My one and only vette
Thread Starter
Melting Slicks
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 2,200
Likes: 3
From: Lehigh county Pennsylvania
My one and only vette
Hello forum members and Happy Labor Day!
I stopped in here to get an electrical problem solved. It was covered some time ago so your C3 search function led me to the answer right quick. If you must know, my alternator plug got brittle and fell apart. I bought a replacement pigtail but needed to know on what terminals the red and black wires went. Now I know the red is on the right as looking from the driver's seat.
My Vette saga passed the 36 year mark this past July 7th.
Growing up, I always liked Vettes. So when I got into a sticky situation one night on the flightdeck of the carrier Enterprise steaming off the coast of North Vietnam in the spring of 1968, I told myself that if I made it home in one piece, I'd treat myself to a Vette. Everyone, it seems, gets awful religious when one's life is on the line. I was no different.
Arriving back in the States with all fingers and toes and most of my sanity still intact, I started hunting the used Chevy dealer's lots. But somehow I got side-tracted by the then current ad, "Camaro...closest thing to a Vette yet." So I bought a 70 1\2 Z28, 4-speed coupe. I drove it for about a year and realized it was a nice ride, but no Vette.
On July 7, 1972 I traded it in on a '69 Monaco orange ragtop that had posi 4:88 rear gears, SS Cragar mags and Goodyear Wide Oval tires, the fronts pumped up to 60psi. Wide ratio Muncie, side pipes, power steering a brakes and the medium saddle interior. A 780 cfm Holley
carb on an Edlebrock manifold, solid lifter cam, replacement block casting number 3970100 and big valve heads. The console data plate was 300 horse, base ZQ3 engine, although it peaked at 410 rear wheel horsepower on a chassis dyno at 7,200rpms. On the street, I could start out in 3rd gear, shift once and be at highway speed. It had 48K miles on the odometer. The past owner never bothered to change the trans 'driven' gear to match up with those 4:88's, so the speedo read 100mph when she was actually only doing 60mph. Who knows how many actual miles are on her and how many are inflated by a faulty speedo, is anybody's guess. Now, 36 years later, the speedo reads 60,030 miles.
I swapped those 4:88's for 3:73's and the 3 series carrier to local drag racing brothers. A helleva lot more streetable, for sure. I also bought a hardtop from a girl who found herself in need of quick cash. It was Brands Hatch green with black interior. For $125 I wasn't complaining. However, I got mocked pretty often about her looking like a Halloween pumpkin...green hardtop over orange body!!! In '75 I stripped the multiple layers of orange paint and had a body shop block sand out any waves and paint it Dupont 88L pitch black acrylic lacquer. She's been that color ever since. Now that I know that Monaco orange was a pretty rare color in '69, I might put her back to original sometime in the future. Bright colors appeal to me once again, now that I'm in my second childhood.
I also changed the engine in '75. Not knowing what flat tappet cam was installed meant I also didn't know the corresponding valve lash. And she was puffing a bit of oil passed the loose forged piston rings so I swapped in a '64 283 from a pickup truck, punched out .060" with 327 big valve heads. I also swapped in a close-ratio M21 road racing trans from a '69 Chevelle. (I have no idea if it was original to the Chevelle, but the trans number didn't match the VIN)
Recently I glued on Eckler's L-88 flares to clear the Goodyear Eagle P255\60R-15 front tires and P275\60R-15 rears. They compliment the heavy duty hood. The tires are mounted on four Corvette America repo '65 knock-off 8.5" width wheels that I bought 11 years ago. Except the spare...the 8.5"wide wheels were discontinued 10 years ago, so the original 6" width wheel is all that's available new anymore. And proudly cast inside is "Made in China." That, friends, jacks my jaws to no end.
But I couldn't find just one used wide wheel for sale on the internet.
If she has any pedigree or claim to fame, is she spent her time on the St. Louis assembly line 5 jobs behind the only documented ZL-1, Daytona yellow, serial number S729219, built September 11th, 1969 which makes her a second design '69. In a strange twist of fate, she is now wearing that ZL-1's heavy duty hood.
I was at Corvettes @ Carlisle on the Sunday afternoon looking for an inexpensive L-88 hood. Kevin McKay of Corvette Repair had the yellow one at his stall, with "original ZL-1" lettered in black magic marker on the lump. It also had "454" chrome trim pieces. I told him I wasn't looking for any kind of museum piece, just one that would fit my Vertex magneto underneath. He didn't want to pack it back up to Long Island, so we came to a monetary agreement.
About a week later he sent me a letter attesting to its provenance as belonging to Ed Meuller when he had Kevin restore S729219. The fibreglas latch mount areas and cold air box were pretty torn up so Kevin decided to swap on a structurally better, survivor heavy duty hood from an L-88. Hoods never got serial numbered to respective cars, so not being original didn't matter to the restoration.
I can truly say that I know MY Vette inside and out. I've repaired or replaced almost everything, everywhere over the years. I did all the work myself. As an ASE collision repair and refinishing tech and a PennDot certified, class 7 state inspection mechanic, I wouldn't trust my 40 year old Vette to anybody else.
Don't they still say life begins at forty?
I stopped in here to get an electrical problem solved. It was covered some time ago so your C3 search function led me to the answer right quick. If you must know, my alternator plug got brittle and fell apart. I bought a replacement pigtail but needed to know on what terminals the red and black wires went. Now I know the red is on the right as looking from the driver's seat.
My Vette saga passed the 36 year mark this past July 7th.
Growing up, I always liked Vettes. So when I got into a sticky situation one night on the flightdeck of the carrier Enterprise steaming off the coast of North Vietnam in the spring of 1968, I told myself that if I made it home in one piece, I'd treat myself to a Vette. Everyone, it seems, gets awful religious when one's life is on the line. I was no different.
Arriving back in the States with all fingers and toes and most of my sanity still intact, I started hunting the used Chevy dealer's lots. But somehow I got side-tracted by the then current ad, "Camaro...closest thing to a Vette yet." So I bought a 70 1\2 Z28, 4-speed coupe. I drove it for about a year and realized it was a nice ride, but no Vette.
On July 7, 1972 I traded it in on a '69 Monaco orange ragtop that had posi 4:88 rear gears, SS Cragar mags and Goodyear Wide Oval tires, the fronts pumped up to 60psi. Wide ratio Muncie, side pipes, power steering a brakes and the medium saddle interior. A 780 cfm Holley
carb on an Edlebrock manifold, solid lifter cam, replacement block casting number 3970100 and big valve heads. The console data plate was 300 horse, base ZQ3 engine, although it peaked at 410 rear wheel horsepower on a chassis dyno at 7,200rpms. On the street, I could start out in 3rd gear, shift once and be at highway speed. It had 48K miles on the odometer. The past owner never bothered to change the trans 'driven' gear to match up with those 4:88's, so the speedo read 100mph when she was actually only doing 60mph. Who knows how many actual miles are on her and how many are inflated by a faulty speedo, is anybody's guess. Now, 36 years later, the speedo reads 60,030 miles.
I swapped those 4:88's for 3:73's and the 3 series carrier to local drag racing brothers. A helleva lot more streetable, for sure. I also bought a hardtop from a girl who found herself in need of quick cash. It was Brands Hatch green with black interior. For $125 I wasn't complaining. However, I got mocked pretty often about her looking like a Halloween pumpkin...green hardtop over orange body!!! In '75 I stripped the multiple layers of orange paint and had a body shop block sand out any waves and paint it Dupont 88L pitch black acrylic lacquer. She's been that color ever since. Now that I know that Monaco orange was a pretty rare color in '69, I might put her back to original sometime in the future. Bright colors appeal to me once again, now that I'm in my second childhood.
I also changed the engine in '75. Not knowing what flat tappet cam was installed meant I also didn't know the corresponding valve lash. And she was puffing a bit of oil passed the loose forged piston rings so I swapped in a '64 283 from a pickup truck, punched out .060" with 327 big valve heads. I also swapped in a close-ratio M21 road racing trans from a '69 Chevelle. (I have no idea if it was original to the Chevelle, but the trans number didn't match the VIN)
Recently I glued on Eckler's L-88 flares to clear the Goodyear Eagle P255\60R-15 front tires and P275\60R-15 rears. They compliment the heavy duty hood. The tires are mounted on four Corvette America repo '65 knock-off 8.5" width wheels that I bought 11 years ago. Except the spare...the 8.5"wide wheels were discontinued 10 years ago, so the original 6" width wheel is all that's available new anymore. And proudly cast inside is "Made in China." That, friends, jacks my jaws to no end.
But I couldn't find just one used wide wheel for sale on the internet. If she has any pedigree or claim to fame, is she spent her time on the St. Louis assembly line 5 jobs behind the only documented ZL-1, Daytona yellow, serial number S729219, built September 11th, 1969 which makes her a second design '69. In a strange twist of fate, she is now wearing that ZL-1's heavy duty hood.
I was at Corvettes @ Carlisle on the Sunday afternoon looking for an inexpensive L-88 hood. Kevin McKay of Corvette Repair had the yellow one at his stall, with "original ZL-1" lettered in black magic marker on the lump. It also had "454" chrome trim pieces. I told him I wasn't looking for any kind of museum piece, just one that would fit my Vertex magneto underneath. He didn't want to pack it back up to Long Island, so we came to a monetary agreement.
About a week later he sent me a letter attesting to its provenance as belonging to Ed Meuller when he had Kevin restore S729219. The fibreglas latch mount areas and cold air box were pretty torn up so Kevin decided to swap on a structurally better, survivor heavy duty hood from an L-88. Hoods never got serial numbered to respective cars, so not being original didn't matter to the restoration.
I can truly say that I know MY Vette inside and out. I've repaired or replaced almost everything, everywhere over the years. I did all the work myself. As an ASE collision repair and refinishing tech and a PennDot certified, class 7 state inspection mechanic, I wouldn't trust my 40 year old Vette to anybody else.
Don't they still say life begins at forty?
Race Director
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 19,753
Likes: 523
From: Ideals are peaceful...History is violent...St.Charles, MO.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (appearance mods)
C5 of Year Winner (appearance mods) 2019
St. Jude Donor '08-'09-'12 thru'22
Welcome to the Forum!!!
Drifting
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 1,297
Likes: 1
From: Lubbock TX
St. Jude Donor '08
Welcome to the forum, someone with your experience and obvious knowledge of the Corvette is always welcomed here! Best of luck to you in the continuing adventure of Corvette ownership! 
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