Body: Part 1

Time to get back to this blog after falling in love, getting married, new jobs and other wonderful things that have kept me away (somewhat) from cars!

I’ve taken the Corvette down to the body shop and they managed to lift off the body so that they can work on that whilst I concentrate on the mechanicals.

Without a body on it, I had hoped that the frame would seem small and easy to manage and work around in the workshop but to be honest space has still been an issue as you can see from this picture of the unloaded chassis back at base.

That however has been improved recently with a couple of the long term (immobile) residents of the workshop having departed :-) !

My friend Karl the carpenter / joiner made up a ‘Dolly’ for the body to sit on from plans I got in a booklet on Corvette restoration. However, it turned out to not provide enough support of the overhanging rear section of body work so the body shop have had to put on a ratchet strap to stop the arse from sagging!

Note, the bike frame is not intended to remain as a feature of the finished vehicle in case of mechanical failure or running out of juice!

As you can see, the preparation and priming of the body has gone well but with the slightly floppy nature of the separated body, the painter is worried about cracking the top coat when lifting the body back onto the frame so the plan now is to get the frame refurbished (with powertrain fitted) back to him so that the final spray job will be done on an assembled vehicle.

This re-assembly should happen in time to allow Nigel to spray the car during the quiet shut down period over Christmas and New Year so I am looking forward to the prospect of a very shiny New Year’s gift!