I'm soon going to purchase a 1976 Stingray. This will be my first Corvette, and I'm excited beyond words. The person that I'm buying the car from has done most of the mechanical work. The car runs great, and only needs new brake lines. The interior is very faded and showing its age. I plan on starting with the interior. I"m looking for a vendor that sales the interior trim pieces (I'm imagining that the old ones are brittle and may not survive removing to paint). Can someone point me in a good direction for all interior parts and suggest some good starting points. I'm going to be doing this on a budget and am allowing myself plenty of time with the paint coming in the end. Thank you for any help provided.

 

Congrats, and welcome to the forum. We expect pics up front as soon as you can take them, and a nice long list of everything you need to fix.

Plenty of good vendors to choose from but none are budget friendly and you will find that even the good parts from the good vendors don't always fit as good as the originals.

Start at Wilcox.

Do your best to preserve the survivors, and only replace what you have to.

 

I also have a 76, but mine was missing most of the interior pieces. I've had very good success buying these through the CF C3 Parts/Wanted section. Prices were much less than new, and since they were originals, I expect the fit to be much better. I also got to meet a bunch of nice people during these purchases and made some new friends.

 

WELCOME TO THE FORUM!
Al Knotch interiors are suppose to be the best, though you'll get lots of opinions on this. You should check out his website.
As DB said, we love pics.
Congrats.
Glenn

 

I'm a semi-professional photographer and plan on taking loads of pics the day I get the car home. It is not in bad condition at all, and with a good clean-up would be very presentable. I'm just very picky and want it to look the way it did in 1976. I know that the parts won't be cheap. When I say that I'm on a budget, I mean that I don't plan on doing everything in a short period of time. I'm going to spread it out over some time. I plan on getting all of the interior pieces that I need over the winter and beginning the installation of them in the spring. I would love to have the seats from a 1980 Vette (they look a good deal more comfortable than the stock 1976 seats). I don't know if this is possible, or how hard it is, but it is one of the things I would like to do with the interior. I have a friend who paints cars, who is going to give me a break on painting it. I'm looking forward to Corvette fever!!!! This will be the realization of a life-long dream for me.

 

DO NOT buy a bunch of new interior parts which you may not need. If the door panels are pretty well used up (but the hardware on them can still be used), buy the "basic" panels and transfer the hardware. If trim pieces are cracked in areas, that can be repaired; if they are broken with pieces missing, that is "replacement" time. You can make un-broken panel pieces look like new by removing them, cleaning them thoroughly, shooting them with vinyl dye, then reinstalling. When I purchased my car, it had the original carpet still in there (35 years old). I stripped the interior, replaced the carpet, refurbished all but one interior piece, and the car looks like new. Just don't spend a bunch of money so that you have an expensive, non-original interior...when you don't have to.

 

Thank you for that advice. I had not thought of that. My assumption was that the original ones would break when removing them to refurbish.

 

Al Knoch. Expensive but good quality. http://www.alknochinteriors.com/welcome.htm

Good Starting Point: Read, read, read. First purchase should be the assembly instruction manual (AIM). The AIM has diagrams and installation notes on how the cars were assembled at St. Louis. It also lists the original part numbers. There are several Corvette restoration and interior How-To books. Get three or four and see what you're getting ready to start.

While not a how-to, M.F. Dobbins Fact Book of the 1973-77 Stingray is an excellent reference source. Pricey, but worth the money. You might be able to find a used copy on ebay.

 

This is exactly what i'm going to be doing soon. My 71 has the original door panels that have some cracks and splits i'm going to buy the basic panels and transfer the lock plate and chrome arm rest trim. Any tips for transferring the hardware before i give it a try? Looks like the stuff is just glued on there. Don't want to ruin anything while i'm doing it because as you know it's expensive to replace.

Paul

 

If it's not too brittle, many of your interior pieces can be freshened up by simply removing and repainting. I've redone two Corvette interiors before and both were more paint than replace.

Some cracks and splits can be repaired easily too. When I redid my 81 I had a bunch of cracks in the pillar posts around the windshield where someone had removed them before and tightened the screws down too tight causing cracks around the holes. Instead of replacing them I just fixed the cracks - one crack at a time I clamped them down to push the plastic back together the way it was supposed to be and then used gorilla glue on the back side to keep them from separating again (crazy glue would have worked too, just don't get it on the front). When that had all dried I used a little bit of bondo on the front side to fill the cracks. Prime re-paint, and when it's all said and done you would have thought they were brand new. Saved about $300 doing it that way.

Did the same thing for the seat backs (I don't know if the 76's have the fiberglass seat backs or not). Little chunks in those over the years really cheapen the look of the seats so I pulled them out, sanded them as smooth as I could without losing the shape, and then used bondo for fiberglass to complete the job and to fill the scratches. Repaint and good as new.

For the center instrument cluster I covered the scratches using a burlwood trim package, which IMHO is a really great look for C3's. Some of the chrome trim had been scratched off over the years so I bought a "Nissan Silver/Chrome" paint pen and redid those.

Anyway, a lot of stuff will probably just need some freshening up, and you'll save a LOT of money doing it this way. Carpet I wouldn't try to dye, you're better off just buying that new. A lot of guys like the Al Knoch interiors because they're supposed to fit better, but they're also much more expensive. I've always had good luck with the Ecklers carpet sets - If money is an issue you'll save some there and the carpet will look just as nice. Just get yourself over to Harbor Freight and buy a heat gun for $20 if you don't already have one because the Ecklers carpet isn't a perfect fit around the wheel wells for some reason out of the box. A little patience and the heat gun will let you make it a perfect fit and it will look as good as new.

Just make sure that whenever you paint something it is CLEAN or the paint will just rub off. Sometimes you need to scuff things up a little to get the paint to stick right too.