'62 Chevrolet Chevy II Project

[Mr.409]

Well I just bought this '62 Chevy II project. My friend was selling it with a cheap price so I took it home. It's a lot of work for sure, but I wanted to have something to work on. It's not too rusty though and that's always a good thing even though I have to convert this from 4D Sedan into 2D Sedan. I can start building in 2016 autumn though. I should have it on roads in summer 2017.

Here are two crappy cell phone pics of it. I'll need to take a bit better shots tomorrow when we move it to our other garage where it can wait for rebuilding to start.

[harron68]

O-o-o-o-o!!!! Very cool project for sure. Take your time . . . and have fun!

[wylee]

yay for you!!!! real models are great to work on!!!

[Mr.409]

Thanks Guys! I'm sure it will be a lot of fun even though it requires a lot of work. It will be built with pretty low budget though since I'm no rich man...Just a regular 19 year-old student you know. Basically it means that it will take long time before it's "finished", but even if it wasn't, I want to have it driveable. And I will be doing all of the work myself.

Here are a bit better pics of it:

[Smokin Models]

awesome!!!! can't wait to see what ya do with it

[Mr.409]

Thanks, I guess I'll be posting some progress pictures on it when I get started. I'm really interested in bringing it back to life again.

[fordrodnkustom]

Convert to a 2D? Wow that should keep you busy for a while! Looks solid. Good luck with it.

[Mr.409]

Dec 17, 2015 7:21:23 GMT -5 fordrodnkustom said:

Convert to a 2D? Wow that should keep you busy for a while! Looks solid. Good luck with it.

Yep! It's a lot of work, but I think it'll be a neat challenge to see how long it takes to do that conversion correctly. Actually converting these 4D Sedans into 2D Sedans is an old thing that was quite popular back in the '70s and '80s here in Finland. Since most of the cars were cheapest models and 4D Sedans, many people modified them into 2D Sedans. Nowadays that's not that common modification anymore as usually people just import a car they want from the States, but back then it was not easy to do so.

I think I can make it...Measure three times, cut once...

[Mr.409]

About one month ago I was finally able to bring this one back home so I could start building!





Here you can see that for example the interior floor looks really solid! There are only a couple of minor spots that need welding, but here driver's side floor is cleaned, co-driver's is not.

Same thing in the trunk:


Then I took the hood and fenders off. They are in good condition, but someone has been busy doing rust repairs on these fenders back in the day. Actually there are tons of rust repairs done on this car already, so it must have been quite rusty some time. I'm glad someone has done a good job with these repairs!



Inner fenders, and actually the whole engine bay look very good.




Then I started looking more closely in the trunk... Someone has welded shut holes for chrome trim...What? I was sure this one is a Chevy II 100 with no chrome trim, but after looking at the production number, I found out it was originally a Chevy II 300! So someone has turned it into a Chevy II 100 replica in the past...



To Be Continued...

[fordrodnkustom]

Glad you got the Chevy home to work on it. Interesting discovery on the trunk trim. Is it possible that sometime in the old Deuces' life the trunk lid could have been replaced?

[Mr.409]

Ron, yep, it can be. I've learned that when working with these cars that have been sold as new here in Finland, pretty much everything is possible. Back in the day the previous owners have often done some interesting fixes to keep these driveable. In the '60s and '70s spare parts for cars like these were not very easy to find in here...

Looks like I haven't posted much pics in here... Well here are a couple more:

I had to widen rear wheel wells a bit because you can't fit a proper tire inside those stock wheel wells... This is what I started with:



So I cut half of the original wheel well off to be moved a bit inwards.



This is a picture taken from inside the original wheel well with half of it cut off. I had to weld the floor panel and "frame rail" together again as the spot where they were originally welded was cut away. Well of course this is an unibody car so it doesn't really have a frame, but I don't know what else I should call that thing except frame rail.



This is not the best picture in the world, but you can see that someone has worked hard with this wheel well in the past. There were 16 rust repair pieces welded on it!



Minor rust hole was found in the frame rail too. Luckily that was an easy fix.




Then I removed old underbody coatings off from the piece I cut away from that wheel well. It required a couple of small rust repairs too.



Then after a bit fitting and some minor adjustments, I was able to weld that half of the wheelwell on its new place.



And then the gap was filled with some sheet metal. It required three different pieces to fill the gap, and I'm very glad I was able to weld them all completely from inside the car, as welding under the car is no fun...




And then one more minor patch was required in the front:

[fordrodnkustom]

Most ambitious project for sure! Other than the small rust areas the bones of it appear to be fairly solid. Looks like you'll be busy this winter. Thanks for posting your progress.

[Mr.409]

Thanks! It is actually pretty solid considering it has been sitting for a long time outside.

The other wheel tub was done just the same way. Even the rust spot was similar to the one on driver's side too.






Then that trunk hinge mount was welded back together as I had to cut and slice it to be able to widen those wheel tubs. This was fairly easy job to do...



Then I welded those supports between the floor and package tray. Driver's side was somehow a bit tricky and it had to be done from several pieces. It's not the prettiest, but I think it'll do under the carpet anyway. Co-driver's side was much easier.




Also there was one little rust spot on co-driver's floor. On that place there are two layers of sheet metal on top of each others, but there is a gap at the front end. That means, all water, salt and everything goes in that gap so no wonder the upper sheet metal was rusty. So I cut it away, removed the surface rust from that lower sheet metal and painted some anti-rust primer on it. Then I welded a patch panel I made on its place.


Here you can see the gap right behind that older rust repair spot:

[volvo544special65]

Turning it into a race car since you're widening the rear wheeltubs or just want some more meat on a street vehicle?

[Mr.409]

Jan 2, 2017 7:01:25 GMT -5 volvo544special65 said:

Turning it into a race car since you're widening the rear wheeltubs or just want some more meat on a street vehicle?

It'll be kind of a Street & Strip car, mostly for cruising and doing burnouts on streets, but I want that whenever I go to run 1/4 Mile with it, it can run a decent ET too. But, it's not going to be a race car, as some guys say, "Attitude Before Speed" fits here perfectly. My plan is to make it look old school and as long as I have fun at the Drag Strip, I'm happy even if the car ran 12.5 instead of 12.4.