The LAZARUS Project: PART II

Judging by the responses that have been received at Team VETTE about The Lazurus Project, you the readers are definitely interested in seeing us resurrect the sorry remains of our mid year roadster. The interesting thing is that these suggestions range all over the place, from installing a solid rear axle with a big block, to updating to a fully independent C-4 suspension with a small block. Without a doubt Michael Desmond captured my thoughts when he created the stunning rendering of the finished product, and it obviously captured your interest as well. As of right now we are using these suggestions for ideas and future planning, but in the meantime we need to get this project rolling. Keep those suggestions coming, it helps us keep our enthusiasm going-this is a big project!

After letting the mid year's shell sit outside for a couple of months, we finally decided it was time to start getting ol' Lazurus put together, at least somewhat. Without any floors, the body had no strength or rigidity at all, so we started by getting the floors back in place. If you remember the floors had been cut out to install a rollcage which had been removed prior to my purchase of the hulk. The floors add quite a bit of structural integrity to the vehicle, not to mention somewhere to sit. After talking to ol' Editor Bob, we decided to start at ground zero and get the floors glassed back into place, just so we had a base to work with. With all of my previous experience with Corvettes, I'd always used Eckler's materials to bond panels on and to repair broken or missing fiberglass pieces. Of course, the first step was to get with Eckler's and get all of the materials, which included bonding adhesive, resin, mat, and some sprayable gelcoat. The gelcoat won't be used yet, but I wanted it on hand so when we are finished with all of the glasswork, we can give the floors a smooth, and protected finish.

While I had anticipated this installation of the floors would be quick, maybe a one-night ordeal, it turned into a couple of days. When the floors are laid into place, we realized that everything doesn't just fit back together--instead we had to glass in sections at a time, wait for them to cure, and move on to another section.

As you follow along in the photos, you will notice all of the "stitching" and clamping that was involved to get these floors to fit right. The stitching I am referring to is when you drill a hole in each piece and use some wire to connect or draw the pieces together--not all that different from what medical doctors do after performing surgery, or to suture an accidental wound. Some people may not agree with this technique, but it has always provided successful results for me. After the bond has been made, I simply cover the holes with a second coat of fiberglass mat, and the holes disappear. This isn't how you'd do it for a restoration, but with Lazarus, well, just about anything goes, as long as it's strong and will look good finished.

Even though the procedure didn't go quite as planned, I got the floors in there. At that point I discovered that several pieces of the firewall were missing, but that's another, unexpected project that we'll work on next. In the meantime, we will continue to add some extra layers of glass to our floorboard seams, sand, and gelcoat the floor, but not finish it until we get out chassis figured out. I would hate to go through and finish the floors only to realize that some section of it needed to be modified to clear a suspension or drivetrain component. Well, I guess that may be a hint of things to come soon.

When working with fiberglass, always protect your skin and wear a respirator, this stuff will give you the "itchies" and is very bad for your lungs. We proceeded to sand all of the edges of our floors and floor pan with 36 grit to provide the fiberglass resin and mat proper adhesion.	Well it looks like the rear well fits well (ha-ha) though if you notice there isn't really anywhere to clamp it in place.	Since we had nowhere to clamp, we drilled holes in each piece, and "stitched" them together. We used some mechanics wire. After the pieces cure, we remove the wire and give the area another coat of fiberglass. This will cover the holes and add some strength to the bonded area.
Using the Ecklers materials, we cut strips of fiberglass matting to about 1-inch wide and mixed up the resin in half-quart increments. We had about 30 minutes until the resin "kicked" so we had to work efficiently.	With a paint brush we first applied resin to the bonding areas, and then thoroughly soaked a piece of the fiberglass matting with resin, and bridged the two mating surfaces. We did this the entire perimeter of the rear well. As the resin starts to dry you may need to pat the air bubbles out with your paint brush. The mat will lay flat, and be hardly noticeable.	OK, one section down and a couple to go. If you noticed, we completed the hardest access area first so we had plenty of room to get in the car and do the necessary work. The floor pieces were located and again prepped with 36 grit by sanding on the edges for proper adhesion.
The front floors had some provisions to use clamps, but since the area of the floors was so heavy, jackstands, stitching and luck held them in place while using the fiberglass and cure time. Also note the missing piece of firewall.
At this point we thought we were really moving along, until we went to install the "mystery pieces" as I referred to them. I never knew quite where they went until we got to this point, and when they were put in place we discovered that we needed to do some tweaking.		The only way we could get everything to line up was to push, pull and stretch, so we decided to stitch the panels back together. We obviously needed quite a few to keep everything aligned.
It may look a bit messy, but this is the first coat of glass for the entire floor install. The console fit into place without incident, and we proceeded to glass everything together. There are a few little sections that need attention, and I still need to flip the body over to glass underneath, but you get the idea. All of the stitching was removed and I laid another coat of glass on everything, Well it's a start to a long journey, stay tuned!