Part 2: Tear Down

The car was now back at home where Dad and I could complete the project. Up until now, the idea was to get the car safe and reliable to cruise around in on the weekends. That idea went out the window once some performance parts were put on order.

 The interior was torn out completely, revealing the original factory color. When the car was on the lift at Ditos, they noticed that a prior owner had installed a true dual exhaust. The install was not well thought out, the idea was there just not the effort. Two catalydic converters were installed after the exhaust manifold and then the tubing was snaked out back following the stock set up. On the original design the exhaust goes from 2 to 1 to 2, meaning they used one catalytic converter to save cost. So when the second converter was added under the driver seat no heat shield was installed.

 The black mark above is where the exhaust had burned the fiber glass body and actually caught the carpet kit on fire. Thankfully this didn't happen when we got the car. Most of the interior that was removed and discarded was ordered from an aftermarket catalog. Some dates were found and it looked like the whole car was redone some time in the 80's. It was not done well, but it was done.

The new carpet kit along with newly painted dash and center console. The idea behind the car is to put more into the drivetrain and suspension than the interior. Having a nice crisp interior is great, but a loud and fast car is cooler.

Go fast, look cool.

Brakes, brakes, brakes......

With more power under the hood, we needed to make sure it will stop. This was the first big job I undertook. I had just done a caliper rebuild on my truck a few weeks before, so I had an idea of what I was doing. That helped to an extent, but I really just learned as I went. The vette came stock with 4 piston calipers all the way around. The front pistons are about 2x the size of the rears. And the rear calipers have 3 bleed screws. Why is that? I have no idea.

The rotors had seen some miles, convincing me that the car really had 120,xxx miles. They looked original, luckily someone changed out the pads in the past. The rotors will be replaced along with the pads and caliper seals. The idea to run stainless brake lines was tossed around. The advantages are a tougher line and a firmer pedal, but with the price tag at $120 a set we went OEM. So new original spec rubber lines went in also.

 One thing that we learned real quick was how to put the car on jack stands. Each vehicle is different and some don't like being propped up. The hard part was finding strong jack locations. The fiberglass body limits where you can put the weight of the car. In the front we found two spots on either side just forward of the doors. And in the rear there is an exposed crossmember.

With the calipers off and on a table, I removed the pistons. I'm sure I will make a GM tech or Corvette guru cringe but I carefully used a screw driver to pry out the pistons. I also tried compressed air and the results were pretty lame.

 Once the pistons were out I could start cleaning the caliper housing. There was not much wear on the cylinders but the sludge was nasty. The brake fluid had never been changed. I was using every kind of tiny pick and brush to clean all the passageways. Finally I just resorted to blasting everything out with brake clean.

 Above are the front caliper pistons, you can see that they are larger than the rear ones below. You can also see the grime and sludge on the rear pistons. I'll just say this, not one seal leaked when I took them off the car. The original dust seals were in ok condition and in a pinch could be reused. For having the high milage and spending 20 years in a barn with critters, GM really designed something right.

I found the best way to remove all the road grime and brake dust was to soak parts in Gunk. Any engine degreaser will do, just make sure you thoroughly cover the part. I used two cans for all four calipers and let them sit in a bucket. After about an hour I filled it with some water and just scrubbed them all with red scotch brite.

 A coat of black paint and they were done. On the rears I had to make new hard brake lines. That was an interesting challenge since I have never made one. I tried to be correct and used a bending tool, but in the end I just man handled it into place.

Since the project motto is Go Fast, Look Cool my dad got side pipes. The kit claimed to be bolt on, but took some brute force to get everything work.


Next the rear suspension will be tackled....

Part 1: Fixing the neglect

Once the car made it back home we sent it to our local mechanic. My father used Ditos Motors in the past with the '99 and they do great work. With no real knowledge of the car we had them do a once over, identifying everything that was worn out or just plain dangerous.

The list went as followed:
Suspension
Brakes
Engine
Drivetrain
Interior

With the car in expert hands the decision was made to have Dito do the front suspension and engine. The motor held great compression, almost to factory spec in '75. So there was no need to tear down the block and send it out for machining. A simple top end rebuild was done. My Dad has always wanted a performance camshaft, one that grunts and shakes the ground. Since the bottom end was stock, we opted for the largest Comp Cams camshaft it would allow. Just enough of a lobe separation so that it had a strong idle and grunt, but not so much that it would lurch at idle in gear. An Edelbrock intake capped off the top end and the stock GM Quadrajet was rebuilt. The belt pulleys were replaced along with the mechanical fan. A new stock replacement radiator  and water pump solved the cooling problems.




Other interesting things found while at Ditos was that someone in the past tried to jack up the car using the oil pan as a lift point. Why that was a great idea still puzzles me, but it was replace with a Milodon Racing oil pan.

The front suspension was completely replaced with factory spec parts. From bushings to steering tie rods, the complete replacement kit included every component. As you can see in the photo above, the front end is almost completely new.

After about a month at the shop the car was finally done. The delay was mostly waiting for parts to come in. This allowed for the mechanics to search deeper into the car to look for any more damage, luckily two cracks were found in the frame and repaired.

The '75 then went back home and transitioned into the hands of my Dad and I to do the rest of the repairs.

1975 Corvette Stingray

A lot has changed over the past few months, first of all we have a new ride! In December the black '99 C5 went to a new home. Early the next morning, Dad and I were on a road trip to Monterey to look at and hopefully buy a barn find 1975 Stingray. The pictures in the ad were not great and all we knew was that the car was white. After the 90 minute drive from the Bay Area we pulled up to see this gem.

From the pictures you (A corvette enthusiast) can already tell that the front and rear bumpers are not stock 1975 Stingray bumpers. The stock down sloping rear bumper was replaced with a catalog order piece that has a molded spoiler. The front bumper is also a catalog order special. The car had a color change from the factory Chevy Orange to a white pearl...yes the car is pearl white. The stock wheels were long gone and replaced with mint vintage Enkei aluminum wheels. The skinny rubber was ditched for some oversized P235/60 r15 tires. Under the hood was the number matching L-48 small block 350 matched to a TH400 transmission. 

The family that we purchased the car from claimed the vette was a barn find with 120,xxx miles. Boy does their story actually add up! The husband said he found the car in a barn in the California desert exactly as it sat on that morning. Having only owned it for a few months nothing was changed other than getting it registered and a minor tune up. The story is believable after seeing how much hay, dirt, and creepy crawlies were hiding in the car during tear down. We will get to that eventually.....

Getting home....

After a few test drives through downtown Monterey and getting looks from all the ladies in this sex machine, we decided to start the trip back. Let me back up a little bit. That morning I was woken up at 0700 (Way too early for a saturday morning) and was told to get dressed and be in the car in 10 minutes. I figured we were just going to see another Corvette since my Dad had already seen about 6 or 7 over the past few weeks. What I didn't expect was the drive to Monterey or that I would be driving the car back. This may not be seen as such a hardship, I mean how many people get to cruise Hwy 1 in a '75 Stingray? Well thats what was going through my mind when I started driving back. Thoughts like "I probably look so good in this thing" or "I left single, maybe Ill find a girl by the time I get home", the car was bad ass until it got on the highway. If you have ever driven in a car with 120,xxx miles that sat in a barn for 20 years at 70 MPH, you know exactly what I went through. The pucker factor was off the charts, I couldn't even pass a fart. 

For starters the clapped out suspension bottomed out on every bump, the steering was loose, and the car liked to wander at speed. By wander I mean change where it wanted to be in the lane, it drifted left then right. It even changed lanes a few times. The biggest scare was when I went over a bump at about 65 or 70, there was a bridge and some kind of transition from the pavement to the metal. The front tires left the ground for a split second, when the back end finally came back down I was driving in the service lane. So I kept it under 60 after that. After a lunch stop we got back on Hwy 1 headed for home, I think I made it 3 miles.... Back tracking for a second, when we picked up the car it had a bad belt squeal starting at 3500 rpm. I tightened the belt thinking it was loose during the lunch stop. So at the 3 mile mark on the highway the squeal just went away. At the time I thought "Oh maybe it just fixed itself", then the smoke screen of steam began rolling from under the hood. The belt broke shutting off the water pump and overheated the engine. 

Now on the side of the road we went from happy Corvette buyers to sad tow truck waiters. After about an hour of waiting AAA finally pulled through and we got it towed home.

The ever degrading tow of shame...... But doesn't the car still look killer?