Hello GURUS


I am going to look at a 1971 corvette 350 auto non-numbers
the guy is about 3 1/2 h drive from me ,he wants to swap cars
i have a 93 40th m6 black on black,what should i look for,i heard alot of people talking about the bird cages,i will have a good look underneath but what are some problem areas with c3's(1971)



Thanks Andrew

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the birdcage is the metal frame around the windshield. Rust is common around there.

Check the actual frame, too. Rusts out fast if not protected.

It's a full on bumper car... but with non-numbers matching. It looks clean... From a $ to $ ratio, it isn't bad, and if anything, the 71 could appreciate in value over time, vs the 93.

Just make sure it is right... Check for leaks, rust...


I await the C3 guys to chime in!

What bogus said if the car is solid meaning not rotten youre getting the better end of the deal.
C3s are timeless machines.

It wont drive/handle as nice but it shouldnt, its a littl old. Cool factor overrides it all imo. The dash/gauge set up is awesome.

Bird cage is like Andy said. I don't remember all the details about how to check it, but it either involves removing interior trim and/or windshield trim. Also, you should be able to pull the kick panels off and look for rust as well as the door sills. Look under the car at the rear frame section, another common area for rust.

Driving the car will be totally different than yours. After driving the C3, the C4 seems like a refined luxury car!

Matthew

What's up with the speakers on the b-pillar? yuck-o-rama.

The other thing to be aware of with older Vette's are the bonding strips. These are strips of metal under the body that hold the seams together. If they show through, it's called "broadcasting."

They should not be visible.

I do like the colour combo. Considering the engine isn't OEM, I would seriously contemplate a manual conversion... a C3 with an automatic is really quite anti-climatic.

My 1st Vette was a '68 'vert. These guys are dead on about the windshield being a problem area. ALSO, look on the frame where it kicks up to the rear end. Right there below the rear control arm mounting bolt, at the bottom where the kick up mates to the center section of the frame. This has been another problem area for '63-'82's, depending upon the life they've had. Check all over this area for rust thru and other rust damage.

Well i looked at the car today,very rusty underneath,broadcasting all over the place,put my hand right through the bird cage in behind the door,
i cant believe someone would let a corvette get that bad

That's the kind of stuff that starts before you get the car, then when you discover it, most guys sell or trade.
It's happened on an awful lot of otherwise great gars, not just vettes.

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Don't be to hard on the owners... you have to realize that Corvette owners, for the longest time, were told "your car is plastic, it won't rust!"

Yea, well, they were wrong. For the longest time, ppl just didn't care about metal on Corvettes, so little or no rust proofing was added, and the metals in the birdcage weren't zinc coated. For that matter, I don't think the chassis was protected, either, at least not until later in production.

These days, the best bet is to fix the frame with POR15, same with the birdcage.

Toss in the fact that it is a Canadian car, exposed to poor weather conditions and you get rust... lots of it.

I suspect that most of the rust on the frame was surface. The problem is that the thinner pieces of frame material will rust out, and the body mounts start to look like the Titanic... blech. The birdcage is the real problem. The labor to fix that is ick-poo. It could exceed $5k, just to fix the body... I read an article on it some where, and they had a picture of the birdcage jig... Rube Goldberg would have been proud.

It should be noted that the chassis and birdcage on the C4 is high strength steel, with zinc coating. The frame was dunked like any other car, IIRC.

If the frame had been bad, I would have been curious, but with a bad birdcage, forget that. Because with a bad frame, you still have a good body and VIN to build up something cool with an aftermarket frame and C4 or C5 driveline components.

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C2 and some C3's (don't know it was all or just the early years) chassis was sprayed or dipped in a asphalt based paint kinda like the stuff they mopped on the exhaust,etc.

Great stuff - get a little gasoline on it and it will run off the frame.
You can still get it if you're doing a total NCRS thing.

There's an article in the Feb. "Vette" on inspecting, repairing and preserving C2-C3 frames.

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Too bad it doesn't show up on their web site, I just looked thru their tech articles.

Lucky, for me, no rust on mine.

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