1969 Chevrolet Corvette is our next big project in the shop. The last time this car was registered was in 1996, it's time to get this car safe and back out on the road.
1969 Corvette the motor and transmission are out now to get the frame out from under the body.
1969 Corvette the frame and the body are now separate. The frame and all its pieces are going to be sent out for sandblasting and powder coating and the underside of the body has been D grind and degreased. We are then we are going to shoot some lizard skin ceramic heat insulation to the underside of the floors of the body to keep some of the heat out so the air conditioning that we are going to be putting in will work much better and the heat insulation will help keep the heat from coming in and burning your feet.
1969 Corvette has had her undercarriage degreased, scrubbed and is almost ready to get her ceramic insulation undercoat sprayed on all that is left is to sand the undercarriage to give the undercoat something to grab on to and then tape off anywhere we do not want the undercoat to be. The frame is out getting sand blasted and powder coated, should be back soon.
1969 Corvette the ceramic heat insulation has been sprayed on and the frame is back from powder coat and looks great, we have all of the interior out of the car including all of the A/C and heating system and wiring. Things are going great check out the video.
1969 Corvette it's coming along great the engine compartment is all cleaned and ready for all of the new components to start going in, the interior is all cleaned as well and ready for all of the new stuff to go in there and the frame has started getting all of it's new parts installed.
1969 Corvette is coming along very nicely. We now have most of the suspension on the frame as well as the new steering system in place.
1969 Corvette the rear suspension and brakes are complete, all of the rotors have been painted and the front brakes are ready to go together and the motor is back and together from the machine shop she is a nice 350cid with 350 horse. Next we will scrape off all of the old paint that is still left on the motor and spray a nice Chevy orange engine paint that has a harder and will stand up to all of the solvents, gas and oil that will spill on to the motor.
1969 Corvette all of the brakes, fuel and suspension stuff are in and the motor is ready for her nice new coat of Chevy orange paint. The paint we are going to use on the motor is a 2 part paint and primer that has a hardener and is a high temperature paint that will is resistant to peeling up from fuel and oil spills much better than regular enamel based rattle can spray paint.
1969 Corvette the motor has been painted, the 4 speed Muncie transmission has been cleaned and rebuilt and the fuel tank is now on the chassis. Now to start putting all of the motor compartment components in and then to start dressing the firewall inside the passenger compartment then the body will be set down on the frame. This old girl is coming out fantastic and she will be terrorizing the streets this summer. She will then come back in next winter to do the body.
1969 Corvette has her motor and is now a rolling chassis. We still have a lot to do to finish her but her chassis looks fantastic.
1969 Corvette the headlight assembles are starting to go in, the motor compartment has been painted and the Holley 4 barrel carburetor is in the process of being rebuilt.
1969 Corvette we are really close to putting the body back on the frame. I will problem have one maybe two more videos of the of the frame and body separate just to show you the finished chassis and then we will renew their vows and remarry the frame and body. WOO HOO!!!
1969 Corvette the chassis is finished and the body is just about ready to be set down on it.
1969 Corvette now has her chassis back under the body and is looking awesome. The undercarriage looks gorgeous. We have started running the new wiring harness and have started getting the interior back together. This little girl is coming out fantastic if you have a few minutes check out the video.
1969 Corvette wheels are back on, the brakes are bled and most of the undercarriage work is done and she is back on her feet for the first time. We will now move on to the interior, motor compartment and all of the wiring that need to be done.
1969 Corvette looking good so far. We are now starting on the interior. The exterior is almost done for now she will be getting new paint this winter but for this season the owner just wants to drive her. The motor and drive train are done but we are still waiting on the new radiator that we ordered about 6 weeks ago and once it comes in we can start her up. It is going to be nice to hear this car run again after over 10 years of sitting in the owners garage.
1969 Corvette and after waiting what seemed like an eternity the special order oversized radiator finally came off of back-order and is now in the car. We filled her up with antifreeze, transmission gear oil, power steering fluid, motor oil with a zinc additive for the flat tappet cam and are now ready to prime the motor with oil. Our priming tool is a drill and an old distributor with the cam gear ground off, a 3/8ths bolt with a 9/16ths hex head welded to the distributor shafts and a hole drilled through the rotor so we can aim the oil pump drive shaft in the correct position to drop the new distributor right in and have the rotor pointing in the correct position. We will be starting her up real soon!!! Check out the video.
1969 Corvette I didn't post this up last week after we primed the oiling system. This is the first start up of the 350cid 350hp motor, we started her up set the timing and brought the idle speed up to 2000 RPMs and let her run for 20 minutes to break in the cam. She ran beautiful with no strange noises or anything like that, with no leaks or any other problems thanks to Charles Martindale 's (aka Chuckles) attention to all of the little details.
1969 Corvette is finished for now and we take you underneath to show you how nice this car came out. Everything looks so good my guys once again just knocked it out of the park. The owner is coming to pick her up this week and drive around for a while. We will be working out all the bugs and when the weather starts to turn he's going to drop her back off to us and we're going to get started getting all the body and paint work done on her
1969 Corvette is going home. We went for a test drive without the hood, when got back to the shop we put the new hood on and after over 13 years of Jack owning this car he is finally getting to drive her.