Malibumonte's Malibu a 1970 Chevelle Day 2 Style build.

Well I waited a while to see if this subforum was going to last. I didn't want to put effort into a post if it was going to get axed. Since it looks like it is going to stick around I figure I will start a thread on my 1970 Chevelle.

This is my current build I am working on and was just painted a couple of weeks ago. Working on final ***embly now hoping to have it done by next spring. Basic idea here is for a mostly factory looking car with the slots and some other "day 2" type mods. I bought it three years ago after basically giving up on finding a affordable Chevelle. I had been looking a while and finally decided to build my '56 Chevy BelAir 2dr sedan. I purchased a one piece floor for that and when I went to the guys house to pick it up the Chevelle was sitting in the yard.

Here is what I saw. I couldn't tell what year it was since the front clip and rear bumper were missing. It turns out it was a '71 and he priced it to me cheap. So I decided to buy it!

Went back the next morning to pick it up and brought it home. Started off by power washing it to get all of the mildew off of it.

Rolled it in my shop that night, which was new to me and unfinished, and got it on the lift to ***ess it. I was very pleased with what I found, the floors on this car were super solid. Basically the only rust issues were what you can see in 1/4"s. The doors were very rough. Someone had sanded to bare metal in the past and then put it in red primer before it sat outside for who knows how long so it had a lot of surface rust to deal with. Overall a very good foundation to start with.
Initially I wasn't quite sure what direction I was headed with it. Initially I planned on piecing it together kind of beater style and having a driver/ratty muscle car. I started looking for parts immediately. Now some of you might of noticed that the thread ***le says it is a '70, but in this thread I said I was told it was a '71. It is a '71, but when I was first shopping for parts I just started out by looking for whatever I could find. I happened to find the parts to make it look like a '70 first and ended up going that route. The car was not an SS or factory BBC car, so I had some wiggle room to do as I pleased on this and I prefer the four headlight look of the '70s.

This is a month later or so. You can start to see the shop coming together around the Chevelle. Insulation installed and loft built. By this time I had found some useable fenders cheap and gone back and purchased a new dome hood from the same guy I bought the car from. It stayed in this mocked up condition for a while while I worked on the shop, built the engine/trans, and collected parts.

About 6 months after I purchased it I ended up selling my high school car '78 Malibu (that my username comes from) and that made me change my direction on this build, blowing it apart for a full frame off resto and giving me some money to order some parts that I hadn't planned on originally. Here it is completely dis***embled ready to send the frame off for sandblasting and powder coating.

I also decided to sandblast the body. I had sanded it several times, but I was struggling to cut through the surface rust left on it from sitting outside in primer for so long.

Followed up the blasting with a quick coat of epoxy primer.
Original rust free floors.

Let me know what you think. If you all like it I will post some more updates on how it got to the stage I am at now.

 

Hell yes!... Keep it going please....

 

You don't get to quit until you at least make it look like a car again.

Its just not right to start building something like this, then take it apart again, do sand blasting, show us a near finished car, and then threaten to leave us hang without all the details.

 

Love it!!

 

I'm a fan of the 70, the 71-2 not so much

 

Very nice. Looks like your gamble on what first appears to be a rust bucket paid off.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, since you like it I will keep going.

Here is the frame and suspension components back from powdercoat. I didn't go real crazy on the suspension. I used stock front control arms, spindles, brakes, steering components. The rear end is a stock 12 bolt 3.73 posi that I installed some aftermarket upper and lower control arms on. I did have some drop coil springs and bilstein shocks that I bought used cheap off of a guy that upgraded to coilovers.

Ready for an engine. Hmm what is a good engine for a '70 Chevelle?

How about a Rectangle port head big block? . Yeah I think that will do. I have a long history with this motor, a lot of that is detailed on my other build thread for my '57 Chevy G***er "Midnight Special". I will try to give the short version here. I got this block when I was 18 and intended to build it for my '69 Nova that my dad had gave me when I was 6. I started building it as a basic .030 over 454 oval port deal a couple of years after that, but before I finished the engine build I ended up buying a second '78 Malibu and built that car up as my first big block drag car and left the Nova in the barn. About 6-7 years after that I was tired of that car and ready to build a g***er. I decided to part out that Malibu to build Midnight Special. I intended to use the engine as it was, but when I took it apart to replace gaskets I found damage. So I ended up completely changing it up to a 496 build with GM rectangle port heads and a solid roller. That engine made it about right at a year when I spun a bearing and broke rod bolt in the burnout box, pretty much destroying everything. The block was cracked and being a .060 over already I figured it was finished. It sat in the corner a couple of years when I decided to bring it out and see if I could fix it and use it as a street engine for my Nova.

I took it to my machinist and he was able to clean up the damage and fix the crack with a sleeve. I started ***embling it but just like 12 years previous before I finished building the engine for the Nova, I bought another Malibu and decided it belonged in it instead.

This is a pretty basic 496 build. Cast crank, forged rods and pistons, hyd roller cam, some 990 rectangle port heads. Should make a great street engine.

***embled and painted up, almost ready to install.


Almost complete rolling sub***embly. The third piece of the drivetrain puzzle is a 400 turbo trans that my old man and I built with a Transgo shift kit and a Coan convertor.

If you made it this far and you are asking what about the Nova? Well good news it finally got built after sitting almost 40 years and it does have a big block in it as well. Maybe I will start a thread on it too.

 

Those front rally wheels look like they are 15x5's.

 

I'll be watching....'70 is my favorite year for Chevelles's.

 

They are aftermarket 15x4s. They can be bought fairly cheap. They made it look pretty decent these last couple of years while I had it mocked up. I had planned on running them long term, but this year I decided on the US Indy mags.

 

Since the frame was ready, I had a little work to do the body before I could mate them back together. Although the main part of the floor was solid, sandblasting did find some issues in the rear seat pan so I had to patch that.





I also had to replace the center section of the trunk floor.

Mocked up the Vintage Air plate on the firewall.

Decided to smooth out the rest of the firewall to match the plate.

After I had those repairs completed and coated in epoxy primer again, I set the frame up to remarry with the body.

Mid-drop



At this point I had owned the car just over a year total. I decided to throw some panels on it quick to take some pictures to commemorate. This is with a 1/4 skin patch just hanging on the car not actually installed. I had ended up purchasing new aftermarket doors, fenders and full quarters.

 

Trivia of no particular importance here.........
GM used the 15x5" rally wheels in 1967 only on disc brake equipped taxis and police car applications. I bought a pair many years back at the Portland Swap Meet while looking for 14x5's for my 67 Nova, I recall the guy also saying they were used on Canadian built cars with disc brakes.

 

Sounds like some good trivia to me. Now I have something else to look for at swap meets.

 

After getting the body and ch***is remarried I worked on mocking up the panels. Since everything was basically aftermarket and different brands I figured this was going to be difficult, but it actually wasn't that bad.

Hood and front fenders.

Grill and fender extensions, original GM parts.

Also worked on the engine some as well. Set valve lash in preparation for final intake installation. Mocked up accessories and brackets.

Installed a rear sump in a stock replacement tank.

Tank installed.
After that I decided to tackle the quarter panel replacement. I started on the p*** side because it was in worse shape and had some damage on the inner wheelhouse and trunk dropoff. I figured if I could get that one done ok then the drivers side would be a cake walk.

I bought a plasma torch just before this and it made this part super easy. I cut the largest portion off in 5 minutes tops leaving all of the spot welded seams.

Probably spent 4 hours or more after that drilling and grinding spot welds to clean up all of the seams.


First mockup without the wheel well. It slid right into place like it was made for it!

Pulled it back off to replace the out wheelhouse and trunk drop.

Both pieces tacked in for another test fit.

Full welded and painted ready for final 1/4 install.

 

Cool!.....

 

Man, you're going wild on it! Please let me know what headers you have.

 

They are Dynomax Performance 86110. I bought them from someone that had had them for around 20 years and never installed them. I think they are discontinued, I don't know why though they fit great.

 

Here is the 1/4 fitted and tacked in place.


Spun it around and proceeded to cut off the driver side.

Fully cut and ready to start going back together.

Fitted in place, I took less pictures of this side. No pictures of the wheelwell installation.

Test fit a rear bumper before final welding both sides.

This is jumping ahead a little, but on topic. I ended up with both 70 and '71 bumpers and had to consider for a while which I wanted to go with.

I decided that I preferred the '70 bumper making it fully backdated to a '70. I ended up hanging the '71 bumper on the wall which you will see in future photos.

 

After the 1/4s were installed I turned my focus to getting it running. This was in early Jan of '23. I rigged up enough wiring and gauges to get it started and borrowed the carb off of Midnight Special and fired it up for the first time.


Had my Dad and a few buddies over to help on that adventure.

Sometime after that I was painting a model for my son and decided to try some of that paint on the fender extension. Hmm, I think blue would look good on the whole car...


In April of '23 I finished up everything needed to make it drive under it's on power. I just drove it around my little circle drive a couple of times, but it felt good to be actually driving it.

And here is the main reason I needed to move the Chevelle. I needed to get my '69 Nova on the lift to finish up making it a driver. My Dad gave me the Nova when I was 6 years old, and after sitting in his yard or barn for over 25 years I decided it didn't need to be perfect, but I needed to get it on the road. I had made it run and drive back in November of '21 right before I bought the Chevelle, but I needed to finish up making it a legal driver so I could have some fun with it in '23.

It was a big deal for me to have these two cars together in the same spot and both running and driving!

A couple of bruisers almost ready to hit the streets!

 

I spent most of the Spring of '23 working on the Nova and took a little break from the Chevelle. In mid June there was a local car show and I saw they had an unfinished cl***. I am not normally a big fan of car shows and am more of a cruise night kind of guy, but decided I wanted to show off the progress I had made on the Chevelle. So I ****oned up a few odds and ends and trailered it to the show.

That is a few pics I took of it at home before the show. We had a good time for the most part and I got that out of my system for another couple of years.
I think this pic was taken that evening after the show, but it might have been another evening. I thought it was cool with the three projects together.

Sometime after that I mocked up the hood again.
After this I took a long hiatus from working on the Chevelle. I had a few other projects that I had to catch up on. As you can see behind the Chevelle my wife's family heirloom Model T needed an engine swap. Also in the fall of '23 I swapped a 396 BBC into the Nova to finally make it the Big Block car I dreamed of most of my life. Immediately after finishing that I rebuilt the 355 I took out of the Nova and built a '85 Chevy K20 for my winter beater/farm truck. At the start of '24 I decided to start on my '56 Chevy since I had owned it for 10 years at that point and hadn't made any progress on it.
While all of those projects were going on the Chevelle hung out in the corner, waiting its turn again. I had to steal a part here and there. The starter and temp gauge to get the '56 started, the fuel pump to try and diagnose a fuel delivery problem on the Nova. This past summer I started getting motivated to work on the Chevelle again and put a plan in motion to make it happen.

 

Amazing!!

 

Sometime this summer I brought one of my spare wheels and tires off of Midnight Special home from my other shop to test fit it on the Chevelle. I was really just testing tire fitment, but when I saw it with the slot on it I decided I needed to find some for the Chevelle.

I ended up buying some new US Indy mags for it. These fit the look I was going for so well! This purchase really motivated me to get back to work, right after this I pulled it out of the corner and back to front and center in the shop.

Scuffed all of the EDP primer off of the replacement panels, ground all of the welds, filled the quarter to roof seam, and started some filler work.


After that I sprayed everything with a couple of coats of SPI black epoxy as a good base to start with. I did some additional filler work over that before spraying a few coats of SPI urethane primer.

Here is the first round of urethane ready for blocking. I did four rounds of urethane and blocking total.


I think this is after the first round of blocking ready for more urethane.

A little jump in time to spare you all from the "groundhog day" of urethane primer and blocking. Here is the fourth coat of urethane after I installed the hood and fender extensions to ensure proper alignment. At this point it just needs sanded with 600 before it is ready to be sprayed.

The entire "bodywork" process from the time I pulled it out of the corner until the picture above was just less than one month working on it nights and weekends and taking one full week off of work focused on it. I have never done bodywork to anywhere near this level before, but I was committed to make this car nice and I don't have the money to pay someone else so I had to figure it out. Overall I am very proud of the end result.

 

Looking good! Your project is moving faster than my chevelle project. Both had similar starting points tho. Keep posting updates please

as found

pretty much what it looks like now

 

Love it! I looked a long time for a 68 or 69 before I bought this car. A month before I purchased mine I walked away from a completely rotted and mostly parted out '68. I am glad I did because I wouldn't have been able to purchase my '71 if I had and it was a much better starting point. I am still hoping to get one someday, hopefully ****ernut yellow to match the Nova.
Progress probably looks better since I have three years of to catch up on. Once I get caught up in a post or two it will slow down. Plan is to be done for next summer. I looked at your thread, maybe it will be released from paint jail soon and you can get it finished for next summer too.

 

He’s got a truck bed in the booth that should be done in a week or so, mine goes in next. All the sub ***emblies are pretty well ready to install. So o’m hoping for a spring first drive

 

Very cool car! Watching! I am a closet Chevelle guy too I guess.

 

Sweet!


After the final coat of urethane I blew it back apart to get some epoxy sealer in the jambs and underside and inside of panels. I was working with my local Carquest on paint and they mix Dynacoat by Akzonobel. I hadn't heard much about that company so I started with a pint and spray the bottom of the trunk and marker light bezels to see what I thought.

I was very happy with how it sprayed and how the metallics laid down. They looked really good in the sun.

I built a makeshift booth out of plastic and my friend loaned me fan system he had built for painting in his garage. Called a friend to help and started spraying all of the panels first.

First coat. After this I quit taking pics until all the clear was laid.


Turned out really good! Some dust and bugs that can be expected in a garage job, but nothing that won't come out in the wetsand and buff stage.

A couple of days later I pulled all of the panels out and got the main shell moved in and masked off.

Started on the jambs first making sure we had good coverage. Once again I failed taking any pictures after this point.

And here is the finished product on the body. I was pumped on how it turned out. Couldn't wait to start putting it back together.

 

I played with the emblems a little to see how it would look.

A couple days after spraying the body, I reinstalled most of the panels to see how it was going to look.

Catching a little sun through the window.


Love this look with the lights off and the late afternoon sun coming in.

I can help but to stand and stare at this every time I walk in or out of my shop. I still have a hard time believing this is my car sometimes. I am not used to having something this nice!
So that catches my progress up to where I was when I started this thread. and since then I have been working on wet sanding to get the clear perfectly flat. What is the plan from here? I have almost everything I need to put the rest of the car together including a blue interior kit. I am hoping on getting the wet sanding and buffing done by the end of the calendar year and to spend the rest of the winter putting the car together.

Just a week ago I was able to get registered for Sick Summer 2025 drag and drive off of the waitlist and I am planning on having the Chevelle finished in time. I am really looking forward to this. I have wanted to participate in a drag and drive since drag week was in its infancy, but have never had the right car or been in the right place to do it. The Chevelle should be fast enough to be respectable, but also street able enough to be comfortable. Planning on bringing my Dad along and we should have a great time!

 

Car is looking great and the drag and drive deal sounds like a blast! I would like to do the same sometime with my son.

 

I let this get way behind! Lost access to my computer I was posting from and havent wanted to post from my phone, but I'm finally breaking down and doing it. Been making great progress on the car though.

Spent all of Dec cutting and buffing it. A task I was sure glad to be done with and not looking forward to doing again.

I was off in between Christmas and New Year and got the polishing finished up then. Turned out real slick.

Since then I have been all over the place. Work on interior a little, then wiring, trim, back to interior. Plenty to do. Sometime it seems like I'm spinning my wheels, but it is really starting to come together.

Did the headliner myself and I think it turned out good.

Restored and recolored the dash housing.

Stay tuned I have a lot more progress picture to add.