1971 Chevy C-10 Going home today!

Finally painted, assembled, tuned up, valves adjusted, new Carb, New Bumper, New Grille and fresh buff and clean up!

Going home to get a new interior and driven!

Thanks for all the hard work from my crew!

#AmericanPrideCustomRides #Autobodyrepair

The mods are nearing completion, all glass removed, interior is removed, bed is in primer. We stripped every inch of 40 year old paint and some terrible old bodywork. We found rust holes plugged with foam, paper, glass mat and Bondo. Rust was everywhere under the primer. Years ago body techs thought that thicker was better. It was great at hiding bad work or wavy panels but it ultimately will fail and cause some serious blisters and problems later on.

By removing all the old primer filler and paint and using more modern catalyzed materials. The life of this new body and paint work could be 10-15 years. Longer if kept inside and out of the weather.

Here are some new pics of the progress. And although we still use filler it is the best product on the market today and is decades ahead of the old products.

New Life for a 1971 Chevy C-10 Pick up.

A new project is in the shop. A custom smoothed out look with frenched tail lights. Rear rollpan, handle relocater, stripping off the thick old paint and starting from bare metal with new state of the art materials. This 1971 Chevy C-10 is one of the coolest old trucks I had seen and now it will be even cooler.

We are also going to mount a fuel cell in the bed and take the gas tank out of the cab.Motor in this truck is pretty healthy and was already a street screamer.

Will keep you updated as this Truck is transformed into a lean mean street machine!

Bob Winfrey

1989 Chevy Blazer All Jacked Up

Major Progress on our custom build for a customer. Transferring his 1980 Chevy K-5 Blazer frame with a new Target Master 350 Chevy to a 1989 Chevy K-5 Blazer Body. the new body has all the body panels in very good condition, A/C and power windows. We also added a 3 inch body lift to get this project off of the ground.

De-wiring the computer was interesting but we were able to do it and keep everything working like it should. We had to remove about 80 wires from the harness and trim things back to look good but as it turned out we only had 6 wires left at the fuse box that we did not need anymore. The older vehicle needed a diode added to the alternator wire so the engine would shut off when you turned the key off.

There was an electric fuel pump wire going back to the gas tank we did not need because the 1980 engine had a mechanical fuel pump. That was simple to take out of the harness. We had to cut a hole in the floor pan for the manual shifter, transfer case lever and clutch rod. Not as bad as I originally thought.

We cleaned up the radiator support and front fenders under the hood, trimmed them out semi gloss black and gloss white. We also repainted his frame and axles before moving the chassis to the new truck.

We added a cowl hood from Classic Industries and with some tweaking we got it to fit the fenders and the radiator support. Although it was not a perfect fit we were able to make it look really good on the truck.

The roof was a solid sheet of rust and we had to strip the rust and old paint off, we cleaned it with a metal cleaner from PPG and primed it with a direct to metal acid etch primer. The front fenders and tailgate were stripped to bare metal and the dent repair was minor but those panels are in primer now.

The 2 doors and 2 quarter panels are left and although not a piece of cake they are repairable.

I will update this story after the customer authorizes the rest of the needed repairs.

The K-5 is going to be painted Red, White and Blue. Can't wait to get it completely done and back home to the customer!

Roof half stripped bad case of surface rust

Body mounted with 3" lift

Roof after strip and prime

Under hood finishing up the wiring

How long is it going to take to fix my wrecked car?

Customers first concern about auto body repair is how much is it going to cost? And the second question is how long will it take? I always have to look at the vehicle to determine if parts availability is an issue or can we just put it in the shop and perform our work without having to wait for a delivery.

Parts stocking and delivery is very much improved since computer systems have come into play. We generally can get a new OEM part from the dealer quicker than we can get a used or aftermarket part. I sometimes wonder how insurers save any money by using alternate parts on a repair if it takes 3 or 4 days longer to get a Non Factory part.

We determine how many days it takes to repair a damaged vehicle by the number of hours on the estimate. A week of solid work is generally 40 hours at our shop. If your repair estimate has 8 hours on it for example it will require 2 repair days at least. Sometimes we have to wait for material to dry properly before we can continue. An example would be primer, caulking, paint, undercoating and adhesives. At our repair shop we will not shortcut a repair and cut corners because something will fail later because we did not let it dry before we went forward with the repair.

It is kind of funny that a 4 hour repair could take 2 and 1/2 days to complete. One day for the small body repair and the primer to dry completely. Then the next day we paint the repairs and have to let it dry for at least 8 hours before we can put it out in the weather.And when we get it we have to unmask it and then we have to re-assemble it and clean it up so the customer get's their car back and it is like new again.

I was at a luxury BMW dealership inspecting a car last week and it was so new that some service parts were not even in stock in Germany were the car was built. The dealership said it would be at least a month before Germany could even produce the parts needed to fix that new BMW. This is a rare case but it can happen sometimes.

Ask at the time of your estimate and we can explain how long it will take and what all the variables entail. Check out the website for a link to schedule an appointment.

Marshville Auto Body Shop