Bumper Fix Posted

Just finished posting about the bumper and spoiler/air dam that I installed.  It's definitely a two man job if you want everything on straight and even.  Upgrading the air dam should help with the cooling issues.

Check out the front bumper & spoiler page for more details.

Seat Belts Upgrade Posted

One of the first projects I did to the car because it was simple, straight-forward, and cheap was to upgrade the seat belts.  Not really an essential upgrade, but something that would get me familiar with things in the car and get my feet wet.  I can post more pictures of this if you like, but for now there's just a couple.

Check out the seat belts page for more information.

Old Rebuild Pictures

As part of a Christmas present, my aunt gave me some of the pictures from when the vette was rebuilt back in the 80's.  It was soon after they had bought the car that it was redone.  The funny thing is that one of the pictures actually has me in it!  So apparently this is not the first time I've seen the car stripped out...  My aunt says I pointed at the car and said "broken" when I saw it.  I was like 1.5 - 2 years old at the time.

This picture actually had the date written on it, 11-04-1985. I wish the engine looked like that now!

Yep... That's me.  We think it was taken about the same time as the Polaroid of the engine.

This was after the car was all finished in 1986 (probably summer looking at the trees).

Looking at this pictures, I hope I can do as good of a job getting this thing back into shape.  So far things have been going well.  The car has wire wheels in the pictures...  It has aluminum ones on now that aren't as shiny as the wire ones.  My aunt still has the wire ones in the boxes, but I think I like the ones it has on now better.  They weigh less than the alloys on my WRX!  It's really quite surprising when you're looking at the size of the whole wheel.

Classes are over!

Time to get back to work on this thing...

Two whole days without work or the wife around.  Should be able to get a long done.  Whatever doesn't get done this week is good for next during my company's shutdown.  Hopefully I'll get pages of previous projects posted too.

Carpet Update

Well Zip exchanged the carpet at no expense to me...  The new set showed up today.  Exact right color!

Work is stalled for now...

So I'm currently taking two graduate courses and we're getting to the end of the semester.  Have to finish up projects and homework and do exams...  So, even though I have a bunch of parts for the car, I don't get to work on it.  Once the semester is over, I plan on updating the blog with projects I've already done.

On a side note, the carpet for the 1975 Corvette with Dark Blue interior is not called "Dark Blue" when buying from Zip Corvette (they order from Auto Custom Carpets, the same as Eckler's) even though that's the only blue they offer.  It's a completely different color blue!  According to Eckler's the carpet color is called "Medium Blue"...  If ordering from Corvette America, it is called dark blue, but they don't go through the same company.  Going through the ACC, Inc. website it says the color should be "812 ROYAL BLUE".

ACC "812 ROYAL BLUE"

Old carpet on bottom, carpet ordered from Zip on top

Posts need pictures, so here's Charlie, my "helper".  He likes to hang out with me while I'm working in the garage...

Will need to paint...

So due to the front end damage from the cabinets, a shelf falling on the hood, and just aging fiberglass, the car will need to be painted.  That means I will lose the silver/white pinstripe that runs along the sides.  However, I've always liked cars with racing stripes...

I know it's a convertible so it's not exactly a racer, but I think it adds character to the car.  Now I did find some stripes I like on some forums.
Finished paint job - Corvette Forum
stripe on the hood - Corvette Forum

With the help of Photoshop, I've take the damage out of the car and tried out the stripe pattern I like the best.  I'm just not sure about color...  See what you think and vote!  I'm actually leaning toward silver and then putting the pinstripe back on the sides.

Got Pictures!

Well, I'd take pictures a while ago, but I'd made the mistake of using Zumodrive.  If you're not familiar with the site, it's a cloud storage site.  It came pre-installed on my laptop, so I was using it for a few months.  The site and apps are so buggy that I couldn't get my pictures back!  I recommend DropBox to anyone wanting cloud storage.  The apps are much better and it's reliable.

Anyway, I have my pictures back!  So now I can get to updating this!

Here's what the car looked like when I got it...  Except the cup holders... That was the first thing I added.  You simply put the thing on with two screws on the sides of the arm rest/parking brake console.

So you can see the body is in decent shape.  The interior is a bit lacking (really don't like the wood trim).  The top is in bad need of replacement.  If you look at the nose, you'll see where I ran it into the cabinets in the garage.  The brakes went to the floor and I couldn't stop!!  So guess what the first real project will be?!