So I started tearing down the '77 due to some pretty major clearcoat delamination and a grenaded starter and had to put the project on hold for a while as my daughter was born right in the middle of it all. But now a year later I've finally started to have a little extra time and money to start grinding on it again. I hope to take a lot of pictures and document everything as well as keep you guys posted on progress. So with no further a due, here are some before pictures which were taken right after I bought it and it was still looking good.






The odometer currently says 31,000 but the car being 30 years old and only having a 5 digit odometer it was assumed by everyone that it had rolled over and was actually 135,000. But after the motor was pulled, which was just a bone stock L-48 with some cheap chrome dress-ups. I'm convinced that it really is only 31,000. The owner of the machine shop said that he had never seen a motor that clean before. You could still see the cross-hatch pattern on the cylinder walls. No over bore was needed and the crank didn't need any turning and could still run standard bearings.

Painted the Block and heads black


I soon decided to do a 383 stroker, well, 377 because of the stock bore but a stroker non the less. And I ordered a new Eagle rotating assembly complete with bearings, rings, rods, arp rod bolts, crank, flywheel, and harmonic balancer. Because of the I-beam rods I had to clearance the pan rail but only on one side of the block (weird?), the section right at the bottom of the cylinder wall on all cylinders and I had to grind the slightest amount (not enough to throw the balance off) off of two of the rods because they were kissing the cam lobes. After all of the grinding was done I got the short block assembled, everything was plasigauged and had the perfect 3 thousandths clearance.




Not long after that I finally got my heads back from the machine shop which I had completely gone through and had new valves/seals, valve springs w/keepers and retainers installed. They are by the way a set of camel humps that I bought used for $200



Camshaft, timing chain, and heads are now installed with flepro gaskets and new arp bolts.
The cam is a big isky cam
.510/.533 Lift
310/320 Duration
244/254 @.050
112 Lobe Separation
Valve Springs - 1.22 O.D. 110#@1.750 252# @ 1.225 Max Lift .525

I just sat the intake, carb, valve covers, and distributor in place to see what it was going to look like here is a teaser pic:



I'll be back later with some pics of the bodywork while I'm waiting on my roller rockers and pushrods to arrive.

 

Car looks beautiful anxious to see more of your rebuild.

 

And wearing that while while working?

 

Ok, here is where I am on the body. You've seen the before pictures here are some current ones.







Almost have everything sanded down with a DA sander and some 320 grit. I had a big crack in the front drivers side fender from a driveway/cellphone ringing in the pocket/"who put that tree there!" mishap. So I cut and grinded out all of the damaged area and re-glassed it. I used a little rage extreme polyester filler to smooth it out.
Also started fitting the new '67 big block style stinger hood. The front bumper cover had the same spider cracking that I've seen on every single rubber bumper corvette so instead of fixing it and have it come back in a few years I opted to splurge on the new "tru-flex" fiberglass bumper from ecklers which should stay laser straight for years.
I think the stinger hood is going to look ****ing mean with the hooker sidemount headers and sidepipes.



Oh and I got the doors, the T-tops, and the headlight buckets at the shop for primer. The doors should only need to blocked once or twice more before they are straight enough for their last coat of primer. The t-tops came out great, they are already wet-sanded and ready for paint as well as the headlight buckets.





Also, have a guitar that I plan on painting the same color as the car for a neat little car show gimmick.

 

On a side note we finally finished the '54 ford f-100 we were working on at the shop. It took about 2 years from start to finish. We spent almost a year just fixing all of the ****ty body work the owner did before he brought it to us. The color is Candy Tangerine by House of Kolors. It has a 4 basecoats of high metallic silver, then 6 coats of the candy orange, then 4 coats of clear. I really wouldn't recommend House of Kolors to anyone not the 3 stage anyway. I wasn't impressed with the quality of the paint at all. Not too mention it was a pain in the *** to spray out right (It was nearly 2 solid days of painting). It's just overpriced and overrated
Before:
Powder coated the frame silver and got the motor set in


The motor is a chevy 383 stroker crate engine. All polished aluminum with a 700r4 automatic tranny



cab on and primed


Finished product

 

I hope everyone is having a great memorial day

 

WOW!! On all accounts. The truck looks real good and the Vette is coming along nicely. I like the early vette engine bays because they are much much cleaner then my '81's spaghetti factory....oh well, the price we pay to play. Vette should look great when done. Good luck.