Finished?
Finished, well maybe….I can think of a couple of additional things I want to do to the Corvette, but it is in pretty acceptable shape right now!
From the previous post you know that I finished the interior and carpet. I replaced the carpet and the under padding, the aftermarket P.O.S. radio/CD/MP3 player that wouldn’t play a MP3 disk, and several of the dash panels that were broken and scratched beyond repair. To put the final touches on the interior I want to make a trim piece for where the carpet attaches up under the rear window. It won’t be original, but the stock installation doesn’t look very finished. More on that later. I will probably replace the leather seating surfaces. They are not in too bad a shape for a 17 year old car, but the driver side is showing some wear. Gonna have to wait on that, we’re talking big money.
Mechanical things, the headlight motors don’t turn the headlight down tight against the stops and they rattle. I am hoping that rebuilding the slipper clutches in the headlight motors will fix that. UPDATE 12/17/2011 – I purchased the rebuild kits for the headlight motors from Eckler’s Corvettes and rebuilt both of the motors in one evening. Since I was replacing the headlamps with the euro-style beams I found that the easiest way to do it was to remove the whole headlight mechanism and put it on the bench. The small Delrin rollers in the clutches had turned to complete dust over the years. It took about 1 hour per side to remove the assembly, change gear and rollers in the headlight motor, replace the headlamps, and reinstall the assembly. Not hard to do or particularly time consuming.
Finally, need to change the oil in the engine and the differential oil. The limited slip does not work very well and I think a oil change will help that. The service manual suggests changing the differential oil at 75K miles and it is over that now. I think I will flush the brake fluid too.
Other than that….it’s done! Truth is, it will never really be done. There is always something to do on old cars….old boats….old houses, you get it?
Click on the pictures to see a larger version.
Front Quarter View
Rear Quarter View
Side View
Rear View. I like the big stainless exhaust tips.