Very nice car. I'd just prefer to pay less.

Guess I will take my chances.

Again thank you all for the advice.

 

I would go look at it. have a nice road trip and if its worse than expected chalk it up to experience looking at vettes. Dont worry about all the members here. we all seem to go in different directions when reading posts. mostly because we all have had good experience looking at vettes and bad experience. You ask about big block and power, a dozen here will say go get a 383 stroked,blown,and it gets 55 mpg. lol.
You want a big block and you want it cause rat motors are awesome and they sound awesome. You say you can afford a new sports car but not a $13,000 dollar vette. Well I am sure you would be financing the new car, but typically you cant do that with a 35 year old car. So $9,000 is your budget. You can get a nice $9 grand vette but it most likely will not have a big block.
Now you found one that is not only possibly nice, but also a big block. Since its a 77, it did not come with a big block. so somebody shove one in it. At this point we are pretty sure that this bigblock could have come from a truck, or a motorhome, or possible another car. Well unless you pay the extra money for the correct Aim, accessorie brackets, or buy an expensive after market kit, Aliening the pullies and accessories can be a task. I have a feeling this vette your are looking at has p/s issues because of alienment or it needs rebuld which is not cheap. The seller probably either doesnt want to mess with it anymore, or he bought this thing cause its cool but doesnt know how to wrench and fix the complicated p/s system in the vette. I was in the army and I remember other guys spending their first hard earned dollors on cars that were cool looking. They were at every car lot around the bases and they attracted the new soldiers.
I know I am doing a little rambling myself, but I am kinda trying to give you the full picture. To end my rambling. Trust these guys here they will help you with lots of advise, just read the posts looking for the info you need and not all the extras. Go check the vette out. Look for rust. listen for noises. Look at the p/s system and see if its broken or not even hooked up. Big blocks are a little harder to cool, be pay attention to the temp guage, see if its working. Look at all the hoses, brake lines, and fuel lines. You have to drive it home. Look to see if it has plenty of braking power and brake fluid. Make sure all the guages work. It would be best if this guy sent you pics of the car, including the engine compartment and the underneath. You could post them up and get better opinions of the guys on this site. Tranny leak, look at the leak, see how big it is and what size drip its leaving. If its minor, just make sure you check it as you drive it home. bring tranny fluid on the trip along with some anti freeze and oil. if its got a bad leak, do not atempt to drive it home. Always good to have extra fluids on a road trip. I myself could not afford a bigblock vette, so I put one in my sbc vette. I could not afford the aim front accessory set up so I gathered all the parts needed for an early 60s set up and all my stuff aliens perfect, it just took time doing it.
Lastly, focus more on what you are buying and the condition now, get it home, then the build up to what you want, h/p and all.
Good luck.

 

Hello Scrappy, thanks for the great reply.
As you may have surmised, I am a younger fellow myself(well.. younger than most on here I'll bet.) I'm actually completely debt free as of the moment, I dislike financing anything.

The reason behind a $13,000 budget is because I also am in the process of purchasing a late 70s Caballero and also in the process of finding a Urals WW2 German Sidecar motorcycle mockup. As it seems I have funds going everywhere.

So while I would be totally open to spending $20,000+ for the right corvette. It would need to be the right corvette for me to put the other two vehicle's to the side. And being "Young dumb and full of..." I'm wanting a hot rod and not a collectors piece. So spending $15,000 for a nice base BB vette and then having to spend another $6000 making it how I want her seems less attractive than finding another vehicle(such as this 77 we are discussing) that may need a bit more work but already has some of the thing's I'm looking for(and maybe some things I'm not. Uh oh)

A member here has been kind enough to take the time out of his day to go over this afternoon and check the car out. Of course I am paying him for his time, but I think it's fantastic he would do this for me on a Sunday of all days.

Will keep the thread updated.

 

Cousin Eddie, I cant believe you are here on our forum...

There are different ways to get what you desire,
I looked at least two years to find just what I wanted,
1969......convertible.......not rusted to all hell....in my budget, what I got delivered to my door was this modded 69..just over 6K
Small block in it was toast ( 150 from some builder )

I had a 383 built because every likes them...I didn't, it wasn't anything I wanted in a street engine.
Swapped it for a 454...

Busted a rear strut showing that rust hides, rather than the more time and money consuming restore the chassis I had I bought a project cast off rebuilt with all the better VBP suspension...for cheap.

When running driving again my car will be in black primer what I desire, the car will be basically all rebuilt like new or better than new and I will have a far cry less than 15K invested, I am a real bargain hunter doing it that cheap wasn't easy...

I saw lots of "almost" cars before I bought my 69 there was a 75 with a 502 for the price of a base 502 but it had issues I couldn't get past...

The key really is take your time and have the $$$ ready.

Pictures show my 69 when I got it...

 

Noobish question here Bats, but would a 68/69 convertible be considered a roadster? I hear that term often used for 1968-1969 corvettes.

I'm kicking myself for passing on a 1974 Convertible for $5000.. everything worked fine but the back quarter panel was destroyed and the guy had the replacement. Needless to say it sold in 24 hours. Even worse he was just 2 hours away.

---
UPDATE
A member here took a look at the vehicle.
http://jacksonville.craigslist.org/cto/4886232759.html

He says there's no real rust issues. He did not test drive the car which I wish he had. But he said it sound good and he feels it's a good deal for what I'm wanting.

The seller I have asked several times "do you feel this car is safe to drive the 6 hours back to NC". He does not want to answer.. He says "I'm not sure, it's given me no problems". I asked him about heating issues and he said the fuel line once was to close to the engine but it was moved over and now no issues with that since.

Would it be fair to assume the car is road worthy if I test drive it a good 30 miles? How long does it really take for these cars to overheat and other than weird noise should I be looking for anything else?

When I get it back, the first thing that will be done is fixing the power steering, followed by fixing the minor things the car needs. Also thinking on getting a transmission with overdrive. I love manual and may go that route. Post that some 3.73 gears and a set of new wheels/paint job. I think it will be a good looking car!




Opinions/Advice very welcome at this point. I intend on picking it up Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.

 

Looks good. I'd like to see pictures of the frame and birdcage body mounts.

You have to remove the rear tire out back and the kick panels from the interior to see what they look like.

Mine look like this.


BTW love the stinger hood.

 

I believe the term "roadster" can and does mean different things to different people,
Most feel a "roadster" has no top no side glass like an AC Cobra, and a convertible has a top and side glass...

The car you like ( I dig the 67 bb hood scoop ) looks nice to me but I have seen too many good looking sows ears, I would price it more 7-9K depending, I do not have enough info.

If it makes some unknown sound that could be nothing or major and has it's power steering mucked up...a 6 hour drive in a power steering car that the power steering is mucked up will leave you exhausted, and I would say isn't even a safe thing to do. the seller saying it's easily driven makes me wonder.
I would love to know just what is wrong with the power steering.

I do not wanna be negative but I wouldn't "assume" anything, even the owner doesn't want to "guess" the car would make the trip, I "guess" that is better than the seller knowing it wouldn't and saying it would,

If it will overheat it idle then that will happen in 10-20 minutes after it's warmed up,
Driving down the highway at 50-70 should start to over heat if it's going to within a 5-10 miles, the harder you tax the engine the more it will wanna over heat, again IF it's going to. IF the car has a stock base model 77 small block radiator it will be on the edge of not cooling that 454...get stuck in hot fl traffic and look out....BB cars had BB radiators.

The car also has hacked AC, stock ac is costly to get working right especially if it's been hacked on, I know you desire a hot rod but I like to have cold ac in my "hot" rod.

 

Since you mentioned that red car w/ the blower in Annandale, did you see thi one in Frederick?
Needs paint. Might be up your alley. $7500 - been on CL for more than a month now.
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/m...975595671.html

 

The interior and exterior match in colors...
I have to think at 1200 each he overpaid for his t tops,
The 5 speed is kinda cool if hunting gears is your thing but I always get spooked over people who want to trade really badly...

Been listed over a month because 7500 is about double what it can really fetch....