48th Bennington Car Show

We had the Corvette out to the Bennington Car Show this past weekend. There were over 380 cars shown, with heavier traffic on Sunday. Saturday afternoon became a wash-out.

There were four Corvettes on Saturday, but by 2pm, Mutt was the last one standing.

She did alright in the rain coming home, but I need to give the wipers another adjustment in their range of operation. Rain-X to the rescue.

Sunday the C4 didn't return, but the 1960 did, as well as a shark that was out on Saturday, and a couple of mid-years and several sharks. We pulled third place out of about ten cars in the Corvette class.

Mixed crowd on preference to original vs. modified. Had some people, including Ray who owned the 1960 that like the idea of a resto-mod, but the people's choice was Ray's 1960 coming in first. A silver big-block midyear came in second, and Mutt took third. Best of show went to a 1965 GTO that was freshly restored. More on the show can be seen at the Bennington Banner.

Hemmings Musclepalooza Coverage

Hemmings posted a blog a few days ago of the show winners from Musclepalooza. Here's a shot of mutt coming down the road in front of the grandstands to pick up our Favorite Modified Muscle award. My son Andy is in the passenger seat.

Full article is at http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/09/04/1969-chevrolet-chevelle-ss-396-l89-takes-musclepalooza-xx-best-in-show/

Hemming's Muscle Machines Favorite Modified Muscle

Hemmings Muscle Machines was hosting the 20th Musclepalooza today, so I drove the hour out today to New Lebanon Raceway in New York with my son Alexander, who was visiting from California. 

Mutt sitting in the car show. Would have been nice to run her down the 1320, but Hagerty doesn't appreciate such things, and the track has trouble with convertibles running faster than 13.99 without a roll cage. 

Thanks to Terry McGean and the crew at Hemmings Motor News Hemmings Muscle Machines for naming Mutt "Favorite Modified Muscle". 

One happy owner. 

Mutt's first trophy.

Got Engine?

Hundreds of pictures of the car, and did I have one of the engine bay handy for Hagerty for Mutt's new insurance policy? No. Now she has one - here's her L33 5.3 liters of all aluminum horsepower.

500 mile debug done or doing?

Friiday I crossed the 500 mile mark and things have been running pretty well for the past few weeks. I took the car in to get the alignment done - I knew the rear had way more camber than I wanted for the street (turned out it was about 2.5 degrees negative camber per side).  The final 300 miles to cross to 500 went pretty quickly with a run to Troy, NY for lunch with friends, another Hemmings Cruise-In night, and some driving around town.

Last night I had a friend up from Virginia, and he wanted to see the car, so I gave him a tour of Arlington in the car. Shortly before we finished the ride, I heard a sound like we were in gravel, but the road was clear there. The sound went away, and nothing was amiss in the gauges. When I parked the car, I saw something dangling under the crossmember. Turns out my six rib serpentine belt self-mutilated itself into a five rib belt. I suspect a pulley alignment issue, since the belt is running in the outer five grooves on the power steering pump and the inner five grooves on the alternator pulley. Bill was able to go home with the latest memorabilia from the Mutt hall of flame. Thankfully it's an easy fix - shim the pump and install a new belt, and it made it home without losing the belt.

National Collector Car Day at Hemmings Motor News

Sitting at Hemmings Cruise-In

Friday, July 11th was the National Car Collector Appreciation Day, a good day for Mutt to make her appearance at a Hemmings Cruise-In behind the Hemmings Motor News facility on Main Street in Bennington, Vermont. I got there a bit late, and the lot was full, so they were parking cars on the hill across the street, but they announced they had space for five more cars, so I jumped back in and managed to get a spot in front of J&J Auto Polishing. The car got lots of looks, but didn't pull one of the trophies handed out that night. I did have a short conversation with Terry McGean about a possible article in Hemmings Muscle Machines. Pulling the car back into the garage at the end of the night, the odometer finally crossed 250 miles, so starting to work through the 500 mile debug. 

Driving

Sitting in the front yard after a wash and quick detail

Fourth of July was a bust with rain, but Saturday the 5th was a good day to put more miles on Mutt. The goal for the week was to cross the 200 mile mark on the odometer, and she crossed the 160 mile mark today. We took her down to North Bennington in the morning, and took the old Route 7A back up to Arlington, then after a quick stop at home, took my 86 year old mother in law down to West Arlington out by Norman Rockwell's old home and the West Arlington Covered Bridge. Lots of thumbs up from kayakers and folks tubing the Battenkill River.

On the ride home she got a little warm. Debugging showed that the fan harness connector had come apart, and tracing the wire led to finding the ground wrapped around the steering intermediate shaft. Obviously I didn't secure the harness well enough for it to get caught in a moving part.

Springtime - Time to get her on the road

Beautiful spring day, and no mud running (that wonderful transition state from winter to spring - mud season), so pulled the car out for the first time since hibernation last fall. Still have a charging problem, and a squeal that sounds like it's off the accessory drive, but did get the last two pieces of stainless trim on the car - the end caps for the door trim with the window felts.

Here's the car up by the Chiselville Bridge in Sunderland, just above the house. Next time I'll try to latch the trunk before I drive off.

Hibernation Time

After a two week cross country trip, Mutt arrived in Vermont on a 28 degree day. 

 Here Joe is lowering the lift back to the ground. Note only the left brake lights are on - turn signal isn't centered. 

Thelma and Louise ready for their ride. You'd never guess it's 28 degrees out from their smiles. 

Sitting next to the carrier after the cross country trek.

Heading into the barn for hibernation. Hope spring comes soon.

Covered and getting closed in for the winter.

All tucked in.

The Big Move

Susan and I relocated to Vermont in March, but I continue to work in California. After about six months, we decided maintaining households on two coasts was too much, so it was time to sell the house in California, and move the essentials to Vermont.

Open carrier was out of the question, so I hired Intercity Lines to move the car cross country. They move a lot of Jay Leno's cars, so if it was good enough for Jay, it's good enough for me.

Mutt was the first car in the van, getting the high berth in the front.  

 In she goes.

Parked in her berth. The left turn signal was set the whole trip cross country. 

Finished Interior

One of the last things to finish on the car was the interior. After having life disrupted with an unplanned relocation to Vermont, I decided to have Little John over at Interior Concepts & Design have his team finish the interior. John is the interior technical expert for the Southern California Solid Axle Corvette Club, and has a beautiful C1 of his own. 

Mutt went into the shop with a white top that didn't have all the weatherstripping installed, but the top wasn't properly installed, so John sold me on his custom top. He did it with a modern cloth matching the interior color, rather than the vinyl of the originals, and he has a custom removable rear window that he does on C1 Corvettes.  True to his prediction, the rear window hasn't come out of it's storage bag yet.

The interior is 1970 Corvette Light Saddle. Al Knock did the carpet kit, molded dash and door panels and seat covers, though John's team cleaned up the door panels and significantly reworked the seats.

Rather than the original springs, the seats are now on John's custom molded Urethane cores, giving a much more comfortable seat, and eliminating the out of phase harmonics with the C4 suspension. John sits customers to get the appropriate seat height, so the core is a lot shorter than the stock C1 seat to match my long torso.

 The passenger package tray was installed for the first time in the 17 years I've owned the car. Who knows how long it was missing before that.

I just wanted a simple mat in the trunk, but my wife convinced me a proper finish to the trunk was what the car really needed. 

Donut Derelicts

Mutt spent last week at CW Restoration getting a few paint blemishes cleaned up. Last night I got the rest of the trim on the nose, and got the grille in for the first time. 

This morning my son Jonathan and I took her down for her debut at Adams Street Donuts - home of the Donut Derelicts. When we got there at 6 am, the parking lot was pretty full. Always the eclectic collection of cars, including a steamer, late model Corvettes and Vipers, and everything in between.

Jonathan and I stood off to the side and watched the action around Mutt. Interestingly, most folks paid attention to the late model LS motor under the hood, but nearly everybody missed the fender flares, the C4 suspension underneath, and the other modifications that make Muttvette a Mutt. 

I need to get the front bumper on this weekend, and need to get the car over to Little John to get the interior finished up. The serpentine drive also needs work - the belt has been squealing, and a quick look last night let me see it flopping between the crank and alternator. Looks like I need an idler on that side to keep it from bouncing on the water neck. I've als got to diagnose why I'm throwing P0171 / P0174 codes - System Too Lean - did a visual for vacuum leaks last night, but didn't see anything obvious. Overall, put about 9 miles on today, and 6 miles up and back to the shop, so finally getting miles on the car.

First Real Drive

Progress has been in fits and starts over the last several months with a small birthday for my wife and the celebratory European cruise, the birth of a grandchild, and a trip to Mexico to build a house for a needy family. Over this time was a number of Gilligan's Island projects - getting all the stainless on the doors and fenders, reforming one end of a piece of stainless that was too long, putting the door glass back in, drilling out parking light sockets and fitting in new snap-in sockets, and a host of other small details. The September  list of  to does is nearly done, and with an emergency trip to Vermont, decided to see if CW Restoration could take the car for a few days to knock out a few clean-up details that were required, several  self-inflicted. 

Putting gas in at a gas station - felt good except for the $4.399 price for 91 octane.

Heading over to the shop. She sounds good, but there's a belt squeal I've got to deal with when she comes home next week. 

Sitting in the driveway - door locks, stainless, door post and door glass all installed. All that's left is the felts and stainless around the door glass. 

The dark side. Red's pretty deep in the shade. 

And a lot more orange in the sun. I think I ended up with Torch Red instead of the Victory Red I intended, but it looks great just the same. 

After I finish up the front trim, grille and bumper, it will be time to get it to an upholstery shop to finish the interior. At this time it's spend the money rather than another four months of little details in my spare time.

What Goes Around

May not be going around in the right direction. I've been plagued with why my power steering had no pressure, and had a revelation today as I was meditating. Clockwise is not the same as counter-clockwise. I told my wife the pump was mounted backwards and spinning the wrong way and her simple solution was just bolt it on the other way. Not quite so simple. Rather than mucking with the accessory mounting points, it's time to just replace the LT1 pump with it's reverse rotation with a CTS-V pump designed for the accessory bracket I have. 

Slow progress over the last month, but checked a few things off the list. Finally got the instrument cluster bolted to the dash. The designer should be shot - cluster sits in front of the padded dash - trim the excess foam out, but it still needs to compress the vinyl a bit to fit. Solution was for me to be under the dash on my back with a couple pin punches, and my wife to be sitting on top of the seat and using her feet to push the cluster into location.

Headlights working (on low beam - thing the relay is out for high beam), taillamp and stoplamps working, fan working, voltmeter working. Still need to debug the tach. Wires dressed under the driver's side of the dash. Need to do the same on passenger side where PCM sits. Always lots to do.

Birthday Cleaning

Earlier this week I polished and waxed the car for my birthday. There's still quite a few pieces of trim to finish putting on the car, but she's starting to look like a finished car.


Front shot. She still needs front bumper, grille, and left lower eyebrow and lower grille surround.

Driver's side still needs the door post, upper fender trim, door trim, and door lock.

Back is pretty much complete.

Right side pretty much same state as the left, needing the door post, upper fender trim, door trim, and door lock installed.

Windows still need to be installed in the doors, and the stainless trim around the doors and on the deck lid and glove box door.

She still looks good just the same.

Took my granddaughter for a quick trip up the street.

Got SuperCooler

Installed the largest B&M supercooler available as a transmission cooler, since the BeCool radiator has no integral tranny cooler. This cooler is twice as thick and 50% taller than the previous cooler I was running. B&M recommeded I at least run the thicker cooler, but went the full distance for an additional $16 dollars. Hopefully this will give me long life out of the transmission.

Given the routing around the bat wing pan, I just opted for braided line from the tranny to the cooler. I should put a heat shield where the line runs close to the exhaust, and add some abrasion protection so I don't have braided line cutting through aluminum parts.

Summit Racing gave me a challenge in the installation. I ordered a pair of 3/8 inverted flare to AN6 adapters, but got caught with a misship, where one of the packages inadvertantly had a 5/16 inverted flare to AN6 adapter. To temporarily get things together I made a short tube assembly with 3/8 flare on one side and an AN6 tube nut on the other, and used a AN6 male-male fitting to finish the job.