Need replacement frame

[BarryK]

Andy
I haven't met the young man yet but a couple of others from my club have. When this idea of a project first started he than came to a monthly cruise night our club hosts to check out some cars and see who we are.
I was told that he is a very nice and extremely likable young man and he was VERY, VERY appreciative of the effort we are willing to put into helping him get his car on the road.
We made it plain to him that we are simply going to do the work for him and hand the keys back over but rather we are willing to do it as he helps and he can use this as a learning experience to learn how to start working on his own car. He was very excited about this as it turns out that he bought the car partially as a "project" (definitely wasn't planning on the frame in his plans though!!) and is more than willing and actually eager to help out and learn more about the car and how it works and learn how to maintain it, etc

 

[navy2kcoupe]

Andy
I haven't met the young man yet but a couple of others from my club have. When this idea of a project first started he than came to a monthly cruise night our club hosts to check out some cars and see who we are.
I was told that he is a very nice and extremely likable young man and he was VERY, VERY appreciative of the effort we are willing to put into helping him get his car on the road.
We made it plain to him that we are simply going to do the work for him and hand the keys back over but rather we are willing to do it as he helps and he can use this as a learning experience to learn how to start working on his own car. He was very excited about this as it turns out that he bought the car partially as a "project" (definitely wasn't planning on the frame in his plans though!!) and is more than willing and actually eager to help out and learn more about the car and how it works and learn how to maintain it, etc

ALL-RIGHTTTTTTTTT ! I'm excited, and it isn't even MY car!
Andy

 

[Piet]

Thanks. Barry... Look forward to the Pics...

 

[BarryK]

UPDATE: 6/12/07

Hi all, I am recieving the money from the young man tonight so that we can go get this frame I found. hopefully we will have it picked up and here within a week - depends on the work schedule of our club member who is volunteering to go get the frame.

I ran into a member of one of the other local Corvette Clubs over the weekend at a show in Pa. He had already heard of this project and he contributed a very generous donation to the project. THANK YOU VERY MUCH John!!.
Using that money I opened a new bank account and just set up a new PayPal account in case there are others that wished to donate and contribute to this worthwhile cause. I know that between here in the C3 General section, two other forums that I visit that almost a dozen people expressed an interest in donating to this cause which is why I decided to set up the PayPal account.

for those that expressed an interest in donating to this project to help out this young man the PayPal account address is

corvettefun@comcast.net

The single biggest expense is already covered, and that's the cost of the replacement frame and hopefully we should have that here in another week or so. Additionally I'm about 90% sure that the sandblasting of the frame is also already taken care of since a good friend of mine said we should be able to get that done at his workplace and if things come together on that the sandblasting won't cost us anything.
As you are all aware, once we lift that body off we are SURE to come across unexpected parts that are going to need to be replaced and it's this unknown that is going to be the difficult part on the very limited budget we currently have to work with.

Any donations will go in full towards this project in helping this young man get his car back on the road.
We WILL be contacting some parts vendors to see what donations or at least significant discounts they can offer us. If any of them come thru it should help relieve a big part of the burden on the budget.
Any cash donations that are recieved that are left over at the end of the project (if any) will be forwarded to charity.
So that it's clear up front, NO monies whatsoever will be obsorbed or kept by our club. The goal here is to help this young man get his car on the road and introduce him to a more positive side of the corvette hobby rather than the negative one shown to him by the seller of this car. Therefore 100% all monies recieved go towards the project but IF there is any remaining monies at the end than they will go to charity as we feel that is the only fair thing to do.

 

[BarryK]

update 7/5/07:

Sunday (7/1) was the day we finally were able to get started on this project! With our schedules it took a while for us to be able to start but we made decent progress today for only working a few hours. Worked from about 10am to about 1pm or so.
We had myself, Brian from our club (our "tech leader" on this project), the young man who owns the car (Mike), his dad and his 2 younger brothers.

The goal was to start getting the body prepared to get it lifted off the frame so we got the car up on jack stands, got the wheels off, removed the seats and battery. Than the hood was removed than the radiator was disconnected and removed along with the fanblade and fanclutch.
Next, all the body mount bolts were removed. Last, the steering column was unbolted from the coupler and pulled back to disconnect it. Lastly, we disconnectd a number of ground straps and the battery ground cable from the frame and the entire front end was unbolted from the main frame and jacked up to support it from dropping until we are ready to lift.
That's where we called it a day for Sunday. We all felt it was a good first day's progress.

Tuesday morning a fellow club member and I went to pick up a body dolly that someone has locally and is lending us for the project and after getting the body dolly there I stayed and Mike and his brothers showed up and we spent another 2 hours or so working on the car and got the rear bumper unbolted, most of the engine bay vacuum hoses and wires marked and disconnected, drained the master cylinder and disconnected the brake lines from it.
I figure about another 2 hours or so of work and she is ready to lift up and place the body on the dolly so we have the chassis available to strip down.

Today (Thursday) we have another fellow club member driving to North Central PA picking up the replacement frame and bringing it back. Depending on the condition of the frame when it gets here we will determine whether to simply wirebrush it clean and oil it as you suggested or if it's pretty cruddy than we will get it sandblasted and paint it since we now have the ability to get it sandblasted for free.

On addition to this progress so far, I ran into Lance Miller at a local show a couple weeks ago and mentioned the project to him. He had already heard about it but we discussed it in more detail. I asked if he would be able to perhaps help us gain the support of a good parts vendor or vendors since we will need a significant discount or maybe even a donation of parts. We were hoping to at least one or two contact names from him we could speak to.
He asked me to email him the project details which I did and man he went BEYOND the call for us. Lance emailed both Mike Yager at Mid-America and Andy Bolig, the editor at Corvette Enthusiast magazine and explained who we were and what we were doing. Andy immediately emailed me back saying the magazine thought it was a great project and they wanted to help out and asked for my number to call me for more details. I spoke to Andy on the phone on Monday and we told me the magazine is behind us 100% and definitely wants to run the story about it. in addition he knows that we are still waiting to hear back from Mike Yager and if Mid-America chooses not to participate than the magazine will also use their contacts to help us get participation from other parts vendorsfor parts donations, etc.
As soon as we get the body off the frame and can get a complete list of required parts we wants us to send it to him so he can forward it to some parts vendors to help us out.

So, as of Tuesday that's where we are on this project. We should have the body on the dolly within a week or so. I spoke yesterday to a few of the others that are helping on this and we will be back at the car on Sunday morning and our goal for the day is definitely to finish up unhooking everything and set up the Block & Tackle rig and actually get the body off the frame onto the dolly by late Sunday afternoon (fingers crossed!!).
After that I figure we should have the motor out of the frame and rest of the frame stripped off of suspension and all other parts within a week or two.
At that point we will start to need the new parts.
The car has almost 100,000 miles so certain items we haven't even looked at figuring we will just simply replace, no questions asked, and these are all safety related items such as bushings and ball joints on the suspension, new brake and fuel lines, new master cylinder (the old one had the worst looking OLD, NASTIEST fluid in it and the inside looked as dirty and rusty as the outside), power steering pump (bad leak), along with known parts we already identified need to replace such as new body mount bolts (broke 2 as we removed them) and body mount cushions, and of course anything else we than see that requires replacing when we get the body off the frame. The car sits a lot lower than the '81 another club member who is working on this project has so we figure we may need to replace the front coil spings also and the rear leaf spring has the insulators coming out from between the leaves so I guess we will need to get new insulators and re-do that or get a replacement rear spring.

I just got the first pictures posted up on our club website so here you go:
http://www.vetteclub.org/1980 Project/projectpics1.html

Please keep in mind that when you look at the progress pictures that the project Corvette is not overly "pretty" in it's current condition and from most visual looks will not be "pretty' when we are finished with it. We are not getting involved with body and paint work nor interior work on the car. We are simply doing a frame replacement and our goal is to make the car roadworthy and safe for Mike to be able to drive it and enjoy it until he can take on the cosmetic restoration work himself.

 

[navy2kcoupe]

Barry, thanks for the update and the pictures. I agree with you that it "ain't pretty" especially under the hood, but getting it safe to drive IS the number one priority. And like you said from the get go....this is not going to be about a body off restoration, just about making it safe to drive. I imagine that Mike is really grateful just to have you guys give him a hand replacing the frame and other safety related parts. That's one lucky young man to have found a bunch of fellow Corvette owners to all chip in and help. Good luck in getting Mid-America onboard, as well as getting Corvette Enthusiast interrested in doing an article on the project! YOU GUYS ROCK!!! Things like this make me glad that I'm a member of the Corvette fraternity.
Andy

 

[Evolution1980]

At that point we will start to need the new parts.
The car has almost 100,000 miles so certain items we haven't even looked at figuring we will just simply replace, no questions asked, and these are all safety related items such as new brake and fuel lines...

I still have some brand new brake lines that I didn't use from my VB&P kit. Interested in a donation or do you think you'll be getting hooked up on an entire setup from somewhere?

 

[BarryK]

I still have some brand new brake lines that I didn't use from my VB&P kit. Interested in a donation or do you think you'll be getting hooked up on an entire setup from somewhere?

That would be GREAT.

Until we hear from any of the parts vendors we can't count on anything so at this point we need everything. Brake lines would be a great help.

 

[BarryK]

I just got a call and the replacement frame was just dropped off. I'm told that it looks good, nice and solid, no rust issues, no cracks, etc, it's a good solid frame. Will look at it on Sunday and determine if a good wirebrushing and hose down will clean it up or if it needs sandblasting. The club member who went and got it left it on the trailer where the car is so IF we need to get it sandblasted transporting it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[c4cruiser]

Just passing thru (had three C3' sover the years and one had lots of rust in the frame corners ) and read about the situation. Glad to read that things are working out and on your way to building a solid car.

One thing that should be documented is the VIN number on the new frame. Most all states will require some sort of change to the title when the VIN stamped on th eframe doesn't match the VIN on the body. Your state police agency and DMV can give you the details of what will need to be done.

As long as you have the bare frame, definitely get it media blasted so you can have a good idea as to the condition of the bare metal. Then have the frame painted or even powdercoated if funds allow. A nice clean frame makes it much easier to install the suspension and fuel and brake lines.

Post pics as the work goes on and make sure you build an album of the restoration.!

 

[BarryK]

hi C4cruiser

to be honest, the last thing we are concerned about is the VIN stamping on the frame. It seems most DMV's don't even know about it and if so where it is or how to find it. Here in DE they don't even look for it. I've spoken to a number of the DMV inspection guys and they told me they never look for that.

sandblasting the frame will be done if it needs it but if it's in good enough condition we very well may just wirebush it clean and paint it. I'd prefer to sandblast it but it could cause a delay of a few weeks to arrange it as it can only be done on weekends when my buddy is around and not on a business trip as it's at his work that we can get it done for free. That extra few weeks could be costly as we are attempting to get the car done in time for Carlisle if at all possible

 

[Piet]

Are you going to treat the frame at all?
I would suggest using POR15. Since it is apart... it is a cheap alternative to powdercoating.

 

[BarryK]

Piet

we are getting the frame sandblasted at no charge so it will be painted on the outside than probably do the inside of the frame rails with thin oil like mystery oil to protect it.

 

[Evolution1980]

Barry, I just got the brake lines boxed up and ready to ship. I'll drop them off at my local FedEx depot tomorrow morning. I'll PM you the tracking number when I get it.

 

[bobfil]

Evolution I'm doing some restoration on my 72 if you have any other additional parts could you let me know, thanks

 

[Evolution1980]

Evolution I'm doing some restoration on my 72 if you have any other additional parts could you let me know, thanks

:L Sorry, Bob, but this just happens to be one of those special situations and I happened to have those lying around. Rare is it that I give away new parts. Even more rare that I even had new parts lying around that I wasn't using anytime soon.

 

[bobfil]

No problem thought maybe you had a vette shop.

 

[BarryK]

well, a good day working on the '80 project car we are doing the frame swap on.

At 8am we had the replacement frame at my buddy's workplace and started the sandblasting. It came out looking great.
We than inspected the frame VERY carefully since it did come from a car that had been in a fire. The frame looks great - Absolutely no issues at all with ANY rust problems, all the rust was surface rust only that completely disappeared after the sandblasting. No signs of stress or cracking anywhere. It's a good, very solid frame. The only "issues" with the frame is that the rear must have been hit at some point since the passenger side rear bumper mount bracket is slightly bent but that shouldn't be too bad to straighten up and the car may have been towed once (maybe from the rearend accident that bent the bracket mount?) because it looks like a hook was inserted into one of the frame rail holes in the front and it SLIGHTLY pulled the metal around the hole out about 2-3mm. It's also in a place that doesn't effect anything so we don't consider this even an issue to be concerned about.
I managed to get the first coat of primer on the frame also since we didn't want to leave the bare metal unprotected since it's so humid here now plus we are expecting rain. Tomorrow we will get another coat of primer on than on Tuesday i'll start in on the top coat of semi-gloss black paint

After getting back from sandblasting we built the support for the body lift block & tackle rig. We got that built and were finally able to get the body lifted up. The only issue that cropped up during that was that we hadn't realized that the rear rubber bumber basically has to come off to get the brakets out to lift the body but we discovered our mistake quickly and got that done and than the body lifted up easily and quickly. We got the body up on the body dolly and had a chance to inspect the old frame. We did find a few problem areas besides the big crack in the front. We did NOT find 22 cracks as we were told but we did find areas that we were told about which had been described to us as "it looks like someone had gotten a welder for xmas and decided to learn on this car"
how this for one of those areas:

not a pretty weld is that??

We decided to call it day at this point around 4:30pm and next week we will pull the motor/tranny out of the frame and get the trailing arms, and other suspension parts all removed.

Here is a link to all of the pics from today:
http://www.vetteclub.org/1980_Project/projectpics3.html