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I purchased this 1980 vette from New Jersey in 2000. I saw
it on eBay and told the seller I wouldn’t bid on it, but if it didn’t sell, to
let me know. The next day he called me and said he pulled it off eBay and a deal
was made.
Now, a word of advice. Never, Never buy a car sight unseen.
I know, I did, however you are of course much more intelligent than I, and would
never do anything so foolish. It is a terrible mistake, one which I will
probably repeat in the future.
I had a roll of film of the
car, which showed all aspects of the car, and it all looked pretty good. It was
a Florida car originally which been mostly stock and well taken care of. It was
purchased sometime in the mid nineties by the seller who apparently wanted to
make it into some sort of road racer. He had a fuel cell in it at one time, an
alcohol motor, and some other odd things he had done to it over a few years. |
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But he never got around to driving it. So it
sat in his yard and deteriorated for a few years while he put the stock motor
and fuel tank back in. The main selling point was the entirely new front and
rear suspension components from Vette Brakes that had been installed. That alone
made the car a good buy, in my opinion. So I ponied up a money order and had the
car shipped to my house.
The
shipping was not without it’s share of pitfalls. After assuring me the car would
drive under it’s own power, the owner called and said the transmission would not
engage and it would have to be winched onto the carrier. I told the shipping
company and they said it was not a problem. However several weeks later when the
car was to be shipped, the manager had been replaced and the new guy was upset
that my car needed to be winched onto and off the carrier. I told him I
had cleared this with the previous manager and he said I had better give the
driver another hundred bucks or he would ‘leave your car on the side of the
interstate somewhere”. I was not pleased.
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When the vehicle arrived, I took three of my
friends and we persuaded the driver that what they were doing was fraud and he
would get no more money. He wisely left. So now I had a vette in my garage.
It was much worse than the pictures indicated. The interior
was oyster colored and filthy, every panel was ripped or cracked. The seat was
broke, nothing worked, and most of the screws were missing. On the outside, the
previous owner never met a body panel he didn’t chip, and there were several
cracks and some questionable body work done on the rear clip. The factory rear
bumper had been replaces with an ACI fiberglass unit which had seen better days.
It did have two brand spankin’ new Eagle GT+4 tires on the front and the
aforementioned suspension, which also included a brand new IRS with new 3.73
gears. Most of the suspension pieces had been powder coated and looked good. So
while I was bummed out about the interior, the suspension was what I wanted and
it looked good.
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Also included were all the original suspension pieces for
the car. Nice so that in 20 years when someone says “you did WHAT to an 80
vette?’ I can assuage them by pointing out how it can be returned to stock.
Getting Started:
In my opinion, there are several things one needs to
properly dismantle and reassemble a car without screwing up. One is an assembly
manual or shop manual, (I found mine on eBay), a source of used parts, and
several people more knowledgeable than oneself.
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I found an excellent resource in Gary Gruhala, at Gruhala
Enterprises, De Soto MO, (636)586.3909. Gary is a great guy and very
knowledgeable about all corvettes. He has a salvage yard full of them and he
helped me out of more tight spots than I can count. I would highly recommend
him. Also, the National Corvette Restorers Society website was very helpful
www.ncrs.org. The people on it are knowledgeable, friendly and always
willing to help out. I recommend joining if you have an interest in corvettes.
The Corvette Forum, www.corvetteforum.com is also fantastic. Also I had tons of
help locally from friends, family and concerned passerby.
First thing to do was rip apart the interior! I have had
some experience with this. I have destroyed interiors in several different cars
in my day, so I dove in and removed everything from the firewall to the back
window. My plan was to shop for used interior pieces and go with whatever color
I could find the most pieces of, either black, saddle, or oyster. It turns out I
scored a mint used black dash for 200 bucks and a nice set of black door skins
for 75 bucks each, so black it was. I dyed the trim pieces black and got some
new seat covers and a carpet kit in black. I was on my way! I wanted to get it
mechanically sound then install everything in the passenger comapartment.
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I needed to install the fuel lines first. The previous
owner had at one point in time run braided steel lines and had removed the
factory lines. The car came with a new set, but I had to install them. This
necessitated removing the body from the frame. Boy did that suck. I did it with
two floor jacks, several pieces of wood, numerous jack stands and much prayer.
After much, MUCH frustration the new lines went in. At this time I also noticed
that the car seemed to lack certain things, like most of the body mounts.
Something needed to be done about that.
After looking at the situation more closely, I discovered I
needed all new mounts. The bolts were rusted or missing(?), and the driver side
bushings were reduced to dust. The seller had told me that the original owner
weighed around 300 pounds, so that would explain the pulverized mounts, as well
as the broken seat back and the destroyed rag joint on the steering column.
With a new set of body mounts, I wisely recruited
assistance and once more jacked the car up and installed the new mounts. It went
better than expected. One major problem down, hundreds more to go.
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