1957 Corvette Super Sport

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

This is our plan for restoration completion before first start. Please feel free to add guidance so we don't miss anything. The car has not moved under it's own power since the accident in 1958. It needs some final items to be done before it can run.

Electrical Status:

The first plan is to thoroughly check the entire electrical system. I will do a visual check and verify wiring integrity and all connections. All new GM NOS wire harnesses were used in the restoration but have never been electrically tested. I have to add switches and wire the door jambs for the custom interior door lamps. The holes are still there for the switch high in the hinge pillars. We have a proper tar top battery but it has been sitting for many years and unsure of it's condition. I suspect it may be beyond use. I will use a fresh battery to test the systems and see about the tar top later.

I will certainly add a 30 Amp fuse to the main feed coming from the solenoid feed. This will protect any catastrophic mishap in the feed circuit. This will be a inline glass fuse tapped into the engine harness at the Ammeter gauge input. No harness wires will be cut. I will also add a 15 Amp fuse to the IGN "Brown" feed. THis will be a specially made jumper fuse with terminals at each end to fit between the ignition switch and harness. I'll get photos when I do this.

Mechanical & Chassis Status:

The engine was run on a dyno years ago. All coolant and fuel was drained. Oil is still in it and we may drain and refill with the proper oil. We'll pull the distributor and prime the system with my drill operated priming tool.

We'll check the differential and transmission fluid levels and adjust if necessary.

I'll suggest we fill the cooling system with distilled water ONLY for our first start. We can drain half and fill with proper coolant after testing the engine.

The Fuel Injection unit was rebuilt by the late Gail Parsons years ago as I recall my friend telling me. My friend has much prior experience with the FI units, I have very little. I think we need to stay clear of ethanol laced fuel for this as I would suspect that all rubber seals are not Viton. Maybe we should upgrade? For those that have suggestions please jump in with your thoughts.

Most of the other aspects of the engine and drivetrain should be straightforward. I'm sure we'll have some issues to diagnose as this car hasn't run in long time.

We'll lube the chassis and check all suspension areas. Tires are special US Royal XP-140 6.70x15's Whitewalls. These were reproduced from the original spare years ago. We'll check them for obvious flaws but hoping no issues. Since we're not planning any high speed runs they should be fine. (photos below)

Interior:

The custom interior will be carefully cleaned. It has it's original leather seat covers and miscellaneous leather features, such as dash roll and floor pan pads. We may use a leather dye on some of the areas of the seats that are cracked and some that are scarred from age. I plan to use a leather cleaner and conditioner to rejuvenate all leather surfaces.

Exterior:

The Pearl White paint shows slight aging in a few areas but overall looks very nice. I recall it was painted about 20 years ago. We'll clean and protect with a coat of protectant, either a wax or a glaze.

The original twin aircraft style Plexiglas windscreens will be cleaned with a mild non-abrasive solution. I have a Plexiglass cleaner and scratch remover which will help make them sparkle. I wonder if I'll find any 60 year old bug juice during the process.

Any thoughts welcome. We plan to begin the work this coming week.

Thanks,
Rich

[Carl D.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

[QUOTE=Richard Mozzetta (13499);794082]This is our plan for restoration completion before first start. Please feel free to add guidance so we don't miss anything. The car has not moved under it's own power since the accident in 1958. It needs some final items to be done before it can run. Rich, I might also (before startup) squirt a little oil into the cylinders and hand turn the pistons up and down and see if the rings are free moving. Just a suggestion with engines that have not been run in years. Carld

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

[QUOTE=Carl Davidson (7233);794135]

This is our plan for restoration completion before first start. Please feel free to add guidance so we don't miss anything. The car has not moved under it's own power since the accident in 1958. It needs some final items to be done before it can run.


Rich, I might also (before startup) squirt a little oil into the cylinders and hand turn the pistons up and down and see if the rings are free moving. Just a suggestion with engines that have not been run in years. Carld

Carl, That's a very good idea, thank you. I will add that to the list and do that before we pull the distributor.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

This is all very interesting, I am wondering now what the FI unit's serial number was. Since the previously reported first fuelie has #3, and it was a full engineering test car Zora used, I wonder where in the sequence a design display car would have been.

Michael, My friend was told this from the man that owned the Super Sport for 40 years after buying it from the salvage yard, along with interviews that Dale had with people that were close to the car at the time there in Albuquerque. There is still much that is unclear about the car and trying to get facts has been a challenge since I got infatuated with this car over 10 years ago.

According to prior research the FI unit was stored in his shed and was then discovered missing some time later. He told him that the unit serial number was #1. My friend has been searching for it for over 20 years. We do know that since the car was driven from Illinois to Albuquerque and raced and crashed, the FI unit was functional on not a mockup.

IMO, The "First Fuelie" production car is the first fuelie and always will be as it was the first true production car with the RPO.

The Super Sport is in a totally different category as it was a Styling car, even though it may have had FI unit #1. However, the lineage around the Super Sport and it's purpose to add Marketing value to the FI production cars, therefore might be considered to be a "First Fuelie" as well. This is my opinion.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

I just got off the phone with Dale and he's doing well. We had a great conversation reminiscing and told him about the photos here. He'll try to check in here when he can. A few years ago his computer broke and lost emails and many photos and files. He is very happy that the Super Sport is reborn.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Yesterday I began work. My objective was to get started on the electrical system. It was fun for me to help my friend with this task. The first thing he wanted to do was to see if the door lamps worked. He never saw them light up and was pretty excited about doing this.

He recalled from 20 years ago when he took it apart that the Styling Dept did some "clever" things in there. The custom fiberglass panels and aluminum inserts were made in their model shop and they used wood to make the long armrest assemblies. These are made of 2 long complex curved and carved pieces, a mount piece and a upholstered piece.They simply painted the long mount piece blue. The armrest/lamp housing/door pull was covered in blue leather. At the face of the leather covered part, they router-ed out 3 areas for the lamp assemblies.
Note that he kept everything original. All are original trims, blue paint, original blue leather, etc. There is patina shown in various areas of this car. He tried hard to maintain it's original flair and not make it a shiny restoration.

Here it shows the door pieces. Aluminum insert, fiberglass reinforcement(that fits in the big hole they made in the door), wood lamp panel/arm rest/door pull(leather covered), wood mount piece(blue paint)


The 3 lamp assemblies are made of pot metal with separate lamp sockets and red lenses held in with long screws. The original brass base GE #90 bulbs are still there. Strangely, all bulb tips are soldered directly to the wire pigtails. The lamp sockets have wires soldered to them for the grounds. To change a bulb one needs a soldering iron.

I traced the wire pigtails on each side, did a quick continuity test using my ohm meter, and all looked fine. We connected a battery to each door. All of the lamps lit up through the red lenses on each side. My friend said this is the first time he saw them light up in the 20 years he's owned the car, and technically, the first time since about 59 years ago. We were like 2 little kids looking at a Christmas tree all lit up. Smiles were in abundance.



After the Christmas tree party I then tested all 4 door switches, 2 for the courtesy lamps and 2 for the door lamps. These switches are the early style with stainless steel flat faces. 2 have brown plungers, which we believe to be for the courtesy lamps. The other 2 for the door lamps have black plungers.

All 4 switches failed a simple ohms continuity test. I had to disassemble all of them, clean all contacts and switch terminals and all were salvaged. I installed both switches on one side, did some wire repairs and made up jumpers for the door lamp circuit. I plan to use a ground feed to the switch and run a separate fused power to the door lamps.

Also to note.....Since the original "donor" car had optional Power Windows(removed), the conduits in the doors were used by the Styling Dept to route the wires for the door lamps.

After I finish the door lamp wiring and functionality, next up will be to wire the 2 custom under-dash "Map & Courtesy" lamps. One above the Shifter and one above the wire-ring Clipboard. These will need a separately fused feed to illuminate at any time as each has a built in toggle switch.


More to Come,
Rich

[Bruce B.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich,

What a great experience and very cool history for us Forum members.

Thanks,
Bruce B

[James G.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Thanks Michael. Does Dale Schafer attend also? I haven't heard from him in a while and hope is all well with him. I think he changed his email address but a friend just sent it to me and I dropped him a note with the status.

We used to have some very long phone conversations in the past when we were researching together.

Rich
ps a few more photos of the show.



I have a note this one with Betty Skelton waving was at Rinke Chevrolet in Warren MI.

Thank you Rich. My family lived in New Jersey in this time period. My Dad was a car guy and loved Caddilac and Buick. We went to this show. I was just turning 13. My love affair with Corvette was created. Dad was a big man and could not fit comfortably behind the wheel. I did a lot of dreaming in these days, and the following summer got my first job at Bud's Esso.....the rest is history.

[Don H.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Fascinating details to this car Rich,
I wonder the purpose of the 4 ring clipboard on the custom console?
So the driver could work on homework while stopped at traffic lights?
This might be a 1957 version of "texting while driving" ?

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Thank you Rich. My family lived in New Jersey in this time period. My Dad was a car guy and loved Caddilac and Buick. We went to this show. I was just turning 13. My love affair with Corvette was created. Dad was a big man and could not fit comfortably behind the wheel. I did a lot of dreaming in these days, and the following summer got my first job at Bud's Esso.....the rest is history.

Jim, you were there? That 's special. How well do you remember the Super Sport at 13? Was it your favorite car of the show?

Do you recognize anyone in this photo?

Fascinating details to this car Rich,
I wonder the purpose of the 4 ring clipboard on the custom console?
So the driver could work on homework while stopped at traffic lights?
This might be a 1957 version of "texting while driving" ?

I'm finding more and more fantastic details at every corner. Styling did some remarkable things on this car. I'll have to get some detail photos of the doors, decklid, and trunk gaps. They're apx 1/8". They closed the gaps by adding filler to the areas surrounding the doors and lids. The lid gutters are much narrower than stock.

...Texting? That's funny!

or the first GPS.... i.e. A Map Holder for the Road Rallys back then. I think the Passenger would have to follow a list of checkpoints along the way. The driver could look down at the map pages and flip the pages over, or rip them off after he passed the checkpoint.

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Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Yesterday afternoon I arrived at the Super Sport with a plan in mind to continue the electrical work for the Door Lamps and the custom Center Console Map Lamps. We had the damaged original harness in hand and saw evidence of the way it was originally wired. Twenty years ago when the car was restored, a NOS GM dash harness was used to replace the unusable harness.

The Styling Department must have been in a time constraint in the Fall of 1956 as there were some strange looking splices in different places. Traces of blue paint were seen on some of the wires and plastic connectors, this from the blue interior lacquer used in the customized painting process. For the sake of originality, we decided to use some of these pieces to fabricate new harness wiring for the task. Our mindset was originality so I kept this in mind. I began by removing several brass male terminal blades and plastic connectors from the damaged original harness to be used for the new wiring. This was tedious as I had to carefully pry the brass legs of the terminals open and remove the copper wires from them to allow reuse. I did this on about 12 pieces. I would re-crimp and solder these to the new wiring later.

The door lamps have 2 wires exiting from the conduit, a Pink and Purple. After tracing the circuits with my ohm meter, it showed the Pink is the ground and Purple the lamp power. The Styling Dept added switches to the upper pillar as a Ground switched circuit to activate the lamps, similar to the production FOA Courtesy Lamp circuit. I crimped and soldered the original terminals to these wires along with black tubing at each joint.

The Pink ground for the lamps was connected to one terminal of the switch. The other terminal of the switch requires a hard ground input. I created a Black/White-Stripe(typical ground color coding) wire with a soldered blade terminal on one end which was connected to the remaining switch terminal and a round terminal at the other end. The round terminal would be grounded at the rear of the Gauge Cluster. The Cluster is hard grounded to the horizontal dash support which gets its Ground from the Main Harness as in normal production. I did the same wiring on the opposite side door.

The Main Power to feed both Purple wires came from the Fuse Panel. I fabricated a new wire harness using new brass female terminals for all interconnect wiring. Black sleeving was used at each terminal junction for safety. The harness runs from the Fuse Panel to the Drivers door then across the dash under the cowl to the Passenger side. We need to get some original metal ties to neatly arrange the underdash wiring later.

The Center Console Map Lamps have unique integrated switches for the make/break function of their ground inputs. I made a similar harness for these lamps using the same process and terminals. This power for this harness is also fed from the Fuse Panel and runs along the underdash area to the center. There I made two plastic housings with female terminals for the lamp power feed wires. I also made two lamp ground wires with round terminal ends which will be grounded to the Gauge Cluster.

All wiring is complete for these 2 circuits and all lamps will be tested later. I'll have some photos of the wiring later. It's quite fun to do this work and not have to worry about following AIM descriptions and configuration nuances. Quite refreshing.

Since I don't have any photos of the above, here are a few of the 1110889 distributor used on this early engine. I have NEVER seen the inside of this type of distributor before. He had it apart to clean it and prep it for re-installation. It has a unique centrifugal advance mechanism and associated main shaft. He told me this distributor had initial flaws in production. It was found that oil would ride upward into the breaker plate area and could get oil on the points.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

I found this link yesterday which I'd forgotten about, with a photo of Briggs Cunningham on the right and 2 others. Who are the others?


A friend just sent me these photos which I've never seen before. Thanks Friend.

Does anyone recognize her?


Jim Gessner......Is that you leaning on the railing?


The Styling Department.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

The Entire electrical system has been verified. We had a few problems, like a bad bulb here or there, and a bad headlight switch(which I repaired), and a internal short on the TEMP gauge. That was interesting.

We completed the wiring and I did some quick tests. I had to pull the IGN switch to access the gauges. Notice the original blue overspray from when the car was done. The map lights work nicely. One thing I never knew about, was that little clipboard ring binder. It's actually a separate piece that slides down into a channel of the center map console.


After electrical system tests, here it is under power for the first time since 1958. Flashers, dash lamps, etc work fine. Headlights H/L beams work fine too but no photos. I love those door safety lamps.


So a FYI about the bad TEMP gauge which I was able to fix. The Sender lug terminal inside the meter swung over and shorted to the internal ground plane. Easy fix after I pulled the pod out of the dash, which was much fun under that custom gauge cluster. I disassembled the meters from the pods and tested them both on the bench with my bench test. I tested the FUEL gauge with a sender and it's fine.

Here's the inside of the TEMP gauge.

Dead short between IGN and SENDER terminals. That's 0.3 ohms.


The soldered terminal on the left is swung to the right past the notch in the fiber insulator and shorted to the centered brass disc which is ground. You can see the terminal with the micro-wire going to one of the coils. That little terminal(hidden just behind the fiber) tab should be located in the fiber insulator notch. It wasn't.


Here it is after I repaired it. I had to bend the terminal back and flat against the fiber insulator.


You can see the small tab and how it's made to fit in the fiber insulator notch to lock it in.


All fixed. Apx 30 ohms between the terminals.


Next up will be engine preparation for first start.

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[Randy S.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Hi Rich.

Thanks for sharing this fascinating story of one really cool 'Vette. I have truly enjoyed following along thus far and am looking forward to you sharing more!

Thanks.
Randy

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Hi Rich.

Thanks for sharing this fascinating story of one really cool 'Vette. I have truly enjoyed following along thus far and am looking forward to you sharing more!

Thanks.
Randy

Randy, Glad you're enjoying it with the others that appreciate what it is. It's really amazing that not many people knew about this car, but that is because it was hidden away so long ago after the Albuquerque incident. Thankfully the local guys out there knew about it and have helped us very much with it's history. We would know very little about it otherwise.

Rich