ganshert

My 65 base convertible shows ~36,000 on a broken odometer. I assumed it had at least 136,000 when I bought it. I have no documentation on the car's history, I've had it 3 weeks and have about 2,000 miles on it including the 1,300 mile drive home from where I bought it. It's in remarkably good shape but the paint and interior are very recently new so they don't offer me any insight into it's use / abuse. It has the original engine and everything is correctly date coded except the master cylinder.

I pulled the wheels tonight and found all of the rotors are still riveted and all measure 1.250. I guess it's possible that it could have 36,000 original miles. Can you drive a car 136,000 miles without the rotors being replaced or showing noticable wear. I'm assuming since 1.250 is listed as nominal width that's what they started at, maybe that's not true. It was purported that there were only two other owners, maybe they both babied it.

Procrastination Racing

As long as you run the organic pads and don't let them run down to rivets or get too much dirt caught in the pads, they will run those rotors almost forever.

I used a racing organic on the race car, and the brutal abuse that brakes got, still didn't eat up the rotors. A friend ran metallic racing pads and ate a set of rotors in less time than I ran altogether.

136,000 is possible but more probable is that it sat at 36,000 for 40 years before someone fixed the speedometer while restoring it.

ganshert

Odometer still doesn't work, I'm guessing it broke at 36K not 136K and the odometer has been broken for many many miles but not 100K or more. It's fun to think about but really doesn't matter much.

TCracingCA

Are the ball joints still riveted! Check the lights to see if original. Any new school rtv showing on the engine, original u-joints? Stuff like that!

capevettes

My 65 still has the original rotors and the car has close to 300,000 miles on it. Never let the pads get down to the rivets.

Easy Rhino

My '65 has what appear to be original rivets and therefore rotors at nearly 80,000 miles. I have a hard time believing that someone doing a brake job of these cars that required rotor replacement would replace the entire hubs and not just drill out the rivets and replace only the rotors.

I think it's quite possible that those may be original rotors/rivets; however, I'm not certain that those are the original calipers. But I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head for '65s.

Nice looking car, BTW.

MikeM

If the car stops straight and smooth, I wouldn't touch those rotors.

rfn026

Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

Richard Newton
Brake Rotor Prep.

Mark_Milner

They aren't original calipers. But unless you are going for NCRS judging awards, what does it matter?

Check this:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1593150239

Left front is 1967 to 1972.

Left rear is 1973 to 1982.

Right front is 1973 to 1982.

Right rear is unknown.


Great looking car, BTW.

GUSTO14

I bought a '73 with manual brakes in 1988 with about 35k on it. In the late 90's with about another 8-9k on it I decided to change the front rotors out for some new drilled and slotted rotors and some Hawk HP+ pads.

When I removed the original rotors (still riveted to the hubs) and pads, the rotors looked too good to throw away. I bead blasted and painted them to save for another project down the road and planned to turn them when I was ready to use them. After I was done, I decided just for grins to mic them to see how much was left. Much to my surprise, one of them was right at the limits and the other was just below the limits.

I really thought little of it until joining the Forum and seeing so many reports of rotors lasting for more than 100k miles. I have no way of explaining how these rotors could look so good with so few miles on them but still be essentially worn out.

Good luck... GUSTO

Mark_Milner

Semi-metallic pads, no doubt. They were designed with the organic asbestos pads and the iron rotors are not that hard. Semi-metallic pads eat them up.

Also, semi-metallic pads are noisy on the C2-C3 cars. Another reason to stay organic.

Unless you are all-out racing where you overheat the organic pads, stay with them.

6T7L71CPE

I think this story deserves its own new post!

ganshert

My 15 year old daughter and I made the trip, it was fantastic! With the exception of about a 5 hour stop for some sleep we drove 1289 miles between Friday afternoon around 4PM and Saturday evening at 7PM. If my math is right that's about 59MPH average and about 16MPG overall. She ran great the whole way, didn't much like the altitude change once we got back to Colorado but I was able to lean it out a little and keep it going. I had spares for points, condenser, coil, etc... so of course didn't need them. I even picked up a fire extinguisher so I wouldn't need it too.

I burned 2.5 quarts of oil. After checking it out all of that went through the valve guides on 1,3,5, and 7. I'm doing valve seals now, there weren't any remnants of the original seals on the driver's side head. The passenger side ones were still there but they were very brittle, I'm surprised they were still working as good as they were.

SJW

Some might question your sensibilities for driving that just-purchased classic home from so far away, but I, for one, salute your spirit, sir!

A devil-may-care attitude about certain things can contribute much to a life well lived and the many indelible memories that result. Playing everything the safe way is usually the sane -- but boring -- option. And adversity, which you are surely thankful to have avoided, can introduce added dimensions to the stories you'll have to tell after the trip has ended. As an example, I helped a friend crew his sailboat back from Tortola to the Chesapeake Bay some years ago, and the story of that journey would be a real snooze if we hadn't hit rough seas and broken so much equipment on the way home. We lived to tell about it, the bruises have healed, and we are richer for the experience.

Live well,

SJW

GUSTO14

Aw yes, the memories. In aviation, we refer to that as 95% boredom, followed by 5% sheer, stark, terror!

GUSTO

GTOguy

Those rotors are old....the staining and pitting tell the story of low miles and long storage or being taken care of in between periods of long storage. Regularly used vehicles don't have burnished discolored staining like that. Your car very well could be low mile, or at least under 100k. The rotors could very well be original to the car. My '83 Toyota 4x4 has the original brake drums, shoes, and front rotors at 275,000 miles.....but i have replaced the front pads a couple of times.

ganshert

I question my sensibilities daily but so far I have no regrets!

Easy Rhino

Agreed. Although it wasn't thousands of miles, I drove my '65 home from about 200 miles away. It initially wouldn't start at the pickup point, then wouldn't restart after stopping for gas, then died while running on the highway heading home.

It took awhile, but I made it (with the wife in a chase car behind me).

If I wanted to play it safe, which I arguably do too much, I wouldn't own or operate a 50+ year old car with essentially no meaningful safety systems.

In the 70's I hitchhiked across the country several times, but that does not hold a candle to my wife's adventure - she sailed from CA to Hawaii and back in a 49' schooner that her Dad home built in their back yard in Newport Beach, CA.