Corvette Z06 Build Fanatics Hit the Junkyard
Hard-to-find OEM Corvette pieces are sometimes best sourced from an unlikely venue.
When it comes to repairing a vehicle, OEM parts are almost always better than cheaper parts from elsewhere, at least if you want the repair to go well. Unfortunately, OEM parts are also expensive, as any parts counter manager at your local dealership will show you. Most of the time, you bite the bullet and empty your wallet to get the right part. Sometimes, though, you figure out ways around spending tons of cash for the right quality piece. Sometimes, you go to the junkyard.
The Southern-born-and-bred lads of YouTube channel goonzquad have done mostly the former for their smashed 2017 Corvette Z06, though it’s worth it for a nearly OEM rebuild. In this video, though, there were some bridges that were too far to cross, such as finding radiator parts. Thus, it was off to the junkyard.
Picking over a white Z06 that suffered a worse fate than their Z06, the lads were only able to snag a few of the radiator-related pieces they needed, as the radiator itself was too damaged for consideration. Back at the house, they go over what they all have ordered and what they plan to order. Though it sounds like they’ll be paying a lot of money for what they need, they have a good enough relationship with their dealership’s parts counter manager to score a few deals on plenty of important pieces.
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Next up was reattaching the pieces removed from the Z06 during the wheelhouse panel replacement, as well as returning the “sci-fi” sat nav antenna to its rightful place on top of the left wheelhouse panel. However, there were a few pieces that needed to be removed, such as the driver side airbag, the seat belts, and a part of the windshield wiper frame that may have been busted during other repairs or in the accident.
Three bolts later, the lads took the broken aluminum wiper frame to the welder for repair. A tiny bit of tacking and grinding was all it took to repair the hook on the frame, which was then reattached to help complete the reassembly of the windshield wiper system.
Then, it was time to remove the used airbag assembly and seatbelts. Though there was some debate on whether to research removing the airbag or “just gonna have at it,” all it took was pushing an allen wrench into a slot on each side to pop the bag out. The seatbelts, on the other hand, involved removing a lot of the interior trim pieces. The driver side belts were ready to be shipped off intact, but the passenger side belts were cut, likely because the “old lady couldn’t get out. Had to slice it for the old lady” to be rescued.
Just another day’s hard work bringing this Z06 back from a fate that, as seen in the junkyard, could have been much worse.
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