Beauty is only skin deep



View from the drivers door looking into the front seat



This is where the problem started.  The first thing I did to prepare for the new interior is of course remove the old.  Upon doing so I realized the driveshaft had gone through the floor at least twice.  Then looking further at the inner rocker panels noticed there was quite a bit of rust just below the firewall.

So the idea was to remove the floor and replace it.  The only problem is that the more I uncovered the more I saw that I didn't like and unfortunately the idea of putting it back together incomplete didn't sit well.

After spending some time thinking about the situation I then talked Wendy into restoring the car as a "project" to help give us something to do since we left our house in Geogia which we spent 4 years working on :)

View from the passenger door looking to the rear seat

Once the decision was made I dove in with my Sawzall and cut the floor out from the toe board to the rear floor cross member. 

Passenger rocker panel

After the floor was cut out the next step was to clean up the edges, or so I thought.  I started with a drill and began to drill the first of hundreds of spot welds out.  After drilling I used a chisel and hammer to break th welds.  I spent the first few days using this approach and finally decided it was time to get more power.

Here's the result ... POWER!  I added the compressor and plenty of airtools which have made the job much easier.

The next step was to separate the body from the frame which actually went much faster than I thought.  Since I was going to have to replace most of the bottom of the car I was able to use the airchisel and sawzall to simply cut large sections apart until I had the car separated.  Overall the disassembly took course over 2 weekends.  It's always much eaiser to tear it appart than to put it back together.

Where it all started....

 

1966 Chevelle SS



Here's the 1966 Chevelle SS that I purchased on May 19, 2007.  The car is an original 138 car (SS396, 4spd, 12bolt) that I found just south of Indianapolis, IN.  Wendy and I made the trip to pickup the car on Friday and brought it home to Woodstock, GA the next day. The original intent was to just replace the interior and enjoy the car since most of the work appeared to be completed.

The engine is a 454 4-bolt main with HI-PERF rectangular port heads. It had a roller cam and rockers.  I was told it had less than 1500 miles on the motor since it was rebuilt. The transmission was a automatic TH400 with a 2800 stall and reverse manual valve body.  The rearend is the original 12 bolt with 4.56 posi.  

In June of 2007 I purchased an entire interior kit from Ground-Up restoration in Meriden, CT.

In August of 2007 I drove my truck with the car and new interior up to Connecticut and put it into storage.  I drove the car a couple of times until we finally moved into our house in October.  Then we put it up for the winter.

In the Spring of 2008 is when the work really started....