65' Malibu SS build

[Rico06]

Well, I'm pretty new to the site but I decided it was time to start a build thread. About 4 months ago I was browsing the local online classifieds and came across a 65 Malibu SS for a screaming deal. I called my wife and told her about it assuming that she would immediately shoot me down. Our 2 car garage was already filled with projects and we didn't have anyplace to keep another. But she signed off on it as long as I was willing to sell my 64 El Camino. So I made the call and the next day my brother and I made the 120 mile drive to southern Idaho to pick it up.
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The car was really rough, but I have a little experience with cars because I spent about 10 years working in the autobody business. The things I don't have are time and money. Those are obviously the two most important ingredients in building a car but I'm currently a little over a semester from finishing and electrical engineering degree so that has to be my priority for a little while. So I'm in this for the long haul.

The quarter panels and trunk floor are completely shot. I'm counting on the rest of the floor pans and the inner rockers needing replaced. The roof bracing needs replaced the roof needs repaired along with a lot of other body work.

The plans for the car are evolving as I go and some restrictions have been set by my wife. I plan on doing all the work myself except for things like media blasting and interior.

Current plans:

new home built stronger frame
new floor pans, trunk floor, quarter panels
body and paint (Toyota Speedway Blue)
95 Camaro LT-1 w/ muncie 4 speed to start
LS motor with T56 down the road
Coy C-5 18X8 front
Coy C-5 20X12 rear
narrowed 12 bolt rear
wilwood disc brakes
modern bucket seats
Black leather interior

The idea is to stuff as much modern technology in the old car as possible. I'll be keeping the exterior of the car mostly origional. It will obviously get a lowered stance with larger wheels, and the non origional color, but most of the rest of the exterior will stay fairly true to the origional. I get pretty uptight about things like gap spacings being correct and bumpers fitting up tight so a lot of time will be spent on those kind of details. So I'll start out with everyones favorite parts and post some pictures and future posts will update progress on the car so far.
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That last picture is looking up at the underside of the trunk floor. There's almost nothing there. And the quarters are full of fiberglass and bondo. Someone decided to build custom wheel openings instead of repairing rust. I've got a lot of work to do. More pictures to come

[Munssey]

Awesome platform and MAN you have your work cut out for you on that body!

Any thoughts yet on what non original color for the paint?

Chevelles were pretty popular at SEMA this year so you're in good company.

[Auto Rod Technologies]

A lot of work ahead of you but will make a good project.. Good luck to ya!!

[analyte]

Tuned in for this one!!

Subscribed.

[Rico06]

It's gonna be Toyota Speedway Blue. I can only dream about having it ready for SEMA. The metal work probably won't even be done by then.

[Rico06]

So I've done a little work on the car since I brought it home in July. The first thing I did was to remove the front clip and unbolt the body from the frame. For all of you who have done this before, you know that "unbolting" sometimes means just breaking half of the bolts and cutting the other half because you have just spun the square nut out of the bracket. Because this car was so rusty, I didn't manage to get a single body mount bolt out intact. Thats not a big deal because all of the hardware will be replaced. Here are some pictures of the body without the front clip. It was late and the garage door was closed so they aren't great pictures

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I mentioned before that I had a 64 El Camino that I was goning to sell to make room for the chevelle. I had spent a bunch of time doing the frame a motor and trans for the El Caminio so I decided to put the El Camino frame under the Chevelle and send the sell the Chevelle frame with the El Camino. With no lift and a 2-car garage I had to get creative to lift two bodies off of two frames at the same time I managed to figure something out.

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The El Camino was going to be white and yellow hence the white frame and yellow motor. I think I'm gonna be a little more conservative withe colors on the Chevelle and just go with semi-gloss black on the frame and the motor will be the Toyota blue to match the car. This motor is the origional 283 out of the El Camino. I bought a '95 Camaro LT1 core that I'm going to build as a stroker and put that in the car to start. Eventually I would like to put an L92 in the car, but that is going to have to be down the road.

Most of my time since then has been spent finishing up some body work on the El Camino. I had replaced bedsides and floorpans and needed to get the mudwork done and get them sealed up and primed so that I could sell the car. I had origionally bought the car from my brother who bought it from my dads best friend. He really wanted the car back but wasn't able to buy it back right now. Unfortunately I couldn't wait for him because I was really hurting for space and it was getting close to time for it to snow here. I finally sold the car to a guy from Nevada last week. Here's a couple of pictures.

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Now that the Camino is gone I hope to be able to spend a little more time on the Chevelle. I had decided that I needed to narrow the frame on the rear to fit the giant tires and wheels I want to use. From there my plans have just gotten bigger and out of control. I decided to build a whole new frame that will be a lot stronger and tuck up under the body a little better. So I picked up the 2X3 square tube and a metal chop saw so that I can get started on that. I'm also going to get the doors, fenders, hood, deck lid and the other body parts that can be removed stripped and metal worked and in epoxy primer so that I don't have to worry about rust on those. Then I'll get to work on the huge task of repairing rot on the tub.

[armourmark]

The absolute hardest part to find on 64 and 65 chevelles is the sheetmetal under the bumper connecting the trunk and the rear quarters. They came with a piece of rubber in between the bumper and that metal and they are almost always rusted away. It took me 18 mos to find a good one from AZ. That being said, I still have a bunch of trim pieces left over. Let me know what you might need when you get that far. I am subscribed and am looking forward to the progress!

[Rico06]

Yeah I had heard that piece was impossible to find. Mine's in pretty bad shape but I figure I'll just have to make a new one or at least repair the old one. The complex curves are all intact on mine so it shouldn't be too bad to repair. The piece that I can't find anywhere is a roof skin. Mine's been caved in pretty bad. I can repair it if I have to but I'd really like to replace it with new metal if I can find someone that makes one.

[Rico06]

Time for a little update. I actually got a little work done on the car. I guess this build thread is a good thing because I find myself not wanting to be one of those threads that just goes idle and no work ever gets done. Anyway. I started out the week planning on stripping paint off of a lot of the outer sheet metal on the car so that I could start working on removing surface rust and then I was going to start cutting out quarters and floors and anything else that needed to come out. I got 1 night into trying to use chemical paint stripper to remove the old paint before I decided I was wasting my time trying to do this myself. So I changed my plan and decided to get the car out to a media blaster and get it stripped that way. Here are a couple of pictures of the car with the chemical paint stripper

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I got ahold of a guy who does media blasting and set up a plan to get the car to him and get it stripped in January hopefully. He could have done it sooner but I would like to remove the quarters, floor pans, trunk pans, inner rockers if they're rotted out, and remove the door skins so that I can have the inner sections of everything cleaned up and not have him waste a bunch of time stripping metal that is going away anyway.

So I decided to work on my new frame this week instead. Most of my time was spent taking measurements and coming up with a plan to do this so that I get it right the first time. I'm using .18 inch 2X3 square tube for most of the frame. I started out by lifting the body up over the frame so I'd have more access to take measurements from the old frame.

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Then I started cutting the long frame rail sections that run under the doors and a cross member that will connect those pieces in in the rear. Later I'll cut that cross member and put in an opening for the drive line to feed through. I also added the pieces in the front that will attach to the front half of the frame where the engine cradle is. I also built a section for the rear of the car behind the rear end. So I really just did the easy parts. I've just tacked them together because I still have to make sure everything is square and level. I still have to spend some time figuring out all of my angle for the front section and the section that goes over the top of the rear end. This will narrow the rear rails 3 3/8ths inches per side so that I can fit 335/30/20's in the rear and hopfully when I'm done with all of the cross bracing it will be much stiffer than the origional frame.

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This is my first attempt at building a frame, so I looking forward to hearing about all of the things that I'm doing wrong. Any comments will be helpful. I think I've got a pretty good plan, and I've read about alot of the hang ups in doing this. I don't really have the space for a frame jig or large welding table, so I'm just taking tons of measurements and making sure everyting is square and level.

[Munssey]

Two thumbs up for making the call on blasting the car instead. Time is money and you should be very happy being able to see everything in bare steel.

[lt1chevelle]

looking good

[Rico06]

I knew when I bought this car that I was going to find a lot of ugly rust. But somehow I'm still surprised when I find it. I decided to work on getting the car torn down so that I can get the body down to the blasters here pretty soon. I started out earlier this week by taking the doors off and removing the passenger side tulip panel so that I could have it blasted inside of that area and then coat it before I weld it back on.
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And then I removed the skin from the passenger side door. This door skin was actually in much better shape than I thought it would be. I know the other one is really rough though. I plan on having the inner door shells blasted and coated before the new skins are put on.
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Today I worked on getting the interior torn out of the car. I found all kinds of fun things as I went. The front seats were not chevelle seats. I think they were from a Camaro or a Firebird. Either way, whoever put them in just drilled holes in the floorpan and put a single nut without any washers to hold the seat in. I would loved to have seen those seats tear completely out in an accident. I found the floor completely rusted out in several places over the second floor brace.
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And here is a picture of the the trunk floor, or lack of one. I already knew about this, but I dont think I had posted any pictures yet
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When I removed the sheepskin dash cover I found this wonderful surprise. I sure hope I can find another dash or some kind of patch panel. I really like the factory dash on these, so I'd like to keep the metal pretty close to origional.
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I picked up some sheet metal today and was going to get started on repairing the filler panel that goes under the rear bumper but I decided it would be easier to repair off of the car because it needs straightened a little bit and will just be easier towork with off of the car. Before I knew it though, I had forgotten about the filler panel and started cutting the passenger quarter off. I guess I was just excited to see something that looked like progress to me.
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Here is the origional trunk floor repair. The picture is not that great but that is a piece of galvanized sheet metal riveted to the floor.
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I didn't get nearly as much done as I'd hoped, but I guess I never do. Planning on getting the other side done this week and then I need to start working on drilling out the spot welds and cleaning up the edges. Should be ready to go to the blaster in no time.

Here are a couple more pictures of what I got done this week.
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[renegade6]

I don't feel so bad about the amount of rust on mine.

[Rico06]

Been about a month since I updated. Finals and holidays really got in the way of getting a lot done. What I did get done was mostly cutting out rust and trying to get the car ready for blasting. Nothing very exciting. I've been trying to upload pictures but I'm having trouble getting them to upload, so I'll have to add those later.

I got the dash removed. Its in pretty rough shape. I'm debating if I should try to repair it or see if I can make something else to work.

I braced the car up and removed the outsied of the door pillar on the passenger side so that I could clean up underneath it and repair a little bit of the rust in the pillar. I still have to remove the pillar and the tulip panel on the drivers side.

I also got the drivers side quarter panel removed. It had been replaced before and they hadn't taken the time to repair areas underneath the panel, so I have a little bit of ugly to fix there.

I now have the rear body panel loose so that I can begin repairing the lip that slides under the rear bumber.

I also got the floor pans and braces cut out. I mostly just have to do some clean up work to get the edges ready and it should be ready for blasting.

I'm debating wether I should remove the roof skin before I send it out. Its going to need blasted but I also need to replace the roof support braces and I'm thinking it will be much easier with the skin off. I've been told not to but I just feel like it would turn out better if I did.

With no pictures thats about the most I can give right now. I'll try to get some pictures up before it goes to the blaster.

[Rico06]

Had trouble uploading pictures yesterday. I guess it would have helped to have read the announcement about having a problem posting pictures. So here are some pictures. I started out by removing the dash. Its in pretty rough shape and I figured it would be easier to fix out of the car. I also figured that this will make it so that it can be blasted and primed behind the dash.

Here is the car with the dash removed
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The dash included the the lower part of the windshield channel and a filler panel above the cowl. There is still plenty of the structure of the car remaining, but hopefully everything can be reached for clean up and primer now.
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Here's another shot of the dash. Its not a good shot but you can see the rot that I'm going to have to try to repair.
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I had already cut out the passenger quarter panel but I spent a little bit of time cleaning up the edges and also got the driver side quarter cut loose. With so little of the trunk floor remaining this completely detached the rear body panel. That will make it easier to access for repairing the lip that tucks under the rear bumper.

Here is a shot of the rear end of the car with both quarters and the rear body panel removed
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And a couple of shots of the quarter panels cleaned up edges
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I cut out the spot welds on the hinge piller and removed the outer half. This revealed some more spots that will probably need patched. I'm probably going overboard but hopefully its worth the extra effort
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I also got a little over exuberant with the sawsall and cut out the floor, supports and all (after bracing it). I didn't get the piece removed but the but the cuts are pretty obvious in the pictures.
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This was what was left of the trunk floor with almost no trimming.
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I've got a lot of cleaning up edges and some panels to remove on the driver side to get it ready for the sand blaster. Hopefully its ready pretty soon. I'm debating on a few things like removing the roof skin and building a frame table and mounting the body on it before I send it out. I'm trying to let the blaster get to as much rust a s possible but I am a little worried I'm going overboard.

[Rico06]

Been a long time since I posted. Mostly because I haven't made any progress in the last year. Hopefully this year will be a little better. Graduated from college and finally have a job so funds should be a little more abundant. Just have to convince my wife that this is a 'need'.

Removed the roof skin to patch a couple of thin areas and be able to clean up roof supports. Plan is to replace inner and outer rocker panels, inner and outer rear wheel wells and rear window to trunk panel over the next couple of months. Then I'll send it out to blast the rest of the body before replacing floor pans, quarters, rear body panel, re-installing repaired roof skin and repairing any other rust problems I come across. I think this car sat upside down in a pond for a while because there is a ridiculous amount of rust on upper surfaces where I wouldn't expect there to be any.

[RMMiller]

You're ambitious! For the items not reproduced you might contact Dan at Dan's Garage, he has been scooping up early GM's for decades and has a LARGE collection of parts and pieces. There's probably a good chance he has a dash for you that would be in better shape. Many of the cars in his lot are double stacked, I love wandering around there checking it all out even though much of it is the same cars that have been there since I was 16 (45 now).

http://www.dansgarage.net/

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[Rico06]

I finally got to a point where I could start ordering some new sheet metal, but everything I've tried to order has been on backorder. I guess that's the downside of doing a car that's not a car that you see a lot. Hope to make some progress worth showing this summer.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Love that body style..can't wait to see it fixed up