Newly named Yvette, the little red corvette

[CrispyCleen]

Oooooh fatal!

I’ve just polished mine and quickly popped it into the garage. Managed to avoid the inevitable bird poop, so someone must have inherited my bad luck.

Sorry in advance.......

 

[CrispyCleen]

So, I have been going over all the paperwork from the import process and I found this......
View media item 287As I have clearly demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of the registration process, is this enough for the proof of age for the DVLA, or do I still need a letter from the club?

 

[Roscobbc]

My guess is that DVLA will still want a letter - try it first and see what happens?

 

[CrispyCleen]

My guess is that DVLA will still want a letter - try it first and see what happens?

Hmmmmm, probably better to get it right first time.

I sent you a DM with some pics. Let me know if they are good enough for you to issue a letter?

 

[CrispyCleen]

Update.......

Shiny new headers arrived from Flowtech today and they look.... well.... shiny.
View media item 293So, I have a few hours this afternoon before the missus comes back and demand to spend time with me?! Weird I know.

So out come the old pipes
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Before I struggle to fit the new ones, I tried the old against the new. Hmmmmmmm close but no cigar
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A few spacers and maybe a flex fitting or 2 is going to be required to get theses to fit nicely. But hey we soldier on.

Oh Yvette, why do you do this to me? (Said in an outrageous French accent)

 

[Daytona Vette]

I love it! My wife does say I have taken on another woman (said in an outrageous french accent)!

I know it may be sac religious to give an American car a French name but it fits so well!!

Now Crispy Clean as your handle suggests you will have to keep the Vette clean - otherwise when you take her for a spin the wife will think you are going out with Yvette a DIRTY GIRL - ooh la la

 

[teamzr1]

Hi
Hard to tell from the photo but few questions or comments

1. Are the exhaust ports of heads square like the flange of old headers ?
2. all the carbon on old flange shows exhaust leaking for some time
3. If new flange has round ports how you matching that to square ports of heads so not leaking at corners?
4. the old header flange looks about 25% deeper then new one, is that right ?
5. the old flange bolt holes look bigger then what new flange has ?
6. seems 2 mounting holes ( I set a line to) do not match up to distance of old one
7. In any case with the amount of exhaust leaks I would assume if all corrected that carb may need re-jetting or AFR adjusted
8. I would also assume with headers that 1 step colder then stock sparkplugs be used
9 Consider heat socks to protect sparkplug wires if need be
10 the bending/angles of secondaries for center cylinders look different from old/new
11. Hope new headers came with new mounting bolts that are proper length of flange thickness into heads

 

[Norm]

Hey........what's new, of course nothing fits...........

 

[CrispyCleen]

Another day another misfit. At least that what my wife says.

Today was ‘get the headers on’ day and I’ll worry about the connections later. Also, whilst I’m at it, I’ll try and fit the flywheel cover (that I have no idea if it’s the right one)

So the cover needs a little ‘adjustment’ with a pair of tin snips to get It to fit around the bearing housing. I’m just glad it doesn’t need to deal with a gasket otherwise I would have to think again. Thankfully I’m not going for concourse points here.

Anyway, with that little job out the way, the headers can just slip in right? Wrong. Bizarrely the new ones wouldn’t go in the way the old came out. So these ones wiggled their way in through the top, not the bottom. Although they probably would have if I had a proper car lift rather than a set of axle stands.

The fit around them is pretty good, at least from the top.
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First problem is the gearbox coolant lines. The ‘post-factory’ style of install didn’t give us a whole lot of room to wiggle around, so the rubber pipes had to come off and the metal pipes had to be moved to a better routing. Eventually I’ll need to put in a heatsheild for those as they are too close for comfort for me.

The next big issue is the difference in the headers themselves. Specifically alignment with existing exhaust system.

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As you can see, I have a few flexible fittings and clamp connectors to get them to meet, but I ran out of time, parts and talent for today. So time for some careful consideration, a few tactical parts orders (shhhh don’t tell the wife) and a well earned break.

 

[teamzr1]

Hard to tell with pictures, but questions are

1. Running engine there will be left/right movement of engine mounts if if the pipes
On right side hit that frame bolt
On left side hit the steering knuckle

2. Will the boots for the sparkplug wires fit onto plugs and still have clearance, either way looks like heat socks needed
3. Kinda looks like the collector of headers pointing downward ? if so will they hit the bumps or curbs ?

4. the 2 center mounting bolts do allow allow mounting to heads ?
And if so will the header flanges warp under heat and leak exhaust ?

 

[CrispyCleen]

The angle of the collector looks weird from the angle of the photo. Yes it points at a slight downward angle, but not enough to hit a speed bump or anything.

My HT leads already have thermal protection as the previous set had suffered with thermal fatigue.

The bolts (and similarly the gaskets) aren’t all fitted as I’m almost cartain I’ll have to take the headers out again before the final fitting.

 

[CrispyCleen]

Another update and many days of laying on my back with my arms in the air.

So, to get the old headers out I needed to remove the starter motor, which also required disconnecting the battery. Obvious right? What could go wrong? (I’ll come back to that later)

Well, thanks to the random peeps on eBay I managed to find these, perfect for making the awkward connection from the old to the new.
View media item 309And for the most part, they work really well!
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The only pain, is that the alignment for the drivers side meant that I couldn’t use the exact same arrangement. But they’re both on, both connected and both sealed.

So time to turn her on (oh Yvette!) and see how she sounds. Remember the starter motor and battery disconnect from earlier? Well, it turns out that when the previous owner installed the Delco starter motor, he over tightened the main electrical connector for the motor and twisted the switch connector.
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View media item 314Such that when I reconnect, the terminals, the bridge bar doesn’t sit square and doesn’t make a connection. Cue another 3-4 hours of disassembly to find the fault and fix it.
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Additionally, the terminal connector for the battery had been massively over tightened in the past, which meant that when it want back on, the negative terminal didn’t make a proper contact and blew out every time I tried to turn her over.


So the good news is, she starts again, she’s quiet and purrey. The bad news is she’s quiet and purrey. I’m going to admit it, i like the loud anti-social Yvette. I feel like I have turned a wild rebellious fun redhead into a tame housewife.

 

[kentvette]

I'll admit that I'm no fan of headers at all, but the new ones do look the part! And I really like the flexi pipework. That would have been handy when I wnet from header sto stock manifolds as it was a bit of s pain to match the correct downpipes to my (beautiful) "custom made" exhaust, which had been built around the awful headers!

I may be showing my ignorance here, but what is the small "pipe" coming from the bottom of the starter?

 

[CrispyCleen]

I’ve had the starter completely in pieces and I was wondering that as well. I think it’s a breather pipe. There’s 2 and they both appear around areas where there are contacts being made, specifically the brushes on the motor and the contacts at the rear of the solenoid.

 

[CrispyCleen]

Ah and most satisfying of all my endeavours so far......

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Yvette is finally a Corvette. As opposed to C’rvette as she was when she came over.

 

[Backseatdriver]

Yvette Corvette! She can come out with us on a Friday night! Will we see her at the Nationals? Hope so... this is a lovely story of troubles and solutions!

 

[CrispyCleen]

So, my only target for this year in terms of formal outings is the Silverstone Classic. I have been to the classic a few years now and I’ve always wanted to be able to show off my wares.

As for the National, lets see how she copes with the drive to Silverstone

I live very close to Prescott Hill climb, so I may take her to their American Car meet.

 

[CrispyCleen]

Update 8(?)

Over a long Easter break, I thought i’d try to figure out what my priority list should be. Now that Yvette runs nicely and quietly (despite my personal preferences), she’s street safe and MOT-able (if my insurance wants it), she’ll light my way home and she’s water tight.

So, now it’s time to start on the things that should work but don’t need to work. Starting point for that are all the dials. So I know that a lot of people would consider them essential, however other than the speedo everything else is just good to have.

Rev-counter is an obvious fix, if not particularly easy on the wallet. The replacement crate engine has a bog standard HEI distributor without the mechanical drive for the cable fitting from the Rev-counter. So replace the distributor right? At £200ish that’s a purchase for another payday. Except that, on a punt, I searched on eBay for ‘Chevrolet HEI tach’ and came up with a new HEI with a mechanical tech drive from the states for £60 delivered. It remains to be seen if it was a bargain or a mistake.

Fuel level is a bit of a ‘mystery’. As I’ve never had enough fuel in it to get the float to lift, I’m not certain if it works either way. I started looking at level senders and comparing with what I have in the tank (you never know what I might have in this car). Turns out it’s a standard tank (in pretty good nick) with a standard sender, who would have thought it!
View media item 319Checking the underside I can see that the wiring is a little ‘lashed in’ but should be function-able.
View media item 320View media item 318So I fish up the float with a bit of wire and a torch and presto, a working fuel gauge! NEXT!

Temperature gauge is interesting. I have 2 in fact. The original is disconnected, I found that out when I had the dash board out doing the indicators. However the replacement is an unpowered ‘mechanical’ gauge attached to somewhere on the drivers side cylinder head So, I need to figure out where the original pickup would be for the original temperature sensor and wire that in. I may keep the extra sensor but move it to the oil pan or the transmission fluid?

Oil pressure is the real headache. For the life of me, I can’t see or find where the pressure pickup should be. Any photos or pointers for that would be great.

 

[CrispyCleen]

Update 9

She’s very nearly on the road! Yvette’s registration came through!
View media item 321Thanks to the guys on here for the pointers on getting the application form sorted.

With that in mind, I’m going to brave a drive to the Classic. I’ll probably come down on the Friday so that I have a full weekend to fix anything that fell off on the way there

Although it’s an hour or so drive away he distance isn’t all that great so I think it’s pretty manageable. Plus it’s mostly country roads so I won’t have to worry about motorways.

I’ll be able to have a few bedding in drives before then so fingers crossed she makes it there under her own power.

 

[CaptainK]

Oil pressure is a little "tab" connector underneath the driver's side exhaust header on the engine block, between the first (from front) two spark plugs. A wire going to it comes from the wiring loom near the alternator. My 68's oil pressure gauge didn't work when it was shipped from the states - turned out the wire was loose and kept falling off.

I also have one of those Corvette mechanical tach drive HEI distributors for £60 odd quid from the states on Ebay etc. I couldn't justify the cost of a proper one. It seems to be doing the job quite well, and is much better than my old "Accel" one that was leaking oil out of it at the base when it goes through the intake manifold into the engine.