Hu Guys, here is my question.............would you deduct for this:

Last year I bought a 69 Coupe, L-46 sidepipe car from the original owner. Some of you may recall, I posted pics of the former owner, "Mario" from Rhode Island. The car needs a full resto but everything seems to be original. Still has the original smog. Little details like the radiator cap, clamps, the little clamp the holds the fuel filter, carb, shielding, radio....stuff like that. It's verified original as a sidepipe car. I have the original registration and pics of ol' Mario with the car in 69. Pretty sure the tank sticker is there, but have not droped it yet.
Here's the question, the car was built August 4th 69, which, if you read the Bizocco book, was a Monday and began the '"retooling" stage in the plant for the 1970 production. The plant had been closed the week before for inventory purposes. The car has an "010" block as it should for that period.....Now, here it is, the Alternator on this car is an "882" 61 amp alternator, "NS" stamped and dated late April of 69. Looks like it's been on the car forever like everything else. Mario advised it has never been replaced. The car does not have TI or AC. One judge told me I would get a full deduct for the alternator. MY feeling, even though I could probably sell it for a mint, is that this one came with this car due to a number reasons............maybe they ran out, maybe the dude picked up the wrong one, maybe the week shutdown had somehting to do with it, who knows, but, being relatively new to NCRS and never having had a car judged yet......would you deduct? I can't believe Mario went to PepBoys and picked up a date coded 882 NS stamped alternator to replace the 859 that gave up one day. I would hope NCRS is open minded.....I know, kinda stupid quesiton and who cares but I'm brored..

Happy Father's day to all you dads....stay safe, john

 

I'm not near my books right so don't know if an 882 is a possible number for your car. In any case, your alternator would not get anywhere near a 'full deduct' even if the number is not right. The date is certainly OK and I think there is no external config differences from one to another. There's five dimensions to the originality part of the judging and the whole alternator is worth 13 points, so I might deduct 2-3 points max for 'wrong' part number. Condition is worth another 11 and that is judged separately. There are 4500 points total for the car.

The only way an alternator can get a full deduct is if it's missing completely (?) or is from some other make of car (f_rd, toyota etc) and looks nothing like an AC Delco.

Is this the orignal alternator installed by GM on the assembly line? Dunno. Authenticating cars is not part of NCRS Flight judging.

 

Thanks Mike, FYI, the guy who told me the 882 would take a hit also wanted it for himself.......

 

Rowdy Rat been around lately? He might have an opinion. The factory did produce a few cars that were not 100% factory correct, or "matching numbers"

 

I'd say the 882 is not right for your car. I just paid $900 for a correct restored 882 , those things are big money to the right sucker.

 

I know the "book" says it is not right, however everything about this car says to me that it came this way from the factory, including the date, which again, was the 1st day of production after a week closing for inventory and retooling...........also, the original owner Mario didn't knw enough about cars to replace it.........when I first contacted him about the car, he didn't know what "smog" was and if his car had it, all he knew was that he never took anything off!

 

That's what I was thinking! Anyone else have a 69 from this period (Aug 4th 69)??

 

If Mario is the original owner of the car (with documentation to verify his ownership) and it has been in his possession until your purchase, just have him complete an Affidavit (you can get blank form from any office supply store) to the effect that the alternator on your car [include the part number, date code, etc. in the Affidavit] is the one that originally came from the factory and that he has not altered or replaced it. Then have him take it to a Notary Public and sign it in their presence. That is better...and more accurate...information than can be found in any manual or book, regardless of what 'authority' it might represent. If a future buyer [or NCRS] can't accept such a document as proof, to heck with them.

 

The OPs question was to do specifically with NCRS Flight judging points deduction, not whether this is the authentic original factory alternator- possibly because of a one off occurrence 40 years ago. This (again) is two different subjects.

Anybody that's been around these cars for more than a few years knows never to say never, but a judge has to follow the books and/or use relatively common knowledge for those rare exceptions. The chances of going to a meet and getting a judge who knows of a one off occurrence on a specific model of car is highly unlikely.

Just trying to calibrate expectations.

 

I still can't resolve the issue of 'authenticity' based on some book [which is intended to be a compilation of actual data] versus the authenticity provided by the original owner of their vehicle. Is a summary document of other actual occurrences somehow better than the direct knowledge and experience of the owner of a specific vehicle?
[Obviously, that was a rhetorical question which will not be answered...]

 

I guess that was my question regarding NCRS judging, do they only follow what the book says or, in this case, a logical exception. I realize there are go-zillions of exceptions to Corvette judging, some more widely known than others. In this particular case, I am not ready to toss this alternator due to a book telling me it did not come on my car. In my opinion, not as an expert, judge, or anyone, is that the chances of this being a replacement are considerably less than the probability that this came on this car, either by mistake or whatever. So, if I hear you, NCRS would still ding me a little, even if I used all the above stated facts?

 

It appears you would likely be dinged for a couple points for the part number, which should not make or break the car. If you are really seriously interested in maximizing NCRS points, you might take a big-dollar offer on the alternator and buy a "correct" number with change left over.

I will say in dealing with a couple of '69s in recent years, that this model seems to have more date/part number "fuzziness" than other models I've had, due to the strike issues, long production run or whatever. My car was very unrestored when I got it, and there have been at least a couple instances when I went to replace items that I know came on the car, which had dates on them a little farther out than some people suggested. My windshield, for instance, was an August date on a November 1 car, and OEM strongly suggested the date should be a little closer. Same thing on the radiator, etc. Still, I replaced worn parts with date codes exactly as was on the car and let the chips fall as they may.

 

If the NCRS did not have a "book" from which to judge there would be no standard for the judging and you would have completely different results for different regions. Without a standard you could never be fair.

And like they always say the NCRS is not about authenticity, for precisely reasons such as this.

 

I recently attended an NCRS judging class put on by 4 Master Judges from Oklahoma and what they said was that NCRS judging is about how the car left the factory.

Therefore, if you can document the existence of that part number on your car when it left the factory then it should not lose any points.

Even if your tank sticker is still there I don't think it will say what alternator was installed unless it was part of some special performance package such as LS5 which in '72 (my car's year) came with a 1100544 61 amp alternator.

cc

 

There is no way in he!! that I would ever remove a functioning component that was shipped from the factory on my car....for any reason. And certainly not because some specific body of folks told me to do so because their 'book' said it was wrong and, thereby, I might get a few more 'points' from their judges. I understand that NCRS contests should be judged by NCRS rules. They just need to be rational.

 

yes........it's not going anywhere.......my son (he's now 5) and I are going to restore the car, maybe get it judged some day. I was trying to see if they were open to ideas as opposed to what's in the book.....I agree., thanks

 

avalonjohn, if you can document the existence of that alternator on your car when it left the factory the NCRS folks will want to look at it.

Part of the judging process is to discover those Corvettes that are truly original but differ from what has been documented so far so they can update the judging manuals.

By the way, if you leave it as is and take it to be judged as a survivor you can get a Bowtie award. But you can't change anything. For instance, if it doesn't run you have to leave it that way and trailer it. I have a very good friend who bought a '63 coupe that had been in storage for 18 years and didn't run. He had the engine rebuilt before getting it judged and lost a bunch of points because the engine was no longer the way it left the factory.

It's up to you but from what I hear you saying the Bowtie award sounds like it is available to you.

cc

 

I'll ignore 7T1Vette's posts as he's got such a hate-on for the NCRS (based on his own ongoing incorrect misconceptions of how it works) that the entire string will once again go off topic if it's given the chance.

My responses to the OP were based on a 'most probable' scenario. There's 15k+ members of the NCRS based all over the world. Everyone of them is entitled to become a judge. At any given meet, the judges that have volunteered to work (and paid out of their own pocket for the privilege) may have a lot of experience or be complete noobs, or be mix of the two or most probably a bunch of people that are somewhere in the middle. Even if they are very experienced, no one judge knows every detail of every year of every generation of car- and the subtleties of every option or config. There are well over 1,000,000 Corvettes that are eligible for judging. Betcha no two are identical.

I have achieved Master Judge status, but am terrified that due to a shortage of judges at a meet, I might get asked to do interiors on a C1 or chassis on a later C4. I know nothing of either and would simply have to go strictly by what the book tells me. Not fair to the owner (or me) but that's life in the amateur volunteer lane.

The guys that look at your engine bay might know their way around a C3 or even in particular '69s, but what's the chances that they would know about a one off swap of alternators that only affect a few days of 69 production? There's nothing in the books to suggest that such a thing happened in any of my books.

What do judges do when they see cases like yours? Probably scratch their heads, ask around if anybody might know anything, ask the owner if he has a clue. Decision? If nothing plausible comes up, maybe make a deduction of a piddly few points as suggested above with a note as to why, or maybe just let it slide as a 'who knows?'. One of the things we are taught is to always give the owner benefit of the doubt when possible.

What should you do? Not take it too seriously. It's an amateur group giving out a token award that basically says, hey nice car, good for you. And nothing more. Nothing that will solve or cause world famine.

For further calibration, a burnt out dash light is a 25 point deduct. The possible deduct for your alternator (for the non-standard P/N) is two or three. The idea of getting a notaries statement to overcome this is well uhh, a little over the top as the Brits say.

One last thing is that NO ONE in the NCRS will tell you what to do or not do with your car, including changing your alternator to match up with a book.

Hope this helps

 

Well said Mike.

If you believe it is original, leave it that way. If you have some documentation (a statement from the original owner ain't documentation) that indicates that it is, or could have been original, bring it when the car is judged and help the rest of us learn something.

The judging manuals are living documents, and they continue to evolve. Some faster that others, but that is another story.

 

Mike, I have no "hate" of NCRS. In fact, I sincerely appreciate their efforts to maintain the integrity of Corvette restoration. That being said, there comes a point in such an organization when the 'dogma' of the books becomes too rigid and is in conflict with real, accurate, as-factory-produced vehicles that just aren't the same as the books predict. So the question becomes, "Is the established 'standard' to be the determining factor in every single circumstance; or is there any room for documented anomalies that we all know have occurred in day-to-day factory production?"

I guess that I am too deeply ingrained as an American. I place much more value in the uniquiness of any individual than I do in some estimated average of the masses. And, don't presume to tell me [or anyone else on this Forum] that NCRS judges have never told any car owner that they "..need to change that, if they want it to be correct."