How it all started....
These are the pictures that the seller sent to me. The seller is an old friend of mine before we moved a couple of years ago. This itch to do a restoration all started when I bought a 1977 Ford F150 from a guy in the office I work in. It was a rust bucket but was strong where it counted, a 400 small block engine. So, I did the cosmetic stuff myself and got a $175 paint job and it's perfect for when I need to do something for my rental properties. I can abuse it without a care!
There's only so much you can justify doing with a 77 Ford pickup. Although I did some recent research that indicates that in a well restored condition, it could fetch updwards of $8k. Go figure! Anyway, the itch to do some restoration on something that would be classy has been latent for about a year. Since I knew of my friend's past interests in restorations I asked his opinion. I wasn't fishing for a particular vehicle and frankly didn't know he had one until he offered this to me.
It's a numbers matching, mostly original 1977 Corvette. He recently had the body sand blasted which leaves the exterior looking in sore condition but that actually puts me further down the road and makes it easier to assess the body condition. It's got some good things going for it and so I couldn't help but scratch my restoration itch and bought the car. Never been hit with a good frame and decent drive train. Went to pick it up over the holidays at the end of '04. It fired up and runs pretty strong which is good especially after sitting for about 7 years in his garage.
Here you can see the door panels have been removed. The trash bags on the seats are not the covers! They are there to protect the real seats since they were recovered just before being garaged. You can see the left rear fender where some fiberglass patching had started. That's really the only place on the body that needs any serious work. There are a couple of areas with spider cracks which shouldn't be too bad. All in all, a decent condition given it's age.
1977 Corvette before purchase
There's only so much you can justify doing with a 77 Ford pickup. Although I did some recent research that indicates that in a well restored condition, it could fetch updwards of $8k. Go figure! Anyway, the itch to do some restoration on something that would be classy has been latent for about a year. Since I knew of my friend's past interests in restorations I asked his opinion. I wasn't fishing for a particular vehicle and frankly didn't know he had one until he offered this to me.
It's a numbers matching, mostly original 1977 Corvette. He recently had the body sand blasted which leaves the exterior looking in sore condition but that actually puts me further down the road and makes it easier to assess the body condition. It's got some good things going for it and so I couldn't help but scratch my restoration itch and bought the car. Never been hit with a good frame and decent drive train. Went to pick it up over the holidays at the end of '04. It fired up and runs pretty strong which is good especially after sitting for about 7 years in his garage.
Here you can see the door panels have been removed. The trash bags on the seats are not the covers! They are there to protect the real seats since they were recovered just before being garaged. You can see the left rear fender where some fiberglass patching had started. That's really the only place on the body that needs any serious work. There are a couple of areas with spider cracks which shouldn't be too bad. All in all, a decent condition given it's age.
1977 Corvette before purchase
posted by Steve at 2:39 PM
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