Two days ago I finally received the original factory invoice which was used when my Corvette was shipped from the factory to the dealer. It contains information like the shipping date, original features and accessories of the car, what dealer it was sold to (including the state and city) and more. Invoices like this can be ordered from GM Media Archive and the process of the staff finding the invoice from the archive for you and sending it in PDF format will cost you exactly 50 US dollars. Not too much for a very unique paper related to YOUR 30 years old classic car. Feel free to have a look at it yourself:
Yesterday when I went to visit an American car shop selling our Red Rock Decals sticker, I saw a very nice Harley Davidson styled Chevy 3500 dually truck there. I just love those!
So the hobby car driving season in Estonia is now over and it was finished with a show day and cruise in a small Estonian town Rakvere. There are some pretty nice photos that we were able to capture now uploaded at the following address: American Car Show and Cruise Photos 2009.
This is the first entry in my Picture of the Day category where I try to add some cool photos about situations somewhat related to cars that I have captured on the fly and often with my iPhone.
I hope you will find this new segment interesting and enjoyable.
Alrighty! I thought it was about time to order something cool for the Suburban exterior and this time I decided the accessories to be bumper guides. These are the shiny posts attached to the front bumper which look real good on any truck with hood and they also carry yellow lamps on top which function as corner markers and turn signals. I ordered the guides from the best known American manufacturer of such items named Bores Manufacturing, Inc. Here’s a list of what they are offering.
For those who don’t know, here’s what they look like:
Today I decided to take some time and carry out a number of updates on this blog. First of all, I thought the header image needed some new looks since I had much better photos available of both the vehicles by now. So, there’s the new header! I also updated the Corvette To-Do List and added a To-Do List for my Chevy truck. Many new photos were added to the dedicated photo pages.
Finally, I added a feature to send me an e-mail in case you would like to get more information about the cars or how I have solved some issues.
Last week my friends from the Estonian Ford Mustang Club told me about their upcoming event at a gokart racing circuit, lately used mostly by cars. I ofcourse joined them and on Saturday morning we were ready at the track to prepare ourselves for some laps with an instructor and then get going alone. I must say that it was an awesome experience and it gave me a lot of experience with the Corvette in regard of handling, stopping and recovery from loss of control. The Vette behaved nicely the whole time and I was just missing some good racing tires. In the front I currently have Road Hugger radials and they aren’t really made for track performance. Quite a bit of understeer with them.
Although everything was OK with the Corvette differential when I bought the car October 2008, I had it parked in the garage over the winter and when I began driving it last Spring, I noticed a very strange behaviour with the rear end. When cold, everything was fine, but when I began driving it and had driven for about 20 miles, it began making horrible noises when taking corners and giving gas at the same time. It also wanted to drag the inside wheel and the car was just vibrating terribly. I almost had the rear end rebuilt but I didn’t have time to mess with it and then I just thought I’ll do it over the winter. Browsing the Corvette Forums about a week ago about the similar issues people have had, I accidentally found a tip which suggested to try fully synthetic 75W-140 rear end oil instead of the usual 80W-90. They also said that it’s very important to add limited slip diff additive (one 4 oz. bottle) even if the oil is certified for LSD use. So I decided to give it a try and bought also a small bottle of Ford LSD additive which was told to be the same thing as GM additive, simply different branding.
Guess what – my rear end issues are GONE. It’s silk smooth, the lock seems to be working fine and I can drive hundreds of miles without any of the issues appearing which I had before. It’s just a pleasure to drive this car now. Again it’s a good proof that American cars are EASY to fix. I’ve fixed most of the issues on my cars in a similar manner. I don’t know if the oil solved the issue permanently, but at least this summer-autumn period will hopefully be OK to drive.
Long time no new information here, but the present moment makes an end to this silence :) Again, I’ve been busy. I have my Air Traffic Controller job and all sorts of other activites with my businesses. Still, I managed to accomplish one of my long time ideas to gather two friends, one with a car and another with camera, and have a highway photo session of the Vette. So, off we went with my photographer handling my EOS 40D in the Monte Carlo SS. Oh well, the friend who was supposed to be taking good photos almost got really angry at us because we just couldn’t stop playing around and passing each other at full throttle! In the end we were still able to capture some decent stuff. Editing was done by me. When we finished shooting, we went to a drive-in and accidentally there were two Firebirds also in the queue. So we began talking and made some new friends.
