Tanks for the Memory

Thanks to everyone who voted in our online poll. We will be revealing the new colour of our Corvette as soon as possible.......stay tuned!

Well, this project of restoring our 1975 Corvette Stingray is starting to progress quite well. All the paint has been stripped from the body and what a mammoth task that was!!! There are just a few more things to do before it can go to the paint shop.

It looks like the rubber hoses that connect the fuel tank to the steel lines are close to being the original items. That means they’re about 33 years old! Think I’ll take this opportunity to replace them with new hose. Hmmmm but what’s this? The hoses go to the top of the fuel tank, just underneath the body ……. How the hell do you get at them?

Just two choices here: either remove the body of the Corvette or remove the fuel tank. No prizes for guessing which option I took.

I read somewhere that it’s best to have a buddy help you when removing the tank. But I knew better…. so I tackled it myself.

After removing the main fuel line, I undid the bolts on the steel straps that hold the tank to the Corvette chassis. I was at the point of no return now!! As I was gently prizing the tank from its resting position I noticed that it was a bit heavy. Had to lie on my back with one knee hard up against the tank to support my sagging arms.Next, and to my dismay, I realized that the fuel gauge wire was still connected, as was another rubber hose. This thing was getting heavier by the minute and I was running out of arms & legs.

How do I proceed from here? Well, there was a knife on the floor, just out of reach. I managed to spin around a bit and kick the knife toward myself with the so far unused leg. At this point in time, I thought I was playing Twister, just didn’t have a friend playing with me. Anyway, with some difficulty, I managed to cut the other rubber hose and disconnect the wire. Now all I had to do was lower the tank to the ground.

If you’re looking forward to seeing a photo of this, all I can say is “You’ve got to be joking!!!! I didn’t have enough arms as it was.” However, Dayle has added a good tank link, just to satisfy you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9LLvGgRvQI Thanks Youtube!

Well, I reckon that the Corvette’s fuel tank, which I thought would be just about empty because I certainly haven’t put any fuel in it, must have been about ¾ full. That’s about 40 litres at about 1 kg per litre. Put that together with the weight of the tank….No bloody wonder it was heavy!!!

As the fuel tank was nearing the ground, it was closely followed by a 33 year build up of dirt that was sitting on top of and around the tank. You guessed it….I got the dirt all over me, on my face, in my ears, even up my nose. Gee,that was great fun. Now I know what I’m doing this Spring……… top dressing the lawn with the dirt from under the car.

Another day done, another drama solved in the restoration of the ‘vette.

Think I should have listened to the guy who said …….it should only be done when there is a buddy to help.

PS from Dayle.... He never asked me to help!

Tale of the 10 footer

OK, so for the first day or two of owning our first Corvette, I was wearing my rose coloured glasses. At the forefront of the mind was just the fact that I had a ‘Vette parked in the garage. I spent the first couple of days just getting to know the car...….like..... why didn't the passenger side door open properly? ...broken spring; how do you put the lights on high beam? …. hmmm; Why didn't the windscreen wipers work?......no earth; where is the washer bottle?…. dunno. (Turned out it didn’t have a washer bottle.)

Then I noticed them, those little pimples in the paint on the rear deck. The more I looked, the more of them I found. Then there was the “edge” around the door handles. They hadn’t been removed for the car’s last paint job, just masked around. Then there were the cracks in the front bumper cover, the sagging of the urethane rear cover, the cracks in the bonnet where some clunk head had put a lonnnnnng air cleaner stud in and slammed the bonnet shut etc. etc, etc.

From 10 foot away, the 1975 Corvette looked great. Put it under the Walker microscope and it left a lot to be desired. Only one thing to do…… re-paint it.

Looked at a number of Corvette Forum sites and found lots of good but contradictory advice on how to strip the paint. One suggestion was “use citrus based stripper”. Tried that and could probably have peed on it with a better result! “Don’t use stripper, use a sander” was another suggestion. There are so many nooks & crannies on a Corvette so I discounted that idea. Besides, coarse paper on fiberglass ??? I don’t think so. So, after a discussion with Scott Girard from Corvette Alterations & Conversions, I decided to use proper automotive paint stripper.

Dayle & I set to it one Saturday. We figured we should get it done over the weekend. Wrong again… Just one door took over 4 hours. The stripper generally only takes off one coat of paint. This ‘ol girl had lots of coats ……. would never have been cold in a snow storm!

Tried a bit of stripper on the rear urethane bumper cover. Found out that urethane doesn’t like paint stripper. The bit I did ended up soft & soggy, a bit like a marshmallow. Had to find a fix for that, which will be covered in another installment.

So, weeks and weeks later, with 5 empty 4 litre cans of paint stripper lying around the back yard, the job was done. Now I might start to get rid of those funny scaly things on my hands. And maybe a beer might taste like a beer again.

With the C3 Corvette now completely in the raw, the evidence of the argey bargey (MS Word doesn’t like that one) that she has been in over the years is clearly visible. Guess I’ll just have to teach myself how to fix fiberglass.

By the way, this last photo is the tub of paint (yes, the entire amount)removed from the once turquoise Corvette......soon to be ....???

And if you know Bob...you'll have guessed already!

Again, again and again!

Preparing this 1975 Corvette is a work of art........

Now, after cleaning the firewall, inner fenders etc of this C3 with petrol then Wax & Grease Remover, I gave it a hit with good ol’ Satin Black VHT Engine Enamel. Hmm..... I ended up with more runs than an Aussie Cricket Team. The paint was just running off the fiberglass...... it was like I had just polished it with silicone or something similar!

I waited for it to dry, rubbed it back, washed it down with Wax & Grease Remover once more and tried again......... Same thing happened. So I tried again, this time using Flexi Prime (which is suitable for plastic parts) before applying the Satin Black. The result was a bit better. So, after about four attempts, I reminded myself that I’m not building a show car, so I settled for a slightly less than perfect finish.....mind you (says Dayle) to the uninitiated it's pretty good.

Somewhere along the way to the restoration of this Corvette, I decided to pull the Air Conditioning of this unit apart. Just as well I did, it was clogged up with 33 years worth of leaves that had settled in the vents and had been drawn into the airconditioning unit over time. I changed the “O” rings to suit the new type of gas and put it all together again. Hope it works now.

Here's a little hint!..... replace the Heater Hoses before putting the Air Conditioning unit in place, it is so much easier to get at them.

Next up is stripping the paint from the body. Now that's a labour of love, if ever there was one!

Engine Bay Painting Blues

You know...Dayle would call me a perfectionist....I like to think of it as doing things right the first time..... regardless of what the manual says.....

The 1975 Corvette Assembly Manual describes in detail how much Sealer should be put in each relevant place in the engine bay.

I reckon that the guys who assembled this Corvette must have used about four times the prescribed amount, and very little of it ended up in the right place. There were dribbles of hardened, dry, cracking sealer everywhere.

Now the true restorer would leave these in place, claiming, “that’s how they made ‘em”, but not me. I went about scraping, rubbing, cleaning all that stuff off until I had what looked like a reasonable surface on the firewall & inner fenders, front cross member etc.

But wait, what’s that? a cracked weld. Yep, sure enough, once all the crap was cleaned off the front cross member, some cracked welds were exposed. Not an uncommon problem I’m told. Call in Al Rawson, welder extraordinaire. Al soon had them welded up so well, I reckon the cross member will break before the welds come apart again. Thanks Al!!!

The Corvette's brake lines were grotty (covered with surface rust), so they were removed & cleaned up on a wire wheel, as were some of the other fittings. One trick I learnt was to paint these steel fittings with Clear Engine Enamel after polishing them up. The engine enamel sticks like the proverbial, and prevents the polished steel bits from going rusty again.

Now, I don’t have a spray booth and associated equipment, so I have become “the Pressure Pack Kid”. Yep! lots of bits & pieces have been painted with Pressure Pack can of paint. Funny thing, normally when you go to buy paint in a pressure pack you have to provide Proof of Age. Not me............ Can’t work out why???!!!

Here's looking up your rear end.....

I’ve never seen a Corvette rear end before, let alone work on one. And what’s more, I had absolutely no intentions of going near this one but, as I said in an earlier Vette's Sting Blog, the spacers fell out of the left trailing arm while I was cutting off the exhaust, so I had to take a further look.

First thing I noticed when the Corvette's rear wheels were removed was brake fluid on the rotors. Yep, that Hughsie was right again, the rear calipers were leaking and needed to be sleeved.
The left hand trailing arm had recently been either reconditioned of replaced. It was freshly painted and had a Mid West Corvette sticker on it. Wonder why???? Whoever put it in didn’t set to spacers up and secure them properly…….Am I surprised?

The Corvette's right hand trailing arm was a different story. The front bush was stuffed and half of one of the handbrake springs fell onto the ground when the rotor was removed. No option here but to remove it & have it fixed by a Corvette specialist. A quick check of the Advertisers on the NSW Corvettes Unlimited web site led me to Scott Girard of Corvette Alterations & Conversions (CAC).Within about a week or so, Scott had expertly rebuilt the hub and replaced the front bush. I always enjoy going to his workshop, so many Corvettes in various states of repair to look over.

Unlike the front, the rear rotors required replacing. Ebay to the rescue, but this time a much more informed, intelligent bid……No smart comments... ok! Thanks to Gino Constabile in Adelaide bisonauto@picknowl.com.au I got a good deal on rotors & pads.

While I was at it, I decided to remove the rear half shafts, spring and just about everything else but the diff centre and give then a good clean up & paint job.
Getting the right hand trailing arm back in place was an interesting task. That front pivot bolt is a real doosey, getting it back into place requires a very skinny hand with long fingers and a double jointed wrist. Not even Dayle could help out here!

The park brake cable was seized, which I’m told is typical for the breed- the '75 Corvette. I didn’t replace this, just doused it in WD40 or similar for a couple of days and it soon freed up.
I heard from somewhere (Scott Girard I think) that the park brake shoes should be adjusted before bolting up the half shafts, which I did. The rest of it was a simple matter to re- assemble.

This being done, it was time to clean up & repaint the engine bay. There were a few surprises here too, but you’ll have to wait for the next installment to hear about these. Stay tuned......more coming soon....

And Now for the Front End

Well, that last blog was a real case of techno info overload……but anyone who knows Bob Walker knows that he never does anything by halves! His quick "pull down and re-build" was perhaps wishful thinking…… Let’s just put it this way……… just as well he has a tolerant wife (that’s me!) and a passion for long hours in the garage!

With the motor now out and away for reconditioning, it was time to move on to the front end. Someone, in this chev’s previous life, had recently replaced the upper inner bushes. Problem was, the lower bushes were so worn that they were virtually non- existent. I struggle with the logic here, why fix just the uppers when the suspension is pulled down and not attend to the other problems??? So, we set to with jacks, jack stands, tools etc and started pulling the front end down. A good friend of mine, Peter Hughes, said when I told him that I have bought a Corvette “I bet all the brake calipers are leaking, they all do. Bring ‘em down to me and I’ll sleeve ‘em”. I didn’t really believe Pete, but the first thing I saw when the wheels came off was brake fluid all over the pads and rotors. Bugger, “Hughsie” was right, but I bet he’s not right about the rears. More on that later.

At about this stage of the project, I started preparing a list items that needed to be purchased for my restoration.

Enter Ecklers, a Corvette replacement part specialist company in the good ‘ol US of A. Their on line catalogue, with instructions accompanying some items, was great. I made my list in order of priority and the first of a number of orders were placed. This was really easy, just a matter of picking what I wanted, ticking the right boxes, handing over my credit card details of course and the goods turned up in about a week’s time. Not too painful now as the Aussie dollar and US dollar are just about the same.

Ecklers also offer a discount for Corvette Car Club Members so that helped to offset some of the freight costs.

Oh yes, that’s right….. I joined the NSW Corvettes Car Club – NSW Corvettes Unlimited soon after getting the car as I knew I was going to need some contacts and help from guys who had been through what I was doing.

Hmmm, who’s got a cute rear end then???

What you see isn't always what you get!

Well, the seller’s ad encouraged inspection before bidding on this Corvette. I didn’t do that, so I only have myself to blame. Anyway, I got to own a Corvette, didn’t I?
Having driven the Vette home from the Rego place, and having the benefit of seeing the car up on a hoist, I decided that a quick pull down and re-build was in order. I figured I’d start with the motor, because it smelt like it was burning oil & the box (T400) , because it was leaking badly and then turn the attention to the front suspension.

Had lots of “fun” preparing to pull the engine out. This being my first Corvette, I have to learn everything the hard way. (I usually learn by my mistakes........now I know quite a lot)

It seemed that the best (and possibly only) way to remove the engine was to remove the heads from the engine, undo the front yoke from the rest of the tail shaft, and pull out the short motor & gearbox as one unit.

First problem encountered was the Corvette's exhaust system. The nice new 2 1/2 inch exhaust system was fully welded and passed through the exhaust pipe hole in the cross member. There’s only one way to remove this exhaust system, cut it up with the angle grinder…… Oh well, I didn’t like the support brackets for the exhaust system any way.

Whilst lying on the floor, cutting the exhaust off, my foot kicked something and it fell onto the floor. It turned out to be the last remaining spacer from the left side trailing arm. The rest had fallen out some time before. Oops, looks like the rear end of the Corvette is need of some attention too.

To the uninitiated, the plumbing in the engine compartment looked quite complicated, particularly all the vacuum lines for the lights etc. I took lots of photos so I could look back on them when the time came to put this thing together again.

Having removed the bonnet, radiator, condenser & all the other engine peripherals (trendy word these days) and heads from the Corvette, the short motor and T400 parted company with the rest of the car without much drama. In fact, it was just a one person operation.

It all came out at a pretty steep angle, over the front of the car. I used the rear most head bolt holes for the chain mounting positions, which worked out quite OK. With the engine out, it was a simple operation to separate the engine from the gearbox, then put the engine on an engine stand, ready for disassembly. One could say, the corvette restoration was on its way.

Hmmm. This tired old Corvette engine has a brand new sump gasket. I wonder who’s been doing what in there??

Red Wine, Ebay and Corvettes

Well, let’s just put it this way....red wine and ebay are a dangerous combination.....but haven't you ever done something that you later wonder about???? Notice I didn't say 'regret"........I think you are starting to catch our drift....and to be a little less subtle, our 1st corvette came via Ebay, one Sunday night, when the thrill of the auction and the effects of the red wine took over.

2 mins to go, 30 secs to go....10 secs, refresh and suddenly we were the proud owners of an "immaculate" "unreal" "fantastic' "bargain" "sure to thrill" "ready to register" "drive away"....blah, blah blah!!!

Needless to say, the first viewing, after the deal was done, a point of no return, revealed a less than immaculate, un roadworthy, '75 C3 Corvette Stingray – and what’s more.....turquoise blue with pin striping, can you believe?

A lesser person would have cried, but not Bob. He promptly sold the T-Bucket (one of his babies- thanks Stevo for giving her a new home!)

and set about getting the new toy, the vette, registered.

However, registering this corvette was not quite what the vendor had indicated...another reason why making a decision based on red wine and adrenaline should be avoided at all costs.

The corvette arrived bright and early, Wednesday morning. (We got great feedback for those interested!) The trip to the registration inspection guy revealed a few more problems than we first expected......namely
· A broken engine mount
· Totally stuffed front suspension bushes
· Oil leaks from the gearbox
· Worn shock absorber rubbers
· No spare wheel
· No torque converter cover
· Etc. Etc.

Added to this, the oil in the engine smelt a bit “burnt” when the rocker covers were removed – a good indication that the engine was needing work.

So it became painfully obvious that, before we could take her out in public, a full restoration of this Corvette was necessary!

The fun begins! Stay tuned for the next instalment in the restoration of our 1975 C3 Corvette Stingray.

Meanwhile, enjoy this video, courtesy of youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=464onj91K0Y
Bye for now!

prince - little red corvette