Garnet Red 69 Chevelle L78 left out to pasture

[sixt9rsx33]

I have decided to share the rebuild of this car.

First a little back story. I decided to buy this car as a beater to have at my lake house. When I got the car home it was rough. Like most of ya'll I like original paint cars so this was the other end of the spectrum for me. Rust, bondo wrong body panels, wrong tranny, front end hit and wrong rear end. But the original engine, a few misc. engine parts, mostly original interior, original glass, and the build sheet was with the car (big deal...that does not outweigh this frankenstein:frown:). I did a little research found the second owner of the car who at the time was living in St. Pete Fl. He told me he bought the car from the original owner one town over who drag raced the car. The second owner used the car as a daily for his job at Logan Airport as an employee for Pan Am airlines. (Vintage Pan Am stickers still on the rear bumper). He owned the car from 1972 - 2016. I am the third registered owner. (The car went through a few flippers who apparently never knew it was an L78). He took the 4 speed out, and put in an automatic, removed the KK rear end, and installed the 67 3.31. He told me he and his wife use to drive the car up to Montreal. That explains the 148,000 miles or 248,000 miles on the odometer!! He also crashed the car and went to a buddies house who had a 68 front clip which they installed. The story gets better, the car sat outside during the '78 Boston Blizzard he was so proud to tell me and during the Blizzard a tree fell on the passenger door. (Man what have I got myself into!!!:ooo:) So I made the car safe, rebuilt the original engine, suspension, brakes etc and enjoyed the car. The car ran awesome with a 67 3.31 rear end, M20 and the fresh L78. I put cut outs on it, headers, bought vintage Ansen slots and terrorized my neighborhood as a 55 year old kid. I enjoyed the car this way but could not stand it any longer. So September 2020 the tear down began at my shop. What I found were no big surprises. Bubba had not been in the wiring, dash, gauges, interior. He had spent all of his time on the body! :no: I stripped the car and took it over to an ole timer body guy about an hour from my lake house. We discovered original rotted out quarters, full floor and trunk pan and trunk extensions that were shot. Laughable fenders, small block 68 radiator support, but original hood, trunk lid, roof:thumbsdown:.
After the body work I took the car to the painter who did my 67 L79 Vette, and 69 Z28 RS. The car sat there for months waiting for him, and things changed for him and he could not do it. So I sourced another painter and he basically kept putting me off. So I finally found a painter and the car is now in paint. Soon the re-assembly will begin.
Big Shout out to Dan Vasic who has been coaching me through this process. I will try my best to re-assemble the car as close to OEM as possible. I sourced a very nice correctly dated KK rear end, and had an M21 built. We will see!!
The body guy did me a big favor and took my original steering box that he was supposed to rebuild to NPD and traded it for a "nice" rebuilt one. He did this because after he opened the box up it was full of rust as he said. So if anyone has a manual box for a May 69 car let me know. I have posted this up in the parts wanted section of the site.

[sixt9rsx33]

Pictures from the Second Owner.....

[napa68]

Awesome!

[sixt9rsx33]

Some tell tale signs

[sixt9rsx33]

Southpark (Charlotte) terrorizer.

[sixt9rsx33]

Few more pics

[sixt9rsx33]

Thank goodness for AMD!! And Craigslist for OEM fenders!

[sixt9rsx33]

Making progress...

[sixt9rsx33]

Oops something went wrong...no pics...try again.

[sixt9rsx33]

In color…prior to wet sanding and buffing.

[sixt9rsx33]

Better sized pics

[sixt9rsx33]

Sorry for the sideways pics. How can I turn them?

[GM Powertrain]

Very cool car and story. Thanks for sharing.

[L78M22Rag]

Nice progress!

[Ralph Spears]

Where did it sell from new i am in the Boston area

[sixt9rsx33]

Here you go

[sixt9rsx33]

This came out of the back seat

[dykstra]

Way cool! Thanks for showing the progress.

[cook_dw]

Great looking car. My uncle bought one new (Garnet Red L78 but with vinyl top). No clue where it has gone now as he sold it and it changed hands 4 times in less than a year.

Here's your photos rotated.

[tunes]

Thanks for sharing your progress. One of my favorite cars. :beers:

[Crush]

Sharp color!

[sixt9rsx33]

Have a little progress to share. Have the glass in, bumpers on, door handles on, Gardner exhaust installed. Aftermarket wheel well moldings totally suck. Need NOS for sure. I should had bought them. Inner fenders are a joke too. Other sheet metal looks and fits good. The original polished stainless around the glass looks and fits great. I will get better pics next week.

[L72Chevelle]

Car looks great! Check you fan looks to be on backwards.

[Mr70]

Looks really nice & stock,why the G70-14 tires?

[sixt9rsx33]

Thanks for the heads up regarding the fan.

The tires are just rollers for the moment. 1972 date codes!!

[Bill Pritchard]

Looks great! Guessing this is no longer relegated to 'beater' status at your lake house :haha:

[tunes]

It's hard to tell from the pictures but the door handles appear to be angled upward which is incorrect. It's a common mistake I've seen at many car shows. Nice progress on the Chevelle. :burnout:

[TomN]

Enjoyed reading your story with this car. Reminds me of the 69 Chevelle I'm working on now.

[sixt9rsx33]

Dan V. mentioned the door handles too. I was looking at them yesterday and agree with you guys. Not sure what to do? The door handles are re-chromed originals. How do I fix this?
I bought Gardner exhaust for the car and the tips are so thick I can't get the clamps seized down on the tailpipe to tighten the tip. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the comments. Can't wait to fire it up!

[1967 4K]

I asked Jerry Beasley about your angled up door handle. He said common mistake made on 69 Chevelles. The door metal has been stressed in that area and should have been worked out prior to paint. The handle should have been test fit and you would have caught this.
I didn’t ask him how to fix it but can if you want me to.

GL

[Donnie]

are you sure the handles are original? a 70 handle will not work on a 69

[SS427]

Donnie is correct. The 70-72 handles have a much flatter mounting area than the 68-69 which is cut at quite and angle. I cannot imagine that the issue is in the door panel as that would be quite noticeable let alone hard to screw up. Look at the angle of the mounting area on this handle in the photo and you can see how much more cut angle it is than yours. Sorry but this is the only photo I have that has an almost straight on shot of the door handle.

[Donnie]

here a pic 70 on the right 69 on the left

[SS427]

Donnie, take a shot of the thumb end to show the difference in angles. I have no 69's here or I would do it.

[sixt9rsx33]

Car looks great! Check you fan looks to be on backwards.

Oh yea forgot to change that!

Thanks for the heads up

[sixt9rsx33]

Ahhhh....I see what ya'll are talking about. The door handles are original re-chromed but not from this car and therefore I have no idea from what year.
The door handles I took off of this car were very badly pitted. Really not useable. I need a set of 69 door handles now!

[sixt9rsx33]

I read that some handles had 3.25" shafts and others had 3.5" shafts. This car was made in Framingham Mass. Any idea what would be correct for this plant? Man I wish I still had the original handles :mad2: I usually never through anything away but these handles were hammered so out they went.

[Donnie]

70 on the left...69 on the right

[sixt9rsx33]

Thanks guys! I had no idea.

[sixt9rsx33]

The glass is in the car. Bought the correct door handles, may have a lead on an NOS cowl seal, ordered tires from Rusty, dug up the original carpet underlayment that I pulled out of the car and put that under the carpet. Going to work on the grill to make it fit a little better with the end trim pieces. Headliner in the car. Moving along.

[scuncio]

Car is looking great. I remember when you bought it - it has come a long way under your ownership!

[SPEEDYB]

What a beauty.

[sixt9rsx33]

Car is looking great. I remember when you bought it - it has come a long way under your ownership!

Tony, it could only go one way LOL. She was rough as a cob when I got it. But thanks for the comments!

[sixt9rsx33]

Car is looking great. I remember when you bought it - it has come a long way under your ownership!

Thanks Tony. It was rough as a cob when I got it. It could only go one way! Lol. Thanks for the comments.

[sixt9rsx33]

Here are a few more pictures, will be posting more in a few weeks.

[sixt9rsx33]

Few more here.

[sixt9rsx33]

I got the Chevelle home and happy with the paint and body work. There are some things I don’t like but can live with them. The repop passenger door is a pain to get 100% not sure it ever will be. The repop cowl seal is pushing the driver side rear of the hood up slightly so still on the hunt for a NOS cowl seal. The interior looks nice, combo of original and new stuff. All and all inside is ok. The Muncie stick is on a Hurst shifter and works well. The dash pad needed massaging but was able to make the garnish molding fit very nice. All the glass is original except the driver door where a tree fell on the car during the 78 blizzard per the second owner. The original stainless is dent free, polished up very nice and fits very well, happy with that. I installed and old Sun oil pressure and temp gauge set I had and that is helpful given it is a non gauge car. I am not going to put a tach on it I like the plain Jane look. The original engine is bored .060 and runs about as good as any BB I have owned. Can’t really say why? When we rebuilt the engine it was .030 over already the second owner told me the oil pump failed when he owned and he had the dealer rebuild the engine. We used a Standard brand L78 Cam and good components but nothing over the top. The M21 I had built for the car and it shifts well. The KK 4.10 is quiet, I am happy with it. I need to work on glass adjustment and the passenger door alignment. Overall I am glad I rescued this rusty dog, it is fun to drive. Here are a few pics. Thanks to Dan Vasic for the help and many returned texts and calls in the pursuit of this build.

[sixt9rsx33]

Here are a few more pics

[RPOLS3]

Looks great!

[67since67]

Another one saved, it doesn't get any better than that!!

[napa68]

That came along nicely.......well done Lawrence!

[Zman1969]

looks great! did I see somewhere that this was a Framingham built car? I recently brought home a car from NJ that was Framingham built L78 Bench seat car

[cook_dw]

Good looking car. Did it have the side stripe originally? If I missed it already being discussed then my apologies.

[WILMASBOYL78]

Very nice...clean and simple car.

Enjoy it :3gears:

[sixt9rsx33]

Thanks Tim. Still have a nice punch list to work through.
Yes it is a Framingham car. Sold new at Monument Chevrolet Somerville Ma.
As far as I can tell it did not have a stripe. I have pictures of the car from 1972 and there are no stripes. I spoke to the second owner and he told me he did not remember stripes. I have a partial build sheet and I did not see it listed.

[dykstra]

Beautiful Chevelle!

[Ralph Spears]

https://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/pts/d/wilbraham-gm-framingham-assy-plant/7613457232.html

[sixt9rsx33]

Thanks Ralph. I reached out to the seller for a plate.

[Ralph Spears]

I used to work for Penn Central Railroad back in the early seventies right next to the GM plant in Framingham some of the Oldtimers used to tell stories about the guys at the plant who parked the cars after they came off the assembly line in the late sixties they would race on Western ave in front of the plant on the night shift when nobody was around.

[jer]

I see a lot of arduous originality under that hood, very nice. Great job.

[sixt9rsx33]

I have been working through the last 10% of the resto of the Garnet Red car. I put (I call it dum dum) on the quarter tail light extension studs, and used the original nuts. They are much better than the repop ones. Not big surprise there. The shifter needed some tweaking got that dialed in. Had a real scare with a rocker nut coming loose halfway through a 25 mile run. Tightened that back up and adjusted the valve but need a new nut. Did an overall clean up under the hood and have plenty more to do. Windows need to be adjusted, paint the master cylinder, new pcv hose, air filter and more. The car does run well with exception of a lean surge. I will work on that soon.

[Rixls6]

Great story on your Chevelle, and nice save you've done on it. Thanks for sharing.