'69 Chevelle SS Glue Bomb Rescue

[Snake45]

Another local toy show purchase, cheap. It was complete and the paint looked pretty good so it followed me home.

I couldn't live with the molding lines running across the C-pillars, but my first thought was to give it a vinyl top, then paint the body lowers matt black and foil the chome strips that shouldn't be running down the lower body sides on a '69 SS and do it up as one of the made-from-a-Malibu fake SS396s you'd see running around 20 or 30 years ago.

Then I realized, black is black, it shouldn't be any big deal to iron out those mold marks and repaint and blend it all in. So that's what I did. While I was at it, I sanded the whole top smooth, as it had a lot of dimpled orange peel (much worse than the rest of the car). Whatever this black paint was, it was TOUGH! I did the level-sanding with #400 sandpaper, which is much grittier than I would normally use for color-sanding of this kind.

The touchup paint and blend-in polish worked out pretty well. I removed the decals, as they weren't especially well applied (and having done it, I can tell you they're NOT easy to apply on this kit). The next major problem was the hole in the hood. I didn't object to the dual fours poking through the hood for my planned late '70s street goon, but the O.B had cut the hole for them where the factory put the marks, to match the oddball Crower blower scoop, which was just weird looking. Ordinarily I'd have either found or fabricated some kind of homemade-looking “Grumpy lump” to cover the carbs, but the raised bulges on the Chevelle hood make this very involved—would have taken a LOT more work than I wanted to put into the thing to countour the lower edges of the lump to cleanly fit the hood. So I dug up the Mopar-ish looking scoop from an original annual '69 Chevelle kit—the very one I'd built about 50 years ago! It was already contoured to drop right on. I thinned the forward edges a little, then squirted it black. Not necessarily my favorite arrangement, but it's okay, and better yet, it's DONE!

O.B. had left the interior in gray plastic. I kinda liked the look but it's a factory interior (except for the seats) and gray wasn't a factory color, so I shot the sidewalls and back seat in Walmart white primer and then some kind of Krylon satin off-white. The dash, floors and package tray got squirted black. It came with custom, not-stock bucket seats. I thought those would probably look better in black “vinyl” so they got squirted in Krylon satin black too.

O.B. had painted the windows solid black. I stripped them with Easy-Off and polished them clear again.

The taillights in the reissues of this kit are notoriously horrible. I filled in the lenses with Elmer's Sandable Wood Glue, about six thin applications, and when they were flush with the surrounding chrome trim, I painted them Stop Light Red metallic. Not a perfect solution but they now look 100% better than the kit parts. I didn't bother to paint the white backup light lenses, though I could have.

I re-used the wheels and tires it came with. Yah, slicks on factory SS wheels (Magnum 500s) are a bit strange, but oddly enough, that's exactly the way I built my first copy of this kit back in 1969. Finished up with silver Sharpie on the window frames and trim, and detail-painted the grille. I ended up just leaving the incorrect lower body moldings painted black. They're not all that noticeable, and I might someday go back to my idea of chroming them, painting flat black below, and making the model a fake SS cloned from a common malibu.

So, another toy show glue bomb rescue DONE with just a few hours work and virtually no expense at all. Yup, it looks very much like something I'd have been proud to put on my shelf back in 1968 or 1969. In fact, it looks kinda similar to one that I actually did! As always, comments welcome.

[hvymtl]

nice looking  rebuild 

Michael

[Koellefornia Kid]

It was worth the rescue, Snake. Looks good!

[Dragonhawk1066]

Great save! That's a well done rescue job!

 

[donb]

Great looking car Snake. Well done. 

[Deuces]

☺️?

[1972coronet]

Looks GREAT , Snake ! Nice save on that A-bod ! 

[Brutalform]

Looks fantastic. Those tail lights are a BIG improvement over the kit supplied lights. You don’t see many of these Chevelles turn out as nice as yours did. Nice work.

[1930fordpickup]

That turned out Nice. 

[mustang1989]

There's something to be said for the amount of work that it takes to take a kit apart, repair it, upgrade it and make it look like this one does. Some truly good work that I know took some time. Very nice build Rich.

[Hmann68]

Sweet!!!

[Tom Geiger]

Nice save on an old relic that's been waiting 50 years for your touch!

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, Tom Geiger said:

Nice save on an old relic that's been waiting 50 years for your touch!

Thanks, but I don't think it's been waiting that long. Looks like a '90s or 2000s reissue (molded in gray, and had the SS stripe decal). But here's the one I really DID build 50 years ago, and restored in 2014--a true restoration, just cleaned it up and touched up and repaired a few minor things, the paint goes back to 1968 or '69. Notice that I too put the big slicks on the stock SS (Magnum 500 wheels), so didn't feel too bad about leaving that combo on this "rescue."  This one, of course, has the original, GOOD taillights...and its hood scoop ended up on the Rescue. 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Snake45

[ewetwo]

Both look great Snake.

[Tom Geiger]

19 hours ago, Snake45 said:

Thanks, but I don't think it's been waiting that long. Looks like a '90s or 2000s reissue (molded in gray, and had the SS stripe decal). 

I pulled a '58 Chevy olde kustom onto my bench.  It's mint and white, using the kit custom parts.  It even has thread engine wires.  Then I discover the wheels / tires are modern recent.  And although the car looks nice from a few feet away, the builder didn't clean up any mold lines and violently twisted parts off the trees leaving sprue sprouts!  Argh!

FIrestone Deluxe Champions, and note the ribbed white wall inserts.  Any idea which kits these came in?  I need one tire and three of the white inserts as two of mine are cracked.

 

 

[Snake45]

On 11/22/2018 at 8:32 AM, Tom Geiger said:

I pulled a '58 Chevy olde kustom onto my bench.  It's mint and white, using the kit custom parts.  It even has thread engine wires.  Then I discover the wheels / tires are modern recent.  And although the car looks nice from a few feet away, the builder didn't clean up any mold lines and violently twisted parts off the trees leaving sprue sprouts!  Argh!

FIrestone Deluxe Champions, and note the ribbed white wall inserts.  Any idea which kits these came in?  I need one tire and three of the white inserts as two of mine are cracked.

Sorry, I can't help you. Maybe posting this down in the Wanted section would turn up what you need. 

[larry ray]

62 Pontiac Catalina custom #31520  AMT Proably one of many  .

 

 

 

 

[OldTrucker]

On 11/22/2018 at 7:32 AM, Tom Geiger said:

I pulled a '58 Chevy olde kustom onto my bench.  It's mint and white, using the kit custom parts.  It even has thread engine wires.  Then I discover the wheels / tires are modern recent.  And although the car looks nice from a few feet away, the builder didn't clean up any mold lines and violently twisted parts off the trees leaving sprue sprouts!  Argh!

FIrestone Deluxe Champions, and note the ribbed white wall inserts.  Any idea which kits these came in?  I need one tire and three of the white inserts as two of mine are cracked.

 

 

I painted them rubber and scrapped off the black on the ridges to make the double stripe whitewalls!

Edited November 24, 2018 by OldTrucker

[Snake45]

Sorry, I don't think they'd be an improvement on my '69 Chevelle. 

[Cpt Tuttle]

Nice builds, both the resto and the survivor.