For those who enjoy old cars: I have been, as time permits, rebuilding a 1966 Chevy Corvette.
This thread will be mostly for fun. The project is about 75% complete . The car has the body back on the frame, but will be removed one more time before it goes back on for good. It is in the body work process stage (as I would call it. Before the painting and final interior assembly gets done). It is a father-son project. I am trying to keep the pictures as large as allowed, so the detail can be seen. It may prove useful to someone!
The car's history, briefly: It was born as a late 66 model coupe. 327ci 300HP V8 with a Powerglide 2 speed automatic transmission. Had an AM/FM radio (state of the art at the time). No A/C. Factory tinted windows (which was rare for a non A/C car). Power antenna. Power steering. Arm powered everything else. The car was purchased at a dealership, by my dad, as a used vehicle. He bought it before I was born. It needed some work done, so he had the engine rebuilt and had it repainted back in the 70’s. The paint was Ditzler's Sun Gleam Blue, the pin stripe was Ditzler's Dark Sun Gleam Blue. Both were metallics. There was no clear coat, and it was lacquer paint.
He drove it for years after that. It has been driven across the country (ie: North Carolina to California) a couple times. It was his daily driver for many years. He was the second owner. I am the third owner .
The car sat for about the past 10+ years undriven, un-touched...
Here is what it looked like before my dad and I started to tear into it…
The original intent was to just pull the engine and re-fresh it. Then put the engine back in and drive it, hence the reason there are towels and drop clothes all over to protect the paint... That was quickly changed as you will see.
Start, March 2008: we worked on weekends only, so progress is/was slow.
We prepped the engine for removal. This required hood removal, fluid drain, etc… it took a couple days. Also, from the start of this project, all bolts were labeled based on the part they were attached to or hold together, then placed in zip-lock bags.
we also pulled the old battery. The name on it cracked me up. The first Decepticon . Found out recently, they still make this battery line. Same name, different color.
we pulled the engine…
The transmission and engine were separated and the engine was put on an engine stand for cleaning and prep for refresh. Most of the accessories were removed, as the intent was to replace many of them.
Once the engine was out, the cleaning and prepping of the engine compartment started. I first jacked the car up by the front cross member. I wanted to check the suspension and brakes without the engine and wheels in the way. Once I started, the body was moving in difference to the chassis…
This is what we found near the Passenger side front lower control arm:
This prompted a full rebuild. The driver side was similar, but not as bad. Let the tear down begin. A full body off frame rebuild became very necessary. Who knows what else was wrong.
To make the body “part” as light as possible, we started to gut it out.
If you look close at the above picture, it shows some interesting hole filling in the foot wells... These are examples of some stuff that was done to the car from the Dealer that my dad bought it from. stuff like that started to really peak our interest in tearing down the car as far as possible.
More to come…
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-22-2012).]
I will be watching this like a seagull watches a fish. I LOVE C1-C3 Corvettes. While C3 is my favorite, C2 is right there at #2. What a freaking beautiful car. You are one lucky man. Good luck rebuilding it... keep us updated!
It's amazing how, when I firsted looked at those pictures, I thought to myself... that's just shy of a show-car, and then you show us the frame splitting at teh welds. Damn...
That wiring is in really good shape. Is that original? Or was that replaced at some point?
Wow, that was fast... @ Ron: You should have bought it!
@ theBDub: The car looked better in pictures than it did in person. It never quite looked right. It looked good (don't get me wrong, it was always a head turner), but something was always off a little. The Dealership was employing a master of disguise in the paint and body shop, and the deeper we went in the restoration/modding, the more we discovered was wrong. I like the 74-76 vettes (C3). I really didn't know much about vettes till I dove into this one. The chassis is basically the same from 63 to 82. They made changes for the differential, but they were basically the same. The C3 front end had a bolt on extension to the chassis.
@ Jake_Dragon: IDK, YOUR's is one I would like in MY driveway!
@ 82-T/A [At Work]: Wait till you see all the other stuff that the dealer hid... Soon to come... Most of the wiring is original. The rotating headlights had some hack work done to their wiring, which we discovered when we were pulling that system apart.
@ doublec4: Thank you!
@ Boondawg Thank you as well!
Adding: I once posted about the transmission for this car about a year back. I came to this forum for the overall opinion of what transmission to use. This is how I got to that point and beyond.
I have taken about 6 GB and over 3 years worth of pictures of this project so far. I knew this was going to be a large endeavor spanning a few years, so I wanted as much documentation as possible. Many times, I have had to break out the lap top with the pics to see how something was put together. It has helped when it came time to put parts back together. Also, it will make updating this thread somewhat slow for me. Many pictures of one assembly taken from many angles at higher resolution than PIP accepts.
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-21-2011).]
Howdy nice car! 66's are my specialty, if u get stuck on anything let me know I have tons of pics and possible parts I can give ya a hand with!
Here a a few pics of the last 66 vetterod I did, have fun in the rear wheel wells! they are a real pita to sand!
Thank you for the offer. At times, I can't believe that my dad actually drove it like it was. You have done some really nice work there. That is a beautiful Vette!
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-21-2011).]
pay close attention to the frame at the rear frame kickups were the trailing arms go in, it likes to crack or rott in that spot too, the crack u have shown is typical u can get frame replacment parts from zip corvette or if your pockets are alittle deeper u can have crane corvettte in cali build u one as I had done with the 66 in the pics, it was totally rotten and dangerous. also look over the bird cage really well, they like to rot at the windshield base up under the fanders dosent matter were the car is from water and crud tends to get stuck under there.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 07-20-2011).]
So I thinks to myself, "Why are they tearing apart a perfect Vette?"
Then I get a few photos down, and say, "Mmmm, okay, they"re doing a great job."
Then we get to the frame: "Oh Jeesus! Good thing they did!"
Show us more!
Thank you! It gets worse...Before it gets better. I plan to post as I can. sorting it out into a chronological order after the fact is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. The pics are in chronological order at least.
Just out of curiosity, do you plan to keep the engine all stock? Because engine technology (even for the old SBC's) has come a long way since that car was built. A "top end kit" (aluminum heads, aftermarket intake, camshaft, and maybe some headers) would really wake up that engine.
Just out of curiosity, do you plan to keep the engine all stock? Because engine technology (even for the old SBC's) has come a long way since that car was built. A "top end kit" (aluminum heads, aftermarket intake, camshaft, and maybe some headers) would really wake up that engine.
U cant really see it in the pics I posted but edelbrock makes a really nice replacment intake and carb combo for this engine, the intake has a nice flat boss on the front of it even if u want to cut in the original oil filler neck as I did. then u can also add a modren distributer that has been modified to have the cable driven tach on it yet.
one thing with the mod tho is u have to run a ignition wire and do away with the transistor igniton parts but that is verry simple to handle also a hot wire to the carb for the choke heater and a pot to make volt guage read right.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 01-25-2012).]
Just out of curiosity, do you plan to keep the engine all stock? Because engine technology (even for the old SBC's) has come a long way since that car was built. A "top end kit" (aluminum heads, aftermarket intake, camshaft, and maybe some headers) would really wake up that engine.
Thank you!
When the engine was rebuilt the first time, it was bored and the heads changed over to the 2.02 heads and had a few other things done. The above photo is of that engine. It has 350HP now. Other than a refresh (new oil pump, water pump, oil pan gasket, timing chain, etc), it is as it is. I did a compression test, and all the cylinders were within specs. So, other than the needed upgrades and dress up, it is going back in.
the best thing you can do for that car is get rid of the points, if u dont want to go nuts like I did with the modified hei unit just get a pentronics points conversion from zip or corvette central, it take just a few minuts to install and no more points or transistor ignition!
Started with more removal of stuff from the body, and getting the tools we would need (ie: straps and slings for lifting the body).
Finally, ready for lift off, and we had two halves of one car . it was interesting to pull the body off. I have seen video's from the likes of Nolan Ryan (sp?) on how to do it, but they miss a few steps, and don't really let you know what to expect. They really want you to use man power and just have a bunch of people lift the body while a couple other people roll the chassis out from under them... That's my 85 GT fiero in the background... The covered car to the left is a convertible black on black 66 mustang.
We did get the specs on a body cart, so we built that first. If I could do it again, I would have not used those plans. I would have made a steel backbone system with body mounting points extending and coming from that. The dolly got in the way a lot. I would call it a body storage dolly... In order for my old engine hoist to work with the straps, we had to put them down where the rockers were.
We started to strip the chassis down of parts not needed for rolling it around. After all the rust and other issues we discovered, like this for example:
We decided to take it down to a frame shop and have the frame gone over with their measuring systems. It was out, but not by much, but it was in an accident back before my dad got it, and they corrected that. Actually, they were the ones who verified it to us, but we saw it in the body, once it was off. While the frame shop had the chassis, we started to refurbish all the other parts of it, at least what we could (which ended up being everything but the rear diff and the rear trailing arm bearings and parking brake system, soon to be posted).
We got it back like this:
All (well most. They missed one that I redid.) cracks re-welded, parts straightened, and the back part replaced. The rust has got to go, so… Time to finish removing the rest of the parts on the chassis. We did measure the body mounting points for square and for plane. Other than one being 1/16" low in plane, they were exact.
The rear brakes are a system similar to modern cars. The parking brakes are a drum system in the rotor hat. All four calipers are 4 pistons clamping onto 12inch rotors, like my fiero (I just wish I had the parking brake system on my fiero...). you can see an issue with this one... the spring (or most of one) on the right is not supposed to be there. We knew they were the original rotors, as the rivets were still there and we had to drill them out, and use a puller to remove them.
Once the chassis was stripped of all parts, it was put up on saw horses, and prepped for sand blasting. I didn't have the right equipment to sand blast. I found that out very quick. I had the blaster, but my air compressor was not up to the task. I eventually located a 90 gallon behemoth that was being sold from a closing tire shop... We went through the entire chassis and ground off the factory welding slag. the goal was to remove the stuff that would catch dirt and make it easier to keep clean by smoothing it out a little. We didn't go over board, just a little detailing .
More later:
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-22-2011).]
mark wich side and front to rear the brake calipers came from, its kinda important they go back on in same place, also since u got it apart now is the time to replace the trailing arm bushing in the front u will need a tool tho to compress it.
I like how u shortend the lifting strap, they are stuipdly long huh I had same problem.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 07-21-2011).]
mark wich side and front to rear the brake calipers came from, its kinda important they go back on in same place, also since u got it apart now is the time to replace the trailing arm bushing in the front u will need a tool tho to compress it
They all got replaced. Even the trailing arms.
-Dave
adding, the originals were kept. I don't think we marked the calipers though... the new trailing arms were marked by the person who did the bearings and parking brake.
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-21-2011).]
Wow, that was fast... @ Ron: You should have bought it!
-Dave
If I had, I would most likey have been a single person paying alimony and child support. Nah, I think I made the right choice. I like what I have, where I'm at and having the family I have. Don't get me wrong, it just wasn't the right time to spend that kind of money on something like that. BTW, it was a 66 convertible, 427, manual just restored by a well known shop in Colorado Springs. It was originally purchased by a fighter pilot during Viet Nam who was shot down, recovered but injured and unable to drive/shift the manual due to his injury. He kept the car and gave it to his son who was about to graduate from the US Airforce Academy, had a pregnant finance and was selling it to make ends meet. Yeah, it was one heck of an opportunity just not the right time for me.
Everything that could get sand blasted, got sand blasted... I tried many different types of blast media, from aluminum-oxide to "black beauty". Aluminum-oxide was the best for this application. Since there was so much to blast, and I did not have a "blast chamber" , I put down tarps and swept up the media and put it through a filter so I could re-use it. It work ok. I was able to recover about 75% of what ever I shot, so I was able to keep going while keeping the cost down. If I didn't do that, I estimated about 600 lbs of media would be used (based on how many times I filled a 50lb media tank). I really wanted to have someone else do it, but no shops in town were capable, or they would have charged way too much (one place quoted me almost 4G).
Most of the small parts went into a blast cabinet. If the part was not able to be blasted, or I felt the media would damage the part, it went to a chemical de-rusting process.
bearing surfaces got taped off with 20mil rubber tape to protect the surface before the part was blasted.
The bare naked, stripped, sassy chassis :
Some of the small parts. The differential outputs and the trailing arm input. the + looking things are the interior door handles (the part under the interior panel).
The front hubs were blasted with the bearing races still in to protect the area, the races were then removed after. The studs were replaced after, as well.
The rear bearing carrier. It also is the lower mount point for the shocks and the camber link.
The goal became to get the original part back to it's original surface to evaluate if it needed to be repaired, re-worked, or replaced. If the part was perfectly usable, we would then re-coat it the way we wanted it to be.
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-22-2011).]
Thank you... your story sounds a lot like my dad's. When he bought this car, he was barely out of college and had his first job for about a year. He already had one kid, and a couple more (twins, my sister and I) on the way when he bought the Vette... I am surprised he wasn't divorced by my mom . But, they are happily married. She puts up with it quite well. My wife an I are similar. I got an 86 fiero that I am also resto-modding for her. If she thought the car was going to me, she would not be happy... must be a trait of my family .
-Dave
quote
Originally posted by blackrams:
This car should be named the Phoenix upon rebirth. I applaude your efforts.
At times, names did come out
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-21-2011).]
This is what the parts looked like before the rust removal began:
The rear differential, still attached to the rear carrier and cross member:
The rear trailing arm and hub after dis-assembly: We took the rear trailing arms to a shop for the work. They took them apart and gave us the parts back so we could clean them up for the re-assembly.
the parking brake and shield assembly:
The differential was completely dismantled (by the same shop) and the differential was replaced with a Posi 3.08. We learned that the original was not Posi. Again, they gave us all the parts back so we could clean them up before they put them back together.
Random various parts of the rear:
-Dave
[This message has been edited by IFLYR22 (edited 07-21-2011).]
Sweet project. Love the color! I sure miss my '67 the most, I got out of vettes probably 12 years ago mainly due to getting excessive with them. At any one time it was common to have 4 or 5 of them. Good luck with your rstoration.
quote
Originally posted by jetsnvettes2000:
also look over the bird cage really well, they like to rot at the windshield base up under the fanders dosent matter were the car is from water and crud tends to get stuck under there.
Heed that advice, so many of them end up leaking terribly due to rotting out in that area and that is often overlooked in a build.
Thanks Taijiguy! That era was quite advanced for it's day. Lap belts were standard and shoulder belts were optional and available. 4 wheel 12 inch disc brakes with 4 piston calipers were standard. The 66 mustang in one of the pictures (covered, barely visible, but there) had all drum brakes and no belts.
Thanks Joe 1320!
Yeah, that area was thoroughly gone over. it was covered with surface rust, but not enough to worry. There was a lot of debris in the passenger side bottom drain hole, probably the reason someone drilled holes in the foot well floor boards. I had to fix all that too. You can see the "patching" done in one of the prior pictures (first post). I'll cover that fiasco later .
Originally posted by IFLYR22: That era was quite advanced for it's day. Lap belts were standard and shoulder belts were optional and available. 4 wheel 12 inch disc brakes with 4 piston calipers were standard. The 66 mustang in one of the pictures (covered, barely visible, but there) had all drum brakes and no belts.
Corvettes have always been a great example of applying technology only where necessary, and in a cost-effective manner.
4-wheel dics brakes, with multi-piston calipers? Check. Hydroformed aluminum frame? Check. Turbocharged multivalve overhard cam motors? Nope. We'll just use a 427.
You have a 3800 SC 1988 5 speed with leather seats?
My Vette is ok, its a nice toy and gets attention but from 5 feet it needs work.
Sadly, no. It's an '85 with a 3800 with 4T65E-HD with all Held Motorsports suspension and brakes. All after market SW and AutoMeter gauges. Custom interior. It's the white one in one of the pics...
. The car has the body back on the frame, but will be removed one more time before it goes back on for good. It is in the body work process stage (as I would call it. Before the painting and final interior assembly gets done). It is a father-son project. I am trying to keep the pictures as large as allowed, so the detail can be seen. It may prove useful to someone!
.
Almost bought me a 66 Vert Vett about 15 years ago, probably a good thing I didn't. 
