Lost my post darn it was long. Lots more progress, had the 50 mile shakedown run with no issues. Fully rebuilt the steering all new upper and lower bearings. 3D printed a new bushing to sit above the bottom steering column bearing that really takes a lot of slack out. Shaved the rubber down and will mark them up like 60's race Goodyear tires. Drives straight and true. Flushed brakes again and cleaned out the master again found a tiny bit of rust in the master and wanted it all out before I upgrade to the duel master with the disk brakes this week. Polished the gauges. Need to pull some of the interior to paint black but that can wait.
Fixed the seat wobble with new seat springs. which thank god were not to expensive. Almost everything has been easy to get but those and the bearings for the steering had to come from a specialty Corvette supplier. Parts were cheap shipping is not so need top get a big list of stuff together soon and do a single order. Fixed the window rattle by stuffing foam down in the doors, not like I am every going to drive with the windows up anyway. Put in about 10sqf of sound deadening where I could carpet was glued down every where else and it will tear if I pull it so I need to redo all of it if I want to sound deaden the entire car like I did the Baja bug.
Car is filthy and scratched from neglect so the next thing is a full polish and CQ Quartz to keep it nic for a few years at least. Got a free bottle of CQ at a raffle to try out, just did my BIL car with his bottle as well and the car looked amazing after we did it.
This is so un-Corvette. Scratches, modified body? A stereotypical Vomette owner would have an aneurysm.
You are the owner this car deserves.
*EDIT* Holy crap, my phone auto corrected Vette into Vomette. Lolzers.
Appleseed said:
This is so un-Corvette. Scratches, modified body? A stereotypical Vomette owner would have an aneurysm.
You are the owner this car deserves.
Already met a few of them, they HATE this thing almost universally. Nobody else even notices the little defects or the body modifications, it is just a cool car to them.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
The one thing I don't miss about working on corvettes are the purists. How a group could completely suck the fun out of sports cars is depressing.
What do you shave the tires down with? I wanted to make Blue Streaks for my Fiat but couldn't find good instructions at the time.
I've seen belt sanders used to make white walls on the H.A.M.B. before.
Appleseed said:
I've seen belt sanders used to make white walls on the H.A.M.B. before.
Pretty much this but not a belt sander.
Get yourself a dual action car buffer and put on a 6 inch backing plate. add some 60 rit paper to it and go to town. Then at the end spin the wheel which sanding and get it perfect. These tires already has some gashes so no loss i it looked like crap. Worked out really good.
The newer tires with fancy embosed designes take way more work to samd because the rubber is so stickey.
love the Cragars , they just look right on that car.....
OMG when you said "shaved" I assumed "reduced tread depth", then you said "60 grit" and I knew I must have misunderstood something.
Emotional support cat after disk brake install. Runs and stops great but the balance is all wrong. Rear drums lock up way before the fronts. Instead of a bias valve I went wit a 1969 manual disk/drum master cylinder out of a Camaro. If you pump them then the thing stops 100% dead true and quck, plus I have pedal feel now, its not all on or off.
That still needs to be installed but I will have a dual master cylinder and it will be not the original one from 1964 that is in the car now.
You're gonna want to plumb an adjustable prop valve into the rear circuit. NPD makes repro brackets to mount the valve under the master, or you can bolt directly to frame. Discs make less torque for a given diameter, so when replacing front drums with discs you always need a prop in the rear circuit.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
I like that kit. More owners would be better off with a floating caliper than the original style four piston ones.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
You're gonna want to plumb an adjustable prop valve into the rear circuit. NPD makes repro brackets to mount the valve under the master, or you can bolt directly to frame. Discs make less torque for a given diameter, so when replacing front drums with discs you always need a prop in the rear circuit.
This is on the list of stuff to do but for now it actually stops straight and it will lock the fronts and the rars up at about the same time. Rears come on maybe a smidge before the fronts. Nothing that is unsafe. It actually stops straight now and it you have some modulation between full of and full on.
Plus duel master cylinder now not single, I HATE SINGLES.
Car is semi polished out. Took off the vinyl meatballs to do it though. CQ quartz coated the whole car. Mucked with the exhaust some more and got some more rumble.
Its still running rich, rich enough that it does not get to 180 with my probes. I went a full 11% leaner and set the idle even lower at 650rpm. Stepped down one size on the main jets, went to the lightest accelerator pump setting and went to one leaner size on the metering rods and went two jumps lighter on springs. Runs better now and sits at a solid 180 all day and warms up much faster. May have to go a step lighter on the 3nd jets but holding off of that. Lots of fiddling to get it to work and incremental changes with drives to see how they worked.
Also my driver seat is really worn out on the foam after 60 years of sitting and driving. So I was all ready to order new foam when someone online mentioned that a garment steamer will get the seat foam to recover. So pulled both seats out and found that the passenger and driver seats are 100% identical. Passenger looks like it has never had anybody so just swapped that in and called it a day.
Got the steering wheel on mostly straight and set the tow correctly as well. It goes in for a full alignment later this week.
Interior panels need to be dyed so I have that on order along with a few small things like glove box latches and some parts to fix the driver side vent pulls. Decided tat I am going to pull an replace the carpet soon so I also ordered another 70sqf of kilmat just to have on hand when I do.
Ditched the Cragars for a factory offset and tire package. Drives so much nicer now. Car is basically done except for the grand sport headlight which I have yet to find a set of.
Wow, that looks fantastic!
And while it may not have been my first choice, I'd leave the headlights as is. It's different and kind of special. I like it. Definitely a Period look.
I remember my first ride in a Corvette, around 1969. It was a 67 with a 427, and I was an impressionable teenager. Ooh Boy! Lots of tire smoke, being pushed back into the seat, and going fast, is something I'll never forget.
In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :
My B-in-law showed up with his roommates ('68-'70?) 427 with factory side exhaust and took me for a ride. Wow - still remember the power and sound.
