So when i bought this '75 this last summer i was told it had been put into either a ditch or a snow bank by the previous owner, but that the current owner had been told the frame was still straight. I was ready to buy a car and this fit the bill for me: C3, something i could work on, side pipes, 383 (I was told), manual transmission, not too expsensive. I didn't really know what to look for, but wanted something to have fun with and because there is not a very good selection of corvettes for sale in Alaska i bought it. While it is not much to look at I've had fun driving it and am looking forward to starting my first real project. I purchased the Performance Plus package from vbandp (when they had thier sale) and will be starting to install it as soon as it arrives. If you have any advice or tricks for the install let me know, but it looks like it should be pretty straight forward. ??

My other project was to try to install the spiral turbo baffles, but I could only get one side pipe off. It has the turbo baffle installed and is back on the car. The other has never come off and i've really mangled it pretty good where the two pieces come togeather (you can see it on the driver side). I think i'll try it again this spring and if I still can't get it off I'll just take it to a muffler shop. Or if you have any advice i'm all ears.

Now that I've had the car for a while i'm starting to notice a few things, one of which is that the gaps between the doors and the front fender areas are not the same. Also the fender on the left side just is just barely even with the left wheel, while the one on the right side hangs over by about an inch or more. The gap between the top of the tire and the fender is different by about 1.5 inches, from driver side to passenger.

So do you think the frame was tweeked when it was put in the ditch? or do you think the front clip (i think this is the right term) is just not centerered correctly and needs adjustment? If so, how would i adjust it to get it straightened up? I thought the diffence in hieght might have been because i had a bad spring, but the difference is still there when the car is on jack stands and the wheels are in the air.

Here are a few pictures. Eventually i hope to get everything in better condition than it is, but i fully expect it to take years.

Here is the driver side door gap



The passanger side door gap. notice how much tighter it is.



the driver side fender overhang


the passenger side


the differnce between the wheel and fender driver side


passenger side. Note the car is in the air so the space is larger than it usually would be.


This last picture is of the crossmember that the diffential bolts up to. is this what it is supposed to look like? to me it looks like there is a gap between the bushing and the rest of the frame? or is this how they all look? Do you think it would be worth replacing these bushings when the cross member is off for the suspension change?



I am also have some uneven wear on the front tires. The inside is completely worn down while the outside looks to be in farily good shape. this is on both front tires. is this just an alighnment issue?


i guess it might be hard to see in these pictures but I thought I'd try to make it visible.

As you can probably tell I am new to this and bought the vette to have fun driving, but also so i could do some work to it and learn as i went. I think I'm going to have a lot of opporunity to learn about working on it. Looking back, it will probably have been cheaper to find a better car to start with, that was a color i liked a little better, that didn't need new paint and that was in a little better condional all around. But this is what I got.



Thanks in advance for any imput.

Eric

 

It appears your nose maybe pushed over to the pass.side,it will take a bit more detective work to figure out what has actually moved and how to correct it.
The tire wear is probably just worn ball joints and front end parts ,as long the wear is relatively even on both tires,just the result of high mileage.BTW,those tires are DONE,time to replace them.
The rear crossmember appears to be normal,no big concern there.
Hope that helps...

 

I'm curious what kind of feedback you'll get, because my 82 is in the same shape (it had been hit in the past and the frame is bent). I can still drive the car, but would be nice to get it fixed correctly.

I took it to a retired frame straigthener who move his equipment to a backyard shop. He told me that my frame was a mess and wasn't worth fixing. Bubba had gottened ahold of it and did a screwy job.

This was coming from a 68 year old man who had a few too many to drink by the time I got to him to talk about the problems. Kind of guy who has a budweiser for breakfast, lunch, and dinner..his speech was slurred and he worked himself up into a frenzy talking about it..real old school

Personally I didn't think he wanted to mess with it, and would rather work on the quick "easy" jobs....and can't say I blamed him, he's retired.

I have yet to take it to another shop for a second opinion.

 

Take her to your preferred repair shop and have them put her on a rack.

 

Thanks for the input. After thinking about it a while more it does seem as though the nose might just be pushed over to the side a little. Hopefully someone will have some feedback as to the best way to check it or get it centered again.

I'm getting new tires this spring. I probably should have got new ones as soon as i got the car, but i wanted to wait till i had some of the suspension work taken car of. Now i'll just have to start looking for the right size.

I'm glad the rear crossmember looks normal.

Having a mechanic check it out woudl give me piece of mind. Maybe they can do that when i have the alignment taken care.

Now if the rest of my order from vbandp will just show up. I think i'll start disassembling the rear as soon as i get back to town. We'll see how that goes.

If anyone has imput as to the best way to try to realign the nose of the car let me know.

-Eric

 

let someone else drive the car down the street while you follow behind and observe if it's going straight and true or if it's plowing sideways

 

The gap on your driver's door is huge, the passenger's appears normal. There is more overhang on the front passenger side fender than the driver's side. Given this, there is little doubt that your nose is not aligned properly. Easy Mike gave you the right answer for determining if it is frame damage or body panel alignment.

 

 

Agree with the other suggestions but, you should also put the car back on the ground, drive it to let the suspension settle and check again. There is a lot of frame flex in these cars. Take another look at the rear cross member / diff mount and you 'll be surprised at how far it moves up.

Jim

 

The gaps in the doors could just be that somone had them off and didn't realign them correctly. The front tires could be lots of things. My car had a simular problem and It was the forging that bolts onto the lower front frame and holds the lower A arm was bent. I'd guess someone had hit a curb with it. I'd had it at an alignment shop and they didn't find it. It was me, when I rebuilt the front end.