Body Off

Dad built a rotisserie for the car and let me tell you what, who ever invented this thing should be given the Nobel Peace Price. This car now rotates 360 by pushing it with one finger.

We had to raise it up 6 inches, because the plans we had was just a tad too short for the car, but hey, it works great now!

50 Plus years of dirt and oil was on the bottom of the car, and to save time and money, I hand scrapped it all off of it. Now, the next step is to get the body blasted and primed and start sheet metal work.

Primer

Sprayed primer on everything I sand blasted to make sure it would not rust, used etching primer, a little more expensive, but it will not rust like conventional primer, as the car will be sitting like this for awhile. Until sheet metal work is completed.

Sand Blasting ( The worst part! )

If anyone says they like to sand blast, slap them up side the head! I hate it! I blasted this car with a rented powerful sand blaster and it still took me at least 16 hours of blasting and 1500 lbs of sand.

But, it turned out really nice!

Gutting the inside and taking out the Glass

Removing the glass was easy, I made a home made tool out of plastic in the shop to get the new seal off without damaging it.

Took and cut out the bad metal on the floors, to prepare for sand blasting. and then also got a spot weld removal tool to get the spot welds out of the floor braces.

Next on the restoration, would be sand blasting the inside, trunk area, and firewall and priming it.

Interior Tear Down

The inside of the car was a mess. Seats that were from a 1958 Chevy and the headliner missing and the door and interior panels missing. The floor has enough fiberglass in it to float a boat, as someone tried to just patch the rust holes in the floor with it. Tore that all out and the crappy carpet that was in it too.

Engine Out

As you can see, we ripped out the motor.

Tear it down!

Lucky we have a car lift to do this job!

We started by taking off the doors, fenders, front end and then extracting the motor from the car. This took about 1 day to complete.

This is our car when we first got her home from a guy we purchased it from in Royalton Minnesota.

She was running, with a 1969 350 Chevy Engine and was painted Teal and White. Windshield was new, and the back window was in great shape. However the interior was not completed and it needs a headliner too.

Welcome

Welcome to the home of the "Black Widow" 1957 Chevy Project.

I will be posting our adventure of restoring our 1957 Chevy to what I like to call the Black Widow Rat Rod project.

Paul