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Back last January I had this 77 find me and take me home!
It found me about 2 am two doors down from the shop I lease ! I was coming in to get supply's for a job I was working on the next day! The next day I called the guy in the shop next to me and asked about it and he told me he would get back to me! A couple days later he introduced me to someone who said they owned it and we spoke about it including him wanting $3000.00 for it !
About a month went buy with the person I first spoke to asking every time he saw me if I was going to buy it but I was extremely busy ( I work for myself) just didn't have the time to move forward with it !
That's when I got a phone call from my shop neighbor and he told me that I needed to meet the guy that owned the car ! The man that owned it was a guy that owns about 15 other antique cars and a body shop!
He had bought the car about 5 years before an didn't do anything except push from one spot to the other in his shop ! He was moving out to another shop and leaving his partner behind ( the guy that tried to sell it to me that didn't own it ) That's when the price went from $3000. down to $1000.
He told me the motor was locked up in it ( so did the other guy) but he had the title to it ! That's when he said to me that he had not registered it in his name ! I said I would get back to him and I called a friend of mine that's a supervisor at the DMV to find out what needed to be done !
So after I straightened all that out I paid him for the car and had the title in my hand in my name the next day !
Since then I've been working on it and buying parts for it to try and get it back to a drivable condition again!
I'm going to stop right here for now so I can get ready to go to my moms for Thanksgiving and I'll do some more updating when I get back and hope to bring everyone up to speed on mine and a little bit about me and my background!
Thanks for looking in !
Ok , hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Before I go back to the Vette I'll try to do the condensed version of who I am and what I do !
I'm another one of those guys that started out building models of , you guessed it , Corvettes ! I think I must have built every model they made from the early sixties to the early seventies!
At the age of 12 I was given a 56 Chevy 2 door ! The engine was blown and because I had an older brother he decided that it should be his and together we put a motor in it !
The last " muscle " car I had was a 73 Nova SS that I built a 454 and installed in it ! When I get a chance to I'll dig up some pictures of it it and add them in !
As some of you already know I have my own business! One of the places I work at all the time has a fleet of motor coaches that I maintain! They are built for all the country music and rock n roll stars !
At the same time they had me do a little project for them ! It took almost 4 years to complete but here's a few pic of it!
Before and after
The happy owner out for a ride in it !
So back to my Vette!
As I said before it's a 77 ! It's the first Corvette I've owned ! I believe it will match up real nice with the 77 Harley I have !
So the first thing I did was to take all the parts out to see what I had and more importantly what I didn't! The seats are good for parts only so I found a pair for sale on here !
While I like the Kelsey-Hayes I had these that were on the 73 Nova when I bought it so they are on it now!
I bought this car because I was looking for a body to put a 400+hp motor I have in ! When I realized that it was going to take some time to find all the missing interior parts I got to thinking about the motor ! After some studying on here I found out it still had the original motor in it! So I decided to pull the plugs and see if if I could turn it over ! Found out it had no plugs and hadn't had any for a long time ! So , I pulled the valve covers and found this!
At that point I bought a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil and poured some down the the heads and in the spark plug holes and let it sit for about three days! Then I took a socket wrench to the crank bolt and no problem spinning that motor! So I grab a battery and bolt it in and hit the key and click ! Hit it again and click ! So I pull the starter and 56 bucks later she spins like a top ! Next I did a compression test!
That lowest one was number 5 and was because the threads were leaking and I've since fixed that problem with all the plug holes !
So I cleaned up the valve covers and put them back on !
Put in a new set of plugs and put the wires back where they went!
I left the the fuel line disconnected and just poured some gas down the carb ! Walked over and hit the key and it was running so fast it scared the €*@~ outta me ! I flipped the key off and had to let my heart slow down for a moment and decided to do that again ! So I fired it up and it ran perfect till it was outta gas so it being midnight I called it a day ! A really good day!
Next day I put gas in the tank , disconnected the distributor and put the fuel line in an empty gas can and spun the motor! Stopped with the can about half full and see there's no dirt or trash at all ! then we put a fuel filter on and connected it to the carb ! Walk over and hit the key and boom, she's running on her own just like she's supposed to !
Next we put all the fluids back in that it was supposed to have in it ! Yes , it had oil ! Just everything else was empty! I don't know if they removed the fluids or what but everything was gone ! Since filling it the only leaking I've seen has been at the brake calipers!
So far since then I've gotten door panels, carpet , dash pads steering wheel, aluminum intake , dash pads , new brake calipers, and a few parts from the 79 parts car I got !
After getting the brakes functioning this is first time being able to drive it!
From that point I kept having life get in the way but I started working on all the lights and found out the vacuum system is going to have to be gone thru ! They would come on and go up and down but not correctly! The turn signal switch doesn't work and the column it going to need repainted so that still has to be done ! The switch is one of the things I still haven't found on here yet ! One year only thing and I managed to break the arm off so I got to get that at the same time !
Then life got in the way again and while I was waiting for a bunch of parts I paid for that never came I decided it was time to really start getting some stuff done ! Every spare minute I could find I've been doing some to the car ! My goal has become I would like to have this car drivable by spring time !
So I started in on the brake system ! I pulled the rear wheels and calipers and rotors off ! Then I took the spare tire and tub off ! Took the lock apart got it working correctly and cleaned it up and then took a good long look at the underside of the car !
As yo can see that just won't do so we dug in ! It taken about two weeks but it has gone from that to this !
I didn't put it in here but I did have to remove a piece of the passenger floor and weld in new metal and that because of there being no windows in the car and it was parked outside for a long time before it went in the body shop ! That's why all of the surface rust all over the bottom of it ! Birdcage look good from what I've seen so far ! Found out that the car was parked out for a long time in the Florida sun and rain in the dirt at a warehouse causing all the rust on the bottom and why the paint looks like it does!
So that should bring everyone up to speed on my build! Stage 1 will be making it drivable again because I have another little project that showed up at my door that I'm gonna use the the other motor in ! More about that soon! Once that's drivable then we will go to Stage 2 and do the body off restore so my son or my daughter will have something really nice after I'm gone ! Just not sure who will get what yet but I hope it's a long time from now !
Yes sir , and I'm studying what your doing closely! You've already been a tremendous help to me in my build in more ways than one !
On a sad note we lost the creator/founder of Florida Coach last Friday! I was hoping you would have gotten to me him when you were here ! He owned several Vettes including a 71 he bought for his daughter when she turned 16 !
I also added some stuff to my original post that should bring everyone up to date on mine !
I found it! Don't pass me up just yet/you've done a lot already....
Trust me bro , your still way out in front of me ! That surface rust you saw is under the whole bottom! Well at least from the seats forward now !
I'm doing all that so that I can install all new brakes and protect everything till I do the body off resto ! Once the me mechanical stuff is done then there's the part of fixin the left front fender and quarter panel and small spot on the door!
Plus the holes in the deck lid where someone had a wing on it I think and I still haven't pulled all the carpet out and scrapped all the padding off yet!
Plus the engine bay !
Even with you unable to do very much right now there's not much chance I'm gonna pass you up
Best part is there's a whole group of us that are all doing there's at the same time and seeing where everyone else is helps each of us stay motivated!
Wow seems like forever since I posted any progress ! Between work and the holidays and then the first week of January I had some crazy stomach bug and was out of work for a week !
Finally got about 5 or 6 hours ( not all at once ) and did some more sandblasting! Got a long way to go still but I'm trying to focus on what needs to be done so I can get the brakes finished and get it back on the ground again ! Here's a few pics of what I've done this year !
I'm curious, does anyone know if in the last pic is it normal for that place between the fender and the and the fender skirt to have bondo or is that some kinda bubba fix !
Also in the second to last pic you can see where I've cleaned everything off the fender skirt ! Is that the way that the factory left it or was it primed and painted or what ?
Well so far that's all I can add but I know that I'll be spending more time at the beach before I have brakes again!
Plus I finally found the correct bezel for my fuel door! Got a great deal on it already restored from Orange76L48 ! The old was kinda nasty and then I broke it !
Anyone notice that all the bushings look like new?
Someone had to be trying to make this nice at some point in the past.
77 build, Stage 1
then we put a fuel filter on and connected it to the carb ! Walk over and hit the key and boom, she's running on her own just like she's supposed to !
Just everything else was empty! I don't know if they removed the fluids or what but everything was gone ! Since filling it the only leaking I've seen has been at the brake calipers! 
