In November 1997 I started a full restoration of my car. I assumed that it would only take 9 months to finish. It ended up being over sixteen months, and several thousand dollars more than I had budgeted for.
First task was to remove the faded red paint from the body. After watching my dad spend two months chipping the paint off his 71 Corvette coupe, I wanted something a little quicker. I had heard bad stories about chemical paint strippers, so I decided that bead blasting was the way to go. Bead blasting is like sandblasting, but they use little plastic pellets to remove the paint, which is kinder to the fiberglass surface. A skilled bead blaster can strip away one coat of paint at a time. And it only takes a day. It costs a bit more than the other two options, but I was impatient to get my restoration started (and finished). I took out the interior, took off all the chromework and drove the car over to the bead blasters on a Wednesday morning, and picked it up the next afternoon.
The photo shows the car as I picked it up. I was shocked to find a lot of repair work had been done on the car. From the front wheel arch forward is a replacement front end, which is a grey colour. The cove area is beige because it is made totally out of body filler. The left rear quarter had been replaced, and underneath all the body filler I found sheets of tin plate held in with rivets. Whoever messed with this car in the past did a real half-assed job.
This photo shows the semi-stripped interior and the extra-long Hurst shifter.
This is the engine before it is lifted from the car. It was a 350 2 bolt block, '64
double-hump fuellie heads, and a Carter carb and aluminium intake which seem to both be
from a 340hp '63 Corvette.