Busy in the garage, slacking online…
May 3, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda | By fastwrecks
We’ve been busily tearing down the 1990 Miata and getting the parts available for sale… In the process, kinda ignoring our blog, so here’s a quick run down of our current projects:
1990 Mazda Miata NA: Being dismantled and sold piece by piece.
1987 Chevrolet Corvette: We had originally thought we were going to put this back together into a runner. Sadly, C4’s just aren’t worth restoring from this level of disrepair at this time. We’re going to dismantle it and get the parts out to people repairing and restoring their cars. It DOES have a fantastic Doug Nash 4+3 transmission, and many other parts which will be sold. We’re going to use the engine in another project.
1977 Chevrolet Corvette: The rebuild is in progress and Ron is just about ready to install the front body from our 1978 donor. We’re also going to pull the 305 out and install the L98 350 from the 1987 Corvette. Since the TPI was removed by the 87’s previous owner, this should yield a nice running 350 for our project C3. We’ve also decided to return the car to it’s original color, RPO 10, Classic White, and the interior will be RPO 64C, which is Buckskin.
1982 Mazda RX-7: This is currently at Schumanns Roadside & Towing to have its new gas tank, fuel lines and fuel pump installed.
We also just picked up a 1991 Jeep Cherokee, theoretically we’re going to use it as a shop mule. It fits with what we do, right? After all “The Jeep is America’s only real sports car!” – Enzo Ferrari 🙂
Hope all is well with everyone, our thoughts and prayers have been with the people of the Southern US effected by the tornado’s and storms.
Oops, I did it again…
April 18, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Family | By fastwrecks
The majority of the cars we’ve bought lately have ended up being too nice to part out. Today’s is no exception.
We bought a 1987 C4 Corvette from Georgia this past week, which we had delivered earlier today. It’s teal with a matching interior (The 80s look will be all the rage on Barrett Jackson in 20 years.) We were told that it was in rough shape. It needs some work, but is much nicer than we were expecting.
It hasn’t been wrecked. This is a rarity in and of itself….do you have any idea how many front passenger-side hits we’ve encountered in this line of work? 🙂 Plus, all of the pieces parts are there, including the Torx wrench for removing the targa top.
It’s had some rather, um, “interesting” paint modifications done. We had Johnna wash the car in hopes of her finding pink paint underneath. Just kidding! No Barbie pink here, but I did acquire a nice helper out of the deal 😉 (A video is forthcoming)
In every Corvette lurks a pink Cadillac waiting to leap out....or not.
Stop….Mazda Time!
April 10, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda, Travel Stories | By fastwrecks
So, this past week has been extremely productive.
ZOOM ZOOM (pop pop pop)
We started out our road trip to pick up a gas tank (can’t ship those!) and some other parts to restore this FB RX-7 with. Then we headed to load up our truck with an assortment C3 and C5 Corvette items. (Thank God for cargo nets.)
This 1990 Miata will be parted out and the parts will be featured on eBay.
After acquiring the RX-7 and Corvette parts, we picked up a 1990 Mazda Miata. It runs! It drives! I had way too much fun driving it around our shop parking lot. This one will be parted out and the parts sold on eBay.
Is it orange or is it red? The answer: It won’t be either one for long!
March 30, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Mazda | By fastwrecks
Greetings! We blogged in a previous post about our 77 Vette project. After buying a donor car with a good front clip, and partnering with a local Corvette restoration enthusiast, this car is going to get a BIG makeover 🙂 She will be restored to the original factory white, plus the interior will be reconditioned. Can’t wait to show before and after pictures (you mean, before or after I take that beast all over town? hee hee)
Our next donor car will be another Mazda. A 1990 Mazda Miata, to be exact. That will be picked up early to mid next week and brought back to our shop. It has a running motor and is complete, for the most part, so this definitely has a lot of potential! Speaking of Mazda, we will also be picking up some parts to restore the 1982 Mazda RX-7 we picked up last month. Looks like April is going to be an exciting month for us!
Will Work for Lightweight Aluminum Trailer
March 9, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Travel Stories | By fastwrecks
The time I spend straightening out UHaul issues is time that I’m NOT spending earning cash toward this very admirable goal.
I enter all of the information about my truck, the car to haul, what I want to rent, and my personal data into the UHaul website. Everything works properly, so I should be fine, right?
Except there’s a problem more often than not.
The last time I was told “sorry, your truck + auto transporter + Corvette = epic brake fail” the person ringing me up had entered something wrong about the truck into the system. We fixed it after about 20 minutes of phone calls and my pointing out the correct facts about the truck. After driving to West Virginia in a surprise snowstorm, I wasn’t about to give up that easily.
Today was a totally different story. We showed up in the Detroit area to “import” a Corvette. After a 4-hour trip, booking the UHaul in advance, and even speaking to a customer service representative, I was denied again. Too much weight for the truck to handle with the auto transport and the car. Never mind that the Corvette was basically a frame on wheels (no engine, suspension, or other heavy stuff) and weighed probably less than half of its original weight. If the computer system won’t allow a certain combination, no amount of pointing out facts and logic to the local UHaul or their corporate offices will help. What is extra frustrating is that I was allowed to enter that same exact information on the online confirmation screen and didn’t get any indication that there would be problems on the other end. We got sent to another UHaul in the area with a lighter trailer that would work with our truck.
If something sounds easy enough, it probably isn’t.
The trailer in question was at the second location, but so was a host of computer system issues. It took over a hour to take care of things there, and if the manager hadn’t shown up to help, I probably would have had to swipe my credit card a third time for this rental. If that wasn’t frustrating enough, I had to scramble for a second form of ID because it was an out of state rental…which baffles me, considering we do most of our renting outside of Ohio and have never been asked for that before. It’s the first time in a long time that my George Costanza wallet with EVERYTHING helped rather than hurt.
Total time to resolve all of this: 2 hours. I wasn’t able to get any sort of refund for my troubles. Which is unfortunate, considering that those extra 2 hours will cause unloading the trailer to be delayed by a day. As much as I would like to be Superman, unloading cars is at least a three-person project and requires scheduling help – and NOT at 10:30 pm, which is when we would have gotten to our destination.
So, why is it that if I show up to my local UHaul rental store (a company store, not a franchise like the three places I mentioned earlier) and request an auto transport, I can get one without any problem?
If anybody from UHaul is reading this and thinking, “Well, I don’t know…” now you understand why a trailer of our own is such a good idea.
The 1977 C3 Corvette is now going to be restored!
February 27, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
After a lot of thinking, debating and chat amongst ourselves and other Corvette folks, we’ve decided that the 77 C3 is going to go through a light restoration instead of being parted out. It’s just too nice.
We purchased a 1978 shell in Detroit and it’s going to donate it’s front clip to our restoration project. We’ve yet to pick it up, but that’s in the very near future. The 1977 will be repainted to it’s factory Code 10 White, with the factory buckskin interior also repaired. Since the car has a 1982 305 (5.0L) motor, it’s going to be swapped out for a 350 (5.7L) rebuilt motor with a mild street build to about 350hp.
Stay tuned!
P.S.: Here’s a video walk around of the car!
1977 Corvette C3 Walk Around / Start Up.
New C3 parts car
February 22, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
Now that we know our ’77 orange beastie runs, it’s time to make it pretty. We’ll be picking up another C3 with the front clip and doors we want (plus some other items), and the rest will be listed on eBay. After posting on the Mid America Motorworks Facebook page, we got some pointers on a few things to look for. Very helpful stuff!
In other news, I recently stopped by Summit Racing. (Warning: May be hazardous to your wallet’s health.) This was on the same day that we separated all of the transmission and suspension parts from a C5. While waiting in line, their TV featured a guy doing – you guessed it – the same kind of thing. He didn’t have a speck of dirt on him OR the floor, nor did he have any scratches on his hands. And they say supermodels are photoshopped!
Our first video…
February 5, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Humor | By fastwrecks
Cute Puerto Rican Girl Blows Up A Corvette!
Sometimes the monotony of a simple task can lead to a very funny moment… That was today…
Filling up the tires on the 1977 C3 Corvette, having not relocated a compressor, and a LOT of funny stuff happening today led to this video.
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