Chadillac2000

The rain, coupled with my need to watch the opening round of the NBA playoffs, meant it was the perfect time to refinish the original Corvette and L-82 emblems. After removing them, and putting them through the blaster, we used enamel model car paint to fill in the unfinished metal. I put my girlfriend to work with gloss red, gloss black, gloss white, some toothpicks, and a picture of what they were supposed to look like.



After letting everything dry overnight, things turned out nice!

SB64

Hey Chadillac nice motor, the head light assemblies look great also. You are coming along. Can't wait to see the interior also. Door panels look goo. Love the black. You may have mentioned it but what is the exterior color? Emblems good job, put everybody to work. Love it.

Chadillac2000

Thanks bud! I'm really happy with how the headlights turned out and can't wait to get the motor and interior all finished up as we get this thing ready for paint. I was impressed with the door panels, but for the price, they better have looked nice!

The girlfriend actually got pretty interested in the emblem painting after I had her all the necessary tools. But don't get it twisted. This took some serious concentration. One slip up and the emblem would have to be repainted. All 6 were like playing the board game Operation. The easiest way we found to do was by dripping a drop of paint in the middle of the area we needed it and pushing it towards the edges with a toothpick. This helped in avoiding getting unwanted paint on the portions we wanted to keep bare metal.

As far as the exterior, sticking with black. Should match everything nicely and appeal to a larger group of potential buyers.

Keep up the good work yourself. Hopefully our brisk restoration pace can help inspire others!

doorgunner

I hope you don't mind me adding the extra wording---it just seemed entirely necessary!

SB64

Man Black exterior my favorite color. My 65 fuelie back in the 60's, dually pickup, wifes beemer all black. That with the interior awesome. By the way who did the door panels a vendor or someone local. Keep it goin.
R

Chadillac2000

Absolutely! She didn't seem to like me hovering over her shoulders the whole time making sure she was "coloring between the lines".

I've never owned nor built a black a black on car, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. The panels were ordered through Ecklers, $269 each ($242 with the 15% off sale), and came in Corvette America boxes. They do look great. Especially when compared to our old Oyster door panels.

Chadillac2000

Today's to-do list included getting the transmission ready to be bolted on to the motor. That meant a new transmission filter, pan gasket, and front and rear seals. After removing the pan and the old filter, I let gravity drain as much of the old fluid out as possible.



Once we had things cleaned up it was time to install the new parts. A fresh gasket and filter were fitted on first.



Followed by a Felpro pan gasket



With the pan tightened up, it was time to remove the output seal. Four bolts held on the tailshaft, but once those were off we could get to the old seal for removal.



After lubing up the new Federal Mogul seal, a large 38mm socket helped keep things even as we tapped in the new seal.



On to the front and another new Federal Mogul seal. One of the quad exhaust tips I had lying around from my old BMW E46 M3 came in handy to help tap in the front seal.



Now that the seals, gaskets and filters were installed, we were ready to attach the refinished torque converter to its new home.



After filling the torque converter with a quart of the transmission fluid we'll be using, I slid it onto the input shaft, making sure to get it properly seated on both sets of splines, as well as the pump inside.



Then I attempted to bolt on the original flexplate to our new motor. At this point, we found two "extras" on the engine that we wouldn't be able to use on our restoration. The ARP bolts included with the original flywheel and clutch assembly were too long, but no worries. I just cleaned up the original bolts and everything fit perfectly. We also realized that the teeth on our mini starter didn't match our flexplate, so we'll be going back to the original unit there as well. Again no worries. The money we can make from selling our mini starter should be able to source another one.



Once my partner showed up, we were able to align and tighten the bolts attaching the torque converter to the flexplate, and then the bolts attaching the transmission to our engine. The result not only looks incredible, but once we get our motor mounts in tomorrow, should be ready to attach to our finished frame. Should be a pretty sight to see and even more motivation to get this project completed.

AirborneSilva

those emblems look great, you owe that girl of yours a nice dinner

AdamMeh

Great job on this project - thanks for taking time to share the process with us through your write-ups and photos. I'd also like to say Thank You for saving this car. One more classic that shall survive. Keep up the good work!

Adam

ChrisMiami

I noticed your body dolly was pretty sleek (I like the metal better than the 2x4 style) - did you fabricate it based on measurements of the mounting points or from a spec you found somewhere?

I was going to use building one of those as my first excuse (ahem - reason!) to get a welder... :-)

I didn't notice any nose or tail support, though. I've never taken a body off its frame so I don't know squat firsthand, but I heard tell ya gotta support the nose or it'll kinda fold over under its own weight... Complicates the dolly build, though.

Really looking forward to seeing how the teardown/buildup of the interior and engine bay stuff goes. All the stuff centered around the firewall (inside and out) seems to be the most complicated part of the car to me.


Chris

PS: It's nice they put a big "L" on the bell housing so you know which way to mount it up, eh? :-)

SB64

Knocking it out, that's great. Everything looks great, nice clean workmanship just what I like. I think you mentioned it earlier but when are you planning to complete this job with everything going right. Go man go.
R

82CFI

Here's a steel one built by forum member lars with both the front and rear supports: http://s183.photobucket.com/user/jud...olly3.jpg.html

lars describes it in the 7th post in this thread: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...-question.html

Chadillac2000

Oh don't worry, she made me make her three courses that very night!

That's another awesome aspect of this project -- another C3 saved from the scrapyard.

We fabbed it up pretty quickly using some scrap metal we had lying around. We didn't even bother to draw out any dimensions, we just test fit as we went along until we had them where they'd sit up in the pockets just as the original frame did. Then welded on the wheels. The rears swivel so it's easy to move around, but if I were to do it again, I'd invest in getting four swivel wheels. We haven't seen any body squat, but that might be because of the length of our bars support just enough. Then again, I'd probably follow the link posted by 82CFI above as it looks much better. But definitely a good reason to invest in a welder!

The firewall components and interior should be another learning experience in itself, but something I'm looking forward to tackling and figuring out.

August would be ideal.

C3 4ME

I just spent about 15 minutes catching up on this thread. From one black 79 owner to another, I'm loving your progress. I'm kinda partial to red interiors on black cars though. Keep up the great work!

Chadillac2000

Today marked a big day in the progress of our restoration -- our frame finally became one with its rebuilt 355ci heart.

Bolting our new motor mounts to the block before we attempted to drop in the new engine made the process something that only took about 5 minutes. I need to pick up a new transmission mount, but once we have that installed, we can bolt up the rest of the driveshaft and connect the rear end to the engine.

Enjoy the pics!

13611

Looking great! Where do you run your modified?

SB64

WOW everything in the pics look great man. What a nice job. Since I am a little behind you I was wondering how you raised the end of the rear leaf spring with not much weight on the frame. That's the part I am up too. All ears.
R

Chadillac2000

Anderson, SC. There's a small circle track. Sometimes Myrtle Beach, SC has events where those modifieds run. Those are more my dad's cup of tea, whom I share the garage with. He loves them though. I ran them for a few seasons before bumping up to late model stock for another few.

Appreciate that! You're build is coming along nicely yourself. Glad to hear you got that spring issue taken care of. The new one you found the correct paint color code for turned out perfect.

I think I mentioned this in my post on your build thread, but we're using longer bolts in the rear, so with another pair of hands we were able to just pull up on the spring enough by hand to start the nut. The extra few inches of length on the longer bolts make it a much easier/safer job.

Old Guy From NJ

Hey Chad, I've been following this thread since the beginning. I always look forward to seeing the progress you are making. I've subscribed to this thread, and check my e mail daily. Since I haven't seen any updates recently, I'm hoping all is well.
I will be starting work on my 78 soon and I have learned more from this thread than from all the books I have read.
Keep it coming...
Looking forward to your next post....The Old Guy From NJ

SB64

Hey Chad had not heard from you in awhile, I looked at you post of the motor , tranny, the whole chassis and it really looks nice. keep up the great work. Do you have a time frame your restore to be completed. Just curious!
R