General help with my 72 Corvette Stingray

[craigh]

The hole is normal part of the duct tube that goes to the drivers side ball vent in lower dash.

You can see the remnants from the stick on seal tape that goes around that duct where it pushes together that is meant to seal it together where it joins.

It is not pushed in fully, that's why it's showing up like that.....however after 40+ years the parts don't always go together as well as they should.  (To be honest they probably did not go together perfectly when new :)

The tube is held in place at both ends by pressure and there is a bracket with a screw that mounts near the bottom edge of drivers dash, next to under dash light and odometer reset knob.

Remove the screw and you can move the duct around a bit more.  then bend bracket to fit again once happy with position.

See if that helps.

[Speedvette]

Cheers Craig.

I tried to super glue it together yesterday while holding it together by hand but the glue just wouldn't hold. I'll be going down the street tomorrow so I'll try and get some double sided tape and seal it up that way.

In regards to the seats. I sent an email to Willcox Corvette and all they can send is a picture of what the seats look like, not really too helpful in my opinion as the colour might still not match the interior. I'm hoping their supplier might be able to send me a sample through the mail but thats probably a long shot.

Got a problem with the alarm too, not working at all. Do these alarms have a fuse somewhere?

Thanks all for your help so far. More questions will come no doubt.

Cheers.

[bfit]

clean the duct  in the area  to be joined  with acetone. its very potent crap so lots of ventilation when your using it .
use plumbers silastic ( as it is air harding )
sikaflex   make some good products as well,

you will need to keep the joint together over night to make sure it will stay there.
Bfit

[craigh]

I would not try and glue or silicone the duct parts together, feel free to put some tape over the hole but consider ...... You may have to remove the cross over tube at another time when you want to get to wiring, drop the steering column, update the duct balls etc etc.

As for your seats my 71 is Bridgehampton Blue and I purchased new seat covers and foams from Wilcox corvette (made by Corvette America) Perfect match and I think it was royal blue, check my build thread for details.

Check this site

http://corvettec3.ca/interior.htm

Looks like the blue code is the same for 71 and 72 even though in 71 it's called dark blue.

Do you have any pictures of the current blue seats.

[Speedvette]

I would not try and glue or silicone the duct parts together, feel free to put some tape over the hole but consider ...... You may have to remove the cross over tube at another time when you want to get to wiring, drop the steering column, update the duct balls etc etc.

As for your seats my 71 is Bridgehampton Blue and I purchased new seat covers and foams from Wilcox corvette (made by Corvette America) Perfect match and I think it was royal blue, check my build thread for details.

Check this site

http://corvettec3.ca/interior.htm

Looks like the blue code is the same for 71 and 72 even though in 71 it's called dark blue.

Do you have any pictures of the current blue seats.

Yes my interior code is 412, presuming yours is the same. Looked at your build thread and it is an impressive one at that. Your original seats look identical to mine, in fact your whole interior looks the same. I would like to buy the seat covers this weekend as Willcox Corvette has a sale on which could save up to 20%.

Here's the link if anyone's interested.

http://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c3-general/3788489-willcox-weekend-sale-carpet-dash-pads-door-panels-and-seat-cover-specials.html

Lastly I have noticed the external blue for 70 and 71 is called BridgeHampton blue. The blue for a 72 is called Targa Blue. And the blue for 73 is called Dark Blue. My question being, are these colours essentially the same colours? I ask because I ordered some touch up paint however the maker of the paint didnt have a listing for Targa Blue, so he made it up from his listing of Dark Blue being the 73 colour.

[craigh]

The blue body colours were different between those years.

However your Vette has likely been painted in the last 40 years so it probably won't be 100% the original colour.

What I mean by that is paints have changed a lot in 40 years with the removal of chemical and pigments that were deemed harmful.  As such modern mixes are not exactly like the originals.

Also depends how close the match was when they did your last paint.

I have a set of colour cards from 1971 that were used in dealers to show customers and while they have aged with time it is clear my blue is not exactly like the card. 

Have also seem many bridgehamton blue vettes here and in the US and have seen lots of variation.

[73RAT]

It took me literally years to get the correct mix formula for my Mulsanne Blue - my Brother-in-law is a rep for PPG and in the end he had to got through the tech guys in the states.  In saying that, it is 2K paint so will look very different to the original finish in terms of depth and reflectance (I did flip flop between factory acrylic finish or the 2K).  So even if the formula was correct, as said in the post above the pigments are different and also it will change depending on the application and flake settlement (wet film thickness of the spray) and what sort of light it is under.  Non-metallics have a much better chance at matching, but fading is an issue and as said above, who knows what actual colour it could have been resprayed. 

There is a pretty good site paintref.com that lists cars, OEM codes and shows some pictures of the cars with the similar paint option in the OEM colour, this site will also filter into 'Blue Corvettes' which will list and picture every blue Corvette with OEM codes so you can seee what colours had the same codes but different names.

I have attached as an example the Mulsanne Blue list that shows how the same GM code was called different colours.  Also pictures of the 1972 GM colour charts as mentioned above - don't use these to match paint!  Surprisingly my Mulsanne Blue is very similar to current? Mazda Astron Blue...go figure...but the Duplicolor touch-up pen and touch-up spray was acceptably close to do some out of the way touch-ups.

[Speedvette]

Looks like 72 Targa Blue is the exact same colour as the 73 Blue according to that website paintref.com. They have the same manufacturing, Chrysler, Diztler and Dupont code.

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?type=sample&ditzler=2432&syear=1972&smanuf=GM&smodel=Corvette&sname=Targa%20Blue&name=corvette1972WA4282&scomm=

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?type=sample&ditzler=2432&syear=1973&smanuf=GM&smodel=Corvette&sname=Targa%20Blue&name=corvette1973WA4282&scomm=

[73RAT]

OEM listing is the same on the colour charts, so probably.  I found paint shops here in Australia struggled to convert the GM OEM codes into a mix formula (hence sourcing from PPG in the US) but maybe that was just my colour, as there seemed to be some conflicting OEM codes. 

See if you can find someone locally that has recently resprayed a car the same color and has kept the formula, even better if they can put some spare paint on a flat sample coupon to compare with your car and/or park the cars together or put a painted piece of one car against the other.  The base colour on a coupon will not be shiny or have the same flake lay when dry so will still look a little different...

There maybe a paint repair place / supplier that has a photospectrometer type gadget for paint matching and you can remove & use something like the gas filler cap to get a sample pot made. The local paint supplier was able to eye match a non-metallic paint for my EJ Holden and when I sprayed the bonnet and front nose panels I couldn't see any difference between bonnet and guards.

[Speedvette]

I got the touch up paint about 15 minutes ago. I applied to sme small chips that I have and the colour is extremely close if not a match. Obviously will need to dry properly but I'm pretty happy with the colour.

[bfit]

OEM listing is the same on the colour charts, so probably.  I found paint shops here in Australia struggled to convert the GM OEM codes into a mix formula (hence sourcing from PPG in the US) but maybe that was just my colour, as there seemed to be some conflicting OEM codes. 

See if you can find someone locally that has recently resprayed a car the same color and has kept the formula, even better if they can put some spare paint on a flat sample coupon to compare with your car and/or park the cars together or put a painted piece of one car against the other.  The base colour on a coupon will not be shiny or have the same flake lay when dry so will still look a little different...

There maybe a paint repair place / supplier that has a photospectrometer type gadget for paint matching and you can remove & use something like the gas filler cap to get a sample pot made. The local paint supplier was able to eye match a non-metallic paint for my EJ Holden and when I sprayed the bonnet and front nose panels I couldn't see any difference between bonnet and guards.

the problem is not that the local paint suppliers can not convert the formula's  for the  colours
its that the paints now days are completely different products.

Back in the 60`s /70`s the paint  were  nitrocellulose lacquer ( duco )  I don't remember what the base of the metallic paints was at that time.
bfit

[craigh]

It took me literally years to get the correct mix formula for my Mulsanne Blue - my Brother-in-law is a rep for PPG and in the end he had to got through the tech guys in the states.  In saying that, it is 2K paint so will look very different to the original finish in terms of depth and reflectance (I did flip flop between factory acrylic finish or the 2K).  So even if the formula was correct, as said in the post above the pigments are different and also it will change depending on the application and flake settlement (wet film thickness of the spray) and what sort of light it is under.  Non-metallics have a much better chance at matching, but fading is an issue and as said above, who knows what actual colour it could have been resprayed. 

There is a pretty good site paintref.com that lists cars, OEM codes and shows some pictures of the cars with the similar paint option in the OEM colour, this site will also filter into 'Blue Corvettes' which will list and picture every blue Corvette with OEM codes so you can seee what colours had the same codes but different names.

I have attached as an example the Mulsanne Blue list that shows how the same GM code was called different colours.  Also pictures of the 1972 GM colour charts as mentioned above - don't use these to match paint!  Surprisingly my Mulsanne Blue is very similar to current? Mazda Astron Blue...go figure...but the Duplicolor touch-up pen and touch-up spray was acceptably close to do some out of the way touch-ups.

Any chance you have  the same pages PPG above form. 71 ?

[73RAT]

Hi craigh - not really sure but is this what you were after?

[craigh]

Perfect thanks