Got rid of the Vette and became white trash!

The vette drove away from our driveway last Monday and now almost everything we own was put up on jackstands. The bug is up on 4 jack stands and the camp trailer was put up on jackstands so the wheel bearings could be repacked and new seals installed. I am officially out of jackstands so the only other option is cement blocks. That will fit right in to the decor of my driveway.

The owner came and got the Vette. He has driven it a couple times to work and there is only a couple of bugs to work out of it. It has a hesitation at about 3500 RPM under a load. He is going to change the fuel filter and see if it goes away.

The trailer was finished this week and luckily I repacked the wheel bearings because 1 seal was leaking pretty good. I had grease everywhere but not bad enough to be on the brake shoes themselves. I was able to clean it off and put a new seal so it should be good to go for the season.

Saturday I was hoping to get the wheels for the bug completely painted and ready for the tires to be installed. I decided to go with a 2 tone paint job and see how it holds up. I had put them in primer first and then painted them black.

They looked pretty good here and I debated on leaving them all black and running some stainless steel beauty rings but then decided to paint some high gloss white on the outer rim. This was how it came from the factory originally. I needed some help masking off the 5 wheels so I looked around. Dixie and Steven were up at Scout camp and Isaac ditched me for his friends. That left only 1 person. Ellie!

 She was very enthusiastic about helping. I think she just prefers to be outside or in the garage. Well pretty much anywhere other then inside the house.

 Here She is helping me mask off the wheel. She worked really hard.

 Here she is after we masked all 5 wheels and were ready to spray them. She was wore out and decided to take a quick power nap.

Here are the wheels masked with the last color painted on them.

 Here is the finished product. I think they look pretty good.

 Here is what it will look like with the stock hubcaps on.

I finished fairly late Saturday night and so it will have all day Sunday and maybe Monday so the paint will fully cure. I then will take them to work and put on the tires and take them somewhere to get balanced. Hopefully Ed will get back on the ground this week if everything works out. We will see.

Moving on!

Well, the time has come to move on. I enjoyed working on a small block Chevy. It reminded me of when I just got off my Mission and was building a Nova. I built a really wild small block in that car. At that time in my life I wasn't concerned about money and didn't blink an eye at spending it. I am a little more conservative now, well OK a lot more but that's OK. The motor that was put in the corvette ended up being very low cost and should be a good motor for a long time. I am finished except for 1 small fuel line that I am waiting on parts for and the vette has been kicked out of the garage. Dixie was able to park the van in there for 1 night and then the garage kinda got filled up again. It is only temporary and She should be back in it tomorrow night.

I had 3 projects to choose from.
1. Change a timing belt on Dixie's van
2. Install the engine I have in Isaac's Baja Bug 
3. Fix a couple things on Ed that I haven't had time to do.

Well, Dixie says I will always work on Ed first if I get the chance and She is kinda right. It's not that I don't want to change her timing belt but it just doesn't have the same coolness factor as working on a 42 year old car. So I decided to work on the bug. It has had a couple of problems. I needed to fix a stud on the oil sump and I just found out that my back passenger tire was bald on one spot. Hmm, that gives me the opportunity to remove all the tires and wheels and powdercoat the wheels black. Right now I powdercoated the front ones silver but decided I didn't like that and I never have got around to doing the back ones. I bought some new back tires and this week I will take them to work and break down the tires, powdercoat all the wheels and reinstall the good tires. It should be a good week. Here are some pictures.

 Here is the engine I picked up a few months ago for the baja bug. I borrowed a couple parts off it for Ed.

 Once again Ed is up on jackstands.

 So here is the bald spot that is kinda weird because it is only on 1 spot. These tires are original to the car when I bought it so they are pretty old.

 Here i discovered why I had a bald spot. The rim is damaged and it is right where the bald spot is. The damage has been there awhile. I am surprised I didn't see it earlier. I thought I was going to have to buy another wheel but then remembered I had a good spare. I will switch wheels and this damaged one will become my spare. It holds air just fine and will work good as a backup if needed.

 Here is the front wheel I powdercoated with a new tire on it and the new tire for the back wheel. I had to buy new tires for the front because they are a lot smaller since I lowered it.I am going to powdercoat all 5 wheels satin black and run them with beauty rings. I think it should look good.

So you never know how our driveway is going to look at any time. This is how it looks now. I try to keep most of the cars fairly hidden so I don't upset the neighbors too much. I often tell Dixie that we are the white trash of the neighborhood. She usually just smiles in silent agreement and then I tell her I should grow a mullet.

It's ALIVE !!!

Well, finally the vette is back on the ground and running. I took off Wednesday and worked on it. It is all back together and running good. There is only 2 problems that need to be addressed. 1. The alternator belt is squealing like crazy and it is maxed out on it's adjustment and 2. The fuel line between the hard line from the tank to the fuel pump requires a special formed one that I can only find online. I temporarily fixed it but I need to replace it when I get one. After that I need to get the hood back on and it's officially finished. Here are some pictures.

 Here it is in all it's glory!

 Fuel lines hooked up, Radiator lines hooked up and getting ready to start it for the first time.

 Finally off the ramps and back on the ground.

 Adding oil and antifreeze and then it's time to fire it up. It started on the 3rd try. It would of started on the first try if I had someone to crank for me. I had to crank and then get out and adjust the distributor to get it in the sweet spot to fire. 3rd time was the charm.

 Took it for it's maiden cruise and it drove great. Has lots of power and no leaks.

 I installed the spark plug shrouds and the air cleaner and when I went to take it for a spin again it started running poorly. Hmm, It ended up being the fuel line I was talking about earlier. I fixed it for now but it will need to be fixed permanently when I get the new hose.

 Here is everything installed except the hood.

 Dixie even took it for a test spin. If you have a vette in your garage you have to at least drive it once.

I think she is smiling so much because she finally gets her space in the garage back. I think I am going to put a smaller belt on the alternator and then get the right fuel line on then button up the hood and give it back to it's owner. He still has plenty of time to cruise this summer with the T-Tops off  soaking up the sun!

Almost there!

I ended up working on Friday so I didn't think I would get the motor in the vette this weekend, but I was able to spend all day working on it. It was a long day but the motor is in and almost everything is hooked up. I finally got the spark plug wires run and they look like they will work out great. Here is the pic update.

 I started out the day figuring out how to run the wires. The Internet is great for doing research and this diagram helped a ton.

 Here I put all the wires in order of length on the cap and started running them from there.

 The chrome tin pieces are what Chevy did with the wires on the Corvettes of this era. They look good but they are a real pain to change a wire if you need to.

 Here is how I ran the wires. I decided to run them underneath because of the ram horns exhaust manifolds. It looks cleaner and actually keep the wires routed better so they don't get burned by the heat from the exhaust.

 Here is the other side.

 I then removed the accessories from the engine and then installed the radiator and shroud.

 My buddy came over to help me install the engine. He showed up just as I was lifting the engine up to install it in the car. There was no way I could of done it without him. It didn't go in as easy as it came out.

 The bell housing bolts are a tight fit but we were able to get them in and tight.

   Here it is just after we removed the hoist. Now to install all the other crap.

 Here is how I left it for the night. It is in with most of the stuff on it. The only things left to install are the radiator hoses, Starter, Fan and the rest of the bell housing, some fuel lines, and the dust cover for the torque converter. I should have a new project in the garage by next weekend.  Here is a before and after shot of the engines.

 Before

 After. Oh and I have to install the hood and make sure it actually runs!