I think it’s the original paint because you can see the bonding strips showing through the on the fenders and quarter panels. You could probably still see them is the car was repainted, but only if it was stripped down completely to the bare fiberglass.



The front and rear bumpers have definitely been replaced or at least repainted. The paint looks significantly better, and the bumperettes are the body color rather than black. I’ll be painting them since I feel like the car doesn’t look complete if they aren’t.

The car is actually in very good shape underneath all the dirt and crustyness. I figure the best way to see if it’s actually 7,600 rather than 107,600 is to measure the axle endplay on the differential. If it’s tight I’ll know it’s actually low.

 

My touch up paint is still a week out from getting delivered, but I still polished and waxed the fuel door to compare it with the rest of the paint.




Certainly much better than before, original or not, this paint should clean up quite nicely. Also found a very interesting designed fuel cap underneath the door. Is this one original to the car?



I started tearing into the distributor to find out what was wrong with it. Very heavy springs inside. The beauty of using one light and medium spring out a spring kit means that I’ll have an extra set to use from the other car.



I’m getting varying amounts of resistance all the way to infinite from the pickup coil depending on how I move the wiring. I suspect that was the reason I wasn’t getting spark out of it. The ignition module is new, but it looks like it was installed with dielectric grease rather than heat sink compound.



I’ve disassembled the entire distributor, cleaned the oil off, and put an order in for a new pickup coil. With -22 wind chill in Minnesota I’ve got the rest of the week off work. I hope to get more things done to the car. I’ve stolen borrowed the air cleaner off the white car and put it on. Almost looks like a complete engine. Still have to put that new grommet with the breather on.



Looking through my camera roll on my phone I found a picture from a car show earlier this year.



Now the next thing to do is purchase that C2 big block on the right.

 

With a day off from work I decided to tear into the interior. And tear into it I did.



Someone had been in the center console before as evidenced by loads of incorrect hardware everywhere, the two nuts on the bottom of the console were gone, and the bulkhead bolt in the rear was removed. The latter two of which I don’t mind.



Little bit of change (that I’ll be adding to my budget) and a business card for a hobby shop that doesn’t appear to exist anymore.



One (almost) C3 Corvettes worth of interior parts. For the sake of my girlfriend’s sanity I’ll be bringing these to my parents house to store, rather than the apartment. I still have the door panels, dash pad, drivers dash panel, and the rear to clear out, but this is enough for today.



The drivers side floorboards are very solid and has most of the paint still there. The passenger side has a lot of surface rust and a few flakes. No holes though, and banging on it with a screwdriver doesn’t seem to make it any worse. I’ll be rust treating the entire thing then laying down new insulation.

If the T-tops look a bit off in that picture don’t worry about it.

 

Not too much to report on as of late. I’m most of the way through the distributor rebuild, waiting on the pickup coil. Wanting to start on the interior recolor, waiting on the correct dye. Wanting to convert the steering column, waiting on those parts too. I think you get my point.

I’ve got the interior stripped down even more. Cleaned up all the loose insulation on the floor, then sprayed the remaining bed liner I had from doing my firewall in the other car earlier in the year. Once it’s dry it’ll be ready for new insulation then carpet, once it gets here, of course.



I also brushed off and rust treated the master cylinder. These are usually fairly rusty on most cars that I see, so having it look nice should make it stand out.



Putting together my parts collection in the apartment, really starting to look like a complete car.

 

Little bit more done in preparation for the carpet arriving. I got the dash out, which sadly didn’t survive. It had cracks in it and a hole in the speaker grill so I’m not too upset, just adds more to the budget. I put down my carpet insulation, which went wonderfully, and also makes the interior much more comfortable to sit in despite the lack of seats.




I got my interior dye in the mail. I’m starting to convert the parts that were the darker buckskin color to the lighter one. It looks much better than the two tone IMO.




The matchup is pretty close, but not exactly the same, I might order another can of dye just to do some of the panels that look a little more orange in comparison to the dye.

As for the rest of the car I haven’t done much. I took the choke block off plate from my 2101 intake and installed it on the one currently in the car since I have an electric choke. I took the T-tops off and hand buffed them to the best of my ability. It definitely looks much more red rather than maroon once it’s cleaned and polished up.


One side done


Both sides done, and waxed


Back on the car, the rest of the exterior has accumulated quite a bit of dust.

The carpet should be arriving tomorrow. After that I hope to have the whole interior done by this spring. Which gives me plenty of time to dye and make everything look nice.

 

Making more progress, the rear carpet is fully installed, and the front is trimmed to fit.



Everything cleaned up and got dyed really nicely for the rear compartment doors. I tried reusing the frames, but they were just too broken. There goes another 35 bucks, but it should look really nice once it’s all back together. Notice how much closer the carpet and dyed pieces look in different lighting compared to with the flash on.



The 1 1/8” front sway bar and new dash pad both arrived today. The dash pad was a nice Al Knoch piece was returned because of “blemishes”. I got it at a steep discount, but don’t see a single thing wrong with it. It should dye nicely and look great!



I really didn’t feel like fixing that speaker grille anyways.

 

Very cool.

I can relate. My 69 is safely in my garage but I wanted something else, something I can just jump in and go to a store and if I catch a shopping basket not have heart failure. My convertible does not lend itself to that. I also have only one garage space so anything else will have to sit in the driveway.

I was given an 89 Saab 900S that I had a while and I eventually flipped it. A real headache and not my cup of tea but I now understand the attraction for some. They're fun but impossible to explain to any of my friends. Still, it whet my whistle for something else to tear into.

Tomorrow morning I'll have a look at 73 Mustang. I didn't care what it was it just turned out that thing ticked off all the right boxes for me so we'll see. No snow now but the wind's howling and it's crowding zero. Call that the price I pay for an off season discount on an ugly duckling. This should be interesting, might even drive it home - it all depends on what I see. This isn't YouTube, I may just flatbed it home.

 

Still stuck in waiting for parts purgatory. I’d like to start up the car to run it, but I’m still waiting on my pickup coil from a month ago. All the interior panels are stripped down and ready for dye, but I’m still waiting on that. And I’d like to take the car to go get washed, but there’s currently a wind chill of -30!

It hasn’t been all bad though. I got the new dash pad installed along with the center console gauge cluster.



The seats have been disassembled and cleaned, the shiny metal bit where the two parts connect has been polished, and the seat tracks have been cleaned up and repainted.



One of the recliner stops didn’t want to come out even after a week of penetrating oil. Rather than stripping it out I decided to let it stay. I’ll mask it off when I go to dye.



All pent up, but more should be happening soon.

 

At least you are getting some small things accomplished.

 

Definitely not original...

 

It’s not all bad. It gives me more time to do other things. Like looking for a house and other chores. It looks like the market is improving already, which is good because I’m giving myself less than a year to find something to stop paying rent.

I ended up using fluid film on the seat tracks as suggested by your thread. Polished the adjustment ***** and blued the springs. I think they came out pretty nice.

 

I think the Fluid Film was a great choice.
Your seat tracks look like new.
Nice work.

 

Finally!

The dye is here, and my first observation is that I’ll probably need even more haha. I’m doing panels by order of importance. Ones that, once dyed, can allow me to do other work on the interior. Gauge cluster and center console have the highest priority, seat backs and compartment frames have the lowest.



Disassembled for dyeing. All black oxide hardware re-blued, rust removed from bare metal bits, and gauge lenses cleaned.



Back together with lube on all threaded fasteners. The girlfriend says she’s not taking down the Christmas tree until all the car parts are gone, which won’t be long now.

 

They look great!
If you keep buying new Corvette parts, just store them under the tree.
That way you won’t need to take the tree down until after next Christmas and it can be Christmas morning everyday.
Your girlfriend will understand.

 

Been getting work done slowly. Busy with work and the house search, so I’m limited to a few hours a week to work on the car.

I've gotten most of the interior panels dyed and reinstalled. Lots of little things like the seat belt retractor covers and rear compartment frame were harder to reinstall because of the new insulation underneath. I can tell it’s worth it though, I get warm just sitting in and working in the car.

In case you didn’t see it in the other threads, I stripped, painted, and added new trim to the center console plate.



The adhesive on the back wasn’t nearly strong enough to stick, so I used contact cement and some of the girlfriend’s hair clips to hold it while it dries. I debated on wether I wanted to spend time to restore this part or not, but I’m glad I did.



I reinstalled it, as well as plugged in the battery to make sure all my new LED lights for the gauges all work.



Success! I love the brilliant blue over the greenish teal the incandescents give.

You might notice the lack of a steering wheel in that picture. I’m still waiting on my column conversion kit as well as some other parts from a few months ago. I called Topflight today, and found out there were issues trying to order an out of stock item with a gift certificate. They said they’ll be able to figure it out though. At this rate I’ll be on track to get the interior done before spring, which couldn’t come any sooner. Not a fan of this -38 wind chill currently.

More things to happen this weekend!

 

You're moving at a good pace!

 

It looks awesome!

 

Even more things buttoned up. I got the seats dyed, reassembled, and reinstalled. Cleaned up the windows too because they were bothering me.



I lost one of the E-clips for the distributor and wasn’t able to find the size I needed. Most hardware stores only go down to 3/16”, and they’re marginally smaller than that. After going to Harbor Freight I got a 300 count variety pack. I wasn’t able to find an official size online, but if anyone is curious, they appear to be 1/8”.



After putting the cap and rotor back on I realized I had basically everything I needed to get the car started. It hadn’t run since November of last year, and I had messed with a lot of things since then, such as

Completely disassembling the carb
Completely disassembling the distributor
Pulling the valve covers, replacing the gaskets
Going through the entire dash harness
Leaving the battery plugged in for over a month(oops)
Completely forgetting which spark plug wire goes to which cylinder
Forgetting how I pulled the distributor, didn’t want to be 180 off

I put it all together to the best of my ability, and… success! It was good to hear it run for the first time in three months. I forgot how quiet it was compared to the car with side pipes. The Quadrajet was right on the money as far as hot and cold idle RPMs, it fired up instantly with starting fluid, despite the distributor hold down bolt being finger tight, and having no idea what the timing was set to. I didn’t mess with anything else, just let it run for a bit to get up to temp, then shut it off. I still have to hook up the electric choke and a few other things, but once it gets a steering wheel it will be drivable once again!




As a reward I got some chrome acorn nuts to replace the nuts for the hood latches. I have them on my other car, and I think it finishes the area nicely.



Step 1 of 10,000 of making the engine bay look nicer. I can’t wait for spring!

 

It’s looking fantastic!

 

Thanks!

I want to wash the whole car down and hand buff a few spots to see if I can make it shine, but my girlfriend informed me that goes against my lease. Pooey, can’t wait to get a house. Instead I’ll be pulling the L82 emblems and stripping them down, then trying my hand at repainting the numbers red. I’ll also do another breakdown of the budget… eventually.