Rather than leave the Corvette at the mechanics workshop when the engine came out in October 2020, I had it picked up on a flatbed and brought it back to my car park for safe storage. With COVID-19 restrictions in place, there wasn't a lot to do in Sydney, so it was a good chance to do a few jobs on the car.
I planned to do a few touch-ups on the frame in the engine bay. With the engine out, it was possible to get to some areas that would be inaccessible normally. The leaking steering box had damaged the paint on the frame, so I cleaned up that area using a wire brush and red scotch-brite, covered the car in plastic (to prevent any overspray) and painted that section of the frame with Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black Primer followed by Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black Satin. Job done.
The repainted areas of the frame looked good, but now everything else looked tired by comparison. I decided to paint the frame on both sides of the engine bay, as well as the cross-member. To paint the cross-member you need to remove the fan shroud rubber seal, and to do that you really need to remove the fan shroud. Can you see where this is going?
Before long I had taken everything out of the engine bay, including the wiper motor, wiring loom, expansion tank and radiator. I also wanted to repaint the black bars on the grille, so this required removal of the bumpers and the bumper irons.
It's actually much easier to restore parts when they're out of the car, it's so much easier than trying to mask things off and paint around them. If I learned anything from this it's that you really need to think about the scope of the work you want to do before you start, it's going to save a lot of time and definitely produce a more professional result.
Over the next 4 months I slowly worked my way through cleaning, restoring or replacing everything I could. The list below doesn't do justice to the time spent, it was a lot or work but immensely satisfying when completed.
Here's the list of everything I did in the engine bay:
When everything went back together:
From Top: 1: No more fiddling around — it's a lot easier to restore the engine bay with everything out of the way. Blue tape is to protect paint when removing the grille (which has a lot of sharp edges). 2: Grill, horns and radiator out. All bumper supports removed. 3: Inner guards were wet-sanded smooth before repainting in satin black. 4: Firewall repainted flat black — note the wiper motor now cleaned and polished.
From Top: 1: No more fiddling around — it's a lot easier to restore the engine bay with everything out of the way. Blue tape is to protect paint when removing the grille (which has a lot of sharp edges). 2: Grill, horns and radiator out. All bumper supports removed. 3: Inner guards were wet-sanded smooth before repainting in satin black. 4: Firewall repainted flat black — note the wiper motor now cleaned and polished.
