Road Salt: 1, Corvette: 0
March 29, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
This is what road salt can do to a car. This was the 1984 we were planning to put back together – Not anymore. I tried to lift the car from the side frame rail and kept hearing crackling. So, I slid the jack underneath the rear end and found….Large quantities of rust. Ugh.
I dug deeper and found even more rust. I was in the process of removing plastic panels to have the car painted. That is when I found rust holes so big that I could stick my fist through. I cannot in good conscience sell this as a running car with as much structural damage as it has, and fully restoring it is out of our budget.
So….This one is going to be parted out and sold on eBay. It runs great, in fact, I have blogged several times about taking it for a drive in our parking lot. It has the original Crossfire motor, manual transmission, PCM, and new headers we recently bought. We don’t have much of the interior for it, except for carpets and some smaller trim pieces. It has the complete Dana 44 rear end. The glass hatch is in great shape and we have new struts for it. We have some wiring harnesses from a 1986 and a 1987 Corvette that we were going to use to splice in where there were sections missing. Plus, there is much more. The hood is in great shape, plus we have a new hood release kit we bought for it. Contact us at fastwrecks@gmail.com before we put it on eBay if you are interested in anything. We do ship overseas, and have sent quite a few pieces to the United Kingdom and Australia.
http://www.sportscarsalvage.us
Enjoying the sunshine
February 29, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
Vroom vroom...
It was nice out, so I had a little fun in the driveway 😀 It drives nicely for the most part, other than the power steering not working. Glad that the brakes work, though. This is what I do on rare sunny days in February!
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s….an Acura Integra
February 20, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda | By fastwrecks
We wanted to get some quick cash through the business, so we picked up an Acura Integra for $350 and are going to finish taking it apart over the next day or two. The engine, transmission, and wiring harness are spoken for, but the car is complete otherwise. NICE interior…other than smelling of Axe Body Spray 🙂 Body is mostly in good shape. We started listing the items we’ve taken off on eBay. Best of all, I don’t have to switch between metric and standard tools. Those of you dealing with C4 Corvettes can feel my pain, I’m sure.
Still working at the 1984 Corvette and the 1985 Rx-7. Have I mentioned how much I can’t stand half-assed “fixes” lately? If not, here it is. If I reached for a sawzall, torches, or a drill every time I couldn’t immediately figure out how to get something in or around something else, I’d have cars that looked like Swiss cheese. It may be the easy way at the time, but I’ve seen these decidedly non-factory cuts and holes get rusty and start falling apart, or wiring harnesses that look like a fire waiting to happen. These kinds of repairs can make things suck worse in the long run. Let’s not get started on not paying attention to mundane but necessary details, like, oh, I dunno….tightening up lug nuts before moving a car around. Grrrr.
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Parts cars and other adventures
February 14, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Now that we got the ’84 situated in our shop, shipped out an RX-7 engine+transmission, and rearranged our garage, we’re ready to pick up our next car…or rather, part of a car. Having a break from one or both of us being sick has helped – it’s been a real circus on that front since Christmastime. It’s a 1986 Corvette from the firewall back. It has a lot of the interior parts we need for our ’84, plus we can sell the extra parts, so it’s a win all-around for us.
When *not* doing car stuff, I have been building websites. It’s one of my other talents, although practicing my skills *outside* the corporate world is much more rewarding. Check out the following:
The Wistful Cafe
Rusty Nuts Auto Recycling
B&B Recycling
I also am in the process of giving our own website a makeover. I’ve started on our Sports Car Salvage homepage and have done some work on our eBay store. Then, I will be updating our blog. Fun stuff. 🙂 It’s been nice to catch up on nerd stuff 🙂
We sold the 1982 RX-7 that we’d had for sale for a while. The people who bought it had an awful time with their rented car dolly. Fortunately, they were able to drive it home without any major problems after the ratchet straps on the dolly kept coming undone. I feel for them, because we have had some pretty hairy travel stories, many of which are due to equipment failures or just plain crappy supplies.
More Shiny Corvette Goodness
February 1, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
A big improvement
I spent some time polishing the Corvette. After dealing with old cars, some of which are not taken care of well, I’ve learned that a little polish can go a long way. Instead of re-painting the whole car, we are looking at re-painting sections of it. We bought a C4 Corvette parts car and will be picking it up sometime next week. It has most of the interior goodies (including a dash, WOO HOO!) and we can sell the rest of the parts.
As far as the wiring harness….That might be a bit of a challenge. The ’84 was in the process of being converted into a race car. The dash and console were removed, and the wiring harness has some….shall we say, interesting….shortcuts. Most of the wiring harness is sitting in a pile where the passenger seat should be. Glad that somebody left a Haynes manual behind. I have a dash/body interior wiring harness from a 1987, plus the rest of the 1984 wiring harness (that was removed) so here’s hoping we can figure something out.
1984 Corvette restoration project pictures
January 21, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
This is what we’ve been up to lately! After getting our bundle of red joy home from Texas, we looked through it in detail and decided that this was going to be our most recent Corvette restoration project. It runs nicely and is structurally sound. It appears that somebody was going to turn this car into a race car project, but switched gears. Let’s take a look.
These pictures are the “BEFORE” pictures. This is what I have after a few trips around our parking lot in it and after giving it a bath. Right now, I am in the process of going over the whole car with polishing compound to see what I have. It’s looking like the amount of repainting that needs to be done is much less than originally anticipated.
(ASIDE: It just so happens that we are running an eBay sale through this weekend to make room for our next donor C4 Corvette. We’ll use the parts we can use and sell the rest. Shop our eBay store for more.)
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- The bumper! What people are going to see the most of when this car is fully restored 🙂
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- More of the ’84 Vette we are restoring.
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- A red 1984 C4 Corvette before being restored. It’s been repainted in places at least once.
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- A red 1984 C4 Corvette before being restored. At this point, all I’ve done is wash the car.
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- Not much interior is left on this car.
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- A pile of rainbow noodles where a dash should be
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- Carpet and rear compartment from a 1984 C4 Corvette before being restored
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- Interior of a 1984 Corvette before being restored
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1984 Corvette is here!
January 10, 2012 | Posted in Corvettes, Humor, Travel Stories | By fastwrecks
We just got back from a road trip to Texas, where we picked up a recent purchase – a 1984 C4 Corvette. It just so happened that we came back a different way, allowing me to stop by the National Corvette Museum with the ’84 in tow.
Ooooh, pick me, pick me!
I finally took it for a drive out in the parking lot of our garage today. Although it probably still has the original shocks (bouncy bounce bounce….) and no power steering, it was actually kind of fun! It doesn’t have a dash (in fact, it has a pile of rainbow spaghetti where the dash should be) so I used my musical training in tempo and pitch to shift gears by ear. I’m sure my piano teacher would be proud.
VROOOOOM! (or not)
Still not sure if I’m going to restore it or part it out….We shall see.
Does this bathroom make my rear end look fat?
While I was at the National Corvette Museum, I picked up some goodies to throw into the packages we send out 🙂
Corvettes, Miatas, and Jeeps, oh my!
June 27, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda | By fastwrecks
So…We finally got the Miata torn apart. Better late than never, I guess – but it was so much fun to ZOOM ZOOM around the parking lot in!
1990 Mazda Miata Cold Start – Our YouTube video of starting the Miata. The engine/transmission are both for sale on eBay @sportscarsalvage.
The ’87 Corvette is nearly torn down. Most of those parts are featured on eBay, with more to come. The engine, transmission, driveshaft, exhaust, and about 50 more miles of wiring harness still need to come out 🙂 Once that’s wrapped up, we have a very unusual sports car waiting for us in the garage….a 1990 Jeep! (Hey, Enzo Ferrari thinks it’s America’s one real sports car, so it counts, right?)
We like car shows, and have been frequenting the Saturday night cruise-ins at Schumann’s Roadside and Towing in Ravenna, along with donating a wide variety of door prizes! Anything from LED work lights to socket sets and Chuck Norris posters….yes, you read that right, Chuck Norris. I channel him when dealing with C4 Corvettes, but I think even he would be challenged by one 🙂
It is almost C4 parts time, folks!
June 6, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Humor, Mazda | By fastwrecks
We’re down to 3 parts to remove from the 1990 Miata (Engine/Transmisison, wiring harness and seat belts.) This means it’s time for the 1987 Chevrolet C4 Corvette to be torn down, which has begun. We’re starting to put the parts on our eBay store and are going to get this torn down a wee bit faster than previous cars. Lots of good parts on this, including the bonnet and hard-to-find passenger right front items. We’ll also be selling the complete suspension and frame with a title and VIN tag for those looking for a project platform!
We’ve also hit 100 Facebook friends this week, which makes us happy! If you all would be so kind as to spread the work it’ll spread like the old shampoo commercials!
Thanks for your support, folks!
Fed Up with FedEx… RANT!
May 27, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda, Shipping | By fastwrecks
It all started with a couple of mishandled shipments by the USPS… Â We decided we would explore some other carriers, and it looked like FedEx had the best pricing and service…
On May 7th our customer, Scott W., won an auction on eBay for a bronze Targa top for an 86-88 Corvette. Â He paid, we packed the thing VERY carefully, as they are fragile, took it to FedEx Kinko’s in Kent, OH and shipped it. Â A couple days later I get an email from a VERY upset customer… Â The shipment is not right (our fault) and it’s SERIOUSLY damaged. Â (FedEx’s fault.) Â We immediately set out to make this right, as we had, just 2 days before had a C5 Targa Top destroyed by FedEx… Â Are ya’all getting this? Â 2 Targa Tops.. Â Fragile… Â And we pack them VERY well… Â Damaged beyond repair. Â If they were new the C5 top is $1400. Â Scott’s C4 top, if you can find it, is now only made by aftermarket companies, and runs $875 with a $200 core charge.
In less than 72 hours we had almost $2200 worth of merchandise, plus several hundred dollars in shipping charges, lost… Â What’s worse, we looked like fools to our customers. Â During this whole process we ended up with about $1400 tied up with FedEx after they somehow managed to destroy a METAL FENDER for a Mazda Miata… Â And it has put is into somewhat of a cash crunch because it’s taken forever to get our claim approved and paid. Â 20 days and counting… Â We were told last Friday that it was approved and would go out… Â We were told on Tuesday it went out…. Â We called today (Friday a week later) and were told it’s en route… Â VIA USPS… Wow, FedEx doesn’t even use their own services to send insurance checks? Â Wow.
Scott W: I want to PUBLICLY apologize to you for this entire mess. Â It’s not how we do business, and it’s making us look bad in your eyes, and we will do anything we can to correct that.
I could chew up a kitten right now… But only if it had a FedEx logo on it.
M
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