Geoff Eaton's 78 silver anniversary

Our car 78 silver anniversary was purchased at auction in Kobe Japan in September 2001 by our son who was living there. The purchase was inspired by a picture I had in garage of a red C1.

Car was imported & transported to home and looked ok when it came off tilt tray. I was soon to get my induction to corvette's, car started by the key but that was about it no guages worked, wipers,lights virtually every thing electrical due to what appeared to be a fire at the firewall plug under L/hand guard.

Due to car only being 22 years old when it arrived in Aus it had to be converted to RHD. I took on the task and soon found out that people were happy to take your money to do the conversion, not help or offer advice, so I was on my own. Conversion took about 2 years to complete with a lot of trial and error, testing / repairing wiring,making parts & modifying pieces, I was adamant I wanted working AC with RHD.

I know nothing of cars previous history or how it ended up in Japan but from working on car over the years and doing the conversion I figured car had been fitted with a big engine at some time hence the high rise bonnet,also found L/hand axle had a twisted spline,steering arms didn't match, tie rod tube was bent & upper control arm shaft was bent,booster wasn't correct to suit brake master cylinder when I replaced it, rear hub has a 74 casting no, diff hemisphere split, so car has had a hard time somewhere in its life.

Paint is as car was purchased, car has evolved over the years with many subtle mods and improvements and is still a work in progress.

Interior mods are, Widen R/hand foot well,Retrim interior & colour change from burgundy shag pile carpet to black interior with 80 model seats,custom 2 tone door trims,brushed aluminium trim kit,aftermarket 2 tone leather steer wheel,central locking & immobiliser,intermittent wipers,wiper switch and headlight dipperswitch relocated onto column,bluetooth 4 speaker stereo,custom rear mount speakers,and storage compartments, Firewall & floor insulation.
Mechanical work, reco heads,Vn commodore T700 overdrive box,renew all suspension bushes front and rear, new rear wheel bearings,oversize handbrake shoes,stainless lined brake calipers,falcon twin thermo fans,electric headlight actuators,edelbrock performer manifold and carby.

Car is now very reliable and at time of writing has 33514kms on car kms at purchase was 80585kms.

We have attended most of the interstate conventions in the car driving to and from and include Qld x 2 Broadbeach & Toowoomba, SA Adelaide & Barossa Valley, ACT x2, Vic Albert Park and Bendigo,plus Great Ocean Rd & Phillip Island and numerous club runs.

Future projects are to fit new fuel guage and aluminium radiator, electric remote mirrors from a Mazda MX5. Each and every mod just make the car more of a pleasure to drive all work has been done in house by my self except diff and gearbox build.

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