I am new to the forum but figured I would start a thread on my 1969 Daytona Yellow Coupe. It had sat and not run for over 7 years, so I am working to "awaken it from its slumber". This is not a restoration, but more of a refurbishment to make sure the car runs, drives, works properly and is reliable.

I don't know much about this car, but it was bought in California by my father-in-law's good friend in the mid 90's and brought back here to Pennsylvania. I bought the car from him, but it had fallen into disrepair and hadn't been used at all for over 7 years.
It is nothing special as far as a 69 Corvette goes. It is a 300HP small block with automatic, A/C, power brakes, steering and windows. The rear is a 3.08 Posi. In other words, it's a nice cruiser car, not a fire breathing powerhouse to terrorize the streets. For me, that's perfect, as I intend to make it a "frequent" driver (don't quite want to call it a daily driver, as I won't drive it with winter salt on the roads).

The Good:

• It seems to be very original, with only 30,606 original miles. All engine and driveline numbers match.
• It looks like the engine retains all original components, including air pump and other accessories.
• I don't see any evidence of major body damage from an accident.
• The frame is in excellent shape.
• When we picked up the car, we threw a battery into the car with new points and new coil. Checked oil pressure and tried it. The engine fired right up and ran perfectly with excellent oil pressure.
• The body was re-painted prior to the mid 90's in its original Daytona yellow. There are a few minor stress cracks and chips, but all in all, the body is very presentable. With a couple of minor touchups, it should present just fine.

The Bad:

• Due to it sitting for so long, the gas tank is rusty and nasty with varnish rather than gas in it.
• The cable that connects the transmission and shifter was rusted so the lever could not be moved out of Park. We had to crawl under the car and disconnect the cable and manually move the transmission lever to neutral to we could roll the car around.
• Brake system needs a total rebuild
• The exhaust was replaced at some point. It is fully welded, front to rear, and wasn't done so well. It's not rusted through, but it is an item I'd like to replace eventually.
• There were some transmission fluid spots on the floor where the car was parked, and I found two bottles of transmission fluid in the jack storage box. I suspect it leaks transmission fluid.

The Ugly:

• The car has had an infestation with mice. So the interior smelled like mice **** and they had eaten through various parts, including the glove box and various carpet areas. Thankfully, it looks like they didn't chew on the seats OR go to a favorite place: the airbox. So that is fortunate.
• I'm sure there will be more problems discovered as I go along. But I guess that's part of the fun!

My Plan:
As stated above, I want this car to be a nice driver car. This car should work well and be comfortable to be in, both winter and summer. So beyond the obvious suspension and mechanicals working properly, the A/C and heat needs to work. The car also must not have any real leaks in the rain, and the interior needs to be nice. My goal is a nice #3 car where everything works just like it should.


Here is the car as it sat for over 7 years.


The interior was/is the worst art of the car. It is nasty from mice and some moisture.


Bringing it home


Car looks decent out in the light. Chrome is all very nice also


The ugly. One of the little critters found in the car...


Home on the lift and ready to be worked on!

 

Nice find......and the Daisy Duke Roadrunner.....74'?

Jebby

 

Very nice! With a "mouse motor".

I would say your first order of business, top priority is fluid changes. With number one being oil with zinc to protect the camshaft lobes / lifters.

Then a gas tank flush. Hand pump out all you can then disconnect the fuel line at the pump to drain any remaining crap out of there.

To test your wits and loyalty to the car, a complete brake flush should be in order. Then after that, if you haven't given up on the car, you can change the ATF, rear axle, coolant and P.S.

All takes time. Good luck.

 

Great write-up....great car.
I had to remove everthing including dash panels from the interior/spray-wipe Odor Ban on everything/let the car air out on the driveway every day for a week...
no more mouse-smell!
IF the brake pads are in good shape you may be able to (as another member said) flush and refill the system. IF NOT....rebuild the calipers and replace flexible rubber brake hoses.
BE SURE to replace the tires if they show cracks or dryrot (they will explode even though the tread looks good).
Take things one area at a time.

Keep us updated

 

Thanks for the comments gentlemen!

Close! It's a 1973 Road Runner; a 340 based auto. It was my first car I ever owned - got it in 1981 and it's been in the family since 1979. Currently it has a stroker 340 in it displacing 416 cubic inches.

Haha, yes a mouse motor and interior to match!

To all: thanks for the good advice. I'm a bit behind with my posts here. In the last few weeks I completely rebuilt the brakes. The front rotors were scored and shot, so they were replaced and shimmed to ensure less than .001" runout. All four calipers were disassembled, honed and rebuilt. The master cylinder was drained, flushed and checked (seems to be OK), and all lines were flushed. Then new rubber was installed. The brakes now seem to work well. I didn't like the rear emergency brake cable, so that was replaced as it was sticky and we couldn't get it moving freely.
At this point, the gas tank has been removed and all lines have been flushed. The old tank is rusty and shot. I have a new tank but I'm waiting on the rubber and gasket for the tank neck before I install the new tank. Like the brakes, all rubber will be replaced.

As far as fluid changes - I fully agree. One of the best things you can do to maintain a car is replace fluids. So little by little, they will all be replaced.

Interior was gutted except for the dash and I am cleaning and repairing things as I go. But at this point, mouse smell is thankfully gone.

I'll post some more pictures and updates later as I get more time.

Thanks again,

Hawk

 

Welcome to the forum, great looking 69 you have there, an awesome start to something greater!

And good to have another 69 DY here

 

Wow, you have an awesome car - no matter how much I water my little small block it doesn't seem to grow at all!
I also really like the black stripe on yours. If I have my facts straight, that was a big block only option?

Anyway, thanks for checking in. While I am somewhat experienced messing with old cars, I am a newbie with C3 Corvettes. (I have a 62 Corvette but it is unrestored so the only experience I have with that is maintenance type stuff.)
Bottom line is I greatly appreciate all comments and suggestions to help me along!

 

That black stripe was only for the ZL-1 option cars.

 

@HawkRod Congrats on the new to you Corvette. Nice to see another newbie both in Pennsylvania and also with a Yellow C3. I just took delivery of this 68 last week.

 

Really nice car. The Cali cars are usually very rust free. If you still have the old fuel tank, be sure to carefully remove the tank sticker and put it somewhere safe. If you contact NCRS, you can determine what zone the car was sent to from the factory. I think the service is still $40. That would get you closer to a complete ownership history of the car. Lastly, do a thorough inspection of the vacuum hoses and electrical wiring system. Rodents love to gnaw on those components. Good luck. Jerry

 

Another beautiful C3 to aspire to!
I'm sure mine won't reach the levels of yours and the other cars here as it will be a (careful) driver car, but hopefully it will turn out nice enough that I don't need to be too embarrassed!

I am in Lansdale, PA. Are you in SE PA or elsewhere?

 

As I stated earlier, I am a bit behind in posting about my progress. As of today, I have:

• Rebuilt the brake system.
  This included completely disassembling and honing the calipers, replacing all pads, all rubber lines, flushing the complete system, and replacing the front rotors
• Replaced the automatic shifter cable so it will shift between PRND21. The original had the dust boot broken and it had rusted into place and wouldn't budge
• Dropped the fuel tank and flushed the fuel lines. The tank, sending unit and all rubber will be replaced (but that is not done yet).
• Gutted the interior except for the dash with speedo and tach. The center stack, however was removed. I have just finished replacing the center stack, and some of the carpet has been replaced, although I am not yet finished with that.
• Fixed a few holes in the floor where it looked like someone had fallen into the seat and busted the right rear seat track through the floor. Plus a few other minor ones.

In the next few posts I will try to catch up with a few pictures of what I did. Here are a couple of quick pictures relating to the brakes

I don't have great pictures of the brake job, but here is one of the calipers that was pulled off.


...some of the gunk inside the calipers!


This is why the front rotors were shot - note the gouge in it!

After rebuilding the calipers, I replaced the rotors and shimmed them so they had about .001" runout. Not bad, but it took some time. Then we flushed everything and replaced pads and got them working well again. During this work, we also discovered that the emergency brake cable to the rear calipers was bad, so that got replaced too. Brakes are now in fine shape!

 

I too am in SE PA and will PM you.

The photo is very misleading as I think I will be fixing/repairing most every part on this car from years of neglect, but I was interested in a project that is turning into an epic.

 

I can't quite say my car was "neglected", but at least from an interior perspective, it was rough due to the mice especially. But, bubba had been doing some custom wiring related to the wiper system too. All the interlocks are not functioning properly, so I still need to diagnose that and fix that too. The wipers work while the car is running, but if you shut it off there will likely be mass mayhem as wipers and the wiper door meet.

Regardless, this is a fun little project to work through and "discover" the car. I think the bones are solid; my car just needs some TLC...

 

So I realize that I haven't been taking many pictures so far. I really have very few of what the interior looked like initially, and precious few as I have worked on things.

So no pictures of the shifter cable replacement - sorry. But that is fairly basic once the console is removed.

I don't have pictures of the tank either, but it's hard to show the inside of a tank in pictures anyway. But I'll attach a picture of the sender to give you an idea of what it looked like inside. Yikes!

The rusty, nasty sender that came out of my tank...

Currently, I am waiting for some gas tank parts before I can reinstall the tank. I need the Gas Neck seal, overflow hose, neck to tank gasket and tank pads. Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow so I can get the tank installed. The main issue I will have is fighting with the exhaust system. It is a crappy, fully welded replacement exhaust system. I will eventually replace it, but right now money is flowing out like Niagara Falls on this thing, so I am going to push that off for awhile. Anyway, I can only partially move it out of the way, so that will make tank installation a bit more of a challenge.

As I said before, the interior really let the car down, and stunk like mice. Here are a few pictures of the interior work so far:

Interior when the car was bought

I tore most of it out to fix or replace pats as needed.

The mostly gutted interior


The pot metal had pock marks that made it difficult to clean this up and repaint it.


The heater controls was especially rough


So I blew the whole heater controls apart and cleaned up the individual parts


The lens was too far gone to save, so it was replaced


Painting was a challenge to get the paint to stick well and look OK


But slowly, the parts started looking better. I'm not going for concourse, just neat, clean and functional.


Here is the console top plate completed.


Here is the center gauge cluster, with the new radio installed.


And then finally installed back in the car!

Much more work to go, but progress!!!

 

Awesome work! You appear to have the same OCD level as I do!

 

You’ve done a tremendous job! Keep up the good work! I especially like the center console work. What paint did you use? Mine looks its age.

I know the BB get a lot of attention, but I have a small block ‘69 coupe (L46 350/350) and it’s great to drive.

Several here suggested I get the 1969 owners manual and assembly manual, so I did. You can get the assembly manual free online (someone here posted a link), but I thought a hard copy would be helpful, so I ordered a hard copy from NCRS for $25.

 

Looking great so far! And a very interesting read. Thanks so much for posting.

 

I am aware that the build sheet is often tucked on top of the tank, so I removed the tank carefully to see if it was there. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Was there some off white discoloring on top of the tank that used to be the data sheet? I don't know. Either way, no data sheet was found.
A big thank you for letting me know about the tank sticker. Yes, I still have the tank, so I will look for it. I was unaware of the existence of such a sticker. Again - Thanks!!!

For the vacuum and electrical system: Thanks for the advice and this is definitely on the list. Some issues have already been fixed, but there are others that need to be rectified. For example, another power wire was run to the wipers. It looks like the original may have had an issue. Plus, some of the interlocks were bypassed so the system operates but not per factory specs. Additionally, it looks like the vacuum tank must have leaked, so there was another bolted on and used instead. My understanding is these tanks are not reproduced, and not easy to get out either. So that will be a fight for another day.
In general, for wiring, I have only found one wire that was barely nibbled on by the little bas*****. Most of the wiring issues seem to be at the hand of human(s) who have made various changes. Luckily, there are just a few of them. I still need to do more wiring checks. If wires are brittle (often under hood wiring harnesses), then I will replace them for safety's sake.

Thanks for nice comments.
I simply used Krylon semi-gloss black out of a rattle can. I have no idea if it is concourse correct, but it looked close to the original color. For the chrome parts like the center console plate, I cleaned the part carefully and then sprayed the paint over everything - I did not mask the chrome parts off. Then, when dry, I used a razor blade drug backwards against the painted ridges that are supposed to be chrome. The paint came off quite nicely. I then used painters tape to mask off and protect the painted areas and used steel wool to give the edges the final "polish". It was time consuming, but I am actually quite happy with the results.

As far as manuals, I am a big proponent of learning so I at least try to minimize my mistakes (I make enough already!). So yes, I have the assembly manual, owners manual, a special troubleshooting guide for the wiper system, plus a 66-82 Shop Manual. All these references, along with the internet and this forum as well, are very helpful.

 

sweet
good to see a guy work on his car