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Been a while since I've had time to post any new information. I'll save the details from my personal drama over the last 29 months for another thread but wanted to share some exciting news on a recent acquisition.
The C3 gods bestowed the opportunity to get introduced to a NOM '68 coupe that I believe was originally an L36 option 4 speed car. When I first saw it about a year before, I didn't get that much time to inspect it closely but thought it was a no-hit car. As time goes, we'll find out together if that is true.
I've rarely had the chance to lay hands on a first year C3 and this project will be slightly different than my old '72 mule car. More about the white car later... (happy to report that it's still in my possession, just idled for a short while).
Like so many others, this car has stories to tell but for now, I'm only looking to entertain this crowd with the prospect of saving a potentially solid car. There's indications that the car has lived it's entire existence between Colorado and Wyoming. Haven't found anything but minor surface rust on it and until it was last disassembled, mostly intact as the staff members at St. Louis created it.
Since many members like pictures, I am posting a bunch tonight for your perusal. I will ask some detailed questions as I go and appreciate those of you with the answers to lend a hand.
This is the car after last Thanksgiving when I brought it home. Not sure the door shade matches the body; looks different here. Yes, those are non-OEM rearview mirrors installed, too. BTW, that's one of the Budweiser plants in the background. Makes me thirsty just looking at it...
Hard to see but the seats were stuffed with the radiator & a couple of plastic crates full of disassembled parts from a broken 454 that previously resided under hood. You can see that the car is void of any weight there. The 454 had been dispatched to points unknown?
Got it home and secured it behind locked doors. That's the fresh-build 427 (overbored?) that will be installed. Something else: I wasn't aware that T-tops could be had with the vinyl cover. Thoughts?
I've decoded the build date as April 15, 1968 (I15 is partially covered by the weatherstrip). Rally Red (974) and black leather trim (402).
From info that I've read, the VIN sequence follows the build date.
As I make time, I will organize better, all the disassembled pieces that I recieved when I picked up the fresh engine and car. I have no idea what engine components were installed for pistons, cam or lifters. I'm hoping to hear what those may be. The block has been decked if only because the stamp pad is void of any character font; machine tooling marks are evident there.
I did confirm that the harmonic balancer is for the internally balanced 396-427 genre and without pulling the pan or the heads, hoping to discover something cloned after the L36 pieces.
Looks like the PN is 3860060, correct?
Then reinstalled.
I've learned that this car has RPO K66 installed. I've never seen those parts up close until now. The distributor looks original to the car but can anyone help decode the date? I see "7 M 1" on the band. Would that be correct for this build?
The tach drive gear on the distributor's shaft is toast. I'd like to replace the gear or shaft if necessary to restore correct operation but that will depend on the costs involved. Earlier in the day, I saw period-correct, restored tach drive distributors on flea-bay posting between $900 to $2200 clams, each. Yikes!
From my findings, the QuadraJet is potentially not correct. It may originally have been installed on a 1967 Camaro with a 396 & manual trans. I read "7037211 EF" and dated "0104". If the data that I read on the date is correct, it was built April 15 but in 1967, not 1968. Or could it have been pulled from a parts bin in St. Louis? I understand that anything was possible, back in the day.
Taking a look inside, the interior is fairly intact. There are power windows and an old faux-leather wrap on what may be the original wood steering wheel. I will get that uncovered and cleaned up if it's not damaged.
The radio looks original, too. ***** and faceplate may be correct. What do you experts think?
This bad boy even has all the correct-appearing fresh-air ***** on the console levers as well as what looks like the original cigarette lighter and ashtray.
All the tinted glass is intact and not cracked or broken. The rear window and it's latches looks and operates great. Same for the window storage tray.
Shucks, I even found what appears to be the original jack, jack handle and spring hold-down, too.
There's a lot more condition to ascertain. I believe the original trans and shifter sits there (M21? I'll let you know soon, after I pull it out to clean up and read those codes).
Same with any clues to the rear posi unit.
I plan to remove the lower kick-panels to see what condition the #2 body mounts look like at the bird cage. I'm anticipating lots of green paint and solid steel. I'll post those photos after I take them.
Overall, I am thrilled to have this opportunity to reassemble the car in a more dignified manner than it's last disassembly. A car with this heritage should reap the benefits of NO MORE BUBBA's touching it !!
Damn hillbilly bozo's have done enough to make a mess of things (no offense to my hillbilly cousins).
Here it sits in my shop, keeping it's younger brother company for now.
Thanks for your time reading my missive and let's see what all of us can do to save one more 1968 coupe from rotting away, unceremoniously.
You asked a couple of things:
VIN sequence looks good for an April built car.
Vinyl covered roof panels are owner inspired.
You typed one too many zeros for the balancer #.
7M1 (December 1, 1967) would work for your car.
I agree it doesn't appear the 211 carburetor was used on Corvette engines.
Center gauge bezel surface is smooth as it should be for the 68 model year.
Radio ***** appear typical for your car's assembly date.
You say "you're thrilled to have this opportunity". I can certainly understand why! It can be such a pleasure to work on a car that's mostly COMPLETE and hasn't been butchered!
I hope you continue to post lot's of photos as you discover more about this car!
Regards,
Alan
Thank you Alan and Easy Mike. Your comments are always respected for the wealth of information that you provide. I look forward to your suggestions and guidance as I attempt to restore overall operation to this subject.
To Mark and anyone else who may follow, this will be a journey not unlike any archaelogical dig that discovers the past. Fortunately, I consider myself a living dinosaur that is age appropriate for this period. LOL.
Not to mention, when I've completed my tasks, it is to see this car back on the boulevards after who-knows-how-long-it-has-been years since it's last cruise.
Please feel free to offer your comments, critiques, or suggestions as I unravel, assess, and reorganize the unassembled components to useful status.
You asked a couple of things:
. . .
Vinyl covered roof panels are owner inspired.
. . .
. . .
Regards,
Alan
Alan,
OK, from information that I've read or knew about, I wasn't convinced that the roof panel coverings were factory optioned.
I wonder if any dealers offered that service (rhetorical question I believe, as many period dealers offered all types of shop services to maintain or improve customer satisfaction).
Not planning to change them now as they are only cosmetic and in reasonably good condition, appearance-wise.
Looks like a nice car to restore. Should be interesting in what you find good and bad, hopefully not a lot of bad. Keep the pictures coming so we all can follow along. I am in!
RVZIO
7037211 is a 1967 Camaro 396, manual transmission application
Date Code of 0104 is the 10th date of the year (Jan 10) with a year ending in 4 (my guess would be 1974). A service replacement carb. Date code is read as 1st 3 digits are julian code (1 - 366) for day of the year, last digit is the ending digit of the year carb was built.
Distributor 1111294 dated 7 M 1is:
1111294 1967/1968 is transitor ignition distributor for 1967 and 1968 427 ci, 390 and 400 hp engines.
Date code is 7 M 1 = 1967 December (M) 1st.
That distributor works for your car, assuming your car was a TI car.
I am not aware of any factory options to cover the t-tops with vinyl, but I have seen this done aftermarket on a number of cars over the years.
St. Jude Donor '08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13-'14-'15-'16-'17-'18-'19
Originally Posted by jv04
Less than 10,000 1968 coupes, over 18,000 1968 convertibles.
Yeah, I knew it was almost a 2 to 1 ratio of convertible to coupes; both of 68's were convertibles. After owning two convertibles, I think I want my next 68' to be a coupe!
Thanks for the kind words, guys. Yup, I'm looking forward to cleaning this one up a little and see what can be performed to get this bad boy chirping tires again.
jv04 - your date break-down on the carburetor helped me understand that method of coding so, thanks for that. It would be interesting to learn if that turns out to be a service replacement after-all.
I have a small budget to bring this thing together and will focus on the safety side first. Stuff like functioning brakes, capable tires, in-spec steering, tight fuel delivery (no car-bq's allowed) plus I will work to have a good clutch and u-joints installed.
I'm hoping to reuse what is serviceable and repair or replace what is not.
Should be an interesting path to get where I need to go.
I too, was made aware that coupes in this production run are the lesser numbered units. Another reason why I'm stoked to have a chance like this.
Just lucky, DG. I'm glad this project came along to personally answer why this first year car was so different than the first two generations.
My schedule to get work done will be hit and miss, mostly due to the odd hours that I get paid to do so your patience is appreciated. I'm a big proponent for images and there will be many more to show as I get there.
Hoping to have some new photos tomorrow evening. Planning to uncover the kick panels so we can take a peek at those #2 mounts.
Difficult to tell... but the numbers on the radio dial are clearly the greenish color found in '68-71 cars. Not so sure about the gauges--they appear to have bright white lettering/numbers, which would mean they are from a later period ('72 or later) [although the bezel itself is correct].
Still looks like a very interesting project. The distributor shouldn't be that big a deal; I would suggest that you send an e-mail to Lars Grimsrud (FastV8cars@msn.com) and ask him for a quote on what it would take to bring it back to spec. No one would do a better job!
Thanks for the suggestion to contact Lars, 7T1vette. There's no doubt in my mind that his work is Top Flight and fortunately, he and his fine establishment are very close to my domain. That QuadraJet would be the more likely subject to present him to get tweaked back into shape and I may soon see how busy he is. Great excuse to ask him "que pasa, Amigo?".
As things turned out, the time I had planned tomorrow to work on this car unexpectedly moved up to tonight (last night?). It's now past midnite in the Rocky Mountain region and I've got some more photos to show.
There were several of you noticing the discrepancy of the color on the gauge fonts; looks white in the posted images and looking at the pics, I tend to agree. In fact, they are the green hue but due to a couple of factors, appear much lighter.
I believe the factors are age and the flourescent shop light I'm using to illuminate the work area.
Without knowing more history of the car, it must have spent a certain amount of time parked outdoors, cycling through night-and-day periods. We are all aware that the sun's UV can be detrimental to lots of stuff, including paints of all types. The gauge color shades are about the same across each one and under that shop light, my iPhone camera isn't exactly a 52mm lensed unit that perceives light very well, such as a quality digital SLR.
When I make time, I'll see if I can adjust the camera and the lighting to capture that green a little better.
Speaking of green, imagine my joy when I removed the kick panels, then speakers, and eye-balled the condition of the lower bird cage supports at the #2 body mounts.
Woo-eee!
Solid, baby; like a rock... (to be fair, I did vacuum the area of weeds, dried grasses, leaves, and other 'loose' detritus.)
Noticed the camera angle to the base wasn't highlighted so moved the speaker cable and adjusted the light source downward when it hit me: where's the vertical bolt? I see a big washer but sum-ting-wong...
After removing the same components on the passenger side, all of the hardware there was present.
Since those big globs of sealer are spread around the horizontal fasteners and dripped down onto the appropriate-sized washer, someone on the line back then, forgot to install the bolt.
Oh, the horror! The car is incomplete! <sarcasm, off>
Kinda interesting, isn't it? After all, it's just another machine rolling down the assembly line and being put together by everyday Joes and a body bolt failed to get onboard.
Oh well...
I understand that QA has improved since.
I'm simply happy that a key piece of body structure looks dang-near as good as when new, albeit a little dusty. The windshield frame doesn't have any evidence of rust, either.
Now we can continue the rebuild knowing that we just saved a ton of time and money, proving this body is strong and sound. How many almost-49 year olds can say that?
Boy, I just love the smell of napalm in the morning.
02-28-2017, 04:53 AM
Saving a '68 L36 Coupe
