Hey Everyone,
I'm starting to pull together information for restoring my '69 and wanted to hit all of you guys up for helpful tips, hints, advice about what to do, what not do to, etc...Like, keep the headlight vacuum system, or ditch it for modern electric motors. or keep it numbers matching, or throw in a newer LS6 with fuel injection?

The sky is the limit right now. Ultimately, I want a car that looks as close to stock as possible, while taking advantage of modern conveniences where appropriate (engine, suspension...), and that will last for another 40+ years. Above all else, I want this car to be around for my children and my grandchildren to enjoy.

I honestly don't know when the restoration will begin, but I want to have a good idea as to what I want to do or to be done to it by the time I start. I also would like to be able to calculate approximate costs.

Also, I should mention that I know it has a few problems: Rusted out trailing arm (easy fix), small hole on drivers side frame close to wehre it meets the rear sub-frame (or whatever it's called), and I'm pretty certain the seals were shot on that long ago and thusly, I know there are bird cage issues. So, feel free to take that into consideration when making suggestions...like...you're probably going to have to repair part of the bird cage, so I would do this or this while things are opened up.

Last thing, if there's anyone in the west michigan area who can offer up some local contacts, help, advice, etc, I would appreciate that. I'm not an idiot when it comes to working on cars, but my knowledge is limited, so it would be great to have someone local I could call on for help or advice.

Thanks!

- Andrew

 

If you want to restore it, restore it.

If you want to mod/upgrade/modernize it, then do that. There is no middle ground in my mind.

You mentioned three areas of rust; the birdcage VERY expensive to repair as any new parts must either come from a donor car or be fabricated from scratch, and the trailing arms. While not too expensive to replace with new, and in the frame. A new frame is available, IIRC they're about $5k.
To me, if there is as much rust on these area as I'm thinking, I would get a different Vette. I'm not trying to sour your hopes of having a great Vette, I'm just trying get you go into this with your eyes, and deep wallet, open.

Good luck
Don

 

USUALLY not worth the time, effort, $$$$$$$$$
or...........A G G R A V A T I O N ............

 

You can count on doubling or tripling your restoration costs and time frame. Been there, done that.

 

It is a good thing that you are trying to plan your restoration before diving in.

In my opinion, the first step is to have a vision of what you would like the car to be when you are complete.

Consider what the car will be used for as part of the planning process.
Street diving, drag racing, track racing etc, play major roles in the decision process.

With 69 being one of the more desirable C3's out there, care should be taken not to make irreversible modifications especially if the car is numbers matching.

At this point, I would suggest you perform a good inspection of the car and make a list of components in need of repair/replacement.
This is also the time to photograph the car and all its details.
The photos will become a valuable resource for you later on in the build so do a good job here.

Buy yourself copies of the assembly and shop manual for your car and contact the vendors for catalogs.

Look through the manuals & catalogs and start putting together a budget for the build.
Be very specific here as costs can easily get ou of control if you don't stick to your plan.

Organize your work area to account for all the parts that will start coming off the car and make sure you have the appropriate tooling and resources needed for the restoration.
Once a part comes off the car, photograph it, document work required on it, bag it, label it and store it with its hardware.
It gets very easy to misplace parts if they are not stored properly.

Since this is a project, a schedule is also very important.
Break the project down into components you can easily manage and asign timesframes to each task.

A simple breakdown could be as follows:

Frame
Front suspension
Rear suspension
Brake system
Fuel system
Engine
Transmission
Differential
Wheels/tires
Exhaust
Body/paint
Chrome
Glass
Interior
Air conditioning
Electrical

If you need help with the budget, feel free to contact me. I have put together a few spreadsheets for different theme builds and would be happy to send them to you.

This forum is a good source of information. Many of its members have been down this road and are more then willing to help.

I'm just north of the border, so if you want to take a drive I can walk you through the build I just completed and help get you started.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the information so far.

I know the rust issues will cause the expense of the restoration to increase as well as add a lot of technical complications (that I know I can't handle on my own) and I'm aware that most would walk away at this point, but this car has been in my family for 30 years. My father got it for his 30th birthday and he handed it down to me for my 30th birthday last year. I can remember when I was small enough to sit on the fender, legs dangling in the engine compartment as I helped my dad wrench on it. I did my first brake job on that car. I did my first oil change on that car. That car has been in the family as long as I have, it means a lot to me.

If I get into it and it really just isn't worth it, then I at least gave it a shot. I'm not going to give up on it before I even start, but I'm also not going into this with blinders on.

Thanks for your advice so far, I appreciate it.

 

All good reasons for keeping the car stock.

 

You failed to mention ALL of the above in your original post........

O P E N your wallet, keep the car & enjoy !!!

 

 

That's a really good and strong point...one that, surprisingly, I hadn't thought of yet. You've convinced me to keep it completely stock.

 

Having just finished rebuilding my 69 I can tell you it is a lot of work and more importantly time and dedication. It took me 5 years of nights and weekends to take it completely apart, repair replace or refurb every single item on the car or so it seemed that way. I made it a habit of doing at least one thing on the car every day I was home.

As eastltd said, keep track of the parts. I would take a part off the car, clean it, blast it, paint it, bag and label it and put it in a bin. Doing it this way when all the parts are off the car you will be well organized and ready for reassembly. I bought a half dozen large opaque white plastic bins that I could store parts in and the bins would stack nicely. I also I should have also cataloged which bins what was going in as I was always hunting for parts that I knew were in the bins, but because there are so many bags they sometimes where hard to find.

I did all the blasting on the suspension parts and used epoxy paint. If I would do it over I would pile all the large parts and send them with the frame to be blasted and powdercoated. I spent to much time blasting parts that could have been done much quicker by a blasting / painting company and for relatively small $.

Assuming you are going to do most of the work yourself, you will need the proper tools. Get the biggest air compressor you can find and a nice size blast cabinet for the smaller to medium size parts. It will come in handy.

I did not do a numbers matching restoration, rather built the car how I wanted it and based upon your keeping it in the family, you should do the same without destroying the integrity of the 69. I agree again with eastltd, do not do irreversible modifications as you or your children may regret it.

Also do not buy parts until you are positive of the direction you are going. I've got to sell a bunch of stuff that I bought and later changed my mind on.

When you get the Assembly Manual let me know as another forum member made an index for the 69 AIM and is is a great help and I can email it to you.

You can get some parts of the birdcage from various Corvette vendors. Do you have a Mig or Tig welder? It will be a very rewarding but also frustrating process. Any questions you will have will have been answered somewhere on the forum in the past and others are always quick to jump in with answers when you have questions.

Here is a little thread on my 69 build for reference.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-g...-progress.html

 

 

While sentiment has nothing to do with common sense when restoring a car, it is none the less a very noble reason, especialy if a car means that much to a family or person.

We have been involved in restorations of cars that even though could have been replaced for less $$$, they were restored anyway, because if the car was replaced, it would defeat the purpose of why this was done to begin with.
One story that touched all of us at our shop, involves a 69 coupe that was owned by a very special "dad" who passed away and now the son was restoring the car for his own kids to have.

Check it out below,and also the links of what it took to do this car over. I think you can relate to this.


http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-g...eels-show.html



If you have any questions feel free to contact me, and good luck.

http://www.2ndgenrestorations.com

 

Great bit of information! Your idea of an inspection is exactly what I needed to know. Great idea! Part of the purpose in this post was to get an idea for what kinds of things I might want to incorporate (like do I want to zinc plate some of the metal components to avoid rust in the future), so I can figure those into my budget. To your point, I've been sending out for magazines like crazy...corvette central being a big one I've been leaning on. I've been happy with their pricing and the parts I've purchased from them so far and they're somewhat local, so that's a bonus for me. Gotta keep michigan alive somehow

My vision is to have a car that is back to being reliable and fun. One that I can cruise around in all day and even drive to work regularly. Maybe take to the occassional show at the local burger joint. I don't want to hot rod around in it or even take it to the track.

 

Try not to confuse vision with purpose. With "vision" you should be able to picture the completed car in your head long before the restoration begins.

If stock is the theme, have a look at vettebuyers 69. Look at the detail he's put into the car to get to his final product.

Take no short cuts. It's only good enough when its perfect.

 

If I am ever fortunate enough to be able to afford to get my lowly '69 L46 restored I know exactly where I'm taking it; you guys do amazing work and just seem to get it.

 

regardless of the sentimentality and the family ownership of the car, you still must place a price and labor break even point for your project.

you have to decide how much money you want to give to someone else to fix some of the issues. birdcage issues automatically require a total body/firewall/cutup in order to fix it right. you have to decide if you are going to spend every weekend totally out in the garage, and spend the time away from your family for years, perhaps even during the growing up of your kids years also. do you want to miss your kids baseball game because you have to haul your air cleaner to the chromer..
birdcage issues will require a 5 figure check and trips back and forth on the flatbed.

you will eventually spend hours and hours snooping thru ebay looking for just that one correct water pump pulley for 300$ and that empty casing with the correct date code alternator for 500$.and finding the right painter who will do a good job for less than 10K.

sentimentality is admireable but you gotta consider the basis of the car you are comptemplating working on and what it is going to do to your life for the next 4 plus years.

plus the more you don't do yourself, the more you will get frustrated with the vendors that will do what they do best, milk you for more money, for less quality work, and deliver months after promising..


gee, I can give my car to my kids... well the first thing they will do is sell it to pay bills, or to buy a more practical car, or help on down payment on a new house..

come back down to reality my friend... sell your project, buy a car that is already done, and spend the time you saved with your family.

all this happened to me and selling my project was a very very good decision.

 

Keep in mind also that the car will never be worth as much money as you'll sink into it. An old joke asks why the NCRS is full of grumpy old men- they've just found out their fresh $80K restoration is only worth $40K.

 

That's funny , I just attended our monthly meeting last night and that was said almost word for word .

80K=40K = Grumpy

 

Another practical consideration is value... the car has maximum dollar value at two points... now while it is still complete but needing restoration, and as a finished product. At any point in between it will be considered a "project car" whose value is unlikely to equal the parts bill to that point. I know that this is not about the dollars, but this is a fact to consider as you proceed.