Richard's Corvair

The Restoration of my 1960 Corvair

Glove Box, Bumpers and Seat Belts

Original glove box door

Detail of original glove box door

Polishing glove box door

Detail cleaning of glove box door

Fine sanding of gas door trim

Sanding gas door trim

Polishing gas door trim

Polished gas door-fender trim

Chevrolet logo before and after re-chroming

Original front bumper

Original rear bumper

Original bumpers

Re-chromed bumpers

Rusty corner cut out of rear door

Rusty corner of door patched

Rust cut out of door

Exterior of door patch

Rusty door pillar base

Welded sill

Column support rust

Seat belt cutout in door column

Seat belt housing cutout

Detail of seat belt retractor installed

Seat belt mounting at roof

Seat belt instalation

Month 18

This few months have not seen a lot of action. I was only able to get to Tarija for a couple of weeks, and the body shop did nothing for three months.
I was able to collect a few parts and advance a few small items.

I tried to polish my old glove box door and decided it better to find a donor. My wife brought it from the states and I cleaned and polished it with a little Meguires Mag & Aluminum Polish. I still need to build the glove box to fit inside (later I ended up polishing this to use for a radio bezel after realizing how good the Meguires is)
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I also received another gas tank trim piece, so I decided to sand and polish it. First 220 grit, then 360, 500, 600, and then 1000 grit before polishing on the buffer.

Then I took the donor logo for the hood and had it chromed and polished. It came out better than the aluminum one I made, so I’ll use it for now.

I also found a shop to weld, fill and re-chrome the bumpers. An overall pretty good job, but I wish I had picked them up to do a few more hours sanding before they actually re-chromed them.

The sanding and probing has shown week spots and additional rust, some of which could be patched in place, but one door corner had to be cut out, patched, and put back.

The door pillar at the floor was rusty. We reinforced below where it would be cut for the seat belts.

In order to put shoulder belts in the car we had to cut out and reinforce a space in the rocker panel for the recoil mechanism, and reinforce part of the roof area for the shoulder mount. We will make a box to fit around the cut-out.

While he is working on the rest of the body I’ll be making another trip to the US for a few more parts.

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