I have been MIA for a few months due to work, family visiting and the 69 427 4 speed Corvette Coupe I have been working on. Well, actually my buddy Carl has been doing most of the work, but I have been busy sourcing parts, fighting with vendors, returning things when they send me the wrong stuff, etc... My buddy Carl is on his second week of vacation, so there is a lull in activity.
My update is that everything that was coming apart is apart and either rebuilt or has a new part to replace it. When Carl gets back, we will start re-assembly. The 427 has been completely rebuilt with a roller top end and 9.5 compression pistons. The original heads were pretty bad, so per my builder, we went with a new set of Brodix aluminum heads (trust me, I will be hanging on to the orig heads as this is a matching numbers car). Unfortunately, I ordered Brodix oval port heads from Summit and they sent me rectangular port heads, and it too 2 weeks to get those, so I had to wait another 2 weeks to get the correct oval port heads. Once my builder had them, he called to say that there was a lot of irregularity in the ports and he had to spend several hours cleaning up the ports. I am damn glad he did not just bolt them on. Anyhow, I will be picking up the engine next week. The 4 speed had been totally gone through, it had an input shaft issue, so just decided to totally go through it. FYI, on this year of Vette, to get the tranny out, you have to pull the engine! All new front suspension, all new rear suspension, drilled and slotted rotors, all new bearings and brakes. All new u-joints on the drive shaft and half shafts and had to replace one of the half shafts as well.
My buddy Carl is a frickin' perfectionist, so every little thing he found wrong, he fixed in terms of fiberglass under the car. Under the carpet there was about a foot square hole in the floor by the brake pedal that someone just covered with sheet metal and screws. Some time back, this car had a half shaft u-joint fail and it tore the crap out of the read underside on the driver's side of the car. It bent suspension, decimated the battery box and generally did a lot of damage. Someone just replaced the u-joint and bolted things back up and sent it down the road....they had to know it was not right. This is why I am glad Carl is the way he is, he cannot let sub-standard stuff go once he knows about it. FYI, Carl is a Mopar guy, he built his own 69 Charger from a shell to a car that could win at any show. To top it all off, this is a super early 69 built in October of 68, so this car has some 68 parts and some 69 parts. This made ordering parts by year, make and model very difficult. I am attaching one pic to remind you what it is that I am working on. I hope all your projects Mopar and otherwise are going well!
