Yup. Corvette Ben will "make things right". He has the patience to order the correct replacement parts or goes to the parts store to buy them. And has easy access to spare parts in his backyard.
Bubba, on the other hand, digs into his parts bin or hardware box and slaps something on the car wither its correct or not. Bubba is not willing to wait a few days for a part to arrive nor does bubba want to spend the money. And all bubbas have one thing in common: The lack of moral values.
So, with that, it boils down to "let the next guy worry about it" scenario.

But its not just a C3 issue. I have seen woodscrews, metric hardware crap and duct tape, Super Glue on other vehicles too.

 

I think it happens to a lot/all cars but there are a few things that might make it seem more evident on ours.
1.. Because they were "special" cars, they've survived decades of owners and are actually still here. (The same applies to Chevelles, Camaros, etc) so the Bubba
2.. Over the early part of those decades, a lot of stuff wasn't as readily available as it is now so rather than just going online and ordering a new ???? or checking a forum (like here) sometimes owners had to make do
3.. As with a lot of things, sometimes people bought cars they really couldn't afford to maintain/repair but wanted to look like they had $$$ (also seen a lot with boats, fancy/big older ones that never leave the dock)
But that's just my take on things
M

 

Well I am glad you guys love the channel! Here is a sneak peek of some crazy bubba that will be on the channel soon. Dude used an entire roll of black electrical tape and speaker wire to make a harness to run the fans. He looped in power by wrapping a wire around a fuse in the fuse box. You have to see it to believe it!

 

And yet some ones fix to a Bubba fix "is another bubba fix" I have read many posts and the results of the bubba fix to me is another bubba fix. Its all about perspective. When the company / person doing the repair needs to feel they are better than the last guy they need to point out all the bubba stuff. A good example of this is the TV show "FANTOM WORKS" They point out all the bad work done by previous repair shops (drama) to give the impression we are not bubba, and yet if another shop looks at their work they would also find bubba again. Again the next guys standards / rules.

As stated above "lack of moral values" but moral values are not a 1 or a 0, they are like a stairway each level has more rules.

To someone building a show car the factory is a bubba fix, to most of us factory is not a bubba fix.

Just make the car your own using your rules / standards. When you apply your life rules to everything this keeps you happy!. Its too bad that money is in the life rules, this has the biggest influence to our standards / rules to apply.

 

i don't think its a moral problem , its a 50+ year old car problem , a budget problem or i need to get this thing running today problem , before they were delicate collector cars most were daily drivers. people had to get to work and a "bubba " fix was better than a non running car and missing a day or two of work waiting on the local auto parts store to order the correct part. i have done this myself in the days before the internet when the only option was the telephone (land line) and the local parts store that you hoped had what you needed , if not you wait , walk or "bubba". there was no internet , no amazon , almost zero overnight delivery and anything corvette unique was not an on the shelf item at most parts houses. its a testament to "bubba" that so many of these cars are still around for us to make fun of.

 

Morals:
But when it involves some type of safety issues such as steering, brakes, leaky fuel lines, etc and the fix is "just to get by" then its a lack of morals. Especially if the vehicle is to be sold soon.
Very few C3s are a must drive / must get to work / must have daily driver. They sit in our garages awaiting parts & repairs so there is no excuse not to make a non-bubba repair when the time or funding allows.

Its one thing to use lamp cord wire to hook up a stereo. Its another thing to pinch-off a brakeline just to get by. (which I have done on a truck)
And junk parts comes to mind in the same sentence as bubba. i.e. The part you need is $120. So bubba will just put a $15 part on instead.

Ben; looks like your bride has everything under control.

 

some of the things i have done in the past because it was a choice between eating or a proper fix would curl your toenails , and i have pinched off a brake line too. now that they are collector / hobby cars there is really no excuse for a hack job , just making the point that most of these cars were daily drivers in the past and some of the bubba repairs are the only thing between one sitting neglected in a garage or rotting in some scrap yard.

 

 

my point exactly , my wife had an 80 as a daily driver , i remember quite vividly changing a water pump in a parts store parking lot with borrowed tools in a driving rain...at night ....about 200 miles from home. i can guarantee you that good enough to get home was a good enough repair for me. sure it was a cool car but at the time it was just another car and if something was not 100% correct so be it. i tend to agree that a lot of people lose sight of the fact that "back in the day" they were just another car , like i said a cool car but never the less just a car.

 

Go back to the 80's when there was zero internet. If you did not know a Vette inside and out......you did what you needed to do to keep one running. But it wasn't just Vette's....here in the south....I almost do not want to work on old builds because I believe Bubba was born here and spawned a thousand relatives.
I never saw the stuff in Detroit that I have seen here......and locals accept that kind of thinking as normal operating procedure. Th rub is how much people here spend for bad work by people who have no business working on anything...let alone a Vette.
I will not speak to the average enthusiast about cars here as it is like some grew up in a vacuum. Tired of arguing about what I know to be correct so I choose to ignore it.
Some of the stuff that I have de-Bubba'd took Bubba more time to think up and do than if he would have just fixed it right. Pathetic.
I have actually done excellent repairs on Street Rods and Musclecars here to have the owner take it to their "buddy" who will proceed to tell them that what I did was wrong.....and screw it back up again. I had to tell the guy who ended up with my Dad's 32' Ford 3 window we built to lose my phone number........everytime I tuned his car.....his friend would go set timing by "ear"........and then call me, come back and bitch that it is not right. When I told him it was right when he left...and even test drive it with him.....he insisted his friend knew more than me. It is truly unexplainable. And this is a 50k car....not some barn find.......I gave up. When finally told him to not come back...he stared at me in disbelief and MF'd the hell out of me leaving.......
There is a pecking order here.......it doesn't matter if you know what you are doing.....it matters if 30 other idiots believe you are right. I have been outclassed by dummies too many times.
I also run into this scenario a lot: Guy brings car for work, I quote him....say $1000.....he gets it done at Bubba who quotes $500......it doesn't work and is too embarrassed to come to me so goes to another Bubba for another $500 and it is even worse.......after a few months or even years, he will come to me and now the price is $1200 because it takes me longer to fix than before due to two unqualified people working on it prior.
This may sound harsh....but it is truth and I am getting older. My fight or flight is gone......I don't care anymore who works on your stuff. Just do not expect me to NOT say "I told you so"..........
I do not know everything either.......but i can tell you if I DO NOT know......I will either figure out the right way, or not do it at all.......that is the difference.

Jebby

 

 

I can't tell you how much I love this post. I see it everyday.Best post on this thread hands down!

 

Call it as it is.
1.) It often comes down to resources. Not everyone who owns a C3 has the resources to do things right. Or, if it is a person with resources who could do it right but wants the satisfaction of doing something themselves.... it probably still comes down to resources (manuals, automotive shop education, etc.). Resources are an issue for most of us to an extent. And, following on "resources" (community/tax payer), if your local High School terminated your school's automotive shop program which is the trend, your C3's prior repairs may be the experimental result.
2.) Parenting. If you don't have a mechanically inclined Dad (including 50% divorce rate, Godless society trend, etc.) or Dad's friend/step dad to help with direction, baby steps and eventually proficiency and confidence, then meet Bubba. He's probably a good kid or adult doing the best that he can with his (her) limited resources.
3.) Gonna sell the car and don't care -

 

I agree saying all Bubba's have no morals isn't right

 

Bubbas are cheap/lazy. Doing things right usually takes longer and costs more but that little stuff is what keeps ya from breaking down. Keep at it!!
Even late model cars get bubba fied right away scary how some "work on things"

 

cheap , lazy ? maybe some but certainly not all. i remember well not having the money to do some pretty basic things and like i said earlier it was either a proper fix or not eat for a few days or get the rent paid. getting to work was a top priority. i little ingenuity was all there was between me and walking. i have to believe there are a lot of folks in that very situation today. now that i'm older and hopefully wiser its easy to criticize a hack job but until i know what that particular bubbas situation is i'll reserve judgement

 

I think there was some very good points here about prejudice, shoestring budgets and being thankful that these fellows kept the cars going.

On the other hand... missing bolts and screws ?

• On mine the lower steering column bracket was altogether missing. How does one fail to reinstall that?
• An auxiliary electric fan was added... but all the fan shroud seals were missing. That doesn't make economic or even logical sense.
• A dozen wires had the insulation peeled back and were tapped into and twisted together with others wires and electrical taped. Misguided splicing aside, crimping or soldering cannot be that $$$. OK, it'll get you home, but once home you clean it up.

What I don't get is almost every component I drop, I can expect 1-3 fasteners missing. It saves $$$ to not misplace these and be careful, no?