My 1969 Corvette Project
The Saga Continues
January 10, 2001
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My brothers came over and helped me raise the car about 3' onto some beefy horses, so that I could work on the underside of the body. My other goal was to get my wife's parking spot freed up so I could eliminate at least one source of nagging. |
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Pictured here are me and my brothers, AKA "the dudes". Before you start a project like this, get ya some brothers. They come in real handy, and it's real hard for them to say no, bein kin and all. Thanks guys! |
January 13, 2001
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It was pretty cold this weekend, so I rebuilt the starter. They say that we have had one of the coldest winters so far, but I swear it was colder when I was a kid growing up here. |
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The gear was a little worn and chipped. The brushes did not look too bad, but I would rather do a little preventive maintenance before I reinstall the starter. |
January 22, 2001
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This is a view of the firewall. I will have to clean this up while the engine is out of the way. Working on this with a big block in the way would be a pain. |
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The existing insulation was a mess. It was no longer being held in place, since most of the clips had rusted away. The foam seal at the front of the tunnel was also missing. This explains why so much engine heat was getting into the passenger compartment. |
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I stripped off the old stuff. Here is a shot of the clips which faired better than the rest. After looking at the condition of them, and the aluminum rivets which hold them on, I decided to replace them. I will fabricate my own out of stainless steel, and use fasteners instead of rivets. I have new insulation to install as soon as the clips are ready. |
February 3, 2001
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Here is a full shot of the tunnel. The battery cable will have to be replaced, since I cut it during the lift-off. |
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Here are the old insulation retainers next to the ones I fabricated out of stainless steel. |
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Here are some old and new mounting brackets. I also fabricated these out of stainless. If someone knows where the slotted bracket on the left goes, let me know. I am having trouble finding it in any drawings, diagrams, or catalogs. It fell out with the insulation. |
February 6, 2001
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The carpet looked like it was in good shape, but when I tugged on it, it started falling apart. The padding below was in sad shape, and was damp on the passenger side. Since the car has not seen rain since I bought it, I can only assume it has been like that for a long time. |
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The are the holes left after drilling out the rivets. Everything in the floor was riveted with aluminum rivets. They did not fair well in the weather. |
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These rivet heads are almost gone. I will replace these with stainless fasteners. |
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This was the nut retainer for the right rear body mount. It was loose in the mounting recess. The rivets had corroded away. |
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This mounting area was a mess. I will have to buy or fabricate all new metal parts. |
February 10, 2001
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Here is what is left of the right rear mount. This will all have to be replaced. The aluminum spacer makes me wonder if a partial restore has already been done before on this car. |
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The fiberglass around this mounting area looks ok. I'll just clean it up. |
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This is the fiberglass behind the shoulder belt mounting plate. Water was getting trapped between the fiberglass and the plate. |
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The plate looked pretty bad, but not bad enough that I can't salvage it. |
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These splash shields covered the insulation in front of the firewall. They are both white. The one on the left has not been cleaned. |
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This is what replaced the rivets. These are little stainless steel plates with stainless screws. On the other side of the fiberglass are the stainless insulation clips I made. |
February 12, 2001
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I restored the seat mount rails. They're not stainless, but they should last another 30 years. Also shown are the right side shoulder belt mount and the right rear body mount nut retainer. The other hardware was not salvageable. |
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The seat mounting hardware looked pretty rough, but was salvageable. |
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We started putting in the new stainless insulation clips. My daughter helped me by climbing into the tight spots. |
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