The Chevelle: tear down and clean up begins

[VintageMusclecar]

Don't know if anyone will even be interested in this, but I thought I'd share a few pics of the car as progress is made.

Today I began removing the interior...or what was left of it. Here's what I started with (1st 2 pics are from the website ad)







Something to preface the next pics;

When I first asked about the car, the VERY first thing I asked was "where's the rust, and how bad is it?"

I was told the car was 100% rust-free (aside from obvious surface rust areas, that's to be expected).

I asked "Are you sure? I haven't seen too many A-bodies that don't at least have a little rust in them somewhere."

"No rust on this car at all, never has been."

That was one of the reasons I agreed to buy the car. Anyone who's ever dealt with midwest cars can surely relate to my extreme disdain for rust. Dents I don't mind, but I hate fixing rust.

Anyhow, back to the story.

After removing the bucket seats and the carpet, I was suprised at what I saw...what appeared to be multiple sheets of black tar paper covering the entire floor from front to rear footwells.

Oh joy.

I started to pull them up one piece at a time, only to see that they were thoroughly stuck to the floor. Upon closer inspection, I realized every single sheet had been stuck down to the floorpan with what appears to be heavy roofing tar!

Out come the heavy-duty scrapers, a few cans of carb cleaner to help loosen things up, and a hammer to help persuade things along.

(I should've snapped pics of what I started with, but I didn't want to gunk up my camera and the GF was busy in the house)

So I dug in.

2 hours later, I cautiously asked the GF if she'd mind lending a hand. She reluctantly agreed.

Here's the results of roughly 4 hours of scraping, peeling, hammering and wire-brushing the floorpan:











Notice the nice rust hole in the drivers footwell. It was covered with a thick layer of fiberglass matting and tar paper.

So far I've removed an easy 40 lbs of tar paper and roofing tar from the interior floorpans. There's probably another 5-10 lbs to go, but I'd had enough for one day.

Thank God for a GF who doesn't mind pitching in and getting her hands dirty.

I'll try to finish removing the goo tomorrow and assess how much metal it's going to take to patch both footwells and the mangled shifter hole opening.

I'll try to post some more updates tomorrow.