John McGraw

Here are some pics of my latest project. It is a 65 Corvette with a 67 front clip on a tube chassis. It has C5 Corvette front suspension and C4 Dana 44 rear suspension with coilovers on all 4 corners.
It has a stock LS2 engine and a 4L65E trans. The car runs real strong and it goes around corners like a go-cart, but still rides good! I only have about 250 miles on it in the last 2 weeks, but I am planning on putting some miles on it this summer. Vintage Air, power R&P steering, Hydroboost brakes that stop so good it is scary! I tried to keep the car looking as much like stock as I could, but I had to fabricate a custom gauge cluster. I even converted the stock powerglide shifter to work with the A4 trans.

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrow...der_id=1970756


Regards, John McGraw

ls1nova71

iTrader: (4)

Looks good! Nice job.

blackhawk400

iTrader: (1)

Holy Cow!!! that is an awesome Vette! Did you do all the work yourself? Any pics of what it looked like before you started? Where did you get the C5 suspension setup? I thought only the C4 suspension was available. Thanks, and once again, wow, great job!

rockytopper

John very very nice. It makes me want to take my cutlass out to my pond and make fish habitat out of it.

What color is that RED?

rao

iTrader: (18)

Looks great!

bczee

iTrader: (12)

Nice !.. any pictures on the underside, suspension and frame ?

John McGraw

Thanks,

Here are some pics of the construction:

Chassis:

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrow...der_id=1342584


Body:

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrow...der_id=1567438

As you can see, there was not much to start with. The only body parts that were able to be used were the doors, decklid and the body tub. All 4 corners had big, nasty 70's style flares, the head lights had been glassed up, the taillights had been glassed up and replaced with 67 Camaro tail lights, and there was a lot of rust in the windshield frame. I had to pull the front clip anyway to remove the windshield frame to repair it, so I just went with new body panels rather than trying to repair the old stuff! A good portion of the rear body tub floor had to be removed for clearance at the rearend, and I built a mold to make a new floor section to replace it with.
I tried not to get tooo carried away with fabrication like I usually do. This is intended as a daily driver, and I wanted a low maintenance car.

I painted the car in single stage urethane, and the color is Viper Red. I painted my 59 the same color, and I liked it so good that I used it on this car too! I really like single stage paint, as it is real easy to touch-up, unlike Basecoat/Clearcoat. The entire chassis of the car is powdercoated, and even the aluminum suspension parts were ground, polished and coated in chrome powdercoat for durability. All the suspension pieces were junkyard parts. The front suspension pieces were from a 2003 Corvette and the Dana 44 rear suspension was from a 96. I had to section the halfshafts and struts 1.25" on each side to get to the correct track width and get the rear tires under the fenders. I can only run 245 tires on that car due to the limited wheelwells, but it still hooks up pretty good.

I have over 2000 hours in the car, and I am sure glad to have it on the street! I plan on putting some serious miles on it this summer.


Regards, John McGraw

LS1GMCTruck

iTrader: (2)

Came together very nice John. Wish I could paint at the house like you do. Its a nice luxury. Next home I buy will not have those type restrictions. What color you going to paint the next one? Again, very nice work.

John McGraw

Probably red! Every car that I have built for the last 10 years has been red, but you never know, I might break the pattern. I just painted a friends's car in silver.


Regards, John McGraw