Vette 59

OK, I have been getting antsy about not getting anything done (hands-on) lately  so I brought the intake inside, warmed it up a bit and gave it a paint job. Yes, it is the “correct” intake for the (original from the car) engine that we are rebuilding and it did come back from the machine shop wonderfully clean. And there is no mistaking that iconic Chevy orange paint! We are attempting to be as accurate as we reasonably can in our restoration so at some point will try to make sure that the items under the hood that were originally painted orange are again. “How hard could that be”,  you ask? The answer is “that depends”. There is lots of info out there about what was painted and at what stage of the assembly, even to the point of “correct” items/areas of over-spray. I made fun of such apparent silliness at first, now of course I am becoming addicted and am willing to spend countless hours playing around with such details. I never would have predicted that an orange engine part would look “beautiful” to me but you know….. it sure does!

Intake, freshly painted

The assembly date (aka the “birthday”) of our Vette is March 31, 1959. Therefore it is the next important anniversary in the cue for our family. A little celebration at that time will help us see past the end of winter (and mud season) to the time when an unheated garage is a little more welcoming. The cold weather, and the fact that daughter Katharine (my co-conspirator) sustained a head injury that she is still suffering the effects of, have stopped much of the hands on work on our car. However research continues and reminds us that there is SO much material out there and the more you network the more you learn from those who have been this way before. Anyway, much more to follow and for now please enjoy the picture (again, as Katharine posted it here last year) from the 70′s of the car and my beloved Golden, Sahbah, who happily served as co-pilot as we cruised Southern Maine. I also love this one and wish I had taken more pics back in those days but there are some, thankfully.

The turn signal housing has had a problem of loosening up repeatedly over the years. I was happy to find a fix for this in the restoration handbook that we bought. That project and the fact that the tach needs attention meant that the steering wheel needed to be pulled. Not a big job but you need to use a puller and as with all else, carefully inventory everything, draw diagrams and/or take pics. It is amazing how easily I can forget the details about how things go together when they seemed so obvious when I first took them apart! Not shown here is the horn button that Katharine has carefully cleaned and polished (and tuned up the black lettering with India ink). I saw a NOS horn button on ebay yesterday for “only” $250. Yikes!