"65 396 underhood assembly steps

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

The cowl plenum and inner fender skirts on this car needs replacing and we have new pieces ready to go in. It seems like some of the metal clips (hood cable for instance) were attached prior to underhood blackout and some (battery cables?) were attached after. How do we tell when a clip was attached? Are there any hard fast rules to this?

Any info appreciated.

Mark
27152

[William C.]

Re: "65 396 underhood assembly steps

Mark when I did my A/C car a couple of years ago, the best method I found was to move the clip and look behind it. Bare glass-clip was on at blackout. Paint leaves the obvious alternative.

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

Re: "65 396 underhood assembly steps

Bill, Thanks for the response. Unfortunately this car was "customized". Most of the clips are gone and the firewall was painted with a really ugly maroon spiderweb over gloss black. Now it is stripped of paint so the clues you suggested are not available.

We are thinking that all the base model stuff would be there before blackout and the big block only parts were added after.

Hopefully others will add to this and/or refute the assumptions.

Thanks again.

Mark

[John H.]

Re: "65 396 underhood assembly steps

Mark -

I don't have the part-by-part detail, but virtually all underhood clips were attached to the dash and inner fenders in off-line subassembly fixtures in the Body Shop; certainly any clip or bracket that was riveted was Body Shop-installed. The subassembly fixtures were the only place they had access to both sides of any panel to "buck" the rivets.

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

Thank You John

That clears it up. Vetteheads Strike again!

[Wayne W.]

Re: Thank You John

There were some for different applications that were added later. Some of the battery cable clips for BB and AC cars for instance. Most of those will be attached with pop rivets though. You can get a good idea which ones would be involved by looking at the AIM for those options.

[Wayne W.]

Re: Thank You John

BTW did you get the correct inner fenders? They are specific to 65 only.

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

Inner Fenders

Wayne, I sure hope so. I purchased a complete assembled nose from Sermersheim a month ago and it's still in the crate. What should I look for as far as '65 only?

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

Pop Rivets?

The AIM shows different part numbers for rivets;

3418482 Engine wiring harness

455624 Hood cable (hmm.. not enough digits

The clips are different numbers too;

3788712 Eng Harness

3706345 Hood Cable

The rivets are easy to differentiate but the clips are a different story.

Paragon shows a long J type spring steel clip and Corvette Central shows a short J clip dipped in plastic 2/3 of the clip.

Can anyone identify where each rivet/clip is used. We are getting ready to attach the clips and would really like to get it right the first time.

[William C.]

Re: Pop Rivets?

General rule of thumb, if retaining Wiring, clip is dipped in rebber/plastic coating on the lower "J" area. Non-wiring gete undipped clips.

[Wayne W.]

Re: Inner Fenders

Maybe, I sent him some to copy some time ago, but he did not have complete coverage at that time. They are exactly like the 64 except that they do not have the relief where the trim screw on the 64 grill trim went. That is up in the inside corner of the grille opening. The 64 is almost like the 63 except that it has the 64 style rubber strips instead of being glued at the top. At one time Semmershim was using cut down 63s to substitute for the correct ones.