1966 Corvette project, will I finish before I die?

[oldvettedad]

How about Corvettes at Carlisle?

Haven't been for a while. That's where I first met Yogi Bair and the guy's from Bair's Corvettes. I know the last few years it either conflicted with the racing schedule or vacation schedule.

[Maverick]

Hmm...I am arookie at posting in forums. I just spent 30 minutes posting images and text and before I submitted it I acccidently closed my browser. I guess what I was preparing to submit does not get saved if you don't click "save draft". I'll try again later, a little P O'd at myself right now

I KNOW THE FEELING!!!! If you're going to another tab or web page you can also lose everythihg. I try to remember to do a COPY before I leave the note for any reason. If you get a "Page Expired" message you can sometimes get it back with a refresh.

[oldvettedad]

In 2003 I finally bought a digital camera. Certainly great for being able to see what you are taking immediately. It also tells you the date the picture was taken. That helps with te order of things done. But apparently my memory of things and the dates recorded are not quite in sync. According to the camera, I did not necessarily finish a job before jumping to a new one. Hmmm...I prefer to think I was multi tasking and notbthat I have attention deficit disorder. Any way don't worry if the order of images I show don't follow chronological order....in my mind they do

I thought my task for 2003 was to finish the front suspension, and I did, but not until the autumn. But there was plenty to do.

This corroded mess is what is lft of the battery box


The wiper motor eventually got restored and rebuilt. That is a whole story for anyone not familiar with removing and installing a wiper motor on a C2

























You can see it was nasty in there. Eventually I changed every part of the braking system, even the clamps holding the brake line to the frame. Whoops, I lied. I coild not find any of the little clips which hold the brake hoses in place on the chassis. So i used all the old ones, cleaned up as best I could. Oh, one more thing I didn't change, because the new one didn't fit right, was the clip holding the brake line by the rear crossmember.






I mentioned the steering tube and the broken ears. At the bottom of the tube, through the firewall and in the engine bay, there are two bearings and a spring providing tension and support to the steering shaft. After I removed everything I replaced all of these on the new tube. Eventually i changed all of the rusty components, and wire wheeled the steering shaft.


This is a picture of one of the outrr splash shields. It fits between the outside of the frame and the body and seals the opening behind the front wheel well and the frame where the frame bends in for the front suspension. Both were bad, but one was beyond repair. But whay is interesting in this picture is the maroon paint that can be seen. One of the spot son the car that its original Milano Maroon color appears.


This what tehy looked like. One was unusable, so I replaced both. There are also 2 innersplash shields. These were rusted, but I saved them with Rust encapsulator and chassis black, Sorry no pictures of them.


Another view of the battery box


Old vs new box. I used some sort of rubberized coating on the new box. It is supposed to be impervious to acid.


The Z bar rust encapsulated


And done in zinc cad
















Its not glamorous, but eventually you have to get as much frame as you can reach. I even used to bow compressed air through every hole in the frame to gget out rust and dirt. What a mess. Oh and a word of advice to anyone as thick in the head as I am. If you are going to wire wheel rust and blow air at rust ina small garage, remove anything you DON'T want dirt and rust to get on. Lie a 1991 Stealth parked next to your Corvette! Thank God for clay bars or I would have ruined the finish on the Stealth!
Progress was slow but moving. Next post I;ll try to get to the finish of the front suspension.

[oldvettedad]

During the cleanup and painting the frame and various parts related the removed front suspension and the drive train, I got back my A-arms and other pieces from Bair's. The A-arms were re bushed and ball joints with the correct rivets ( at this time I apparently still thought it necessary to be as correct as possible, a little too much influence from NCRS stuff and Bloomington Gold stuff). I laid them out and photographed them, but install was still at least a month away.





Oh yeah i forgot to show my attempt to restore my old brake splash shields




The old ones were rough, so I got the new ones. Later during the assembly pictures you will see the new ones, then mysteriously if you look close at other pix you will see the old ones. For some reason the new ones while appearring to be identical and fitting properly interfered with the rotors. I even bought more from 2 other suppliers, Corvette Central and Long Island Corvette. None of them worked, so I ended up using the old ones cleaned up, rust encapsulated and painted. Luckily you never really see them. The only thing I could figure out was that their was a slight differenc in the angle of the slope from the spindle to the perimeter. The overall height and every other measurement were the same. I tried using a protractor to measure the angle, but it was not precise enough to tell the difference. Anyway, taking the rotors on and off several times does take time.


New battery box in



The steering box cleaned up nicely with solvent, even could still see the yellow mark from the assembly line.



I just noticed, I was beginning to use the new, at that time, Eastwood's flat black rust encapsulator. For some of the mainly unseen chassis parts I didn't bother to top coat with chassis black


Front sway bar, there is no rear bar on a smallblock, they did put a rear bar on the big blocks. Somewher there is a picture of it painted silver cad


Here is the new master cylinder. I bought some clearcoat for bare metal and used that. Didn't work. I used it on other metal and it seemed ok, my only thought is that it doesn't work (well) on cast metal. I should have used Cast Blast, that works but does change the color slightly.












Ok, this is about all I have showing brake line and master cylinder. The only interesting one is the long sort of straight pipe that goes from the front block to the rear block. It takes some maneuvering but you can get it in without bending it.

The real reason I took this next picture with the three pieces assembled was a reference for reassembly of the three. Long story short, during installation I wasted 3 or 4 days trying to figure out what was wrong (I didn't know anything was wrong until it was all assembled with the rotors on) I even had my buddy Pat Hennebery come over (after I had mulled and played for a few days) to look at it. He didn't have the answer, but he said the words that set me right. He said, it looks like it needs a spacer here. That jogged my memory. It was that the steering arm and caliper bracket were mounted wrong. The two are bolted together but it doees matter which piece sits in front of the other, even though they seem to fit either way. Ayway I think thats what it was, I know as soon as he said "spacer" my mind's eye could see how they came off, and I remembered saying to myself "one in front one behind". I shouldn't admit all these mistakes, it would make me look a lot better than I am







Notice the tags on the spindles? I did not to mistake one side for the other, even though they look interchangeable. I also taped and labeled the caliper brackets even though they can only go on one way. That is one way the right way. I'm sure I could have screwed it up and disassembled it several times.
By the end of August 2003 I was finally ready to reassemble the front suspension. Here are a bunch of pictures as I went along.
WHOOPS Hold that thought, i guess i did some other stuff first, or at least the pictures tell me I did. I attempted to clean up the engine bay alittle






Now on to the suspension

























OK, Here is when I got around to installing the front springs. I found this picture. With the judicial use of 2 x 4s I made crossmembers for the input shaft of the transmission and to put 2 floor jacks and as many loose weights as I could find, I think I had a flywheel in there too. This was to make enough weight so I could jack the lower controlarm, compress the spring to bolt the ball joints to the spindle. Its so much easier with a motor in!

























Finally by the end of October it was all together as shown in the next pix. In these pix it also shows the new tie rods and tie rod ends I installed. The sway bar in with new links and of course all new bushings. If you notice you will see that cotter pins are not bent and bushings not tightened much. Thata because I can't align the front or torque thw control arms and sway bar until the front is back at weight. It needs a motor.


























So now it was moveable again, but not under its own power Oh, one more part that didn't fit! The new grease caps did not fit the rotor. But my old ones fit fine. They weren't too bad, so i cleaned them up and painted them and clearcoated them. Interestingly enough, i did not mind working on small parts and pieces, I guess I was in no hurry. Well that wraps up 2003. I still had to rebuild the motor, but that would be longer than I anticipated. More on all that next time.

[sixfiend]

Nice job Dick.

I can't wait to hear about the engine build.

Pat

[oldvettedad]

It seemed as 2004 approached that I could make some real progress. As it turns out, and the dates on the pictures tell me, I didn't get that much done. The motor was out, but I wasn't ready to do anything with it yet, and I had no room to do anything with it.


This is the motor stuck in the small area between the fron of the vette and the workbench at the back wall of the garage. Not much room to do much there. By now i figured I had to take the motor apart to see how bad it was, but I had no plan beyond that.

I did some stuff, really more like tinkering an cosmetics.








Here I just wire wheeled the hood latch brackets


I bought one of those electric pating kits from Eastwood, and did the hood support.




I got new fender shields and staples and attempted to put them in. Its not hard, except it is tough to get the staple in and closed at the same time. I finally was able to do it with blocks of wood on side and a hammer on the other. For several of them I needed someone to hold the wood because I couldn't contort my arms to do it. Eventually I also tried some glue hoping that hold. I'm not satisfied with it, but this is not for Bloomington gold.

Somewhere during the summer I decided to rebuild the carb. Or, more specifically, one of my carbs. I have 3 carbs for the 327/350 motor. One is actually for a 1967, the other two are for a 1966. Very minor differences, at some point I had used each one. One of my 1966 carbs, the one on the car when I bought it, was manufactured in 1969 (obviously not original), the other one was manufactured in 1976. That was the one on the car when I parked it. I decided to rebuild the newest one. Here are a couple of pix, won't bore you with all the details.




There it is to start, and dissambled. I then brought it to my friend Pat Hennebery where it got a good bath in some real industrial strength carb cleaner. This stuff is no longer allowed to be sold, too toxic, but it works!
I then put it together, but didn't take any pictures of that. Oh yeah, and eventually I decided to take the first carb and have it rebuilt professionally at a local rebuilder, County Carburetor. i also had them rebuild the alternator. their carb works, but I was disappointed with the cleanliness of the work. I had to do some cleanup after I got it back. Didn't look as nice we did ourselves.

Oh yeah, I guess there is another reason I got distracted in 2004.




This guy came into my life, and crowded garage. As I mentioned before, I really love the first muscle cars, the late 50's and early 60's high performance cars. I was constantly on the lookout for a 409 chevy, a 406 or 427 Ford, a 421 Pontiac. And I absolutely love the 62 Belair bubbletops (and the Ford Starliners of 60 and 61). Well i found this one on Ebay. It didn't sell, so I called the owner and after seeing it we had a deal. It turns out I had seen this car in around 1996 at the Rhinebeck show. It wasn't on the show field, just parked by a vendor in the swap area. It was a beautiful car. Well now i owned it. But its not a 409, just a 406 smallblock. Its a cruiser, not perfect because he did drive the car. Ayway he drove it up from Long Island to deliver it to me.






Its a nice running fun car to drive.
But...that created my next problem. If you look close at one of the prior pix, you can see a two car garage with a Blue Covered car in the driveway. That is my Stealth. It didn't have a space, the vette (in pieces) had one spot and now the BelAir had the other.
So I spent the spring of 2004 looking for a way to fix the problem. The irst thought was a metal building behind my garage. I looked at Morton buildings and Wick buildings. The Morton guy was very helpful, he would put he building anyhere i wanted it, and could even build a connection to the back door of my garage. The Wick guy, who is actually a local builder authorized to do Wick buildings in this area, said the same. But he suggested a different approach. Add a stick built garage of the back and attach it as part of the house. It would still be a Wick building, engineered by them with materials from them, but his crew would construct and it would fit in with house. That sounded good, but I figured I would try one more thing. I contacted a local guy who puts up Pole buildings. His view was that since it was a separate building i might want to a zoning variance and place it as far back as i could. Well, that made me decide to go with the wick building attachment to my garage. That took me through spring and into summer. I had to get building permits, draw up site plans and review engineeing diagrams. Well on November 18 we broke ground. This was going to be a winter build(yuck), and weather could definitely slow down progress. And it meant the Stealth would winter outside.




And so it begins. We lucked out with the weather in December




Dec 9 foundation poured



Backfilled and the floor tamped down on Dec 18


Moving right along


But it is still winter




Building started Dec 29






By December 31, things were moving along. With luck 2005 will be a good year.

[Maverick]

Enjoyed the garage build pictures. First thought was, "Where's the pool?" Guess that was a few years ago ...

[oldvettedad]

Maverick wondered where did the pool go. When I was in the house for one year, around 1970, Maverick and I put an above ground pool in behind my garage (one car at the time). It was a lot of work, 2 guys, 2 shovels. Anyway I replaced that one 7 years later with a bigger one, professionally installed. And that one eventually broke from corrosion (in the late 90's) and caused a minor tsunami in my backyard. Back to the saga

The Garage continued in early 2005. I couldn't wait to finish it and get my cars back in and have room. My intent for the new garage was as storage space for my cars, and a little room to work. Not neccessarily an active workshop. So, no insulation and heat were put in.
Maybe in the future.





A word on the truss system. The trusses were designed and constructed at the Wick factory. Then the trusses and all framing and sheathing lumber were developed to the site prior to breaking ground. This works out well as the price of lumber was really fluctuating back then. The shingles, siding doors and windows are purchased locally by the builder. Site prep, foundation, garage floor are the buyer's responsibility, but my builder uses a subcontractor and this was part of my deal with him. The garage is engineered by Wick Buildings, and meets or beats all state and local ordinances. For example, the roof of the garage is built to withstand snow loads and wind loads about twice what my house is built.




Moving right along in January 2005






By Early February 2005 we had gone as far as we could. Garage floor needed to poured, electric put in and the garage door. But it was now too cold to pour concrete, and the inside of the garage was frozen with about 4 inches of ice and snow. Couldn't wait for it to warm up.

And then, I got hit bt Ebay again. (Sure blame your problems on Ebay)
I found this one on Ebay, 2 hours away on Long Island.


This Feb 16. Thats my buddy Pat Hennebery (sixfiend) with my latest acquisition on the trailer. Another 62 bubbletop, but this one is a 409. Of course I had no place to put it. So I bought a cover and it sat, covered, in front of the stealth in the driveway.
Eventually spring came. I chopped the ice out of the garage and by mid April, we got going again.






As can be seen, the opening to the old garage has been done (late March I think) and you can see everything packed in the old garage.








getting close electric and a garge door and its useable. Finally in May it was useable and I started to move in


So, here i was in mid 2005. naturally I spent time geting stuff in, adding cabinets and building a work bench. The summer of 2005 was spent primarily working on the 409. It ran good but had different annoying problems. The stock shifter would jam frequently. I don't know how many times I took it out, adjusted the stops, worked on the springs inside it. Everytime it seemed to work ok, it would jam again. So ffinally i put a Hurst Competition plus shifter in it. That fixed it. I even bought a replacement stick so it would look stock, i still haven't installed it. I like the look of the stock Hurst stick.
The tach didn't work. I tried a new battery, still wouldn't work. Checked continuity on the wiring to sending unit. Ok. Finally I put a new one (oh yeah i forgot to mention I was an Ebay addict, and was gathering 409 parts before I had a 409), I have several Sun tachs and sending units. Still didn't work. Finally broke down and but a battery from Show Cars in Minnesota. They deal in every 409 part possible including complete engines. Their battery, same voltage as the one I put in, worked. Its an "industrial" battery, whatever that is. I had some wiring issues with tail and brake lights, fixed those. Debugged the speedometer problem. It doesn't work. Thought it was probably the drive gear in the tranny, took it out, put in one I knew was good. Still no speedometer. I had already turned the speedometer with a drill, so I knew the speedo head was good. I was stumped. So figured it must be the driven gear in the t-10. I put my finger in the hole. I fiound the problem. There was no driven gear. I don't know if somebody left it out on a rebuild, or it broke. But, no sign of it. That one i will fix some other time. Put in a gauge set, this car is very stock, no sign of it ever having been raced (it has a 3.36 gear not the 4.56 most came with). And just spent the summer tuning it and working on the carbs. It was fun with dual AFBs and a dual point distributor.

In July 2005 I finally got around to the motor. By now my buddy Pat Hennebery decided he wanted to rebuild the motor (again, we first met each other in 1974 when he rebuilt the motor). So now I had room to move and I started on the motor on July 4.


In the new garage, lots of room








Notice the glob of gook at the rear of each cylinder head? Its a water passage, but is blocked at teh intake manifold. Apparently there was some form of chemical reaction forming this jelly like gook. On the manifold side it was severely cooroded. So much so that Pat had to epoxy those areas of the intake to make a smooth surface.


Here is a closer look
















We are on our way. Or so I thought.
We disassembled the heads and got them hot tanked. Basically figured out what parts we would need. The motor was to be rebuilt stock. We would bore it to clean it up only. It ended up being bored .020 over. So technically it is now a 329.

The rest of the summer of 2005 was spent on my 409

[wxo]

I know this thread is supposed to be about the Vette, but the 409 seems to be upstaging it as far as my interest is concerned. I think we need a thread for the 409, too. I hope you don't die before you get to it Dick.

[oldvettedad]

I know this thread is supposed to be about the Vette, but the 409 seems to be upstaging it as far as my interest is concerned. I think we need a thread for the 409, too. I hope you don't die before you get to it Dick.

If you only knew how troubled I am
The 409could be a thread, but believe it or not I never even took the cover off of it last year. Never got it inspected, never drove it. Before the telling of thi saga is over we will see at least 2 more possible threads. I think my problem is getting into something new before I finish what is current.. Anyway, the story of the Vette is almost over in real time. Although these projects never end. I'll try to move along faster if I can.
Seriously though, thanks for your interest. It is really nice to see other gearheads getting enjoyment from this. I spent so many hours in the garage working by myself. Good thing I talk to myself or I would have been very lonely.

[oldvettedad]

I was ready to move on to 2006 (God only 5 more years ). But based on interest I will digress for a moment and show some more of 2005 and the 409. The more I look at these pictures I want to start driving it...or taking it apart


After the new garage was finished the "twins" resided in the old garage.




This is what it looked like when I got it. Skinny whitewall tires that were like new, but more than 20 years old with signs of dry rot. Oh and one blown out headlight. I even got T-3 headlights off Ebay to keep it "original" What a joke, I can't stand cars that are bone stock!


These next pictures of the wheels I tracked down and the new tires. Any one who knew about these old cars knows that the station wagon wheels, called JK wheels because of their designation, which were wider were the preferred wheels of 409 racers. Mine had the skinny wheels. I tracked down 4, or maybe 5 on ebay. I bought them and hed them powdercoated a white tha matched the Ermine white of the car. I boght new Cooper tires and away we go.












Here are some pictures of one of the brand new Sun Tachs I have




I also have a brand new sending unit for it. Plus I have a boxful of other Sun Tachs and sending units, some for 327s, not all of which work. I also accumulted many other parts (many before i had a 409) such as a complete 2 x 4 manifold with AFBs (need to be rebuilt) with progressive linkage. A single 4 barrel manifold for a 380 HP motor. A complete heater (in case mine doesn't work) a couple of radios (I have no idea why) several glass bowls with paper filters. A speedometer head, and more taillight lenses, chrome bezels and wiring harnesses than i can remember. The tail light lenses and bezels actually come in handy, I keep changing looking for the best ones. I have various pieces of side chrome for a BelAir, and BelAir script pieces. Oh and about 3 complete set of dog dish hubcaps, always searching for the best ones. I think I have some steering linkage parts too. I don't remembr too much of that. it wa swhile I was addicted to Ebay. I am a recovering Ebay-a-holic, I'm afraid to even try to sell on Ebay, lest i start buying again.
Anyway thats the 409, its probably seen only 50 to 100 street miles since I bought it.

Oh yeah, I forgot. The windshield wiper motor didn't work, so I took it out and had it rebuilt. Works good now.

[oldvettedad]

So 2005 comes to an end. For thos of you who were interested in that secondary story of the new garage. It was complete by June of 2005 including enough new blacktop to cut my lawn mowing time to less than one hour. Its now a quarter acre lot with about an eigth acre of driveway


















And then a little landscaping



In early spring of 2006 I decided to tackle the headlight door motors. One didn't move at all, the other would slowly open but need to be closed manually. I had just read an article about refurbishing wirn out headlight door mechanisms. So I tackled that.









And now lets see what makes em tick











The article told how to lubricate properly, and to turn gears around if they are showing wear. I did that and it helped. Both open and close, but real slow. So i sent them to Bair's to be rebuilt and reconditioned.

Oh, and then I added this to my garage


I bought it from Eastwood. I wish I had this years before. But it came in handy even from this point on.
Here are some views of what I call my "winter formation", how I get all the cars in the garage for winter.








It was easy to do the headlight motors with garage full, I just climbed in the engine bay to do the work.




The headlight motors back in. Both work good, but i think tey can be faster and one is a little slower than the other.

With the new glass beader I beaded the intake, sorry forgot to take pictures, and the valve covers.



This is them degreased



one glass beaded, better


Now one has been hand polished




Now both polished. I probably should have clear coated them too. But thats not an original look. Oh did I vere mentioned this a matching numbers motor?



Always make sure you don't let the machine shop mill these off
While checlking all the electrics I found out the wipers don't work. So itook out the wiper motor.Sorry no pictures, this job is real tough for one person. The motor is tucked up under the cowl, and the mounting bolts, transmission, and arms are inside at the top of the firewall. The only thing more difficult is getting it back in. Luckily my cousin's husband was over and we got it done together. As I mentioned, in 2005 I had the wiper motor for the 409 restored. I used a guy in Tennessee. I found him in Hemmings Motor News. Did a professional job, real quick, and a real southern gentleman. Here is his card, i would use him again.



In the fall of 2006 I started at looking at the possibility of putting a storage lift in the garage. The truss system in the new garage made tha unlikely. But, if I could do something with the garage doors in the old garage it might be possible.

With a little carpentry work, the rafters were moved up high. The electric and lighting moved up and the old garage door tracks removed.



Then new doors with motor mounted at the doors and tracks that mirror the pitch of the roof.
Just preparing
End of 2006

[oldvettedad]

Work on the Corvette slowed down in 2007. Yes, it was possible to be slower, hard as that is to believe. In January of 2007 I finally decided that i would have the car repainted and have a complete interior done. I had been looking around to find a good shop. I wanted a shop that had Corvette experience and was capable of bodywork, paint, interior and any other odds and ends that invariably would need to be done. I had seen some examples from a shop in Montgomery NY, and was impressed with the work. Montgomery is only about 20 to 25 miles from me. They have a website http://www.thcorvetteshop.com, which is not always kept up to date but gives a good view of what they can do.
So I called them up and took a drive over.


I spent a lot of time talking to the owner, Paul Comeau, and touring the shop. he told me it would be at least a year before he could take my car. He advised me to finish anything I haven't yet done, get the motor finished if possible and use it. But if that did not happen he could put the motor in. He preferred to have the car mobile. It makes it a lot easier to move around the shop. So, I put myself on the list. He would call me when my spot came up.
So, I decided to change the gas tank. I was going to leave the old tank, it was in good shape and it was completely empty, no old gas in it.


This is the bottom of the old tank. I had put rust encapsulator on any thing that looked like rust.
The label on the tank is the shipping label to a Chevy dealer in White Plains. When I bought the car I was told it had been hit in the rear and needed a new rear clip. The clip sent was a 67 clip. Thats why the car has BOTH 66 and 67 backup lights. Its also why this was areplacement tank.



Looking up at the gas tank door


This shows the wiring to the 67 backup lights

Withe the gas tank out, it is easy to get to the power antenna. The power antenna never worked from the day I got the car. Well, now I couldn't leave it in.

Here is the old tank outside the garage. Its still real solid. KNow anyone who needs a tank?

Here is the new tank, from Quanta, with the old filler neck attached.

Here is the mount the front of the tank sits on, refinished in flat black rust encapsulator.

All the other odds and ends for the tank installation. I even got a new sending unit and float. I tested both the new one and old one with an ohm meter. They both worked but shwed different resistance throughout the travel of the float. I have no idea if that relates to accuracy or speed that the gauge will move. Anyway i still have a good sending unit float.



Old antenna out, and the resulting hole. Anybody want to try and rebuild a 1966 antenna? I got a replacement from Bair's








New tank all in. A tight fit, but doable alone.




The bottom of the antenna, and from the top. And it works.

At this point I was running out of things to do. So I figured let me figure out the exhaust, wheels and tires I want. i ws trying to get the car back to the way i had it in the early 70's. That meant Hooker side pipes. So I did an internet search . Surprisingly, They still made them. But most of what i found were the ones with the integral headers. I didn't have that. Mine looked like for pipes going to headers, but only one pipe was real and connected to the exhaust from the exhaust manifold. Luckily I found them available through Autozone, which is right around the corner from me. So i ordered and now I had my exhaust. I also had another large 2 boxes to store. I really wanted to salvage the wheels I had from the 70s. They were Ansen Sprint aluminum slotted mag look. They had been special order, narrower than typical and all backspace. they needed to be like that in order to clear the fenders. Additionally, typical Sprints were Unilug, using offset spacers to fit different bolt patterns. These were on bolt pattern to fit chevy. I searched the internet again and was pleasantly surprised to find American racing was marketing Ansen Sprints again. I figured I would buy new ones. WRONG! The 15 inch wheels available were too wide and with the wrong offset. My wheels were corroded, a lot of pock marks. But I figured i would glass bead them and see what i could do,


Here is one of them degreased and cleaned up a little. Still rough and ugly.

OK, far left - degreased, center - glass beaded, right - beaded and hand polished with autosol. This was starting to look possible.


Not bad. But I didn'tstop there. I went to East Side Choppers to see if they could polish them completely free of pits and pocks. We decided that would be too costly. Butwe did try just a little polishing rouge and it looked pretty good. So I had tthem rough polished, gave them a shine they normally did noy have, then we powdered coated them with clear coat for protection.
Now the wheels were good, but the center caps were all rusted. I tried new replacement caps from American racing, but 1.) they were PLASTIC and 2.) they DID NOT fit! I glass beaded them but the did not look good, very dull. The guys at East Side Choppers suggested I powder coat them chrome. We did that, and they look real nice. A new set of lug nuts from Mcgard, and we will be cooking with gas!
That was about it for the Vette in 2007. I think we may have bored the block by then. We went .020 over and got new replacement pistons.

But some other things happened in 2007. Sometime in August my friend Pat Hennebery, another friend Willy and I were at a car cruise in Newburgh. Pat threw out this idea, do you think we could get his 1968 Camaro "restored" in time for the Dover Dragstrip Reunion show at Marcus dairy? The show was labor day weekend. We only had a month. Something made us say sure we could.
I'll make a long story short, and not start a new thread. I'll leave that up to Pat (sixfiend). Pat got to work putting together a motor. i started on the body and interior.













Lots of elbow grease, not much time. And now a cosmetic touchup. Have to leave the old decals and lettering to make it look like it did in the 70's








We actually finished it on the morning of the show, got there a little late, but we got there.





Thank God that was over
But this show opened up a new adventure. We met guys from NETO (Northeast Timing Organization), a nostalgia racing club. Pat joined the club, and decided we ought to be able to get his Camaro ready for the last race at Lebanon Valley at th end of the month. That was another mad thrash. We made it. The car was only able to make one run, but it was a blast.


During October we thought wouldn't it be great if we could race like we did in the 70's. The Camaro and a ChevyII. I figured i would like to race again, and the NETO race was really fun, good people nice cars, kind of like a picnic with racing. So just for laughs i started looking on the internet for a 67 Chevy II. had to be a 2 door sedan Like I had. Long story short. I found this in an ad



I was located in LowGap NC. Maverick, do you know where that is? Turns out the owner died in January 2007. He was single, no offspring, loved to race. He had the car finished in 2006, but never got to race it. his sister was executor of the estate and had been trying to sell it since january. It was actually more than what I wanted, an NHRA Super Stock Modified car. I called a friend, Doug Smith, who lives just north of raleigh and asked him if he could look at it for me. He did, said it looked well built and the motor sounded strong. So, I bought it. I paid less than it cost to build the motor. Two weeks later, Pat and i ina borrowed truck with a borrowed trailer went and picked it up.
A few days before we picked up the car I got a call from Paul at the Corvette Shop. Did I still want my car done? If so, he has a spot openeing up in about a month or so. I told him yes, but I still had no motor. He said he would take it anyway and when i got the motor he could put it in. That became our plan.




And so it entered my garage, taking up more space. I needed more space. Well lets see what 2008 brings.

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When I decided to buy the Chevy II race car, it was time to put in operation an idea I had been mulling for over a year. I had to put a storage lift in my garage because I was running out of space again. I had researched many many lifts and narrowed it to two. BendPak and Backyard Buddy. They were the best quality for the money, or should I say they were the ones that had SUFFICIENT quality. I would be satisfied with either one. I chose Backyard Buddy because of their better customer service and support. So in November 2007 I ordered TWO Backyard Buddys. In discussing with the salesman we decided that 7000 lb lifts were more than adequate (they actually can handle up to 10000 lbs). They would be put into the manufacturing schedule (manufactured right there in Ohio) and probaby take a couple of months. I would then have them installed by a local installer. In mid January I received a call from Backyard Buddy. The lifts were coming off the line in about a week. I spoke with the warehouse manager and he told me he does installs on weekends, and would be bringing some lifts to NJ and NY at the end of January. I could save several hundred dollars if I wanted him to bring mine and install them. So thats what I did. On Jan 26, a Saturday, he arrived with his girlfriend. In about 3 to 4 hours they were done. Here are a bunch of pictures showing the install.














































Then on Feb 10, 2008 Paul Comeau from the Corvette Shop picked up the Vette and it started its next oddysey.

So, now I was on the hook to get a motor done and get it to the Corvette. Unfortunately, that didn't happen in 2008. No,
2008 was spent racing with NETO.
Follow this link to see the first all out run with Chevy II, For some reason the Youtube function in't working
http://www.youtube.com/user/sixfiend0#p ... Hss_FOAGn0
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THss_FOA ... er&list=UL
[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9QXAqnqv4U[/youtube]

Unortunately in August we pulled the motor and found a wiped thrust bearing. The rest of 2008 was spent racing Pat's Camaro. All of this with our NETO nostalgia racing club.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh1gcGLVlsg[/youtube]

Maybe 2009 will be the magic year.

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In the background of this picture you can see my Corvette sitting in the spot that had been its home for a while. This was March of 2009.

In April 2009 it was time to start the bodywork. I assured Paul that the motor would be done in a matter of months. He proceeded to strip the trim and have the body soda blasted. And so bodywork began. Once it was stripped it was obvious it needed work to be straight. A new rear quarter on the drivers side.
In April 2009 the motor was mostly done.

To be honest I don't remember the details of what I was doing for the summer of 2009, other than racing with NETO. But by September we were ready to start the engine on a test stand.







Finally the first start
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB2spcqgdzA[/youtube]

Well done for a first start. A first start but not the first attempt
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKhPAAXES1A[/youtube]
Oh well, better if it has water in it lets try again
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xz4OO6xJHw[/youtube]

Funny things happen when you still have 30 year old points and condenser in the distributor
By now I've upgraded to a pertronix electronic unit. Still using stock distributor.

So it might not have started first try, but it did before the night was over.

I told Paul I had a running motor, he continued on with body work and said he wouuld call when he was ready for the motor.
So my Christmas present was delivering the motor, drivetrain and most of the parts i had on Dec 23, 2009


Loaded in the back of my truck




Here it is being unloaded at the Corvette shop
This is the Corvette as it was that day. Note the new quarter panel




At the end of 2009 there was beginning to be light at the end of the tunnel.