Mark’s 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle SS

Mark is the owner of this 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle SS. He received it as a Christmas present from his wife Mel in 2008. Follow Mark’s progress through his pictures and his words on this project as he brings this SS back to cruise worthy condition.

The car is originally from Illinois and ran on local tracks as Pro-Street. I spoke with all three owners of the car; two from Illinois and the one I bought it from in Minnesota. Mostly it was cruising and midnight marauding.

Over the last thirty-five years this car has obviously been set up to just go strait and for very short periods of time. No thermostat, all electrical disconnected.

3/15/2009 - Plan to go over engine, replace all body and front end rubber, and restore the engine compartment. Then we are going to put it back on the street and do some cruising.

5/29/2009 – We had a changing of the minds yesterday. I was originally just going to do the engine compartment clean up for now, paint the brackets, and clean the compartment. After I got into it I have decided to replace:

1. Radiator core support coming out of Denver, Colorodo.

2. Inner fender wells, Radiator support bushings, Control arm bushings, Upper and lower ball joints and tie rod ends and Hood pad coming out of Elburn, Illinois.

3. Radiator cover and rubber supports out of Long Island, New York.

4. Fan shroud out of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

After seeing what great condition the body and frame and frame bushings are in. We have decided to start at the front and just keep working our way south until it is back to its old self.

We got the core support back in yesterday and I was able to bolt up some of the engine parts. Everything is taken back down to bare metal, primered and painted then allowed to set for at least 1 week. When I get the suspension done everything will be done to the fire wall when the washer bottle gets here. Next were moving inside. The dash will come out to receive a new wiring harness, gauge cluster, ash tray, and duct work. The passenger side seat has already been removed to be replaced and both buckets will be recovered.

It’s the cleaning and painting that takes all the time. But boy is it worth it. I’m going to be tearing out the interior and dash next to recover the seats and replace the wiring harness and convert back to A/C. I need to do this next while the driver side inner fender well and control arm are out of the way to pull in the new engine harness and hood release cable.

Once that is done I need to put the front end back together and get it back on the wheels so I can torque the control arm and core support bolts. Should have the engine compartment and interior done I hope by spring. Then I plan to drive it for the summer. I’m going to pull the engine and transmission this fall and rebuild the rear suspension and motor internals.

7/1/2009 – How lucky can a guy get? If your wife’s not on board with your projects it can certainly lead to problems. My wife Mel bought me this car as a Christmas gift. Then she decides that she is going to redo the entire interior for me. She cleaned and painted every piece and then tackled the front swivels and back seat upholstery. God I love this woman!!!

Mel took the buckets apart 4 times (swivel buckets are tough) to get them to her satisfaction. Rather than glue a piece around the back like most folks that tackle this job, she removed the ribbon from the old seat covers and sewed it to the new ones. She then added about an inch of new matting to fill the seats back to factory condition.

2/2/2010 – Sorry it’s been so long, but a pinched spinal column made me take the summer off (too many years of rubber necking classic muscle cars). Anyway we’re back at it.

When we removed the old package tray we saw we had some work to do before we could begin to re-assemble the interior.

Blake Thomas from OE Performance came out and removed the back glass and windshield so we could get started repairing the rot. This guy is fantastic and will work with you when you need glass work done. The fact that he makes house calls is great for a car on blocks.

The trunk area looks pretty good for now so we’re going to leave it until next fall when we do the rear suspension and frame. Hope to be back on the road by spring.

3/7/2010 – I met Joe Craven of Craven’s Autobody last year when on my way back from Pennsylvania after I hit an 8 point buck at 1 am. Joe really did a fine job on my 2005 Dodge Magnum, so I called him up about the rot on the 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle SS.

I had already cleaned up the rot as best I could with what I had to make things a little easier on Joe, seeing as he was doing the work at my place instead of his. He came out on Saturday and sandblasted the rot and began the repairs.

He then returned on Tuesday after work and sanded and put the final touches on them. And then primered everything. He returned this Saturday and put some silver paint on the primer to protect it until May when we are going to paint the entire car.

Now while Joe was doing this I had stripped and repaired the entire interior section of the car and started fabricating the brackets I need to put a factory console back in (you can’t cruise without an armrest) so today I was able to put a few coats of POR-15 on all the interior metal.

Next weekend I plan on starting to put the interior back in for the last time. Now I hope you don’t think I forgot about the engine compartment.

With the exception of the starter and battery it’s all there. We won’t be putting the battery in until after Blake from OE Performance puts the glass back in next Saturday and I can put the dash in and terminate all the wires. Then I’ll start checking out the wiring before I hook up the ground on the battery.

While Blake is putting the glass in, I’ve ask my neighbor to help me get the hood off so I can sand blast the underside and paint it.

3/14/10 – Unfortunately Blake’s truck broke down and he couldn’t make it on Saturday to put the glass back in. So I decided to use the time tackleing the hood. I hand sanded the magority of it so as not to warp the metal and only sand blasted the very front where there was suface rust.

Then I applied a coat of the POR-15. I’ll let it sit until next Saturday and put a coat of clear on it because POR-15 turns white from the sun and I plan on having the hood up a lot during car shows.

The 1973 through 1977 Chevrolet Chevelles were notorious for two things: 1. Bent door hinge pins. The door makes up 1/3 of the cars length. 2. Bad hood hinges. The hood is over 1/3 of the cars length and mine was no exception.

After removing the hood the hinge on the driverside, I was able to move the hood hinges over an inch from side to side at the rivets. I called my buddy Red in Wyoming. He has always been my first call for good used OEM parts and he has another set coming to me. I’ll sand blast them and POR-15 them and get the top back on.

3/16/10 – Everybody at work has heard about this project and when I mentioned the holes were cut in the floor from several different shifters, David recommended MIG welding some new metal in. He said “If you’ve gone to this extent rebuilding it, you really need to weld it up tight.” So he came out today and did just that. You never can know too many good people.

3/18/10 –  Blake from OE Performance showed up with my new glass and spent the morning installing it. Now we are finally on our way to putting in the interior. While he was installing all the glass, I was installing the new door rails and door rubber. We’re getting close.

3/22/10 – I knew from the fact the previous owner had tore out the original console and mounting brackets in order to use the Hurst Shifter and putting in a stock console would probably be a challenge. I’ll admit that there was some cussing involved along the way. I put the console in and took it back out about a dozen times before I could come up with a set up that would allow the shifter to be functional and still allow the console to bolt together properly, but I got it.

Next I glued down the sound deadener pads with all of the brackets, shifter cable, seat belts, and seat hold down bolts inserted as a test of what it’s going to take to lay and cut the carpeting properly. I’m going to put the dash back in while I still have the room to work, then the console and the seats.

3/27/10 – I noticed when I put the new bumper on that the passenger side was pushed in about an inch and a half more than the driver’s side. I tried PB Blaster and a jack to push the absorber back out. When that didn’t work, I got another set of absorbers and took the whole front end back apart. This gave me the opportunity to sand, primer, and paint, all of the brakets and layers of the bumper section that I didn’t have time to take off just to do the bumper swap. Turned out perfect.

4/3/10 – Mel got back to the interior putting in the headliner and sun visors.

While she was doing that I was reconditioning the seat belts I got from Red in Wyoming. Boy, if these parts could talk.

4/11/2010 – Couldn’t wait on Red any longer. We installed what interior we could but found some broken clips that hold the molding over the window; so we couldn’t finish the headliner.

Mel got the opportunity to check out her hard work. She gave it her approval. It’s coming together nicely. We won’t be long now.

 

4/12/2010 – When I was growing up my Dad used to say that if you couldn’t hit it with a sledge hammer I shouldn’t touch it. I found out that a 1962 Chrysler 300 had left-hand thread studs on one side after he heard the crack of the third one when he told me to put the snow tires on for winter. When he came running out I told him there was something wrong with them because they all were breaking.

Now knowing that I needed to get a pair of 37-year-old body mount bolts out told me to be patient and PB Blaster it for a week before trying to remove it. I sprayed and tapped every day and when I heard the bolt on the passenger-side squeak, I guess I got a little heavy-handed. Yes, it broke! Now if anybody finds a way to take PB Blaster off the market, I’ll sell all my tools. I have spent the last two weeks spraying, tapping, and putting pressure on those two rear mounts and they finally gave way. So if you’re going to do restoration and you don’t want to cut holes in your frame; learn patients.

4/22/2010 – Now projects that take this much time as these are not without setbacks. Like the broken body mount bolt. But other things are just beyond explanation. I was getting ready to glass bead an aluminum intake manifold for my buddy Grizz. I took my sand blasting box out into the driveway and was on my way back into the garage to get the table that I had the bottom section of my dash laying under, (I’ve moved and protected this thing for about a year because it’s quite flimsy when unbolted and out of the car) and didn’t my foot hit the dash and drive it into the leg of a pool table, (a pool table that has been used as parts bench for over a year) and busted it in half!!! I called Red in Wyoming, (I’ve got him on speed dial) and he laughed and said, “No problem, I’ve got several out here.” He calls me back and says the only black one he had broke coming out and would I want a green one. I told him I knew an interior expert (Mel) that could take care of making it black and to go ahead and send it. Red then remembers another car buried in the middle of his property that has a black dash. I told him to be gentle with this one while I said a prayer. Parts for this car are getting hard to come by and as I understand it, the dash is on it’s way to North Carolina.

to be continued…