'69 Pro-Touring Vette-Motor is taking shape (7-1-07)

[LOBBS]

A couple of years in the making, I decided to jump over to this project after I found the body in the dehydrator when I put the Silverado in to cure. I opened up the front grilles for fine wire mesh, removed the scripts, and added the L88 hood and fender flares from the S&S Vette. Paint is Tamiya Gunmetal, 3 mist coats so far, it'll get a couple more wet coats after I get a few boogers out. Still to come a black Baldwin-Motion style stripe and red hashes on the driver's side front fender.

More to come, thanks for looking.

[ismaelg]

Cool! Looking forward to see it done!

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

'bout darn time!!!

This is gonna be one awesome Vette. Can we expect to see it on a table @ Heartland? At least the Project Table!!!

[Randy Kern]

That looks good with those flares. The paint is pretty cool, too. Is that the Tamiya light gunmetal (TS-42) or the darker shade? I'm planning on using the light gunmetal with either a candy orange or mica red two-tone on a Dodge Magnum, and that shade would be perfect.

[LOBBS]

Can we expect to see it on a table @ Heartland? At least the Project Table!!!

On the project table for sure, may be finished by June but that will depend on the length of my honey-do list between now and then.

[LOBBS]

Is that the Tamiya light gunmetal (TS-42) or the darker shade?

The regular shade, TS-38 I believe.

[bsoder]

So it was in the dehydrater for a coupla years :shock: ..well it oughta be dry by now ...B

[Tonioseven]

That's gonna be cool!! 8)

[RJWood]

As a huge fan of the Corvette (especially racing versions) I will be watching this one. Your start to this one is Top Notch. cant wait to see more inprogress pics. SO PLEASE MORE PICS.

RJW.

[LOBBS]

I have a sickness for Vettes with red interiors. I can only remember one Vette that I built as a kid that had any other color. Anyways, here's a teaser pic of the seats, the rest of the pieces are drying so I can mask off and detail paint and dull coat tomorrow. Color is Tamiya Italian Red over Duplicolor gray filler primer on Revell '02 Camaro seats.

More pics to come and thanks for looking

[sno_man80]

That is a great color, almost looks like a iredesant metalic. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

[RJWood]

That gunmetal body with the red seats/interior will be great. cant wait for more pics. Ron 8)

[LOBBS]

I had originally planned on a Baldwin-Motion style stripe but after getting it taped off I changed my mind and went with the same type as my Z06. Unfortunately, I've got to sand out and re-shoot the red hashes in the morning. I got a big ole finger print in them while I was unmasking her. A piece of tape got hung up on my thumb and rather than drop the whole thing I got a hold of her by the front wheel wells while the red was still a bit soft.

My Z06 before it had an unfortunate run in with a kiddo or cat (I can't remember now but the paint was horribly scratched up).

These two Vettes are my "lottery" cars, the two gotta haves if I ever hit the big one. The '69 of course is Tamiya gunmetal with Tamiya black stripe and wheels. The Z06 when I get back to it will be Tamiya black with a gunmetal stripe and wheels.

More pics to come and thanks for looking.

[ismaelg]

Looking good! I love the hash marks.

I was wondering what happened to the black Z06 with the gunmetal stripe.

[Zoom Zoom]

I'm digging this car in the new paint scheme 8)

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

I'm digging this car in the new paint scheme 8)

Me too!!! I look forward to seeing it at the Heartland Nationals in June.

[Guest zebm1]

Silver is such a pain in tha @$$ to work with, dusties stick out like BIG thumbs.....just re-sanded my Mecedes RW 196 for tha 3rd time! :evil:

Nice job on yurs, does leaving it in tha dehydrator that long get rid of tha dusties?

zeb

[LOBBS]

Nice job on yurs, does leaving it in tha dehydrator that long get rid of tha dusties?

It probably does in the first couple of hours as it helps the paint flash a lot quicker. The Vette was in the dehydrator for months only 'cause life got too busy for me to get back to it any sooner.

In addition, I run my downdraft paint booth out the window of my hobby room pretty much 24/7. This keeps the room under a constant vacuum which, I believe, helps prevent dust from settling as badly and also from dust being stirred up by the vacuum created everytime the booth is turned on.

My wife goes through a lot of Shout laundry stain remover spray with our three kids' clothes. Everytime she kills a bottle, I grab it, fill it with water and use it to spray the inside of my booth and the stage. I wet down the booth between coats of paint and the Shout seems to help thicken up the water and keep the booth a little wetter longer.

If I get a booger in my paint jobs it's usually my own impatience. I usually leave the room for about 5-10 minutes between coats so that I don't stir up dust or have lint or dust come off my clothes and into the wet paint.

[LOBBS]

I had some fun after work with the Bridgeport and made a little fixture for bending up a full cage for the Vette. It really all started because I didn't feel like modifying the hoop from the S&S kit so I could have a place to mount the 5-points. The bars from the S&S kit are fine for a period-era roadster but that's not what I'm building. I didn't want to waste alot of time and styrene trying to get everything even so I started measuring and drawing on Xara and remeasuring and drawing. Finally, I got a hole pattern with every bend I'll need and hopefully it'll produce a cage that'll fit very snugly in the interior and wouldn't interfere with functionality if it were a 1:1.

Here on the fixture is the main hoop cooling off. I ran the rod through the pins, put tension of it, then heated the whole fixture up to around 170 degrees to relax the plastic. The pins headed the opposite way are for the roof hoop.

More pics to come and thanks for looking.

[ismaelg]

I LOVE your scientific approach. I beats by a mile the classic trial and error (and waste and frustration) method

Have you considered using brass for the cage?

Thanks,

[LOBBS]

I've been a quality inspector for most of my adult life, currently for a tool and die shop. I'm infinitely more comfortable measuring and doing the math than eyeballing and experimenting. I have a really hard time accepting "close enough," especially with the tools I have at my disposal.

Someday, I'll experiment with working with brass. I've been so amped that I'm finally making some progress on this car after four years that I've just been going with the flow using styrene.

[Reliable Resin]

Love the "SHARK" Vettes

Here's a lil' something we did here

Like the 3rd Hash Mark

Nice Touch

[LOBBS]

I seriously needed a break from my interior frustrations so I knocked out this little mini project. This is where I break from reality with this project. In all honesty, I wouldn't go bigger than 18" on a car like this but the design of the wheels (the ability to widen them easily) dictated that I use the 20+" from the California Wheels series. Here, I've added about 3 scale inches to the back wheels to fill out the flares by taking a spare set of inner halves and shaving .080" off of them. They now tuck in nicely to the original (spokes) halves while keeping the same backspacing. These are on the way to the purple pond as they'll be polished aluminum with black spokes the next time you see them. I've special ordered some Loctite "Black Max" superglue through a local auto parts store and when it comes in I'll start working on widening the tires also.

Thanks for looking.

[LOBBS]

Finally, I got some quality time on the bench to get some assembly going on the motor. I decided to go with an all-aluminum BBC ala the ZL1 and the T56 tranny from the '02 Revell Camaro. To get some tonal variations, I shot the various pieces with Tamiya flat white, flat black, light and dark gunmetals followed by Alclad aluminum. I've got the EFI fuel rails on and started on the MAS serpentine pulleys. I've still got to work out the brackets for the alternator, power steering pump, A/C compressor and idler pulleys. The manifold is a Best Resin piece that most closely resembles a Kinsler split-port IR manifold. Hopefully, I'll get the HEI distributor from Arrowhead, the throttle linkages and some detail painting done tomorrow.

Thanks for taking a look.

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

Nice!!!

Where did those valve covers come from?