68/70Vette
Well-known member
I painted it myself in the early 1980's in lacquer. Storage damage incidents and aging meant it needed to be repainted.
I drove the car to a local Corvette body shop with a good reputation. Actually I've used them in the past for parts, mechanical repair and everything was very reasonable. For the 68 Convertible, their basic repaint cost was about $10,500. A little sticker shock here, but I agreed. What do you get for the $10,500? First of all they de-chrome the car...all the chrome pieces are removed including the door lock surfaces on the door, door handles, etc. The only thing they don't remove is the stainless steel trim around the window. Also, they removed the convertible top. Next they removed all the paint/primer down to bare fiberglass. For the relatively large flat expanses of the body surface, the used pneumatic orbital sanders. For the nooks and crannies it was all hand sanding. Included in the $10,500 is labor and material to grind out and re-seal the original body panels seams For example, the front "clip" ...the body work in front of the doors is comprised of about 6 or 7 panels bonded together. Similarly several panels behind the doors. They grind out the seams and re-epoxy them. Next, for the $10,500, they use say...a Windex spray bottle filled with alcohol. Now they are looking for micro-cracks in the fiberglass surface. The entire surface gets spritzed with alcohol about 1 foot in diameter. The wet surface on the car now looks a dark grey. A towel is rubbed across the surface, and the surface alcohol soon evaporates.....but the wet alcohol in the micro-cracks is still observable. Areas on the surface where the micro-cracks are highlighted with a black felt pen. Of the $10,500, the cost of repainting itself is about $3600...Forget exactly the brake down, but I think it's about $1600 for paint and materials and about $2000 for labor. They do fine sand the final paint surfaces.
Also, as a part of this very intrusive examination of the 68 surfaces it was pointed out that the hood didn't match all that correctly. This was the result of a front end collision repair in the late 60's. Also, the doors did not match exactly with the rear quarter panels and the convertible lid.......this was a production fault ...not accident repair. The door skins did not exactly match up with the front clip either.
I agreed for the extra body work. For the front hood alignment problem, they broke the inner front wheel wells free from the front clip and also broke the front clip loose in the front. They shifted all the pieces around, added some fiberglass/resin were needed and ground down the fiber/glass resin.
Adding fiberglass/resin and shaping..the rear of the doors, the rear quarter panels, and the convertible lid now all match perfectly. The door skins now match up with the front clip. This makes up for factory miss-matches.
About those micro-cracks. They grind down the area where the cracks are and splot the area with a fiberglass/resin patch. Later they grind it back to the original surface contours...some artistry is involved here.
In addition to micro-cracks, there's a WD-40 problem! To protect all the chrome pieces I kept them covered in WD-40. Every few months I'd clean off the WD-40...it'd attract dust...and re-apply the stuff. I'd just spray it on the chrome and wasn't concerned about overspray on the painted surfaces. Unfortunately the paint had cracks in it I couldn't see, and WD-40 has in places soaked into the fiberglass. The areas of soaked fiberglass aren't to large, so they too have been ground out and covered with a larger fiberglass/resin patch that will have to be ground down...From now on I'll use a wax to protect the chrome. I have 69 factory sidepipe housings and I don't want them to corrode ($2500 replacement cost.)
There's just a tremendous amount of hand work involved...a lot of it is probably tedious. So far they are doing a good job....the weeks roll by, but i don't drive the car that much anyhow.
I never realized that painting a 46 year old fiberglass car would involve the expenses of repairing fiberglass aging.
I'll keep everyone posted as we finally finish up with paint. Here in Cali it's water based paint which is what a lot of original car manufacturers use anyhow. Light Bright metallic blue...aka Le Mans Blue.
I drove the car to a local Corvette body shop with a good reputation. Actually I've used them in the past for parts, mechanical repair and everything was very reasonable. For the 68 Convertible, their basic repaint cost was about $10,500. A little sticker shock here, but I agreed. What do you get for the $10,500? First of all they de-chrome the car...all the chrome pieces are removed including the door lock surfaces on the door, door handles, etc. The only thing they don't remove is the stainless steel trim around the window. Also, they removed the convertible top. Next they removed all the paint/primer down to bare fiberglass. For the relatively large flat expanses of the body surface, the used pneumatic orbital sanders. For the nooks and crannies it was all hand sanding. Included in the $10,500 is labor and material to grind out and re-seal the original body panels seams For example, the front "clip" ...the body work in front of the doors is comprised of about 6 or 7 panels bonded together. Similarly several panels behind the doors. They grind out the seams and re-epoxy them. Next, for the $10,500, they use say...a Windex spray bottle filled with alcohol. Now they are looking for micro-cracks in the fiberglass surface. The entire surface gets spritzed with alcohol about 1 foot in diameter. The wet surface on the car now looks a dark grey. A towel is rubbed across the surface, and the surface alcohol soon evaporates.....but the wet alcohol in the micro-cracks is still observable. Areas on the surface where the micro-cracks are highlighted with a black felt pen. Of the $10,500, the cost of repainting itself is about $3600...Forget exactly the brake down, but I think it's about $1600 for paint and materials and about $2000 for labor. They do fine sand the final paint surfaces.
Also, as a part of this very intrusive examination of the 68 surfaces it was pointed out that the hood didn't match all that correctly. This was the result of a front end collision repair in the late 60's. Also, the doors did not match exactly with the rear quarter panels and the convertible lid.......this was a production fault ...not accident repair. The door skins did not exactly match up with the front clip either.
I agreed for the extra body work. For the front hood alignment problem, they broke the inner front wheel wells free from the front clip and also broke the front clip loose in the front. They shifted all the pieces around, added some fiberglass/resin were needed and ground down the fiber/glass resin.
Adding fiberglass/resin and shaping..the rear of the doors, the rear quarter panels, and the convertible lid now all match perfectly. The door skins now match up with the front clip. This makes up for factory miss-matches.
About those micro-cracks. They grind down the area where the cracks are and splot the area with a fiberglass/resin patch. Later they grind it back to the original surface contours...some artistry is involved here.
In addition to micro-cracks, there's a WD-40 problem! To protect all the chrome pieces I kept them covered in WD-40. Every few months I'd clean off the WD-40...it'd attract dust...and re-apply the stuff. I'd just spray it on the chrome and wasn't concerned about overspray on the painted surfaces. Unfortunately the paint had cracks in it I couldn't see, and WD-40 has in places soaked into the fiberglass. The areas of soaked fiberglass aren't to large, so they too have been ground out and covered with a larger fiberglass/resin patch that will have to be ground down...From now on I'll use a wax to protect the chrome. I have 69 factory sidepipe housings and I don't want them to corrode ($2500 replacement cost.)
There's just a tremendous amount of hand work involved...a lot of it is probably tedious. So far they are doing a good job....the weeks roll by, but i don't drive the car that much anyhow.
I never realized that painting a 46 year old fiberglass car would involve the expenses of repairing fiberglass aging.
I'll keep everyone posted as we finally finish up with paint. Here in Cali it's water based paint which is what a lot of original car manufacturers use anyhow. Light Bright metallic blue...aka Le Mans Blue.
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