treehouse

First time on the corvette forum. I have placed a deposit on a 1970 350 300hp 4spd coupe. The condition of sale is that the frame is to be in good shape. Even with that I am a little nervous about the purchase not having owned a corvette before. I have owned lots of muscle cars but not this type of beast. So I am asking anyone what to look for or beware of before I hand over the rest of the cash.

It is with a small shop dealing primarily in used corvettes. The car won't go on a hoist until middle of March when the owner of the business is back from down south.

It is not mint or even excellent condition just good condition. The car has had a bad paint job from the eightys or early nightys so I don't know if it has been hit or not. There are no cracks or blemishes in the paint just faded.

The engine I am told is the matching no. 350 300hp but i have not verified it yet. The 4spd has an old hurst shifter on it and someone has converted the manual windows to power.

The hood was replaced with a sort of LT1 hood as it is higher in the middle with fake air dams.

The interior is rough but original. Black leather with deluxe door panels.

The dealer said they did the motor over and I can see a complete new exhaust. I would like to see the paper work on it to see what exactly was done.

The interior of the door skins have either bondo or fibreglass filler. Again it looks like it was done when the car was painted ten or tenty years ago. It has seperated from the skin shich makes me think the car was winter driven as we get lots of snow and salt.

Someone, probably the dealer has sprayed the complete undercarraige and engine compartment black so I can't see if it was rusty.

I know I am not getting a gem but would like it to be a driver for now and restore as the pocket book permits. I just don't want to pay for a basket case at a driver price.

Any advice would be appreciated. :confused:

page62

Hopefully Paul79 will show up in this thread. He lives in the Ottawa area and would be a great help to you.

You need to look for rust around the windshield frame and the general area of the frame where the rear trailing arms are connected. Also check where the outer frame member terminates at the rear (in front of the rear wheel well). Don't be shy -- pull off some of the trim covering the windshield frame to take a look. And bang on the frame with a hammer in the area I described.

Hopefully you will have good luck. You'd think that any Vette of that vintage that has survived in Ottawa must have been stored in the winter.

Finally, if this Vette bug has bitten you real hard, it's easy to import from the United States. In the 80's, I personally imported two older cars from the US to Canada. 30 minutes and a few hundred dollars at the customs station.

Sleestak

If you're hesitant about buying it I think you should get your deposit back and keep searching. There's lots of Vettes out there for sale. Don't be too eager to buy one just because it's a Corvette. :steering:
If anything see if you can find someone who knows Vettes to go down and give it a look over with you.

treehouse

the trim is off around the windshield on the inside. there is a metal patch at each top corner. would that be original. the rst of it looks ok.

treehouse

unfortunately there are not many older bumper style around here let alone for sale. I do like the 70 for the rare and higher hp factor.

Paul L

We can have someone from the Capital Corvette Club look at it. They can't be fooled. E-mail me and I will find someone to do an inspection.
http://www.communityzero.com/CCC


[Modified by paul79, 6:56 PM 2/26/2003]

PatsLs1vette

Let paul and his guys look at it,sounds a little shaky to me,what kind of price range is it?