doorgunner

I hope it was/is a safe trip. Let us know how it turned out.

(translation : Lotta pics. )

rastafford3164

REALLY looking forward to this and right there pulling for you!

PainfullySlow

The trip down was long but uneventful. I made it in just about 16 hours.

I met this morning and pick the car up and I'm now on my long drive back. She sure is a beauty, and it's in remarkably good shape - some issues with the frame. I have pictures but won't post them until I get back, don't worry I will make sure to have lots of pictures for you all.

About 3 hours down and 15 more to go. It's a lot slower towing a car.

doorgunner

Be safe......take nap if needed.....don't ask how I know

Jack605

Agreed, Nap is the cheep way to go.

Jack

bazza77

enjoy the road trip. as said be careful !

PainfullySlow

Well, made it home at 2 a.m. this morning without incident as I took it slow and played it safe. The weather was great the entire way with just some occasional patches of wetness on the roads. The bad news is that means that road salt went everywhere so there is a lot of cleaning that needs to take place today. 32 hours of driving in the past 48...yuck, but well worth it.

I had a great time visiting with the seller and his brother (withholding names, not sure if they want it public) who had quite an impressive collection of Corvettes. I wish that I lived a lot closer; I get the feeling that we would become fast friends.

We loaded up the car and filled my truck with parts in just about three hours (which was mostly spent looking over the car and just chatting). Again I have to say how impressed I am with the car and all the bits that came with it.

There are only two issues with the car that I can see. First is the usual C3 frame rot right in front of the #3 body mounts, the rest of it looks very solid. I purchased this car with the understanding that it would likely need a frame but if that is the only significant damage perhaps I can repair it. I will wait until I have the body off to make that determination. Secondly there is a small area of damage right at the lip of the drivers rear wheel well. I am not sure if a tire let go at some point or if someone bumped an object into it. There are no scrapes or signs of impact so it was not any kind of accident. The pictures below will show that spot.

Other than those two things the body is in excellent condition. It has never been hit and has arrow straight lines down both sides of the vehicle. The parts that came with the car are also in incredibly good shape (pics to come later, don't worry). Just as an example there is a dash pad without cracks or signs of degradation at the speaker grilles, the T-Top trim is perfect after a mild cleaning, and even the bumpers are driver quality to start (will likely send them out for re-chroming anyway). This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Anyway, enough rambling. You want to see pictures =)

















More pictures to come shortly.

PainfullySlow

Some more pictures...









The bad...










Road salt got everywhere but you can see that the birdcage is in fantastic shape




The wiper area is very neat and clean! This was a surprise.





And here she sits in her new home. One of my teenagers actually bothered to move from the couch to take a look at it.

The work starts tomorrow. I have an xmas party to go to today :/





And now a well-deserved celebration.



Oh, and because the seller was asking, this is the color that I have planned for it

PainfullySlow

Continuing the pics...the engine bay

























Some of the parts. These aren't even cleaned yet!













Already have blood in the car...snagged my palm on a metal clip while moving parts :-p





and some of the parts are already showing up. I ordered a complete assortment of stainless steel nuts/bolts/washers...

doorgunner

"You done good.......real good"! And the pics are nice and clear

You are going to have Fun now

Metalhead140

Looks like a good basis!

PainfullySlow

Well my hands were really painful today after spending a day loading and unloading my truck with parts so I had to take it easy. I thought that I could do some cleaning and refinishing of some interior parts without it taking too big of a toll on my hands.

I decided to start with the wiper switch console plate which was in need of some love. Here is how I found it:





The first step was disassembly so that I could clean the individual parts.





I washed the metal bits with warm, soapy water to get rid of as much gunk as I could. A cold water rinse followed by blowing them off with compressed air to dry them quickly.

After that I needed to remove the old paint which was easily done with lacquer thinner and a few rags. It is important to note that you should always rotate the rag to use a clean spot, otherwise you just end up smearing old paint everywhere.







I masked off the areas where I was going to keep the polished edge and then put down a light coat of self etching primer. This is necessary to ensure that the top coat sticks.







Once that flashed I put down a light coat of satin black and followed up with detailing the lettering using a metallic silver paint pen after the black had dried.






That is as far as I could get before my hands started to hurt worse...





More to come tomorrow!

doorgunner

New looking to me!

caskiguy

Congratulations on your purchase and diving into the 71'. It'll be a beauty when done I'm sure. Best of luck.

The13Bats

Way...way nicer than i was expecting,

Not sure which vbp kit you have an eye on but i have the front rear transverse set ups just because my donor chassis came with them,

I would have just gone stock but if you want better than factory suspension have you looked at coil overs?

EarlyC34me

Subscribed.
Good luck in the new journey. Enjoy the trip

PainfullySlow

Thanks! Yeah, she is in a great place for me to start.

The VB&P kit is going to be their street and slalom.
https://www.vbandp.com/c3-corvette-p...77-detail.html



I have thought about coil overs and while I am sure that I would like the results my wallet would not like it so much. This setup seems to make the most sense for me.

doorgunner

Truly a Work of Art!

PainfullySlow

Well I continued doing a little bit of work on the wiper switch console plate today. I had already restored the main bits but had to finish up with the vents. The original 'chrome' on them was just paint, and it came off very easily when I was cleaning up the parts with lacquer thinner.

I knew it would not be ideal but i thought that I could try to get them at least presentable using a chrome spray paint. The first step was to mask them off, afterwards I shot them with SEM's plastic adhesion promoter to ensure that the paint did not flake off.





After the promoter flashed I hit them with the Duplicolor Chrome paint. These are the products that I used here if anyone cares.





While not chrome, these certainly look a lot better than they did a short while ago. Since this is not a full restoration I judged these 'good enough' and tossed them back into the trim piece.







I put that aside as complete for now and turned my attention to the speedo and tach that also needed a bit of love. Not bad at all for 58K original miles however they could clearly use some sprucing up.





Disassembly was easy and I turned to the lenses which were lightly scratched. Thankfully I have just the thing to fix that.



I started by washing them with some warm water and mild dish soap then blew them dry with compressed air. After that I used my scratch remover followed by the lens polish. I did not get a picture of them because frankly they are so clear now they don't looks like anything in the pictures. Trust me when I say they look brand new.

Next I turned my attention to the housings which were rough. The chrome lip was oxidized badly and the black inner trim was faded and scratched.

I have had good results in the past with the Britemax line so I continued to use them here. First the heavy duty polish to remove the oxidation and then the metal polish and sealant to bring out the shine.





After that I used lacquer thinner to remove the original black paint.





Masked it off and hit it with a light coat of self-etching primer.





After that flashed then it was some satin black and de-masking.





Tomorrow I will put them back together and see how they look.

In the interim, Christmas came early. I am starting to get more parts for the build...

doorgunner

The dash is going to look great. You must be one of Santa's favorites to get all those goodies this soon.