Texas70

This car was marketed as a solid "driver" quality car. Every thing (within reason) worked. Started to do a rebuild on it.



My ignorance of C3 corvettes was my down fall. After chasing a rattle behind the drivers head area that occurred on rough roads, I unfortunately discovered the following.



Yes, that is a section of the door lock post cut out. But don't worry, they did the passenger side as well (they were a little neater). With the bottoms of both lock posts rusted, only the fiberglass door post panel is holding the door striker section in place (both sides).



So now I am replacing the birdcage, this should be fun. Here is where I am after Day 1. The rest of the body is loose, I hope to have it lifted off in the next day or so.

Brandons72vette

How do you like your 2014 Silverado? I am thinking of getting one sometime this month or next. I wish you the best during this project, but you are not the only one who is doing an unplanned restoration. In October 2013 my 72 survivor with original paint to spare tire with tags got wrecked pretty hard. I have since dumped more than what it is probably worth just to try and save the car. So my 72 will be out of the shop in a week or two and then the long process of reassembling and restoring it awaits. You can do it! …and so can I!

Alan 71

Hi T70,
Well that's quite a piece of work you have in front of you!
At least it's an a/c, 70, so will be a nice car when you're finished.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

brent319

Sorry for your misfortune. It will be really nice when you get it done though.

briankeery

Wow, the car looks perfect in your first picture. Hope the journey is as quick and painless as possible. Good luck.

davidchristopher

Hey,. don't worry. ALL RESTORATIONS ARE UNPLANNED. You've got a great ride in the making there.

doorgunner

"wanna see what problems look like?"




Hang in there......repair one area at a time.....you can do it!

SB64

Boy I thing others might have been fooled by looking at the first pic. I wish I new about the forum before I bought my 69, but now that the forum is available I for one am always asking dumb questions and learning. Everyone is willing to help so good luck, it really will be a nice ride when you finish.

BBCorv70

Looks like somebody was considering truning this one into a convertible? I can't think of any other reason for cutting the top half of the birdcage out.

chstitans42

Why in the world would you need to cut out the birdcage like that in those areas? I dont see the point...

Texas70

I like the truck, I traded in a 2003 3/4 ton Dodge for this Silverado. The ride and features are a big improvement.

Texas70

Just from looking at the damage, I believe some idiot tried to pull the lock pillar column up and out the top to repair the rusted #3 body mounts. They hacked out the sides of the sail panels and just put a large patch made from formica on the inside. There are obvious reasons why this method of repair would be difficult.

Texas70

Pulled what was left of the body after stripping out the interior, once the body was off I also removed some of the easy to reach items from the chassis. I did not feel like messing with the engine fluids today, so I finished up by building a body buggy and pushing every thing back inside.
Lifting the body off was a major pain. Without the pillar support there was nothing but fiberglass panels holding the rear of the car on (patched panels at that). The body tried to rip in half about mid sail panel. Once I realized it was a lost cause trying to salvage the fenders, I just wrapped a strap around the rear section and lifted the body off. A little saddening, but there are just not a lot of places to lift up at.





Surprisingly, the frame does not look too bad. I only found one rust out at the #2 passenger mount area, the rest of the frame looked fine.

Brandons72vette

Sweet, I drive a 2004 Silverado single cab LWB and it has been a great truck, but it has gone through a dozen bumpers, taillights, tailgates, tires, and it is on it's second bed. I have hauled everything from coast to coast, border to border. It even has been a field truck out in Hawaii. It is a 1 owner and still has another 10 years in it at least. Im sure you know Texas is a truck kind of place, and I use my truck everyday. I drove all of the trucks for 2014, and man I am glad to say that I am not interested in anything but a 2014 GM truck. I just am living in 2014 and driving a truck from 2004 that is a workaholic that is starting to show its age and history. I like the things the 2014 offers, and if my 2004 had them I would be fine with keeping the 2004. Anyways I am pretty certain that I want a 2014 Silverado. Have you had any issues? Any complaints about it?

LudemJo

WOW! That is terrible, but you are making spectacular progress in two days. I will be following your thread to learn all I can about rebuilding the birdcage. Mine is a driver, but it does have some rust issues that will need to be addressed at some point.

Good luck to you, and just know that you are documenting this process for yourself and also the many people that search this forum looking for answers. This forum has been a savior for me many times already.

John

keithinspace

??? Am I really confused or is that a 1975+ frame?

Noticing the "impact bumper tubes" in the rear...

I notice this only because I'm in the throws of a frame swap myself.

I purchased my car for a 'reasonable' amount of money, so coming to the conclusion that I need/want a replacement frame is not the end of the world. So it is VERY disheartening to see that someone sold you "less than what you bought". Sucks that there are dishonest folks out there. Good that you're not one of them.

Seats look good, though.

Texas70

Hell, at this point nothing would surprise me. Maybe the car was totaled at some point in its life (that would explain the destroyed birdcage). The title is clean, so apparently that is all I really bought. There are just some things in life you wish you would have never crossed paths with.

It is pretty obvious that this is never going to be a NCRS quality car, my plan is to restore/rebuild it as close as possible to a 1970 Corvette (within reason) and drive the thing. I guess it will mainly be a representation of a 1970 Corvette as I doubt much of it is original now.

LT-1 kid

looks like the frame was replaced with a later year frame, how were the back bumpers bolted on.

keithinspace

Dude, don't give it a thought.

I'm ~$15k into my car and just dropped about the raunchiest 350 I could build into the engine bay. My DREAM was to have a V8 that scared women and small children. Mission accomplished...


Next is to swap out my pretzel-frame and put all new suspension bits under the car.

Last will be body and seats...the rest of the interior is OK.

Looks like you're running the reverse of me...your body looks AWESOME, as does your interior. Fix the frame and fix the suspension stuff, then tackle the engine (I assume).

I am SOOOOO stoked that you've gotten so far in 2 days. Makes me feel like I can accomplish something when I get around to swapping my frame out.

GOOD LUCK!!! Look forward to seeing your continued progress!

BBCorv70

I noticed the same, had to check to be sure.