'79 Chevy Caprice 2-door then and now...

Awesome bud, im glad its going pretty smooth for you with finding parts

I wonder how much a place would charge to rechrome a few sets of these tail light bezels.

Good that your finding parts since they are hard to come by.

79treemaster wrote:I wonder how much a place would charge to rechrome a few sets of these tail light bezels.

If I don't end up buying a set, I thought about contacting one of those companies that does plastic chrome plating. It's expensive though.

Is it more than buying a NOS pair for 200.00. I got a complete NOS set now but they cost me around 220.00 with shipping and purchased at different times.

79treemaster wrote:Is it more than buying a NOS pair for 200.00.  I got a complete NOS set now but they cost me around 220.00 with shipping and purchased at different times.

I hadn't really looked into pricing yet, but I was on a couple of sites one night looking at ball park pricing of plastic parts from other cars and my eyes were popping out! Also, some of these sites said that once the parts are plated they cannot be flexed much at all which is a little discouraging.

79treemaster wrote:Is it more than buying a NOS pair for 200.00.

probably, but man i wish those ebayers would tone down the price on our much needed parts!

Not much progress lately with the cold weather. I managed to have a buddy come over and help me get the hood off, so now I can truck on myself since I couldn't lift that hood by myself, much less carry it into the building. This weekend is supposed to be in the 50s, so maybe I can get the dog house off and start gutting the interior.

solo79 wrote:<snip>  This weekend is supposed to be in the 50s, so maybe I can get the dog house off and start gutting the interior.  

Whatcha going to do with the black door panels and lower rear side panels (under the quarter windows)?
What do you still need?  
Maybe we could work out a trade......

Sweet Seventy9 wrote:

solo79 wrote:<snip>  This weekend is supposed to be in the 50s, so maybe I can get the dog house off and start gutting the interior.  

Whatcha going to do with the black door panels and lower rear side panels (under the quarter windows)?
What do you still need?  
Maybe we could work out a trade......

I'm not completely sure yet, but I may be doing a black interior. However, if I decide not to do a black interior, I will not be painting any of the black plastic because it's too hard to find as is. I will most likely look to trading the black for a different more common color that I can paint right over. Those black panels are in excellent condition even the ones around the quarter windows and the pieces down the rear door jams. It would be a shame to paint over them, so if I do different colors, I'm not going to ruin those panels. I'm pretty set on black interior at the moment though. Sadly, the driver's side door panel will need repair since the goof that had the car, didn't clip the lower corner in, so every time he shut the door, the panel folded into the kick panel creasing the cardboard. Really, how hard is it to clip the door panel on?lol

Oh, no no no.... black interiors are awful!  












Please trade me yours, LOL!  

I on the otherhand love the black interior, wish mine had it!

I was only kidding about black interiors being awful............

i forgot that i hate the black interior also, i can dispose of it properly for you  

Hahahaha at both of you! My friends are trying to talk me into bright green paint with white vinyl top in which case black interior would not go so well. I'm leaning towards bright orange with a black vinyl top in which case black interior will look awesome. I'm also considering black paint with a tan vinyl top, but I have two black Trans Ams and black paint is a real bear to maintain, so I don't know if I could do a third black car. Decisions, decisions.

Now for some progress! Finally made some real headway on the dog house this weekend. Got the whole thing off in 2 hours and only had to grind off ONE bolt and that was the bolt that holds the lower fender brace to the battery tray area. I guess the amount of corrosion and rust turned that bolt into a blob and nub. There was no way of getting that off without a 4" hand grinder. The other side was perfect and came right off. All of the bolts were fairly easy to remove for the most part. I had a couple that were tight all the way out (gotta love those).

Radiator drained, radiator, condenser and shrouds removed:



Dog house removed:











I was very happy to see that the firewall is completely solid and rust free, not even surface rust in the hidden areas. That's a huge plus. Next step will be the a/c box, then pull the engine.

When i was at the salvage yard yesterday, there was a 2 door 84 caprice with bright lime green hulk looking type paint, whoever painted it did a horrible job, there was over spray on everything, but it had the red interior, yeah that color combo just wasnt working for me, im sure it had some 26's on it during its life. Black is nice and i love it on my caprice but it is a pain. Go for that light orange then, unless you put a black top on, then that might work with the green.

GM B-Body Forum wrote:When i was at the salvage yard yesterday, there was a 2 door 84 caprice with bright lime green hulk looking type paint, whoever painted it did a horrible job, there was over spray on everything, but it had the red interior, yeah that color combo just wasnt working for me, im sure it had some 26's on it during its life. Black is nice and i love it on my caprice but it is a pain. Go for that light orange then, unless you put a black top on, then that might work with the green.

LOL, I've never been a fan of the giant wheels.  Green with red interior...NOOOO!  Hmmm, never thought about green with a black top, that could work...  It looks killer on 70s Monte Carlos and they usually have a black interior as well.  Thanks for the idea. The problem is, I like that black interior so much, that I'm trying to make the rest of the car work with it.haha

So, I heard back from Classic Industries on obtaining additional chrome plastic parts for 79 Caprice and got absolutely nowhere with that. In a nutshell, the email said "we are not a manufacturer, but a distributor and are always looking for restoration parts. Thanks for contacting us."

So, with that, I happen to stumble upon these nice items on ebay the other day:



I bought them for 60 for the pair. VERY nice chrome on these for 30 each as you won't find them in a junk yard this nice.

Progress? Nope.

Haha i dont miss that stuff at all, it only snowed once here in north carolina, but it was gone a few hours later.

Well, with the weather, I've made no progress on the car. We might get a LOT of snow tomorrow and Monday and temperatures around -7. I haven't seen below zero here in YEARS. Last weekend, I was looking around on Pull-A-Part's website and noticed Nashville, TN showed a 79 Caprice that came in on the 14th of December. Knowing it was the holidays and how cold it's been, I was hoping it would be a good score. I WAS RIGHT!!! I drove 2.5 hours south Last Friday in my little Cavalier, walked to the row it was on and nearly fainted. It was a bright blue 2-door 79 Caprice that was basically untouched except the hood and hinges were missing. I immediately went to work on it. On Friday, I pulled the passenger fender, complete front header panel, quarter glass moldings, all of the plastic trim inside the back window, parking lights, front bumper grilles, and one front bumper turnsignal. All of the interior plastics including the door panels were completely trashed, not useable at all. I was surprised that the plastic around the back window survived, but it's awesome shape. After thinking about it when I got home, I went back the next day with a truck and stripped the car. I got every useable item off the car. I got the driver's fender, the entire taillight assemblies, license plate assembly, rear extensions, bumper fillers and THE BACK WINDOW!!!! I took a buddy with me, so we could saw the back window out using wire and vice grips. Took us an hour and a half, but worth the effort and the price of 32.00. Also, got the back window moldings. I got myself bags of screws, bolts, clips, etc. I'm set now.

My main goal was to score a passenger fender and header panel, but once I saw the car, I knew I had to strip it because it's only going to get crushed. I would have taken the doors and trunk lid, but I have no place at home to store them. The door frames on the doors were separated pretty badly, but fixable. The trunk lid had the lock gouged out of it with a crowbar since the whole thing was damaged, but again fixable. I just didn't have room for it and I don't need those items. The back window was an awesome score though!! Here are some pics of some of the parts I scored on Friday. It was dark when I got back Saturday, so I don't have pics of anything but the back window since I brought it in the house and put it under the bed.











If anyone ever comes across one of these and needs some pointers on removing the back window, let me know. It's not too bad, you just have to take your time and you a need a buddy. I forgot to bring my camera to the yard on Saturday, but my buddy took a few snaps of the car in the yard on his IPhone. As soon as he emails me those pics, I'll post those too. It's really a shame that it was in the junk yard as it was pretty solid except for rusted rear quarters. The idiots with the forklift picked the front of the car up by the bumper and I guess the forks angled upward and buckled both lower front fenders a little. I was a little upset about that, but once I reached down and pulled them back out, it wasn't too bad, so I took them both. You'd think those clowns would be more careful. It's impossible to find those fenders now.

All told, I spent about 290 bucks for ALL of the caprice parts and a few Firebird/Cavalier parts. I probably have 2,500.00 (Ebay prices) worth of Caprice parts and I spent about 200.00. I like having extra parts because you never know when you might need them.

I got tons of other stuff too, just don't have pics because it was dark Saturday and it's all stored away. If anyone needs some decent doors or a decent trunk lid, go to Nashville Pull-A-Apart and get them. That's about all that's left of the car that's useable except for some glass. I stripped it good. I had to do it.lol Too bad the front grille and bezels were all broken or I would have had those too, but they were junk. I FORGOT the front windshield moldings which I wanted for extras, so those are there as well as a nice front windshield with no cracks and no separation. I really wanted the quarter glasses, but my buddy was wore out from sawing out the back window, so that didn't happen, plus it started to sprinkle when I started removing the other fender and other parts. So, I had to hurry.

B-body, if you look carefully in my pile of parts, you'll see a special item in there for you. I'll be PMing you with more detailed pics including the bracket and it's all yours.

Forgot to mention, there was also a 4-door 83 there that I got the gray interior pieces out of. I could have got more off that one interior wise, but I was wore out.

Awesome man! I see that fender moulding! Thought id create a more personal account instead of b body forum (i really am a real person lol) From the pics of that trim you got, it looks like that 79 had they oyster colored interior. Let me know about the fender moulding.