Well my trip to Charleston is over, I said if anyone could do the work on my 68 Vette Kerry Jamison could, and he could not.
The trip was the trip from hell.
I left St. Pete Florida very early Sunday morning. Just before Brunswick Georgia, the truck sounded and acted like it blew the transmission again. I could only get the truck and trailer up to 10 miles per hour. I got off the Interstate and pulled into a Hotel parking lot to check it out. The engine ran fine at an idle, but the truck would not pull the trailer more than 10 mph. I parked the rig and went into the hotel to let them know why it was there. I have AAA on the truck, but not the trailer, as AAA will only offer trailer towing on utility and camper type trailers, not large heavy ones like a car trailer. The hotel manager allowed me to put the trailer on their back lot which was secure and had video surveillance. After disconnecting the trailer, the truck would move at about 25 mph, but no faster.
I called AAA for a tow. I said I believed the transmission torque converter had blown and since I had a lifetime warranty on the entire transmission with AAMCO, they towed the truck from Brunswick Georgia to St. Marys Georgia, the nearest AAMCO location. Dropped the truck off and I got a hotel room about .8 miles down the road. The next morning I told AAMCO the problem and waited for them to test it back at the motel. They called a few hours later and said the transmission tested fine. The fluid was pink and not brown like it would be if the torque converter had burned up. They dropped the oil pan and inspected the transmission filter and found zero particles in the pan or filter. The problem turned out to be a totally blocked (30 year old) catalytic converter. Another night in the hotel while they overnighted one in and the next day and $1700, I was on my way back to Brunswick to get the car and trailer, then on to Charleston.
The truck ran good, but every so often had a miss in the engine. About 15 miles out of Charleston, I started hearing a noise like I was dragging something, which turned out to be the exhaust system's tailpipe. AAMCO did not hook up the tailpipe to the hanger correctly, and it came out of the hanger and started dragging.
I shoved it back into the hanger and made it to Jamison's, dropped off the trailer inside their compound (they were closed, but Kerry left it unlocked for me to get into). Then got a hotel for the third night. Kerry called a friend who had a Ford garage and they checked out the truck. They found it needed a tune-up pretty bad, as the rotor and cap were burnt, the ignition wires were cracked and the fuel filter was in question. Also, the EGR valve had fault codes showing it was failing in both the open and closed positions intermittently. The EGR solenoid was also bad, as it would not hold a vacuum on the hosed fittings. So, new plugs, rotor, cap, wires EGR valve, EGR solenoid and fuel filter, labor, tax and testing, $1000 and out the door. I was just glad it was fixed and done so quick. Back to Jamison's.
Unloaded the Vette, and Kerry looked at the body, got a very uncomfortable look on his face and said he could not do anything with it.
Apparently, and you guys rebuilding these old Corvettes take notice, I made the mistake of removing all the paint, not protecting the body with any sealer and letting it sit for 7 years with no protection on the fiberglass other than a car cover while I built the '65. Even though the car was covered and parked under a carport or inside a storage building, the body had become so contaminated with dirt, some mildew and other contaminates, which had penetrated into the semi-porous fiberglass, that the contaminates could not be completely removed. Kerry said if he tried to attach the new hood, the glass work would not hold and it would eventually delaminate. Also, after painting the car, about a year later the contaminates would try and come out and cause the paint to bubble, blister or lift.
Kerry also pointed out some parts of the nose that had developed stress cracking on the underside from age and stress due to the weight of the nose that would also need to have significant structural rework and even some re-design to correct.
Another issue, when the nose section was built 50 years ago, no concern was made for the appearance of the underside of the hood, as we never even thought of entering these cars in car shows. We autocrossed, drag raced and took trips with them. I didn't even attend my first car show until 30 years later! The underside of the hood was an appearance disaster that would have taken over 50 hours of work (at $150/hr) to make show ready.
Really big
AW SHIT!
Well, that left me with several choices.
1. Risk it and ignore what Kerry was saying, finish the car, paint the car and throw all the money down the drain when the paint started blistering like Kerry predicted. (He knows what he is talking about, and actually said he would not work on the car like it was, because it would not work).
2. Replace the body with new stock parts or a body from a doner car. Not what I wanted to do, as I really liked the tilt nose.
3. Scrap out the car and get what I could for the parts, frame, engine, transmission, radiator, etc. I would loose my ass, and I really wanted to restore the car, since I bought it in 1971.
4. Option I decided to pursue, replace the entire nose with a Mako Shark nose.
Kerry knew a man named John Bohannon, who built one of the original Mako kits, and was still making them. I found I could get the entire front clip from the windshield forward and the 2 rear quarter panels for around $5,000. Kerry said he would be fine with putting it on the car and painting it. I would still use my rear deck and taillight panel, since they were fine and I had a convertible, not a coupe, I could not use the Mako rear deck. The cost of the entire kit is cheaper to buy than just the work to finish the underside of the existing nose, and it weighs a fraction of what my nose currently weighs.
Here is the kit for the front of the car and the 2 rear quarter panels. I need them so the fender flairs all match.
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Here is what we project the car will look like when finished.
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The color will be the same shade of blue (not the really dark blue in the first photo), but may not have the same amount of white on the lower part. The original was painted to match the color of the Mako Shark fish.
So, right now the car is back here in Florida, Kerry is discussing getting the body made with John Bohannon in Tennessee, and believe it or not, this is also the cheapest cost to build than any of the other options.
More to follow as it happens.
