More Odds and Ends

My time in the garage is still limited but Lester (Wilson) says that's no reason for not posting.  So here's a few odds and ends that I hope will satisfy one of my most faithful followers.  You can also check out Peter's blog on his 1966 Corvette restoration.  Peter is another faithful follower that lives in Spain and his blog is at http://elcorvettedepeter.blogspot.com/

Ty and I continue to align the drivers side door.  As was the case on the passenger door, we had to grind away some of the thickness on the upper hinge.  The lower hinge will need 4 shim plates.  We didn't have any so Ty made 3 with available material but we need more.  I have since ordered several.

With 3 shim plates installed on the lower hinge you can see that the upper part of the door doesn't fit quite tight enough.  The extra shim plate should do the trick. 

Overall the door looks really good.  It shouldn't need much glass work at all.

Switching topics, the brass fuel float in the fuel injection unit had a leak and had been filling up with gasoline.  When the float doesn't float the car doesn't run.  This float has two halves that are soldered together.  After a couple failed attempts to repair the old soldered joint I removed all the old solder and resoldered with new.  The FI unit is back together and it's much better now.

Changing topics again, mechanical fuel injection experts recommend calibrating and tuning our engine using an air/fuel meter.  Sounds good to me.  Here I just finished welding the bung for an O2 sensor onto the drivers side side pipe.  Don't worry, this is the reproduction side pipe, not the original one.

The meter was installed in our make shift dash and it works great.  The optimum reading would be 14.6, that's 14.6 pounds of air to 1 pound of fuel.  The reading you see is a little rich but it was taken at idle.  We hit 14.6 when the car is cruising down the road.  Our Corvette currently has 108 octane racing fuel in it but it will soon be changed to pump gas.  When that happens we will retune the engine using our new gauge.

That's it for now.  I will not be able to work on the car for the next couple weeks so, Wilson, you're just going to have to grin and bare it.  Keep checking back though!

Cool Desert Nights - 2011

The weather could not have been better and we had a record turnout of 801 entrants.

Once again Gerri and I entered both the 1963 Corvette and the 1957 Nomad.

Dennis and Annette K. brought their 1933 and 1956 Chevy's.

Ty thought we should showcase the undercarriage since that's where a lot of our effort has been.  We put a couple rims under the tires and set several mirrors under the car.  It worked great.

There was a lot of interest in the Corvette all day long.

Everybody loved the engine.

This year was the largest crowd ever.  Thousands showed up.

Interesting vehicles included this pick-up truck sporting twin turbos AND a blower.

Jeff B. brought his custom painted lawnmower.  This thing brought more smiles than anything else at the car show.  Hundreds of photo's were taken and the kids especially loved it.

How about this custom 53 Buick Skylark.  This was my favorite and it was for sale.  I checked my wallet but I was shy $70K.

OMG!  Is that our Corvette in the winners parade?  Yes it is!

For the second year in a row we won Best Work in Progress.

It was a great weekend at Cool Desert Nights but the absolute best part occurred after the show.  We had trailered the Corvette to the show Saturday morning but I decided to drive it home afterward.  I drove it through town and out on the highway for a total distance of about 5 miles.  This thing is outrageous!