In this post, we will show you a step-by-step process on how we restored and installed our 1963 Corvette Engine Blackout, Alignment Shims, Z-bar, and Interior Paint.

We have finished the engine compartment black out, black out and undercoating the wheel wells, rebuilt and installed the clutch z-bar assembly, cut all new original looking shims for the trailing arms, and masked off the body for interior paint.

Here is the engine compartment after blackout.

The front valence and headlight area after blackout.

The front wheel well after blackout and undercoating.

Here is the rear wheel well undercoating.  This is the infamous GM undercoating special in which the guy spraying under coating didn’t care and just gave a quick shot of undercoating not really caring how much coverage he really got… we’ll see what the judges think (this is also undercoated as per the specs given in the judging manual).

While we were spraying the blackout we painted the backing plates and fuel tank straps.

We also painted the trailing arms and fuel tank cross member.

Here is the clutch z-bar assembly. We installed all new bushings, seals, and pivots.

Here are the trailing arm shims.  Most of the original thin shims were rotted out but the thick ones were still in great shape.  On the very right side of the photo is on of the original shims.  We traced this shim and scanned it into the computer.  Using our CNC Plasma Cutter we were able to cut out a whole new set of shims in all different thicknesses.  It’s great that we were able to use the CNC to cut these because we were unable to find any correct reproductions of these shims.

We made a full set of shims in different sizes so we’ll have plenty of shims to give to the alignment shop.

Here we have masked off for the interior painting. We referenced our old photos and some other corvette photos and found where all our masking lines needed to be.

We masked the whole car so we wont have any over spray on the paint.

On the inside we need to paint the area under the seat as it has no carpet to cover it and we need to paint the storage compartments.

We also masked off the split windows so we won’t have to worry about any over spray.