We've all heard the phrase "diamond in the rough", but this is a "diamond on the rough"! Enjoying your progress. Devon
Back in the 70's I had a big block 67 with factory side pipes. The baffles had rusted out on both sides. Pieces would come out from time to time. I left for work at 6:30 AM and it would rattle the windows in my house. Lucky I had cool neighbors!
And one of the replacement headlight vacuum relays is defective! The little piston inside gets stuck! Let's see how good Zip Corvette is with exchanges
These aren't too much better. The cost to replace them is outrageous though. Just the side exhaust chrome covers are $3,400! That's American dollars....thats $400 more than I paid for the whole gd car! Plus the pipes which are another $1,600. Yeah, not paying 5 grand for an exhaust. They'll be ice skating in hell before that happens!
If I were you, there is no question that thing would have a very nice 482BBB in it... 600 foot lbs under you toe with the stick would be a ball.. if for no other reason than to drive the Corvette faithful crazy.. "A Buick in a Vette??" So that emblem swap would be a real deal.. I have always liked that vintage Vette, second only to the big block 67 cars. But I realize your in the used car business more or less, and I am sure you will do well with that purchase/eventual sale. One of my bucket list cars is a mid 70s/early 80's vette with a BBB transplant, and that car in the condition you bought it is exactly what I would be looking for. JW
Today the car was dropped off at the body guys house and gave him $300 to start. I literally walked home that's how close he lives. I'll visit him this weekend and see how he's gotten. It should only be 18-20 hours of repairs. But the guy is 80 and has a pacemaker. Hopefully it doesn't take him twice as long! Lol Stay tuned for pics
After two weeks, Ed...my 80 year old "old school" body guy glued humpty dumpty back together! He did a fantastic job. Attended to all the damage and charged me a whopping $1500 including materials. A little before and after
There was also alot of burned paint on the car. Like literally. The car was under a cover and fireworks lit the cover on fire and it burned the paint off on a few areas. Ed took care of that too. I like it. It's straight and damage free again. I actually like the rattiness of it with the yellow bumpers and the dark gray DP40 all over it. Tomorrow I'm picking up 2 tires for the front. Once I get those installed, I can start using it on a regular basis like I did with the beater. Honestly, everyone should have a beater in the stable. So much more fun
You need to crank Saturday Night Fever, get some thick gold chains, wide lapels, and a bottle of Old Spice.. You would look so macho cruising in that... LOL
I already dress like that.... It's going to need a full paint job at some point. It's definitely come a long way from a neglected, non running pile of plastic.
Wow Jason, it really does look a lot better. Having the fiberglass repaired was definitely money well-spent! Sure, it needs paint but leave it alone. As a buyer I could understand why it looks like this with primered areas but a cheap paint job would scare me off. I would wonder what kind of hack would put that cheap paint job onto a corvette and what is it intended to hide? At least leaving it in primer would give me a better idea of what's going on and I wouldn't have a layer of fresh, cheap paint to remove when I put a proper paint job on it.
Today's job after work was cleaning all the bondo and fiberglass dust off everything. Got all the overspray off and scrubbed it down inside and out. Looks way better now.
It's funny working on another brand of car. I know it's still GM and it's somewhat familiar, but it's still "alien" lol
