I have had my Vette now for just 12 months and love it, but being and old girl there is always maintance jobs to do which is ok as long as its not to big a job.

So the question is how much time to you spend driving you Vette compared to repairing it !!!

 

I spend 2- 8 hr days every winter upgrading. Then I drive about 5000 miles. So thats about 125 hrs driving for every 16 hrs of wrenching. So 7.8 :1 ratio. Those upgrades are self inflicted though. Heads , aluminium rad , OD tranny, etc.

 

About 50/50 but I've only had it since Feb. Any time spent with my vette is quality time though as I enjoy wrenching on it.

 

iam about 50/50 to

 

I can't prove it but it's my firm belief that the car has more miles on it going up - down than it does going forward - reverse
M

 

Hi,
You mean some people actually drive their cars?
Regards,
Alan

 

Had times with 3hrs wrenching and 1hr driving.

At the moment it´s 50/50 incl. polishing/cleaning

 

I spend a lot of time wrenching, but most of it is elective surgery,....restoration, maintenance, and upgrades.

I have very few actual break-downs, (knock on wood). LOL!

 

After building the car 4-5 yrs ago, and that was a lot of hours , the only thing I ve done since is replace the A/C compressor and the battery that just wasn t big enough for 525HP.. I drive it at least once a week ,every week, no cold weather here. it is extremely reliable.. however, I have a good friend whose 71 breaks at least once every week.

 

For the first many years of vette ownership, I always asked my young boys if they wanted to go for a test ride. One day when my son was about 10, he asked if we could go for a test ride. I asked why he called it a test ride. He thought that every time I drove the vette it was a test ride. Shows how much I actually drive it vs working on it.

 

The best way to maximize your driving time is to PLAN the work needed for the car well ahead of doing it. If there is much to be done, organize a sequence of work that takes into account what disassembly is required, so that you NEVER HAVE TO DISASSEMBLE THE SAME STUFF TWICE!!

If you have major work to do, schedule it for time of year when you likely won't be driving it. AND...make repairs to "safety" related stuff first (steering, suspension, brakes, lights, etc.); "operational" stuff second, and "cosmetic/appearance" stuff LAST.

That way, when the safety related repairs are done and operational repairs allow the car to be driven, you can be using the car and have only incidental downtime periods to do other needed work.

 

Alan,

You are being facetious . Of course some of us drive. Drive to fix ratio about 5:1. Aside from some brake caliper work this spring things are going OK; all 650 miles worth so far.

 

I've had mine for 15 years now. I started working on it immediately after I bought it, starting with the rear wheel bearings. While I was getting that done I replaced all the rear bushings, blasted, and painted all the rear suspension pieces. Shortly after putting it back on the road, the brake pedal went to the floor, so I tore the brakes apart and rebuilt those, and while I was doing that I also took the FRONT end apart, blasted and painted all those pieces, replaced the bushings, and put that all back together.

Next, I noticed a death-rattle ping under even light acceleration, and since I was curious to find out if the car had 46,000 or 146,000 miles on it, I pulled the motor, had the pistons cut to drop the compression one point, got a slightly more aggressive cam, had the rotating assembly balanced, hard valve seats installed and put that all back together. After pulling the motor twice more (to correct a head- machining issue by my machine shop) I finally had THAT running right, and during the third go- round with the motor I decided I wanted a yellow Corvette, so I repainted it yellow.

A couple years later, after putting about 20,000 miles on it, I reupholstered the seats, and in 2006 I decided to swap out the TH400 automatic for an M21 4-speed.

Most recently, I submitted the car to a two-year strip and repaint, along with new carpet, and after replacing the shocks that came with the car 15 years ago along with one leaky brake caliper the car drives and actually handles better than I ever imagined it could.

I recently got sent to go work 140 miles from home, and since my employer was paying for the mileage to the tune of 56 cents a mile, I took the Vette, and never had a problem. In three weeks a friend and I will be driving it up to Laguna Seca for this year's Monterey Motorsports Reunion (where Corvette will be the featured marque), and honestly having the chance to drive a classic 60's-era Corvette up Pacific Coast Highway is the fulfillment of a dream, and worth all the sweat and busted knuckles.

IMHO, unless you're either rich enough to pay a competent mechanic or you are yourself a competent mechanic, you really should not embark on the adventure of owning one of these cars because it will very likely become an expensive and time-consuming exercise in frustration. If you are one of those things, the experience of getting one of these cars properly dialed in can be very rewarding indeed...

 

Try a helicopter. Before the turbine engines became so popular, the story goes, it was 8 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight. All the joints and links back to the tail rotor, transmission, all the links to the rotor, everything shaking like a dog passing a peach seed, I can see how they needed that much maintenance.

 

Try a fighter jet. 1hr use means 100hrs maintenance. Of course there are ~20 people working on it at the same time.

 

I've spent much more time working on my car than driving it, but that's because I drive it like this frequently.

 

70 work / drive trying to reverse the trend

 

Too much.

I made the decision to drive mine more this year. That means I don't do little projects but I also can drive it more.

 

I have spent about 60 hours working on my c3 and 0 hours driving it. Hopefully it will be done sooner than I think.

 

I have about 40 hours working on it to thirty minutes of driving. That makes for a crappy ratio.