did to the splash shields. Don't know if I like the black fiberglass adhesive bead that I added to the rear of the bonding strips? Kind of wished that I would have just bonded the splash shields and stopped and not added the bead on the outside of the rear bonding strips.

[Kevin S.]

Re: '69 Lower Rear Valance Panel Repair

Adding two more pictures for reference:

Photo 1: Before repair to the LH rear splash shield

Photo 2: In Process repair to the LH splash shield showing almost no bonding strip and also the crack in the splash shield where the blue painter tape is located.

Sorry about the photo orientation, not sure how to get them to display vertically like they were when i took the photo.