Most of the pictures in today's blog are from a couple of delightful traipses to downtown Cleveland my wife made in our freshly transformed car.
After more than six months stuck in our garage on as many as six jack stands as I rebuilt everything from the transmission back, our "Little Red 1977 Corvette" is finally road-worthy and is better than it has ever been in the going on nine-years my wife and I have owned it.
To review, although I've been researching rebuilding the rear-end on the '77 for almost as long as we've had the car, whether it was needing something to do during "The Pandemic" or what not, back in June I finally got to it. This on top of a bathroom remodel the wife has been after me to get to. I started this project first because, knowing myself, had I started the bathroom first, I'd never get to this; after all, a man has to have his priorities regardless of how much he loves and respects his wife. Much like DIY home renovations, however, turned out there was way more to do on the rear-end project on the '77 than I originally thought there was to do.
If you have a third-generation Corvette and you are seriously considering rebuilding the rear end yourself, probably why you're here in the first place, start with Gary Vosberg's series of videos like I did. There are other videos on the subject but none of them go into the detail that his do. However, candidly, Gary glosses over some important steps and, like many Youtube "how-to" videos, everything goes swimmingly well for him. Trust me. That's rarely if ever the case in the real "do-it-yourself" world and especially so with rebuilding the rear ends on third-generation Corvette's.
Please note, 1980-1982 third generation Corvette's have somewhat different rear suspension set-ups than 1968-1979 do. Gary Vosberg's videos deal with the 1968-1979 models.
Disassembly was physically grueling but hardly brain surgery. I didn't have a lift like Gary does and spending as much time on the floor of my garage got old quickly. The toughest parts of the job was drilling out the rivets on the brake rotors, the suspiciously prestine '76 that Gary works on had that done already, removing the strut rods from the shock mounts and cutting the bolts the trailing arms pivot on.
On Gary's '76, again, everything comes apart like pulled pork falls off the bone fresh from the oven. On the trailing arm bolts, Gary even makes light of how easily they came out. Removing the strut rods from the shock mounts and then the shock mounts themselves from the trailing arms was another torturous treat. Gary zips right through all of that but, bless his heart, he does note that you might have some difficulty do so. Thanks, Gary.
Of all of these steps, it was the cutting of the trailing arm bolts that beat me up the most. I wish I had recorded that step but I'm superstitious about making DIY videos; you're just asking for trouble. I used three carbide sawzall blades and just about all of my patience doing so and to make matters even more fun, the instant the driver's side arm was free of the pivot bolts the arm fell right on my lap. Good thing my wife and I are done, with two grown men, having kids.
Gathering parts was time consuming but some serious fun but final reassembly was almost as brutal as taking it all apart was. What's more, I had to have my differential rebuilt and getting that son-of-a-gun back in without a transmission jack was harrowing. Of course, I had to do it twice because of my mammoth screw-up. Worst is, my "new" differential is leaking on the passenger side and I'm anticipating having to pull it out again to have the shop redo it. At least I'll know what I'm getting myself into.
Long story short, in the end, the transformation of our car from spindly death-trap to almost showroom condition, suspension-wise anyway, is nothing short of remarkable. This thing actually handles now and takes corners better than John Travolta. The only left to do is get new tires but even with it's embarrassingly old "rollers", our '77 rides and handles like it probably hasn't in more than twenty-years.
I'll wrap this series of soliloquies on the '77's rear end project by reminding everyone that I'm not a mechanic but keep in mind something Henry Ford once said, or folks claimed that he said, "whether you think you can or not, either way you're right."
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