Saturday, January 31, 2009

MY CORVETTES

Photobucket Just to inform everyone about the video section. If you are on one that you only see part of the cars then go to view all and click the slideshow link in Photobucket. This will allow you to see the complete picture.................................... I have loved corvettes since I was very young. The first one that really got my eye was a 1969 L88 with a 427c.i. motor in it. It made the ground shake from the power of the motor. The Stingray body style was so cool and looked like it wanted to eat anything on the road up. I had to wait a long time to get my first one. I bought a 1985 that the body was in real good shape. But the rest of the car had not been taken care of. I started by taking a tooth brush and cleaning the car from the underside and worked my way to the rear end housing and drive shafts and everything else in the back.Then I went to the front and cleaned all the a arms and cross members. Then to the engine compartment and cleaned everything there. I then cleaned and shined up all the metal parts of the car and had mass air flow system fixed due to car would not idle. I took it to the GM dealer and they said it was intake manifold gaskets and cost me a few thousand and that was not the problem. I ended up taking it to another shop and they found GM had sold me the wrong mass airflow and this caused it to idle up and down all the time.(so beware if you ever have this problem)I bought all new interior for the car and had it installed. Interior was by ECKLER's corvettes and replace all the lumbar and switches. Also replaced seats with blue leather and new blue carpet. Then I replace all the plastics in the interior and all new door panels complete.The interior is all pretty much new now. I spent 40 plus hours to get the rims to shine again and put new 50's for tires on it. Then I had the car repainted. I bought the car for $5600 and now have over $25,000 into it.But the car is pretty much new again.

I now have bought a 1974 ECKLER'S custom corvette stingray. It has a ECKLER"S front end with twin square headlights with plex. covers. Also the rear end has also been replace with a 1982 fiberglass rear end with a wing. The car gets a lot of complements from everyone.Both cars are number matching cars. This is the new project I am working on it is a 1976 L-48 Yellow Corvette with matching numbers. It's in the pictures above. I found it and paid $5,000 for the car and wasn't running. It also had no brakes that worked. The car was in pretty bad shape and had set for years. I hauled it home on a trailer and then started at the bottom side of the car. Found that the starter bolt hole was broke out this side of the block and couldn't bolt the starter up. I had to be a little created to fix this problem.So I had some all thread sleeves and grind and tack welded to the block till I got it set right.Now the car starts which is a good thing. The next thing was to get it to stop. I had to replace everything in the brake system except for the metal line that ran to the back of the car. So to this point the car will go and will stop. I still have a lot to do to the car but in time I will work my way through the whole car. I have already picked up the aluminum valve covers ,air cleaner setup and beauty rings for the wheels at the 2009 Spring Rod Run in Daytona Beach. Needs new carpet through out the car. It is also missing the back for the seats and needs a new paint job. Then there are the little things. But as you know they turn into the most problem. Economy has slowed down the process. 1976 Custom Corvette with 350 ci 350 Turbo-Automatic Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket 1976 Corvette L-48 350ci with 4 speed Photobucket Photobucket 1985 Corvette Limited Edition 350ci with 350 Turbo-Automatic Photobucket Photobucket