Just checked smautofabrics.com and they show a photo of my material. It's special order so I sent them a message asking for a price. Never in a million years did I think it was possible to find this material!!!!! Thanks so much for the suggestion. My seats are flawless at this time but it would be nice to have backup material in case wear or dry rot become a problem.
Since my last post we cut both full rear wheel wells out of the parts car. Once they were out and I chipped off all the undercoating I realized they were in much better shape so made the decision to use them. Below are a couple before cleaning and after. They still need a little bit of work but nothing major. We'll fix them before installation. The plan is to drill the spot welds from the underside of the wheel well to remove the old ones and simply reverse and weld the other ones in. It's a shame Blake started to weld patches in the ones on the car but the new plan will be easier to implement and give us a better job when we are finished. Once the repairs are complete I will finish glass blasting them. After installation I will apply 2 coats POR-15. Considering using some sort of rock guard spay on product to deaden the sound and then paint over it with car colour.
It's unfortunate the shield for the gas tank fill tube got butchered but we can use the one from the other car.
Here is a photo of them with the undercoating removed, you can see why I want to use them.
Not sure why the last photo rotated this way when I uploaded it. Tomorrow we begin the wheel well repairs:)
Progress is always slower than you hoped it would be when you care about the outcome. Drilled out the spot welds where the right wheel well was attached to the parts car and removed the the cutoff pieces. Got 2 patches shaped and welded in place on the corners. This one will be finished the next time we are able to get together. I am real pleased with the work he was able to do in this regard. It isn't a series of pieces welded together to patch an area, they are one piece molded patches made with 18 gauge steel.
The outer corner of this patch was left a little long until we get it in the car and line up the trunk pan to know where to cut it. There wasn't enough there in either car to know exactly where to cut this, so we took the safe route.
Before removing any more of the car's structure I wanted to support the back end with something that I could tweak when/if necessary and moved further back when we got this section finished. I'm sure there are better ways but this is what I did. I bought a scissors jack from Princess Auto so I could get the adjustable feature I wanted. I didn't want to use a bottle or floor jack in case there was some fade in the pressure over time. I was building the support out of 4 X 4 and didn't want it slipping off the jack so I took a 3/4" piece of plywood and chewed out a section so it would sit over the jack swivel.
When I moved the support in place I took advantage of the drain holes in the trunk lid hinge bracket, put a washer on a woodscrew and screwed into the top 4 X 4 so the top would move.
Once this was in place I felt safe cutting out the trunk pan and starting the removal of the wheel well.
I knew going into it the next part will be tricky and still working on a solution. The issue is the halves of the wheel well form a ridge on the top where they come together. That ridge is sandwiched between the supports of the rear deck and roof and you can't get at the outside to drill out the spot welds, or weld it in for that matter, with the quarter panel on the car. The 2 photos below are an attempt to show what I'm up against but it's difficult to totally grasp the problem from the photo. If anyone has a solution that worked for them I am all ears.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
Thanks, there is also a single 4 x 4 in the very back between the tail lights but there really isn't much if any weight on it. It's there for my own peace of mind in case something else shifts.
We made some progress yesterday on repairing the right rear wheel well and prepping the body cavity to accept the wheel well. Here are a couple of photos of some of the repair work. The planishing hammer has been a god send. Blake also calls it his eraser because if the doesn't get the shape he wants he is able to flatten the patch and start over without having to recut the patch. Below is the right rear outside corner of the rear wheel well. The photo shows the patch laying next to the area it will be replacing.
Here is the finished product with both sides of the corner repaired
Here is a view from the inside. The 2nd patch weld hasn't been ground out so will be easy to see the patch.
It still needs 3 more patches and then sandblasted and primed before getting installed. We discovered the top centre seam was getting thin on the top side, not the underside, so it is being replaced. I will treat the areas that are not getting welded with POR-15 before it is installed and the will finish the treatment after installation.
At the moment I am thinking I will glass bead the wheel well cavity and POR-15 it before the wheel well is installed. As you know much of that area is bear metal from factory and the rest has some primer on it.
63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Thanks guys for your positive comments. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the metal work Blake is doing. I bought the shaping tools but could never match his gift at using them. It's his first time doing this sort of thing but having the eye to see what needs to be done and then the ability to create it is pretty amazing to watch.
Seeing Blake's avatar photo reminded me to post this photo of the stencil he just had made. The photo is of our first attempt and when removing the stencil some of the orange paint came off the valve cover. The paint was weeks old when we tried the stencil, clearly it hadn't bonded properly to valve cover. First time around, I had just took a wire wheel to clean them up and likely ran them through the parts washer. This time I glass beaded them then scuffed them with a pad and wiped them off with a dry cloth before painting. The valve covers will be given a few weeks for the paint to cure before we try these new improved stencils. We will use AC Delco black engine paint with the stencils. I know some of you use stick on Pontiac logos but there are such vast colour differences in the GM orange engine paint on the market and I didn't want to be struggling with colour matching etc.
Hi Glenn, I'm wondering what you've decided for the let downs from the trunk floor to the 1/4. Mine are weak and I'm looking to do some welding soon. I know that these are a transition piece and by that I mean Chevy to Poncho....Canadian Poncho. Also the years are all different. Are/have you fabbed from scratch? I see you have some nice tools for this. I was thinking about buying two sets ..63 and 64 impala and a set of 63 Catalina ones and marrying them together. This is because all of the chevy ones I see only have two beads rolled into them where mine have three that go up and over onto the horzontal and the Catalina ones for the rear chunk so as to fit at the back end near the tail panel. Any thoughts?
Hi Glenn, I'm wondering what you've decided for the let downs from the trunk floor to the 1/4. Mine are weak and I'm looking to do some welding soon. I know that these are a transition piece and by that I mean Chevy to Poncho....Canadian Poncho. Also the years are all different. Are/have you fabbed from scratch? I see you have some nice tools for this. I was thinking about buying two sets ..63 and 64 impala and a set of 63 Catalina ones and marrying them together. This is because all of the chevy ones I see only have two beads rolled into them where mine have three that go up and over onto the horzontal and the Catalina ones for the rear chunk so as to fit at the back end near the tail panel. Any thoughts?
Hi Otus, I feel your pain on this one. I am still working on a solution. I shopped around and found the same as you regarding the 2 vs 3 beads. I found some on Original Parts Group and at least one other site for a Catalina but they are different as are the Chevy ones. From what I am seeing, so far at least, is that the shape of the top towards the bumper is different, possibly in each year. My parts catalogue doesn't show body parts so I can't be sure of that assumption. Not sure if we are going to end up, as you suggest, marrying different ones to get something to work or if we are going to have to make something. I will certainly post here when I have a solution to share.
Any similarities on these parts between a 62 and 63? Could any of these parts from a 63 fit a 62 or vice versa?
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Any similarities on these parts between a 62 and 63? Could any of these parts from a 63 fit a 62 or vice versa?
I think the top close to the bumper is different for all largely due to the tail light pan being different but again, not 100% positive. I haven't seen one from a 63 to compare. I know 64 is different in that area.
We made progress yesterday and have all the major repairs done to the right rear wheel well. It just needs a couple of little touch ups. We will dry fit it then glass blast it then apply 2 coats of POR-15, except in areas where it will be welded. The inside of the wheel well where it meets the trunk upper pan has a rolled bead. We have never used a bead roller before but the thing worked slick. The bead roller came with a set that turned out to be the exact match to the factory bead, how lucky was that! Here are a couple pics of the work.
