Some parts arrived (some didn’t…backorders again…) so I was able to get more done on my Corvette.
Out back, the gas tank emblem wasn’t right. It was bent (!) and low and behold, the nuts that held it place were filled with body caulking. No surprise…L-O-L.
Once again, the emblem studs were stripped and the restorer figured dum-dum would hold it all in place.
The fix was easy with a new Trim Parts emblem. It turned out perfect.
While I was at it, I added one of those tank filler drip guards (bib). I’ve always had them in my past Corvettes.
The sunvisors were next on my list. They were seized, but the fix was relatively simple: Remove them, work the pair of shafts out of the visor, add lithium grease and reassemble. Job done.
A bigger job was the battery. When I got the car, the battery was held in place by way of the cables. No hold down. But there was a mystery part in a bag that came with the car and in another bag was the hold down and hold down bolt. Hmmm….
The mystery part ended up being the reinforcement that is buck-rivetted to the underbody of the car. To buck rivet, you usually need two people. One to hold a bucking bar and another to hammer the end of the rivet with an air hammer. But Teddy my shepherd doesn’t care much for the job and besides, he doesn’t much like the air hammer either. Now what? I figured since this is now no NCRS car, I’d treat it like my past hot rods – hold the reinforcement in place with a couple of button head stainless AN screws on interior side and a couple of AN lock nuts on the bottom side.
To keep the screws from turning while I tighten them I cover them with a piece of duct tape. Good quality duct tape will hold the screw while the nut is “hit” with a little ¼-inch impact. Works great!
I cleaned up the battery compartment and bolted down the battery.
Now I could wire up the MSD power wires. I found a couple of brass battery terminals on Amazon with additional 5/16-inch studs on the top side. This allowed me to wire the MSD box directly to the battery (cleanly).
Here’s the finished job:
FYI, I highly recommend the Knipex wire stripper shown here. I have a bunch of different examples, but this tool is fast, easy to use with one hand and by design (stripping the wire through the “nose”) gets into tight spots.
While I was there, I cleaned out the jack compartment, added my own “anti-rattle” lime green towel and clamped down the jack and handle.
On the engine compartment side, some of the heater/cooling system clamps were pretty ugly.
I replaced them with fresh Wittek jobs. I installed them in the same spot they came out of. You can see one heater hose is a bit long (on the heater barb). I’ll deal with that later.
I changed gears and went to work on the dash cluster. I installed a new dash harness as shown below. I discovered the new steel bulb sockets are a royal pita to install. If you work them over too hard or twist them during the install, a tang can break (ask me how I know…L-O-L). The wire harness manufacturers tell me this isn’t uncommon. The reason old sockets go in and out easier is because the tension on the steel insert and tangs reduces considerably with age. I discovered if you put half of the tangs inside the bulb hole in the cluster, a small screwdriver can be used to persuade the others into place. FYI, I broke two of the steel sockets, but they’re easy enough to replace by holding the plastic base in a soft jaw vise and tapping the steel socket home with a small hammer and punch (I used new sockets from a pigtail set).
Here’s the face side of the main cluster. (high RPM tach, repair pointer, new matching speedo). I think it turned out awesome…
What I’m working on now is the center console. I have the e-brake side done, and I have to install the vent and heater controls on the main console. My “re-restoration” consists of the original main console body along with a lot of new parts. The e-brake console is all new. So far I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out.
Moving right along…and once again, I think you can see I’m not taking any shortcuts.
W