| The First Corvette Guru Project Car |
Subject: The First Corvette Guru Project Car by bogus on 2007/9/10 2:54:36 Call this more of an update than anything else. For those of you new to the saga... My wife, Bastet44, and me met on CF about four-and-a-half years ago. We met because her father gave her a 1987 coupe. Bright red, base graphite cloth seats, Bose, climate control (C68), L98, A4. All in all, it wasn't bad... until the truth started to come out! The car had been a salvage title. Apparently, from what we can figure, the car was stolen, off the dealers lot, back in 1987. It wasn't registered, at least that is what the computers say, until 1992. Now, what I don't know for sure is if the computers were able to to show activity prior to that date. I have noticed other carfax reports for CA that stop at 1992. According to Bastet44s dad, the car was stolen, and "major engine parts" were taken. From what I can figure, that means half the engine harness and the TPI. Fast forward to 2005. I moved out here to CA in June of 2004. Just after New Years, Bastet was driving to work and the car just started to run poorly. I got up (still unemployed) and went to check on it... it died on the spot... bad head gasket. She went off to work and I proceeded to tear into it. I found that yes, the head gasket blew, but it also took the mains with it. Done. I rebuilt the engine. Two months and $2000 later, we had a new motor... and man did it ever run sweet. I was so happy. Come June, a new problem appeared... the serpentine belt started to blow off. The first time was on the freeway, about an hour from town. I went out there and after she called with a rather concerned tone, that the battery light was on, the temps were rising and the power steering went away. Oops. After telling her to park it NOW, I got on the road with a new belt and some coolant. NOW turned out to be close to 10 minutes... but I would rather her park it safely, don't you know! I get it home and find that the Milidon waterpump was hosed... they pushed the pulley mount too close to the engine, causing the belt to not line up right. Not happy... even less happy with their utter lack of CS. I will NEVER buy anything from them. BTW, the pump was a gift from a friend. Very generious gift, and he had no way of knowing the pump was faulty... he never used it. About 3 months pass and I notice the oil pressure was dropping... like a rock... come early October, I found that the engine had been damaged by the belt failure. I had finally gotten a job - THANK GOD - 14+ months of unemployment was on the edge of destroying us, financially. I had started at FEMA in early Sept. That job literally saved us. The job allowed us to afford a fix... the problem? This failure had utterly broken my heart. I had poured myself into that first engine build... and it wasn't until later I found the pump was faulty, so I felt I had screwed something up. The last thing I wanted to do was work on that vexed car. It hated me. And proved it time and time again. Last December, I went to work on it, and the damned hood latch broke... the 4+ hours I had planned on using to work on projects was spent working on that $%##$%#@ hood. As I said, the car hated me. This time, tho, I was going to replace the engine. The plan is for an LT1/4L60E combo. We found one at www.vette2vette.com. Got a great deal on a clean 60k mile motor/accessories/harness/PCM/transmission. Currently, the drivetrain is in. What is left is wiring. |
