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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!
How are you rebluing the black oxide hardware? Thx, Steve
I bought an ultrasonic cleaner, and some bluing goop, based on your input. I've been using a rock tumbler with Simple Green and tiny stainless rod media to clean hardware of the big chunks of grease and paint.
Did you know you can quote yourself (including pictures, if you want) from other threads?
Originally Posted by Piersonpie
I ran them through the ultrasonic cleaner and soaked them in evaporust for about a day. Then, working quickly before surface rust forms I put them in the cold blueing solution. Let them soak for about a minute, then rinsed them off and gave them a spray of oil. I want to get more solution to do larger parts, but I’ve been using this stuff, which works pretty well.
Thx! I have a tumbler that I use for cleaning coins from metal detecting, now I need an ultrasonic cleaner.
You can probably get away with regularly cleaning/degreasing parts before blueing, I just use the ultrasonic cleaner because it’s easier. The most important thing to do though is to give them a small coating of oil directly after treating them. I’ve done it without and the hardware flash rusts before the blueing can fully cure.
You can probably get away with regularly cleaning/degreasing parts before blueing, I just use the ultrasonic cleaner because it’s easier. The most important thing to do though is to give them a small coating of oil directly after treating them. I’ve done it without and the hardware flash rusts before the blueing can fully cure.
Thx Pierson. I have been wanting an ultrasonic for a while for various projects, so will look for one of those. Good recommendation on the oil.
My white ‘76 currently doesn’t have the hood locking pins installed, I took them off/apart last year when I repainted the firewall, but wanted to polish them so they wouldn’t stand out against all the nicer components, as well as using an alignment tool when reinstalling them so I don’t lock myself out of the hood.
It’s not like a vehicle with a conventionally opening hood, so I wasn’t worried about it flying open when driving. What I wasn't even thinking about was the fact that anyone would be able to open the hood without the cable. The car is parked in an underground parking garage that needs an app on your phone and authorization to even get in, but sometime last weekend somebody went under the hood of my car and tampered with multiple parts while I wasn’t there. This includes changing the spark plug wires around on the distributor, taking the air cleaner off and dropping the wing nut into the bay, and OPENING THE BRAKE FLUID RESERVOIR.
I knew something was up when I tried to start the car and got backfiring through the side pipes. The other issues were easy enough to correct, I’ve definitely got the firing order engrained in my head by now, but the reservoir being opened is criminal endangerment in my eyes.
I’ve talked to my apartment, and they’ll be checking to see if any security cameras were able to catch anything. In the meantime you can be rest assured I’m putting the lock pins back in, appearance be damned.
On a lighter note I finally got the packages from Topflight I’ve been waiting on since November. There’s a few things that are still back ordered, but I finally got a car cover, with a locking cable underneath of course.
And if you see that car in the background, that’s the actual topic of this thread. I haven’t done much to it in a while. Got a few more interior pieces dyed and installed, but I’ve just been running it every once in a while because I can now. With the rebuilt carb and distributor it stars right up and idles like a brand new car.
I’ve been looking at wheels recently, specifically this thread. I really like the look of the gray spoke Torque Thrust II’s. I think the maroon car would look really good with them, especially after being lowered. There’s a set for sale with brand new 255/50r17 and 225/50r17 tires on facebook marketplace for less than the price I think I could sell both sets of rally wheels for. I’m not completely sure yet, but something to keep in mind. Does anyone have a picture of wheels like these on a maroon rubber bumper C3?
The weather is getting warmer, one good rainstorm to get the salt off the road and I can finally drive these cars again!
Last edited by Piersonpie; Mar 9, 2025 at 12:05 AM.
Coming along nicely! I've always liked garage projects done by people in their free time with limited resources. I don’t see any challenge in throwing a hundred grand at someone and saying, 'Bring me a nicely restored Corvette!' Anyone can do that—only to end up with a car they know nothing about. While fully restored show cars might be nice to look at, I find these hands-on projects far more interesting
Regarding that incident in the garage—what a shame. I’m just wondering why…
I convinced myself that I needed the wheels enough that I went ahead and got them. A grand spent on them, but I have someone coming this weekend that will give me $700 for the rallys. Plus I have the original rally wheels and set of brand new tires to sell on top of that. When it comes to wheels and tires, I’ve almost already made a profit.
I sold the tiny 10” air cleaner for $30, and did the math for all the extra parts I’ve bought in the last month or two. It comes out to $522, so take the 30 off and add $492 to the grand total. I’m in for $7,488. The biggest expense now will only be my time.
I fixed a leaky transmission cooler line, hooked up the electric choke, and Jerry rigged the NK4 steering wheel back on to make it drivable. Took it outside, gave it a bath, and put the new wheels on using the emergency jack from my daily. Overall a good day.
Last edited by Piersonpie; Mar 12, 2025 at 11:56 PM.
Just read through all of your thread. What a great initial deal, and man how far you’ve come. Hard to believe how much you’ve done given the temps you are dealing with. I am of a firm belief that it woulda sat until spring if it were mine and it was that cold out. Great job. It really has transformed under your efforts!
This winter has been all over the place as far as snow and temperature, but I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Thunderstorms forecasted for tomorrow, so I’ll be able to take it to my parents which has things like all my tools, my quick jack, and a cherry picker.
After putting aluminum heads and an intake on my white car and taking out the HVAC it literally sat like a 4x4.
After coilovers as well as other suspension improvements the stance is much better. It noticeably handles much better at speed too.
This car won’t be getting full on coilovers since cutting a spring basically does the same thing for much cheaper (free). It’s also getting the old but still newer and good shocks out of the white car.
I experienced the same 4x4 effect on my '69 when I put it on a diet. The suspension mods on yours really settled it back down. I'm hoping on my '71 that just cutting the springs, and putting in the longer bolts in the rear will be satisfactory. I want it to look like yours when all said and done.
After topping off the transmission fluid as mentioned in the What did you do to your C3 today thread the car drives much better. I’m more confident in taking it on longer trips. I drove all the way to a car wash a few miles away and gave it a proper power washing. After getting all the dust off the T-tops and fuel door, the parts I’ve already buffed, I’m confident the rest of the paint should turn out pretty well.
Last night I went to my parents house and fished out the white cars old front springs from my pile of C3 parts. They were dirty, but I cleaned them up, cold cut a coil, and gave them a coat of black paint.
Welcome to my paint booth. Not the cleanest, but I’ll take it 8 days out of the week over an apartment complex parking garage.
They should be dry by now. I’m taking the car there later today to install them. While it’s apart I’ll do the wheel bearings too since I have new seals. Since you have to take the shocks out to do the springs anyways I’ll put in the new ones in when I put it back together. They’re from the white car and new as of 2021. I still can’t compress them by hand with a reasonable amount of force.
Will update later with developments and the new ride height.
Partial update, I had the ignition module fail on me about halfway there. I was able to replace it and make it all the way, but it took about an hour and $48. I got the old springs out, “new” springs in, and the 1 1/8 front sway bar on. Now I just need to do the shocks and wheel bearings, then I’ll be done.
Last edited by Piersonpie; Mar 21, 2025 at 10:40 PM.
As mentioned by the partial update in my last post I had the car die on me halfway to my parents. I replaced the ignition module and made it the rest of the way.
I got all the work done on it that I wanted to. It’s not the first time I’ve taken the front suspension apart, so using the same method from the CorvetteBen’s YouTube channel I got the old springs out and new ones in without hurting anything. Because of the module taking so long though I wasn’t able to get it all done in one day. I went back earlier today and got it all finished up. It drives much better now, flatter in the corners. Driving back is where it all went wrong though.
My apartment to my parents is about 12 miles apart, and the spot I broke down before was almost exactly halfway there. As I was driving back to my apartment the car dies in almost the same exact spot. Mind you, the ignition module is literally brand new and installed with the correct heat sink compound. It turns over perfectly fine, but sounds like it isn’t firing off. I let it sit for several hours and tried again. Whatever failed this time must not be heat based because everything on the car had reached near freezing temperatures.
I suspect the ignition coil this time, I was told it was new by the previous owner, but I don’t trust the quality of parts being sold at this time. I’d really like to test both ignition modules to see if the first one even went bad, but after calling around it seems like parts stores don’t keep testers around anymore.
I’m taking the entire distributor from the white car and throwing it in to see if that fixes the issue, but at the moment it’s dark, raining, and barely above the temperature that would make that rain snow. The car is currently on the side of a county highway, far away from any heavy traffic.
Looks really good all broken down though. The front settled a little bit already from when I set it back down on the ground, and should go even lower than it was before.
