Wheel Well Undercoating and Detailing Wheels and Tires

In order to properly and safely undercoat the wheel wells, it will be necessary to have a way to lift the vehicle so you can remove the wheels and have complete access to the area inside the fenders.

Of course, you can do this job one wheel well at a time, but for that, you'll need a floor jack as well as a couple of jack stands. By the way, never trust a floor jack—regardless of brand or lifting capacity—to hold the car up safely for an extended period of time.

If you chose the floor jack route, you must use jackstands to support your Vette.

I am fortunate to have a QuickJack BL-5000SLX Portable Car Jack for car-lifting duties and consider it one of my smartest and solid investments. The QuickJack allows me to safely remove all the wheels as it holds the weight of the car via mechanical lock bars instead of hydraulic pressure.

Budget Garage Organization: Detailing Supplies

My garage is—literally—the largest room in my home. And yes, I consider it a room since I spend quite a bit of time there, every single day.

I always enter my home through the garage. I'm always sweeping the floor to keep dust and dirt under control. And I always find something to clean or tinker with on my 1976 Corvette Stingray.

And speaking of cleaning, I do have a small selection of car detailing supplies but until now, I kept them on a big shelf which was not conducive to handiness or organization, so I decided to do something about it.

Another thing that always bothers me is wasted space in the garage, even though I am fortunate to have a spacious 3-car garage. However, for reasons unknown, it appears I am always running out of space, as I am sure everyone else is when it comes to garage real estate.

C3 Corvette Rear Wheel Well Undercoating

This project got pushed to the back burner, and it's been sitting there for about two years, so it was time for me to take care of it once and for all.

Needless to say, having the QuickJack makes this job a lot easier, but it still is a dirty one, and—in my case—I spent about four hours detailing this one wheel well.

Having said that, the end product is well worth the effort.

C3 Corvettes, And Why We Love Them

Why a Corvette?

It's America's Sports Car! That's why. 

 
Why a C3?

For me, it all started with Corvette Summer, the 1978 movie starring Mark Hamill and Annie Potts.

Hamill plays Kenny Dantley, a Southern California high school senior who—as a shop class project—builds a right-hand-driven custom Corvette Stingray. The car is stolen and Kenny tracks the Vette to Las Vegas, starting his quest to find and reclaim his car.

Looking back, the movie plot and most of the scenes are pretty silly, and the car's custom work is way over the top with all the excessive, even cartoonish bodywork and metal-flake paint of the era. But back in 1978, it was an awesome machine in the eyes of a young guy.

How to Repair The Upper Horn Contact Assembly

Having an inoperative horn is not only inconvenient, but also unsafe.

There are many reasons why the horn may not work; from old and broken horn assemblies, faulty wiring, bad fuse, to a shorted horn relay.

However, in my case, the horn worked... as long as you pressed the horn button precisely on the right spot, so it boiled down to poor or improper contact at the upper horn contact assembly.

The diagram below shows an exploded view of the 1976 steering column components, which differ from pre- and post-76 columns due to the "distinctive" steering wheel.

The rest of the internal components are—for the most part—identical.

As I've mentioned before, my steering column came from a 1978 Corvette and I covered the rebuild and swapping process in a series of articles.