Ashc2025

So, I grabbed a 70 cage and rear body in an attempt to go towards making a coupe rather than a vert project I picket up sometime last year. I was able to start debonding the panels when I noticed what looked like a crack and nick from a saw in the targa bar. I started digging into what seems like a few shoddy repairs and found that vette more than likely had a side impact....or spun around...or was part of a beat down from a bunch of angry people. Regardless, I'm reaching out to see if keeping this body is even worth the trouble rather than replacing it. I know that there are a lot of repairs on the fiberglass frames over the years, however this seems a bit excessive, and aside from the body being made entirely of bondo at this point the fiberglass repairs are separating from the original body. I fear that the amount of bondo and differing fiberglass will eventually just crack any paint that would be put on top. I can do simple repairs, but my intention was to have a body shop finish the work when the car was ready.


just above the fender, you can see the original red paint just under the scraper

This is there I stopped, I saw a bunch of holes and the bondo was just too much.

Fender crown; whole edge is flexing and detaching.

Crack that started my investigation, it's actually a saw cut that's been filled in.

fender crown on opposite side

shoddy polyester resin repair on the door sill

bondo and resin repair on wing, center and about 1/3 the length. Haven't started digging into this yet

Haven't touched this yet either.

misalignment on the roll cage Driver side

I'm making the assumption that the entire body is bondo at this point.

odd repair on the driver side. I'm going to assume that this is separating from where the roof was repaired. You can see more repair in the valley of the fender.

John S 1961

Depends on the type of filler. Glass and resin can be 1/8 to about 3/16. Plastic filler with fibers is very strong and can be over 1/8. Regular filler should be well under 1/8.

Ashc2025

Much thicker than that. I kept sanding a scraping, found the fender and fiberglass piller have been replaced. I'm going to keep investigating since I don't have much else to do.

71 Vert LS1

Per the body shop I help at a couple days a week 1/16" of filler is max.

TPIShark

My two cents on this? I don't use any filler on the bodies at all. The factory didn't either. All my repairs are done with epoxy resin and mat, along with bonding adhesive, and thing's like Evercoat's Vette Panel Adhesive, or Upol's "Fibral" and "Fibral light". All of these can be used for structural as well as cosmetic repairs, with final finishing (i.e. pinholes) addressed with a two-part spot putty and high build primers. Bondo provides no structural strength, does not adhere well to fiberglass/SMC, and shrinks at a different rate, so it ends up "ghosting" in the paint later on. I also feel as of late that project cars in any condition are getting hard to find. If the birdcage is good on yours, maybe see if you can find someone to CAREFULLY media blast your car, to see what you really have, and then go from there. Good luck!

Ashc2025

I already dug into it, about 40% of the body was filler. Thank you for the directions with the epoxy filler. I'll do this on the rebuilding

csherman

Personally I would blast that car and strip it down to bare glass every where
Then
The body will dictate what repairs need to be done
Chris
TiN Restorations
Plano IL