The owner of this car interviewed us several times before finally sending the car here to Route 66 Restorations, Inc. as we were being compared to several other shops (some of them Corvette only shops).  This vehicle was a daily driver that had been stored for 6 years.

We had to carefully and slowly bring the engine back to life with a technique we’ve developed and used many times to re-animate these long dormant and generally not properly stored engines.

The fuel had gone bad during its hiatus, and the tank had a heavy coat of rust.  Be that as it may, the original tank, no matter how bad it is, can be cleaned/coated/repaired and is still better than the reproduction tanks made in non-English speaking countries far, far away.  We had this tank boiled and treated with a rust inhibitor.  We did have to use a replacement fuel pickup/sending unit as there was no hope for the original.

We replaced the cheap aftermarket fuel pump with a new correct pump meant for the 327 300 hp engine.  It came to us with a replacement carb but the owner still had the original Holley, which we had rebuilt.

After coming back to life, the engine’s performance rapidly began to degrade, which was due to a failing original coil.  We replaced it and got the power back.  We also cleaned up and painted the intake, replaced plugs, wires and hoses with correct date-coded hoses and wires.

Brakes, of course, were a major concern after sitting this long.  The master cylinder (whose pedal was intermittently was going to the floor), calipers, hoses and pads were replaced.

The knock spinner type wheels had all but become permanently fused after sitting so long and took a few tricks to remove before we could install the cool looking Gold Line tires.

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