briankeery

Is that your "new" door panels Craig, or are they still on the shelf?

CraigH

Hi Brian

These were new panel a year or so back, just pulled them off again to initially fix a sticking door handle and decided to do s few other things.

caskiguy

Just stumbled on to your journey. I just bought a 1970 Coupe virtually identical to yours, color/options/base motor/auto. This is my first experience with any auto let alone a Corvette. You have given me a road map to success in my journey.
Thank you.

CraigH

Hope it helps you mate 😀

CraigH

I saw a thread earlier "For those afraid to drive your C3" and thought, sure i don't like to leave it parked places but i am ok to drive it.

But have not driven it for a couple of weeks since we got hit by a couple of bottles tossed from an oncoming car.

First bottle hit the hood and bounced over car but covered screen with liquid.

Second bottle hit the door and was hard enough to bend the door handle edge back a 1/4"

What was really scary when I thought about it afterwards was that my sons head was inches away from that second bottle !!!!









Cracked the hood and stress cracked the door door as well as through to primer or glass in a few spots.

What makes it worse is later that night my youngest sons said he had been hit as well.

Police said I was fourth caller in 30 minutes on same road.

In same week eldest sons car hit a Kangaroo and my wife S3 was broken into by smashing window and then leather seats ruined as they kneeled on glass pieces looking for how to start it.

Was a bad week

bazza77

Did the cops get them ?

CraigH

Not from what I have been told.

Has made me look at Dashcams etc for my other cars so if something like this happens again I could at least get a plate.

Problem is by the time your hit they are past and your trying to work out what happened.

Alan 71

Hi Craig,
VERY sorry to read this!
You must have been stunned!!!
I hope you can have the results taken care of without too much trouble!
Jerks everywhere these days.
Regards,
Alan

CraigH

Absolutely Alan, there are mindless people everywhere. Just have to accept it was a random act and I was just in the wrong place at that time.

Have to say I saw one of the bottles coming and thought it was going to hit the windscreen. With both cars passing at over 80klms per hour it all happens very fast.

Police said just be lucky it was just water or beer in the bottle. They had seen the same thing with acid, brake fluid etc

Metalhead140

That's unreal. Sorry to hear it.

72downunder

Bastards! so glad you all made it safely through the week. Now the inconvenience of it all and they get away scott free, makes my blood boil. That sort of stuff is always in my mind when we take it out or park it somewhere. Is it just me or is getting more prevalent these days?

BLUE1972

My other half got them for me (us) for X-mas after an incident last summer.
An idiot decided to turn right from the left turn lane at a light when I had a green light middle lane. She was going to cut across all 3 lanes . Thankfully I had my truck which is a 1980 with steel bumpers and a steel push bar + I was only going 30 when I locked up the brakes. Scratched the heck put of the push bars and bumper. Pushed the BEEMER into the middle of the intersection.

A cop was sitting in the 7-11 and watched the entire incident. She tried to say I cut her off .... NOT. He was so pissed he locked her up for giving false info to a Police officer.

The cameras were under $40 each, Kodak. They mount with a suction cup and plug into the lighter. They have a micro card and loop record for 4 hours. They come in handy for a lot of things. Two friends have used in traffic accidents to prove they were in the right when hit.

CraigH

Yes I have looked into dashcams as a result.

Started with my daily driver Mazda CX3 and mounted front and rear cameras with parking mode etc.

Went for some Goluk T3's , reasonably priced, good review and you access them from your phone to download videos, get a live view or configure them.

http://en.goluk.com/pages/t3-overview.html

CraigH

So I have started to doing some of the repair work before getting the Vette's paint done.

Insurance is covering the work but as i wanted to get a few extra things done as well as ensure the glass repair was done how i wanted it I started doing some prep work.

Painter is a friend so he is happy with me starting the work (in fact he was me technical College teacher for painting and panel beating that i did at night when i was 18 :-)

Started by washing Vette down with a citrus cleaner to help take some polish off then used Prepsol Wax and Grease remover.

Sanded out the door damage but found the glass at rear of handle got shattered a bit so will need to lay some glass underneath and then repair.





Hood has been sanded out but there is a crack on the crest of the scoop i will need to look at to see if its just in the paint or goes further.



I had a few little cracks on the front corner where the bumper bolts on so i wanted to have a closer look so I dismantled all the grills, bumpers etc.

















When i had it all off there was a chunk of filler from behind the bolt pad that came off. So I decided to grind out all the filler in the corner and found why it is cracking.













Needs to be glassed together a bit better than this ! At least i now have a point to work from. Not one of my favourite things to do but I can at least build it up with glass then contour it to shape.

CraigH

So before I tackle the front corner and door handle i decided to work on the front chin and the area around the front grills.

There was a number of fine cracks as well as some oversize holes for the bumperettes etc.

Grind down back and front the build up with layers of glass matt then grind it back. Spin and repeat :-)

































The bolt hole for the spoiler was 1/4" too high so that got ground out, filled then re-drilled lower. Centre pan tip had a slight crack as well.







Now to reshape the end of the chin so it fits the spoiler better. Both sides were slightly different as the front of the drivers guard and chin had been replaced at some time in its past. This is the second glass build up in the last 10" inches of the chin to get the chin spoiler to sit better.















Some more grinding to do after this last lot of glass but the front chin spoiler now sits a lot better, certainly not perfect with some small gaps at each end but that a spoiler issue.

Metalhead140

Nice work!

SB64

That was a terrible situation to have happen. Plenty of stupid people out their. I thought the anti rattling post is a great idea for those door rattles. I also think you are doing a nice job on those repairs. Picked up another tip with the tape to hold the material in place while doing the resin. I guess you are right saying wrong place at the wrong time. Glad your son was also safe. Carry on!
RVZIO

caskiguy

Great work guy. Your car is a beauty.

Primoz

Been there, done that! I was missing part of the fiberglass above the spoiler altogether when I got my car! Keep up the good work!

CraigH

Thanks guys, I feel really slack as it got damaged late March and I have still not got all the small repairs done.

Was a little shocked when it happened. Probably more when i sat back and thought about what could have happened.

My painter and insurance company don't seem to be in a big rush so....Vette has been sitting up in the air for a number of months.

Really wanted to have ripped out the rear suspension and put my VanSteel coilovers in but that project has been pushed back a bit. :-(

Has been winter down here and fibreglassing in cold weather is not recommended so now its warming up I need to get in and finish the remainder of the repairs.

I got some Evercoat FiberTech filler delivered this morning so I can finish some of the areas. Was hard to track it down around here and you cant get it shipped from the US because it cant go in airline freight any more.

Don't need a lot of filler but wanted to use that in critical areas then Evercoat Rage for final smoothing.