Creative Engineering on your Vette projects

[Vettefreak100]

Today I was going through some old photos of my cars during their restorations. I came across a picture of my Spitfire with the safety pin holding the parking brake cable on and thought about some of the creative engineering people used on my 1961 Vette such as chicken wire holding the shift linkage onto the transmission. Just curious if anyone else has some interesting stories about things that were discovered when you tore your car apart.

 

[Kid_Again]

Oh, nothing serious.

When I was checking out the roadster that I ultimately bought, I noticed that someone had epoxied the steering column rag joint together after it had torn apart. The epoxy had also broken apart pretty quickly, it looked like hell and luckily I lived just a few miles down the road from the seller. I drove no faster than 25mph home. :eyerole

 

[BarryK]

i guess that isn't as creative some some other things people have discovered but when i removed the interior trim panels to repaint them I found that the screwholes must have enlarged over the last 40 years and someone in the past figured drywall anchors would work well.
I will admit they ARE working well so i left them in - it was easier to leave them than try to reglass over all the holes and redrill them. In fact, a had to pull a couple of the anchors out so I replaced them with new ones.
The blue size works perfect!
ok, i guess you can call me BUBBA now. (I really hated to admit i left and actually put in drywall anchors in my car)

 

[magicv8]

Drove the 66 home as a stripped body on a frame - no interior, or working lights or gauges. Raised the car and discovered the crossmember that holds up the gas tank had been replaced with a piece of wood that had bark on it. I also dicovered the rear/trans motor mount was removed to squeeze the th400 behind the 462cid BB.

 

[Vettefreak100]

I think the bark has to top the list of creative engineering and removing a rear/trans motor mount is plain idiotic. I sometimes wonder if the people who do this have any idea how dangerous some of these things could potentially be.

 

[Vettefreak100]

Oh and lets not leave this to just creative ways people fixed their cars. Anyone have some interesting things they found when they tore them apart. I have a few. The drivers door never fit right and when we shut it it would rub. When I stripped the paint I discovered a 1/2 inch crack in the fiberglass under a 1/4 inch of puddy giving the appereance that the door fit flush. The tie rods on the front suspension were bent severely. We think that this was from a brief test flight to see if Corvette's could fly that took off somewhere in Texas before 1989 when we bought it. As you can see the test flight failed. We think this is the same incident that destroyed a steering knuckle support that caused the car to try to veer off to the right under braking (This is the only part I've ever called on and had a heart attack when the price was 500 dollars....we got it for 350). Also someone had hot rodded it and blew up the rear differential. We know this from a gaping hole under the gas tank. Oh and last but probably not least was a hole in the hood that was fixed by an experienced body man.....insert sarcasm. I pulled the hood off and said damn that's heavy. There was a hole cut in the hood for a blower or hood scoop that had been patched to try and sell it we think. Well anyway long story short it was a piece of more resin than fiberglass that they had filled in by screwing on a piece of sheet metal and pouring in resin It popped right out when I pulled the back out and the piece had to weight 25 lbs. I know it sounds like a wreck, but it had the nicest frame under it of any car my dad found. It's now far from being the piece of junk it was before with the countless hours of work I put into it. I think this is one car that would have an interesting story to tell if it could talk.