Worth the Wait

Finishing this 1932 Chevrolet Convertible Cabriolet's 40-year restoration was a family affair

Worth the Wait
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November, 2009 - Mark J. McCourt

Strange though it seems, apples have a tendency to start things. The story of Adam and Eve, for instance, or Newton's ruminations on gravity. Apples also started the restoration odyssey of a particular bit of General Motors history. When an aged lady came to the home of Allan and Pat Kehrley in Liberty, New York, to buy apples one summer day, another story was begun.


That same evening, the Kehrleys' overwhelming curiosity made them check the old registration they'd found in the car when they bought it 30 years before; lo and behold, the name on the paperwork was Helen Adolph. Clearly, this 1932 Chevrolet Convertible Cabriolet, even in primer and in the midst of what would amount to a 40-year restoration, was something special.

Allan and Pat were newlyweds when they bought the Chevrolet in 1961 from a man in East Branch, roughly 30 miles from their home. "It was all there, intact, but was well worn," Allan remembers. "Everything was shabby and loose."

The car had been painted black with a brush many years before, and disassembly revealed that the rear springs had an additional leaf over stock, and that a roughly 9x12-inch opening had been painstakingly drilled out of the floor below the rumble seat. These discoveries got them thinking that perhaps a tank had once been installed under the seat cushion, with a dump valve running through the floor; could this Chevy's first owner have been a moonshine runner?

While they always meant to spruce the car up, establishing themselves in their new home and welcoming the births of four boys meant that the Kehrleys' resources and energy were scarce for working on the car--a situation that wasn't helped by the fact that very few vintage Chevrolet parts were being reproduced in the Sixties.

Allan and Pat picked up restoration parts as they found them: One NOS front fender cost $5 from a Chevrolet garage in Youngsville, New York, while another NOS front fender cost $45 at Hershey in 1964. "They came painted, with the pinstripe, from the factory," he recalls. "That's how all of the replacement fenders came from Chevrolet. They were still wrapped in the original paper, so they were in good shape. Not much later, we found the windshield wiper motor at Hershey for $5--it was chromed and looked like it was brand new, but it was original."

The family felt pressure to have the seats reupholstered. "We had the seat upholstery done by Mr. Keesler of Lake Huntington a full 30 years before we had the car finished," Allan says. "He had worked for one of the automakers back in the day, and seats were his business. You didn't have to show him anything--he knew where everything went, how big the pleats were."

Pat adds, "He was an old man who knew exactly how these old cars should be, and we felt sure that he wasn't going to be around for long, so we had the seats done at that time and put them in the attic. But I think he was still going until after we had the car finished!"

Parts-gathering aside, it wasn't until the late 1980s that Allan and Pat were able to tackle the restoration in earnest--and when they did, they had much help in the form of their son Dan, his wife Sandy and many friends.

Before they tackled the bodywork, the Kehrleys wanted to ensure that the roughly 60,000-mile engine was operational. Since the coolant had been drained long ago, they removed the head and the soft plugs to blow out the rusty coolant passages with compressed air. Allan checked the clearances of the bearings, tightening them where necessary, and after determining that the pistons and rings were fine as-is, reassembled the engine.

With a 12-volt battery sending power through five original spark-plug wires and a spare from a Volkswagen, and with gas gravity-fed to the downdraft carburetor from a five-gallon can sitting on the cowl, the straight-six fired up and ran. Pat recalls, "We were jumping up and down and hugging each other, we were so excited--because that was the first time we'd heard it run in years."

Aside from a bit of pinion whine, the differential and the transmission were also found to be in fine working order, and were left alone. The complete 1932 Chevrolet parts car that Allan had purchased came in handy when he had a surprising experience with grease removal: "I mixed up a solution of water and liquid caustic, which is the odorless, non-poisonous chemical that they use to clean soda bottles; it cleans grease really well. I put the whole front axle, drums and everything, into a 55-gallon drum. I left it in there about a week, and when I pulled it out, I saw that all of the grease had come off perfectly. What I didn't realize was that the solution eats pot metal, so all of the little components in the brakes were gone--they had dissolved!"

When they turned their attention to the body, which they'd supported internally with extra wood bracing, the family members called in the help of local friends like Alan Bohann. Together, they tackled the task of stripping the body and the fenders, hood panels, decklid and valences to bare metal. In addition to using an abrasive pad on an air-driven grinding wheel, they repurposed the slow-moving, circa-1928 electric lacquer paint buffer that had originally been used by Allan's Uncle Rob in his job in the body shop of a large Chevrolet garage.

Knowing that paint wasn't in the car's immediate future, they chose to protect the metal with a coating of POR-15. "That was a mistake," Allan says. "Rust was coming through the primer one year, so we took it all off and sprayed POR on because we knew we wouldn't get to it right away. We didn't put it on smoothly--it had runs--so we eventually had to grind it down and re-surface it. You can't sand that stuff; it's like iron. But at least it didn't rust!"

Being foreman of the town's highway department, Allan took advantage of the large-volume air compressor at his workplace; he, Dan and Sandy took turns sandblasting back down to the car's bare metal. "We'd just finished getting it blasted when a thunderstorm came in; we didn't get it home and the rust had already started again," Pat laughs.

With the body back indoors, Allan evaluated the car's inner structure. "The wood was very good, except around the corners behind the doors. The tops, where they were rounded, were split, so I made replacements out of oak. Compared to how badly some Chevrolets from that time have rotted, this didn't amount to much." The only other wooden component that required replacement was the convertible top's header bow, which they purchased from Autowood Restoration in Hanna, Indiana.

The body was moved to Alan Bohann's garage, where he repaired the hole in the rumble seat area and readied the original rear fenders for paint. Then they sprayed the car with single-stage DuPont lacquer primer, and skimmed minor surface imperfections in the rear wheel wells with fiberglass body filler before sanding.

Dan had written to the AACA Library & Research Center at Hershey to learn the meaning of the trim number "95" stamped on the cowl plate, and he'd received a reply with a list of original Chevrolet Duco color specifications and paint color numbers. According to the paperwork, that number meant that when the car left the factory, it sported a combination of Bangor Beige, Haverhill Brown, Cream Medium, Medium Capuccine Brown and black paints, and this was how it would be restored.

Over the course of two years, Allan, Dan, Alan and Andy White, from Cochecton, New York, took turns painting the body, doors, hood panels and fenders using DuPont products; the fenders were single-stage enamel, while the body was finished in the correct lacquer. Alan then carefully masked off the Bangor Beige body paint to spray the raised beltline trim; when it was dry, he buffed the entire vehicle. The rolling chassis, including the suspension and brake components, was painted with semi-gloss black Rust-Oleum, and the engine looked new in its Chevrolet Grey enamel from Bill Hirsch Auto. The finishing exterior touch was the hand-painted pinstripe, which Craig Stewart of Calicoon, New York, charged the Kehrleys $200 to do.

Allan pulled the Chevrolet's seats out of the attic; Andy installed them at long last, along with matching interior panels and tan canvas top from LeBaron Bonney's Hampton Coach. "The top was in the box for 10 years before we got to use it," Allan recalls. "I thought it might have shrunk, but it was fine. It was the same with the door panels--we thought we were going to use them right away, but it was 10 years later. Andy's an oil-burner man, but he does a hell of a job on a top."

The family's years of waiting and work paid off with official recognition from the AACA, as the Convertible Cabriolet earned its third Junior in 1994, its first Junior in 2001 and the coveted Senior trophy at Hershey in 2003. "It's a home job," Allan says, modestly. "I think that the day we took it to Hershey was a day I'll never forget," Pat adds; "When we drove that car out onto the field, I felt like a queen. After all of that time, it felt like it was not real."

Shortly after purchasing the Chevrolet in 1961, Allan disassembled it and removed the body from the frame; here, he was applying some filler to a dent by the rumble seat latch.

More than 20 years of sitting disassembled in the Kehrleys' dry basement kept the Chevrolet from deteriorating further, and the body metal proved to be completely intact, if less than attractive.

Sandy pressure-washed the car's frame, suspension and mechanical components--still ambulatory via the original wheels--to clean off decades of accumulated dirt and grease.

Years of inactivity meant that the engine's dry water jackets were filled with rusty dust; after removing the head, Dan blew out the channels with an air compressor before proceeding.

The 40hp, 193.90-cu.in. straight-six engine required only a valve job, tightened bearings and new gaskets to run again; the pistons and rings were never removed from the block.

The protective body primer applied by Allan years before was no match for Sandy, wielding the family's old electric buffer, and Alan Bohann, equipped with an air-powered grinder.

Because the Kehrleys knew they wouldn't be painting the car for some time, they opted to safeguard what they could by spraying the bare metal (here, the dashboard) with a coat of POR-15.

POR-15 protected the body's metal perfectly, but when it came time to strip it, the coating's tenacity proved a challenge; it took both grinding and sandblasting to remove prior to painting.

Using a Binks gun and the family's twin-stage air compressor, Sandy sprayed the Chevrolet's cowl with DuPont acrylic lacquer primer before correcting some minor imperfections with body filler.

After the NOS front and original rear fenders were stripped of their protective coating of POR-15, Dan hung them from the ceiling and sprayed each one with acrylic enamel primer.

Dry storage had preserved most of the body wood; Allan replaced two pieces in the upper rear corners, and with help, lowered the body onto the frame to test its alignment.

They originally planned to re-use the original, lightly damaged running boards, so the old rubber was removed with a wire wheel; the Kehrleys later bought reproductions to use instead.

Because re-chroming was such an expense, every bit was done one at a time, as they had the funds; stored under their bed in old socks, this stash, dug out in 1991, represented $2,500.

A number of people helped with the car's paint at different times; the body tub was painted in Alan's and Andy's garages with acrylic lacquer sourced from Bill Hirsch Auto.

Alan masked the body paint to apply black to the raised body moldings, as was done at the factory; the body's underside was painted semi-gloss black with Rust-Oleum spray cans.

With the painted body reattached to the detailed frame and engine, and the entire car supported by jack stands, Dan reassembled the suspension and brake components.

With Allan's help, Andy installed the interior panels and expertly stretched the new cabriolet top over the original bows, wrapped in matching canvas; only the header bow had to be replaced.

Allan made top screws by drilling one inch of a brass punch to mate with a 4-inch carriage bolt; he cut a 1/8-inch groove to solder in flat steel for the 'T' handle before filing, polishing and chroming.


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