1969 Chevrolet Chevelle

[Fabrux]

This is my attempt to build a decent '69 Chevelle using '69 4-4-2 chassis pan and suspension. Engine is the 427 from the Revell COPO Nova. When I showed this to my fiancee I told her it doesn't look like much but there's already about 10 hours of work into this to get the hood to fit right as well as the firewall, cowl, radiator and core support. Also, I'm not sure whether to make this a full sleeper with a front bench and remove all the SS badges or go with the console and buckets.

[montelsc]

Like the wheels is it going to be a stock malibu? havent seen one of those in a while

[Art Laski]

Chris,

Good start. I'm planning to do a 69 Chevelle stock car someday, so I'll keep an eye on this one. Are you starting with the AMT kit?

-Art

[Guest]

Looks like you have a good start on it. Like you, I spend the majority of my time on the body and it's always time well spent no matter how long it takes. If it were mine, I would build a nice SS out of it.

[Fabrux]

The body is the AMT annual kit, the most recent re-issue, I think (Resto Rods). I'm not sure what the wheels belong to, but I found them in an AMT 66 Nova kit I picked up that had already been started.

[LAone]

looks like you got a good start on it. wow, 10 hours..that hood must've been stubburn. looks good though. i think the interior looks best wiht the console set up.

[diymirage]

front bench...definatly

id drop a front bench in my 1:1 08 charger if i could

im building one of these (the older revell 3'n'1) and im using front seats rahter then a bench because its all i have

here is my body (as inspiration, not as a threadjack)

with less then 10 hours on the ENTIRE build so for

[wraith]

Looks good!

Not much of a Chevy fan, (GO MOPAR) but I have always liked the 69 Chevelle. This is a kit I need to put in my stash. I built 3 as a kid and sadly they are long gone.

I have aton of man-hours in a 78 Lil Red express I am turing into a Power wagon. scale 8" lift on 37's with lots of scratch building a modifing of parts. I say this because whenever I show my wife it she laughs at me, says "OK" and makes a lil fun of me for playing with my cars! lol! So i can imagine your fiancee's recation when you told her!

Keep up the good work!

[Fabrux]

Yes, Steve, I remember you complaining about inner fender covers... I'll get at that next.

The trouble with the hood was filling in that darned gap. I had to glue on strips to each side and then carefully sand them to the contour of the hood. Then, of course, the hood opening wasn't perfectly square, so more sanding on the hood and the opening was needed to get it to fit just right. And then, of course, I had to sand away some material at the cowl to get everything to fit. I ended up having to unfortunately cut the windshield wipers off the cowl as there was no way it was all going to fit. Also, the cowl is attached to the firewall as there was nowhere else to attach it and there ended up being a weird sandwich between the wipers, windshield, interior tub, firewall and chassis that just wouldn't work for assembly.

The chassis fits surprisingly well. I may end up having to trim some of the area behind the wheels as it sits a little bit below the body line.

The extra bench seat is from an older build I had. I keep referencing the older kit to get the ride height right (not sure if the car OOB sits correctly, though).

Edited February 16, 2012 by kataranga