Obviously if your considering restoring a Corvette, the process is a bit different from a metal bodied car, don't think for a minute that you won't find rust in a Corvette, maybe not as much, but Corvettes do rust, they sit on a metal frame, and use metal suspension and transmission parts, all of which can rust, so don't fool yourself in to thinking because the car's body is made of fiberglass, your restoration will be easier, it will not, if anything it will be harder.

Corvette's will provide you with a number of different challenges then a metal bodied car would, you will have more to learn, and more challenges to overcome, so prepare yourself, get your head in to it, make sure that you have all the tolls that you need to do the job, and if you don't know what tools you need, stop by a Barnes & Nobel book store and buy a book on restoring a Corvette, if you have never restored a car, and the Corvette is your first attempt, you will want to know all you can before you begin the job.

Get out your notebook and pen, or do it on your computer, but plan the restoration, and spend some time to do a really good job in on this part of the restoration, this is what will make most people loose interest in the car that they are going to restore, and you don't want to do this on your Corvette, if you plan the restoration you'll always know what your looking forward to, you'll know what you need for the job, and what you already have, and this goes a long way to resolve the frustration issues that just naturally go a long with the restoration.

Noe that we have that out of the way, you'll want to choose a good car to start with, even if you have to pay a little bit more money for it, and if your trying to restore it so you can sell it for a profit, forget that right now, you will spend more to restore the car then you can sell it for, unless it happens to be a special Corvette, like and L88 or ZL1 Corvette, then it would become possible to make profit of of a restored Corvette.

The first thing that you want to do to make this easier on you is to check the car out before you buy it, if the owner doesn't want you to drive the car, there is a reason, and you can take that to the bank, but for this article, let's just say that you have already chosen the perfect Corvette for you, the body & mechanical, and electrical are all in decent shape, and you got your foot on the starting block, ready, set , go, you have the Corvette in your garage, and it's just begging you to get it restored so you can drive it, I know the feeling.

Here is where it gets hard, nobody can show you every little thing about a restoration, something different will happen on your car then what happened on the last car that they restored, so be ready to face a learning curve that you won't believe during the restoration of your car, do yourself a huge favor, and spend the first day cleaning the car, get the grease out of the engine compartment, and form under the chassis of the car.

Once the car is spotless, you should spend the next day taking pictures of the car from every imaginable angle, these pictures will help you when it's time to put the car back together, believe me, it's a huge mistake not to do this, or to skip any step will make you pay later, and you will not like it, the next day is when you need to bust out the plan that you have made, and follow it to the letter, if you plan is set up to guide you by the day, you will get your car done, and probably even be very happy with the out come of it, just don't expect more by the day then what you can deliver for yourself, this may sound a bit weak, but I'll give an idea of a day 1 plan for me.

Start at 8:00 A.M.

From 8:00 to 12:00 Noon, work on tearing down the front end of the car, and be prepared with a lot of boxes for the parts that you take off of the car, label these boxes so you know whats in them, and just for good measure take pictures of the parts that you pull off of the front end and put them in with the parts, make sure that you bag and tag the parts that you pull off of the car, I can say from experience that you will not remember where the parts came from, the car will be torn a part for quite a while.

When I say bag and tag the parts I mean, say you pull the headlights and headlight buckets out of the car to start with, make sure that you have a box labeled headlights, and inside that box you have the pictures of the parts that you have pulled off of the car, in this box should be plastic bags with the small parts, labeled mounting hardware, and be sure to put your nuts, bolts, and brackets in there, with pictures of where these nuts, bolts, and brackets came form, also draw a map of where these parts came from and put it in the box also.

Organization is the key to getting you Corvette restored the right way.

From 1:00 P.M. To when your done for the day.

When you get back from lunch, you can remove the hood and hinges, and it's the same here, make sure that you label a box, hood and you bag and tag all the parts that you pull of while removing the hood, take pictures of these parts and put them in with the parts in the box, remove the grille and mounting hardware, and label a box for it, take pictures of it while you remove it, make sure that if you break off any nuts and bolts, that you document this so you know what to replace, normally I'd just replace all the nuts and bolt with new ones any way.

Any way, you get the idea here, this is the most important part of the job, and by the way, do not throw any of the old parts away, they will be useful during the restoration project, I know that you'll replace most of these parts during the restoration process, but you will need them for reference, so make sure that you keep all of them.

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