The Kozak’s

Today was the first day in a long time that some progress with the car has taken place.  After sitting at my in-laws for a few months their 2-post lift became available for a major milestone.  The body has been lifted off of the chassis.

All in all it wasn’t too bad of a procedure.  One of the body mounts had a missing bolt, two needed to be cut off (one had a spinning caged nut [driver’s side second from the back] while the other was not budging [pass side third from the back] ), there was a spinning nut on one of the front mounts that we used some plyers on to prevent from spinning, all of the others there was no issue with.

Once we, my father-in-law and I, split the two we pushed the chassis out of the way, all the way to my house, and brought in the body dolly I build last summer.  Here I got really happy as I had built the dolly blind and only with some estimated dimensions… the damned thing actually fit.  The only thing that I didn’t know about were the verticle dimensions to each of the mounts.  I decided to use some 4×4s and to toe them into some 2×4s that I strategically placed on the the existing dolly structure.  Once we got all of that figured out, a couple of hours later, the body is sitting happily and securely on its new temporary home.  Unfortunately I was unable to get some pictures of it on the dolly but I will make sure to get those soon.

Here are some pics of the chassis back at my house and the dolly going back to my in-laws:

Today the Chevelle came back from its maiden voyage to the body shop.  The new quarters, outer wheel houses, and trunk extensions have been replaced.  I’m a little concerned about the end of the drip rail meeting up against the sharper end of the quarter window area.  There seems to be about 3/8″ to 5/16″ of room at that point.  Scott the body assures me that this will be fixed and that there’s still a small piece that still needs to go on that will be replaced once the body goes back to him after getting media blasted.  I will have to keep my faith that he is correct.

While everything was opened up Scott POR-15′ed everything that he could get to that would normally be hidden.  Hopefully this will help with any future rusting in normally unseen areas.

In addition to the new sheetmetal, Scott and his crew found an area in the trunk that needed to be replaced.  It was a small area that they patched with a 4″x4″ piece of sheet metal that they molded to fit.

There is also some more work to be done with the inner wheel wells.  I should have gotten those too so they could be replaced with everything else but I didn’t think they were in that bad of shape… I was wrong.  Luckily the only thing on these that need fixed are the very bottom.  Scott will be making some patches and welding them in for me when it goes back to him.

Here are my pictures when I got it back.  I still have yet to get the pictures that Scott took while it was being worked on.  Once I get them I’ll pre-date a post or add them into this one.

Last night my F-I-L, John C., and I loaded the Chevelle onto the trailer to make its maiden voyage to the body shop.  Today it makes the trip.  This trip is designed to replace the quarter panels, outer wheel houses, and trunk drop offs.

We ended up trading wheels for a thinner set so we didn’t run into the same problem with the ramps that we had when it moved from my house to my in-laws.  This made loading it onto the trailer much easier.  Plus it’ll give me some time to remove the tires and prep the wheels for the media blaster.

Tonight my father-in-law and I stripped the “new” engine down to the long block in preparation for taking it to the engine guy.  Almost everything went as planned until a grade 3 bolt broke when removing the water pump.  Luckily there’s still some threads sticking out of the block.  Hopefully the engine guy can remove it.  I hope to have it back cleaned up and fully functional sometime in June.

Items removed:

• Carb
• Distributor
• Valve Covers
• Accessory Brackets
• Water Pump
• Oil Pressure Sensor Bung
• Oil & Oil Filter
• Gas Pump, Lines, & Filter

In case you forgot what the engine looks like:

If the car is to go to the body guy (Scott) by the end of the month for panel replacement I needed to get on the ball and order some stuff.  Well, this evening I purchased the following items from Groud Up Restorations.  Hopefully they’ll be delivered sometime next week.

L&R Full Factory Quarter Panels 

L&R Outer Wheelhouses 

L&R Trunk Drop-offs/Extensions 

Transmission Tunnel Pan w/o Console for Manual Transmission