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Alright, so a few months ago I had some money saved up (emphasis on "had") to buy a new project car. While searching craigslist, I stumbled upon an ad for a V1 for just 6k that had been posted an hour ago. While the ad had a vague, sketchy description, I decided I'd check it out because if it was legit, that price would be a steal even if the car had problems. I called the guy and he said that he didn't know much about the car other than it had some sort of transmission issues and it had sat for awhile, but it apparently ran well. Not deterred by transmission issues at that price, I told him I'd check it out the next day.
Showed up and turns out the car had been stuffed outside, behind a building, for two years! However, apart from being dirty, some paint cracking on the rear bumper cover, and a couple other small noticeable issues, the car did not LOOK too bad at all. I started it up and all seemed well, no noises, smoke, or codes. Drove it around the lot and the the second gear seemed to be gone, but no real issues other than that. So I jumped on it thinking that even if I had to do a full rebuild on the trans, the price was so low that it did not matter.
When I picked it up
I brought the car home, cleaned it up, then parked it for a trans rebuild.
She cleans up nice!
Upon further inspection, it had a magnaflow catback, CAI, and some other mods. Noice! I noticed it had a CTS non-V front bumper cover. Probably replaced from a fender-bender. However, there was no damage that I could find.
I took the trans out and had it rebuilt. 2nd gear synchro was trashed, as I suspected. The car had a spec stage 2 clutch which seemed to be in very good condition, so being the cheapskate that I am, I put it back in the car (big mistake). I put the trans back in the car with a new slave, changed all of the fluids, and took it on its first “real” test drive. All was well until I decided to get on it. I went to shift at around 6000, the clutch pedal went to the floor, and the trans locked me out. Once the RPMs dropped and I pumped the pedal a few times, it slid into gear. Turns out I had a bad case of being locked out of gear at high RPMs. So it was back to the drawing board. After trying all of the usual fixes and even putting a new master cylinder in, nothing worked. I spoke to Monster Clutch and they explained how my pressure plate was probably junk. Heat builds up in the fingers of the pressure plate at high rpm and does not allow the clutch to become fully engaged. So I bought a new clutch kit and drove the car as-is with the intention of putting it in later.
While DDing it, I found more big problems. I smelled mold and traced it to the trunk. Pulled the carpet and the spare tire well was filled with rust from water accumulating in there. You could not even tell from below, there wasn’t a bit of rust underneath! I tapped it with a screw driver and it went right through! Looks like I need to cut the spare tire well out of a junkyard CTS and replace it now… And wouldn’t you know it, the motor started ticking! Ugh!!
I narrowed the tick (which had now become a fluttering sound) down to either rod knock or a bad lifter. I decided to pull the motor and rebuild it, as the oil pressure was lower than I would have liked anyways (got down to 17 psi at idle in heavy traffic). I didn’t really mind this since it allowed me to build the motor that I wanted.
Liberated!
Source of the tick
RIP cam lobe
Scoring on one cylinder
So the verdict is a dead lifter on cylinder 5 and some scoring on the same cylinder.
Motor is now at the machine shop and I’ve been buying parts to build the new motor. Thus far I have some forged rods and pistons to be used with the stock crank. Still deciding what to do with top end. I think I’ll have the stock heads cleaned up and throw them back on along with a vrx5 cam, headers, ect…
Well that is the story so far of how my dirt cheap V1 is quickly becoming not so dirt cheap. Hopefully I’ll have a pretty sweet weekend car that I can screw around in once I’m done!
I’ll add more updates once things start happening. Thanks for checking out my build!
Great write up, will enjoy watch the rebuild of this V! Good luck man!
Thanks!
What did the trans rebuild run you, if you don't mind me asking?
With a full syncho kit and labor included, it cost $1000 almost on the dot. I bought the elusive (and expensive) kit from d&d performance (http://www.ddperformance.com/bs48-corvette-synchro-kit/), dropped the trans off at Lamotta Performance, and picked the trans up two days later. Lamotta did great work and in a very timely manner.
Compared to the other t-56 rebuild kits, the one for V1s, corvettes, and GTOs is ridiculously expensive. Found the best deal at D&D.
So I figured that while the motor is off being machined and whatnot I would start tackling the rust issue in the trunk...
So this is what sitting outside for 2 years with leaking trunk weather striping will do to your spare tire well. Ugly, right? The bare spots around the spare tire well are from me sanding down some rust bubbles (actually seems to be just bubbling paint), as the whole trunk area will be repainted in POR15 or something like it once I finish. I've thoroughly checked the rest of the car and there isn't a spec of rust, its all isolated to this area. I will probably pull the interior carpet to check floor pans just to be safe though.
Anyways, I was think that the way to go is to cut the spare tire well out of a junkyard CTS, cut mine out, tac the new in place, then seal the whole thing up well. I will probably have a friend who works at a body shop come over and give his opinion, but I wanted to post this and see if anyone on here might have any ideas before the car goes under the knife.
It might be worth trying to make the well a couple inches deeper so a full sized spare will fit flush with the trunk floor. I've done lots of patch panels. I usually stack them after fitting, cut through both pieces with a thin cut off saw, MIG butt weld it together, grind it smooth, and paint it.
It might be worth trying to make the well a couple inches deeper so a full sized spare will fit flush with the trunk floor. I've done lots of patch panels. I usually stack them after fitting, cut through both pieces with a thin cut off saw, MIG butt weld it together, grind it smooth, and paint it.
Hmm, not a bad idea at all... It would be nice to fit a normal sized spare in there. I'll have to see how much deeper it will have to be. Also, I plan on following the same procedure. Thanks for the input, man
07-21-2016, 10:36 PM
My 05 CTS-V Build (rebuild) Thread 
