The Great Unpacking

So with the Corvette and all the boxes back at the Mill, it was time to see just what I had bought in a bit more detail.

Just playing around with my cameras Panorama mode! 

And I have to say that the car was in excellent condition. There was no signs of any body damage and not even any significant  gel coat cracks or crazing. The only slight downside was that there was a crack in the windscreen. From past experience I know that replacing it means dismantling the whole screen surround.

Next it was time to move on to the parts and now it felt like a second Christmas, boxes and boxes of parts to open and check out.

One of the down sides of not having stripped down the car myself is that I can't be 100% certain that I actually have every part and bracket I'll need to rebuild the car. But at least having previously rebuilt my 1960 Corvette, I can recognise most of the parts so I'll know where they're going to go and which are not actually going to be needed to build my race car (more on that later).

From that past experience, I know that what I want to do as soon as possible is to unbolt the body from the chassis frame so that the body can go off to be painted whilst I restore and prepare the running gear. It is so much easier to do the chassis work including fitting the engine and gearbox without the body and then dropping it back on towards the end of the job.

However, before the body can be removed the roll cage needs to be custom made as this bolts through the body to the frame and needs to be a close fit to the hardtop. Amazingly for an American car (which everyone assumes to be huge), being 6' 1" tall I really struggled to fit into my original 1960 car and this one will I'm sure be exactly the same. So my next step is to find myself the thinnest lowest FIA approved seats I can in place of the original seats which have my knees up against the underside of steering wheel and my head hard against the headlining even without my helmet on.