My Baby is at Custom Image Corvettes

Curby

Active member
Joined
Apr 9, 2008
Messages
34
Location
Deatsville, AL
Some of you are familiar with my 72 Vette, Michele. I have had her for a few years now and had decades of fun. She came to me with a piss poor paint job and running like crap. When I got her, she had a GM ZZ454 engine in her with an M22 4-speed. She had been used, abused, and put away wet. She was on her 3rd color and I found 8 layers of paint on her. I didn't have a lot of money to put in her all at once, so I did a little bit at a time.

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I painted the hood, buffed out the rest of her as best I could, and drover her for a while. My first mod was when I swapped out the M22 for a Tremec TKO-600 for better highway cruising. I had idle and starting issues, so the next mod was to get rid of the Holley 850 and added EZ-EFI. I had to swap out the oil pan, becasue the GM pan hung below the frame. I knocked a hole in it on the 2009 Hot Rod Power Tour. Next I had Gary Ramadei build me a super 10 differential after I twisted an axle at the drag strip.

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She has done the last two Hot Rod Power Tours completely and part of 2009. She has been on Talladega Super Speedway, Indianapolis Super Speedway, and a half dozen drag strips throughout the southeast. I drove her to the 09 Caravan. I take her on all the club cruises. I drive her anywhere, and everywhere. I even made the October, 2010 Hot Rod Magazine.

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After my "temporary" paint job this last spring was such a hit, I have decided to expound on the theme and go "All In".

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I had a blast driving her with the satin road race paint job on the Hot Rod Power Tour. Everywhere I went, people responded positively to the look. All my friends loved it because if the authorities were to pick one of us to use as an example, it would be the one that is painted like a race car.

With the 2011 Power Tour looming, and all my spare time being consumed by the Talladega Vettes4Vets event, time was running out and I had to cut a lot of corners during the re-paint. What suffered was the prep work, the finish sanding, and the actual painting of the car. It was so bad, I decided not to clear coat the paint. It would have made it that much aharder to strip and re-do. Ironically, that is what made the car so popular.

All of this happened within 3 days...
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It seems that satin paint was "In" with the power tour this year. Hot Rod magazine are using my car as the banner page for the Cocoa Beach photo albumn, which is cool. They also showed it twice during the "Hot Rod TV" coverage of the power tour, which is also cool.

It drew a lot of attention with the fans as well. One of my running mates said it was quite possibly the most photographed non-professional built car on the tour. Considering that it went from raw fiberglass to paint in the final 3 days before we left for Cocoa Beach, I really couldn't complain about the few issues. We were bolting in the seat 30 minutes before I hit the road.

In addition to the re-paint, over the winter I had completely rebuilt the front suspension, the rear suspension, and did some modifications to the cooling system. Gary Ramadei built me some monster trailing arms to go with my Super 10 differential. I replaced all the rubber brake lines ans some of the steel one that needed it and re-painted the claipers i had replaced the previous ydear.

This year's Hot Rod Power Tour was truely a 4,000 mile road test.

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Outside of Florida on my way to Georgia, I lost the bolts that hold the differential to the front mounting plate. That downshift in traffic was a real eye opener. It sounded like the driveshaft was coming through my seat! A couple starter bolts from the local parts store, and we were back on the road in a few hours. (All part of the Power Tour experience in an old car.) There should have been kotter pins in those bolts, but I mus have had a brain fart on re-assembly.

The plan was to do a re-paint when I got back home after the 2011 cruise season. I was going to go back to a metallic Black Baldwin-Motion stripe over a Crystal Red Metallic base coat.

The response was so positive on the road race paint theme and I had such a blast driving around in a car with a number on the door (I now know know how Bo & Luke Duke felt), I decided to keep the road race theme, but really do it right with flares, wheels and a cage. My next step was to give Josh a call.

Since we had worked together on a few things, and Kaos had just left his shop on the way to Rob, I knew he was in a position to take on another project. We started talking aobut my baby and my plans. We worked out the details and in a couple weeks, I was trailiering her up there. I picked up another project car for him in St Louis along the way. Here is a shot of me on the road. I stopped for breakfast and to check the straps and shot a couple pictures.

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We went over the car, I showed him the pictures of my re-paint and we came up with a game plan.

The first step was to get the right offset and width of the tires so the flares would look right. I gave Vintage Wheel Works a call and ordered new wheels and got my tires from Discount Tire.

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The plan is to fix a few bad spots, correct the body lines that I abused in my last re-paint, put on the KAOS flares, but with the 72 side marker lights and egg crate openings and shoot some color on her.

Here are the progress shots so far. The plan is to get her in primer and ready for paint by January 15th.

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Nice, really nice.
I like those wheels, looks great with the flares.

I hope to see more of this car.

For sure, and here I thought I was over doing it with paint, and I wanted that satin look, yours is far better....

:goodevil:;):bounce:
 
Josh sent me some more pictures last night.

While working on my valence panel, it literally fell apart. I know it was in bad shape. I had to add a bunch of Duraglass when I was wokring on it last year to fill in missing chunks, and it was cracked in a few places. Then, when loading it on the trailer, I smacked the front spoiler. It broke in 4 pieces and cracked the valence prety good. I figured it was a gonner, but I knew Josh and his dad were gonna take care of me.

I ordered a new valence panel from ACI, and it shipped a few days.

In these pictures, the front valence is not on the car yet, but it looks like the body work is 90% done.

Nice wheel fitment, don't you think?
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This is my favorite angle. And what most people at the drag strip will see right out of the box!
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The wheel arc body line is exactly what I wanted. Compare this ot the previous pictures with the KAOS body line. These are truely custom and unique to my baby.
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Josh had to do a little more work on the front fenders, but the lines are looking great. I might raise the car up 1/4" from here to get some more gap above the tire.
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I have 3 different front spoilers for Josh to try. The first one I broke into pieces, which I like, but probably won't use. This is the one in the 2011 Hot Rod Power Tour pictures. Then I have one like the one Stan molded into his cars. I like it , but it has to be removable. I have spoiler issues and need it to be removable, or "break-away" as I call it. The third is the FGregg or FIA style that you see on most retro race cars. I like it best, but you have to cut the factory valence to fit it on the car, which means no more factory spoilers without some modifications. Josh is working on a solution.
 
More progress

The fenders are done, after many many hours of blocking and sanding, guidecoat, primer, and filler.

Here are some more shots of the work Josh did to the fenders. He took the fender molds he had and refined the wheel openings a bit for me.

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Many more hours were spent fixing the Ecklers rear valence filler panel. When I took it out of the box, there was a little shipping damage that had to be repaired. Then when I went to put it on the car, it did not fit at all. I had to cut the panel in 3 places just to get the sides to bolt in place and the license plate frame to even get close to fit. I used duraglass and body filler to make it presentable last year. Josh had it soda blasted and then re-glassed the part. Now it is a solid piece. It took a lot of hours to get it to this stage you see here.

Why didn't I jsut have him glass it to the car? It would have been easier and cheaper, but I may switch from the side pipes to a rear-exit exhaust sometime in the future, and need the rear panel removable.

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The front of the car has been through some rough times in the past 40 years. The bumper fit poorly at best when I got the car. You can see in the first pictures of the car that the bumper fit poorly. Last year I spent a few days adding fiberglass, duraglass, and body filler to get the gap between the bumper and the body less than 3/4" in one area and greater than 1/32" in others. I got it close, but not perfect. It looks much better in theose pictures.

When I took it to Josh, this was one of the areas I wanted him to spend a few extra hours getting to look good. While I was up there in the shop, we fitted the chrome bumper to the car.

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We then did a few slight modifications to get it straighter. The bumper had to be tweaked a bit with a rubber hammer and clamps. This got the chrome straighter and made it easier to tell how much glass work needed to be done.

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He worked the body to make the gap even. Here you can see the sharp edge and point where the body will fit to the bumper like a glove. Much better than the original body fit the bumper. It's little things like this that really stand out on a car.

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Yesterday, they did a lot of blocking and put on the final coat of primer.

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Here is the car in primer.

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Here are some shots of the flares finished. The body lines are spectacular.

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Beautiful in white

Man, I love the C3 in white!

Here are the latest pictures from Josh.

Rear valence fits like a glove (NOT OJ's glove!).
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I love this angle.
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Two more weeks and I am going to go see her in person.
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I know this is an old thread BUT. They now have flairs for 73-76

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I was informed that I could Not post this on another ummmmmmmm Forum.

ODD, they say why??? the PPG sign???

:hissyfit::censored:



They reason was as I am sure you guessed is that they are Not a Vendor there so I can not mention them. That is the Company that makes the flairs. That is why they Closed the same thread as the one I am posting in now here. First they said it was 8 months old then in pm the real reason came out. :hissyfit:
 
Beautiful.

A little more info on those wheels?
Backspace, rim widths, wheel diameters? Tires?
...........................

Everytime I see pictures like this, I'm tempted to just retire and spend wonderful days on end finishing up my 70 Corvette project.....opps!..Snap back to reality, if I retire, I won't have the money.

So far, I have a TKO600 on the 70 and a super 10 bolt using Tom's stuff on the rear end. A Keith Black BB with Brodix heads. The BB still needs pistons and conrods, cam. I've already purchased an all new interior. Hydrobeast, all new wiring, Classic air. But my estimate to complete still runs at about $20,000 minimum.
 
Josh seems to do some real nice work. I've spoken to him a few times about LSx swaps over the phone and he's a pretty cool dude. I am temped to send mine out to him for the paint and bodywork. It would be cheaper, even with shipping, to send it to him, than to have it done local.
 
Josh seems to do some real nice work. I've spoken to him a few times about LSx swaps over the phone and he's a pretty cool dude. I am temped to send mine out to him for the paint and bodywork. It would be cheaper, even with shipping, to send it to him, than to have it done local.

I stopped in at Josh's shop last summer and visited with him for a while. He's a down to earth sharp guy and does nice work. His shop is in the town I grew up in, and Curby's avatar picture was taken across the street from where my dad worked.
 
My baby is there too.
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I will be up there in about a week to work on her.
Yea, Josh is great to work with. He has turned out some really nice cars, I would really recommend him if you want to do body mods or are doing an LS swap.
 
I was in Watertown the other week visiting old school chums. I didn't have the opportunity to stop in at Josh's shop this time, but it's my understanding that he's moved "next door" into a bigger facility. It sounds like things are going well for him.
 
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