I bought a Wrecked Auction Corvette - Will it RUN AND DRIVE?

so everyone else is buying up these corvettes taking delivery of their c80s or whatever they are they got nine turbos through the hood and got the welding gas plugged in and then big wings whatever they do so a guy figured mazel snagged one up too you know but you know me by now got to do her the vice grip way so i did the right thing and bought what appears to be a very high mileage stolen then recovered wrecked salvage title auction corvette great but fit the budget i know absolutely nothing about this car so let's see if we can get her fired up oh by the way this standard screwdriver is the key that's fine i've got 12 of these no 13. [Music] so here's what i know about this rig it's a maroon i believe it's a 98 chevrolet it's got the 5.7 litre ls in it it's got a man well select-o-matic that was a big selling point convertible obviously i think the top i don't know folds in there or something it's been painted once horribly the majority of the front end is ripped off the only time i saw this is when i went to pick it up pay the guy and it was raining and snowing and muddy you know like every single day in minnesota so i just hooked a winch on it and drug it onto the trailer and we just rolled it off the trailer right into this spot here actually before i went to florida so i don't know i guess we'll just kind of walk around this thing and what is this i don't know try to figure out what we got going on it's kind of funny because i still view these as kind of the the new corvette but seems like everyone's getting a hold of them now this one didn't you know it didn't end so well for it and basically i'll just kind of quick show you see the hood line here the frame is bent on this see how the hood overlaps so there was definitely some sort of impact happened here based on the wheels i don't know if that's insurance or if that's crash investigation but pulled a mustang went over a couple curbs or something or in the ditch but it probably took about 13 seconds for the insurance to go yep totaled so she went down the road she ended up at an auction site in california i'm assuming that's where it was born and raised i don't have any uh details on that though probably a button for that but the body is i mean i guess it's kind of goodish from here back but this is all jammed in this is clearly not supposed to be that high the front bumper was laying where i got it but i mean it was just in pieces so there's really no point grabbing that all this is kind of loose got some big floppage here but i think that's supposed to cool the computer down in there see so as you go faster this just swoops out like that i think i saw that in one of them indycar races probably not the interior is pretty much southern you know the sun down there just eats the seats up what is this thing get it up there okay i don't know how to run that let's go over to the other side wow is there a button for that even oh ah just you know there we go that opens what in the devil oh digital windows might not work boy this seat is just you know it's been had airbags they might have popped not quite sure you know surprisingly even though it's a convertible smells like burnt popcorn and aspirin with just a shade of airbag that's not very good to be honest a bunch of plastic missing down here and uh i guess this is how you steal a corvette is you just put some diodes in this fitting and you probably thought i was joking but no it really starts with the screwdriver so that's just jammed in there right now someone got the shifter ball dang it that kind of ish moves ooh compact disc hope that works that's not very much storage corvette oh there's the gas button good thing i looked in there that's important to know turn the traction control on and off um i don't know how many miles it has because we got no battery i was just told it was pretty high i think we need a battery to get into here seats coming out oh there's lots of plastic tubulators and stuff in there i don't know does this have a trunk i think it does let's see if we can get in here and see what's going on that's i have a feeling i'll need that somewhere at some point i always like to start the trunk it just tells you so much about the rig it's got to be a like it just snapped off a license plate light must be over here i think i just snapped off the other license plate light ah no is this you pull on this open i don't know there's got to be a button there that wasn't that was not it there huh by the by this spoiler here you can definitely tell was repainted because they sanded it with like 80 grit i'll show you later probably not i'll forget just you know squint you'll you can see it this side's been double side taped on is there a user manual i don't know why everyone had to turn everything digital what was wrong with the key for the trunk nothing in there but air baggage nothing in there is this broke too what is this piece what do we got here i don't know shin guard we'll keep that back there i guess got to be a button easy on the paint oh no that's fuel door i already found that oh busted the traction control but now this is not going good what have we got over here oh right there i guess it could be this button that has a trunk kind of pitcher on it but we're gonna need battery for that to work [Music] got my super start 1000 oh yeah we'll come back to this later here's the battery just flopping in here it's a never start go figure oh yeah there's noises there's noises back here now let's try the trunk something is aggressively grinding in the dash i don't know what that is boop boop again more boobs what does that mean low coolant well you don't even have a radiator guy maybe the key needs to be on i don't know how this stuff works oh it's worse oh there's a it's a lever on there well the key is on oh key has to be off here we go here we go again okay some sort of wing appliance not sure oh i believe that's a mass airflow sensor probably need that and some sort of other intake air sensor iac ibc ihg i don't know it's a thing i'm gonna put it back here probably need them no idea that doesn't look important don't need this thing where we're going oh carpet still don't need it what in the devil kind of a scoopy big thing i don't know marker light more carpet what is this it's big whatever it is oh turns out that's the you know that's the convertible top in there i think i've got to the end other than this small book that says fruit on it for anyone that says there ain't no luggage capacity in corvettes look at this there's plenty i mean that's a mile deep over there oh is that a pink can opener all be dipped that's a back pocket find we had some sort of speak later boom box in here that tells me whoever owned this was 29 or younger most likely don't get mad and i don't know i think that's just the end of the tail lips but nothing else in here i think she's already been pretty well gone through back up here basically there's a whole lot of plastic stuff and then you know there's just something missing not so much here it's like this region is just it's gone and there's so many what i mean what do what what does all that do down there there's all sorts of plugs and do dabs and at least the upper edge hose is on there i think that's softer i don't know everything else looks stock i mean i don't think it's been played with that's never been changed it's got manifolds on it doesn't have any sort of throttle body so i think the engine was at least stock but hard to say 5.7 tires are bald these weren't the tires on it but this i don't know where these came from these are bald and then these were even worse here these are big 295 35 18. but these just there's nothing left on them so i got two bad wheels and i've got two more that i think might be decent but i don't know how much these cost they can't be cheap but them are not you know those just aren't very they don't look they're not doesn't look nice what i'm saying here's a continuation of what is what does this thing do for me that one's busted too this was just ripped out of something got some caution that one's melty so that seems good you know some sort of probe do dab must be airbags maybe i've seen these before that's for these here led lights you know the blinds yes when you come over the hill 35 watts all be this tire has been just a rubbing away in there here's some more of that over spray so evidence that again she was painted at one point some sort of wire here that goes down to the ecu so maybe that's part of stealing it is you got to jump something here along with the diodes screwdriver thing i don't know why is there cardboard squished in with some other what a light upgrade in here someone did same over here cardboard squishy things i'm thinking that is not standard option but anyway what i'd like to do is can we get this just running for two minutes without a radge and get it onto the lift because if we can get it on the lift we can get her up in the air and see what else is wrong with it frames bent but i want to see how the alignment is the control arms are damaged or both tires seem to be turning so the rack is somewhat intact but i just want to see how bad the front end really is i got this cheap enough i'm assuming that a lot of this up here is just going to be destroyed so let's see if we can just get it fired up quick and onto the lift just got to thinking suppose a guy should probably check the oil whole reason honestly that i bought this car was just for the drivetrain more than anything so what do we got it's low really bad hasn't been changed in a long time blacker than my liver but there's some in it so we can go ahead and crank her over need to check the coolant yep that's fine what else good enough okay we got connection no we don't now we got connection do we have it now nope now no now again how about now there we go let's just turn the screwdriver and see if it does something oh yeah there's that sound we got new trellis yep here we go oh maybe i gotta might have that old neutral safety thing oh i can't bend turning over hey it's running oh throw out bearing doesn't sound good it's got oil pressure that's good power steering does not work half the tank of fuel charging every light on the dash is on that's good means the computer's doing something doesn't sound that bad actually i don't want to run it too long full key late 10 seconds i'm sure that's security stuff we'll have to deal with that but most importantly we got oil pressures it's charging i don't want to run it much longer since uh you know stuff's missing but this should be just fine to where i can kind of try to get her onto the lift over here and then we can look into this thing farther but great news i don't hear any knocking banging it's not smoking i know that this poor girl she had a rough life i don't know if it's gonna be worth it in the end but we'll just kind of take our time with this see if we can maybe get her tuned up not sure let's get the rad in maybe first and see if it overheats or anything like that and then we'll just you know you gotta you gotta crawl before you jump or something i don't know it's in a book somewhere look it up well where does a guy even jack these up wait a second someone actually drilled holes through the tailpipes before the muffler that's nice i'll show you a little later nope probably forget that too anywho there's a lot of stuff under here but it doesn't look very jackable we're gonna go with this weird looking thing it's got pipes coming out of it i don't know cars going up where'd the things go okay i think we're ready i don't need this up anymore do i i don't think so here we go here we go oh okay do i drop it there probably i think so i am equally surprised and happy this thing fired right up it'd be a nightmare troubleshooting this thing let's see if i fit better than c2s and threes oh nope oh there goes the speaker cover okay everything looks bad off to a good start come on come on do the thing boy it doesn't like starting though [Music] [Music] well i think the guy will just start in the back and work his way forward here look at this that's what i was talking about earlier so instead of you know buying the old mufflators guy just bang some holes in there i like it that's approved i might just end up snipping them off that's kind of neat i'm assuming yeah 342 must be the rear gear i don't know if they did that on the assembly line or not so if you know bleep bloop that down there but let's see nothing looks oh i had a shock replaced monolith looks fine so that's good this is definitely not off the assembly line looks like they added another ground maybe put a fuel pump or diagnose that let's see yeah that's a brand new filter so they were having some sort of fuel issue got tank laters those look okay nothing looks slammed down here anyway o2s have been in there a long time here's that oil leak coming from looks like up front unfortunately dang it oh there's some ps right there i bet yep that's power steering so the rack is leaking up here somewhere speaking of the rat oh yeah look at that that side looks pretty straight what do we got over here bendage so that side's bent hold the sway bar end link is normally there's a plastic piece from here to here that's uh well here's a piece of it over here so that's been snapped off here we go you can clearly see this is curbage or something it was smacked really really hard let's take a look lower control arm adjustment so here we're about straight down this side got knocked over front it's pushed all the way up and that one's clocked down so this side went up and over pretty hard well you can see there look this side is like inch and a half higher than that side so if a guy were to try to do a full rebuild on this car you'd definitely have to put her in a frame rack and then some and i don't know what i'm gonna do with it yet but she was definitely smacked pretty hard computers didn't see oh i don't know if that big concave dent is supposed to be there or not there's some more damage there here let's go check the other side and compare the two yeah see this side smooth so she definitely got wallered up there really good there's a self tapper i don't know if someone tried to fix it already oh yeah and i guess this doesn't look very normal edge you know not so much here but you know there so starter's been replaced you can see that more wire nuts and stuff up there oil's been changed well never based on that filter poor old corvette you know the first owner they just love on them and then the more you go it just gets worse and worse and worse i mean nothing that's going to completely shut us down looks like it's going to have horrible alignment probably pull to the left or the right hopefully metal pull to the middle i don't know it's a thing maybe but it runs i think it might go down the highway so let's just mosey forward and see if we can figure out how to get radiator in this thing let's look a little closer in here and look at this this frame horn is buckled in here and then out here that's what it's supposed to look like and standing here you can also see that frame there is considerably higher than even the bottom of the cross member so i'm not sure if it was the impact back here that tweaked it up or the impact on the lower control arm but it went up and over pretty significantly that's why that hood is all over like that but i'm gonna pretend that you know we didn't see any of this basically and i don't know maybe we'll change the oil or something not sure yet i thought he was missing parts but i think i'm okay this is looks like the top radiator holder inner pin or downer and then this appears to be the bottom she angles up this way but i was looking at the frame and this side got cut off i think or maybe ripped off and that side's damaged too so i think we're going to be self-tapping or welding that in which isn't ideal but when i was spending time on this tracing wires and whatnot then a guy got thinking well wait a minute she fired up with everything unhooked so i'm not gonna waste time doing that anymore we'll just start putting that radiator in all i really need is the fans so i think where i'm gonna start is let's figure out how to get this here support bracketry up in there and then i think we could just slip that radiator in this way and just start fumbling through it a little bit here's a closer look what i was talking about up here see this nut insert thingy right there you looking okay yeah gone not there and then confused not sure more confusion even worse looks like this one's been smashed off 15 17 times and it's been booger welded on so we might end up doing the same thing or maybe what is this now i might have to self tap it or something these are the fans and this is the unknown bundle of stuff we're just not going to worry about for right now so i'm going to take a quick look at that radiator and just make sure i get this in the right way one side has like a biscuit bushing and i think that's for this side because the drain has just like a pipe that hangs out of the i don't know either way we got a 50 shot this couldn't have come from this car this must have been one that the last owner bought or something i'm not sure it was just in it but this looks like it was ripped off that's all bent the frame is unless this thing's bent maybe they're both bent anyway what i'm saying is we got bendage and this is not this is not gonna work this is not working so how am i fixing this should we try a self-tapper maybe i think what i'm going to do is just uh cross-thread this guy into here wow is something happening how can you be stuck okay come back right there got one side kind of sort of in there that looks like prime candidate for self-tapping does this does this need to be here the answer is no it does not okay now where did i well here it is okay yup come back over here now bring this up bring it up nope well that's not working oh okay well let's try it back here then well for pete's sake same spot i just well where did the screw go now i got oil leaking can't see nothing i think i might have to teach you how to stay up there what was i doing again all right here we go now again there you could hang on this all day long no it's barely hanging in there but it should hold the crooked radiator just fine really is bent up once you get that on impressive the strength is tinseled we just hang this junk over here what even is it no one knows maybe just yep yeah that looks good up there boy she's coming around pretty quick got the bushings laid into the holder upper thing i don't know how much room i'm going to need to slip that in here safe default is all of it so i'm going to take this intake boot thing off okay that's hooked stuff whoop was snapped that off got some wires hanging off over here just tuck that down there that looks pretty good oh this belt shot i'm gonna pretend i didn't see that anyway back to putting a radge in yeah i think we just slip right where does that even go oh that's that egr hello it's not very talkative stalin fans took only about 42 seconds basically it just slides into place on the side here and boop boop that's pretty much it so now we'll just carry this out there and just kind of ease her down in the place i wonder what riva mcintyre is doing today i found some more pink paint on the top of the frame rails where the kinks are so all that pink stuff was the insurance company for sure here we go this is awkward are we in oh oh can you even come in this way with the steering magoos in the way plastic flappage wow get slide ouch spins are sharp on the flanges oh are we in nope just saw my rubber bushing go scooting this way come back here little fella found it i just gotta get her down in here now how's the guy get his arms down here like this i don't know there we go that did something all right ouch ow these things are sharp third time i've had to say that what is this doing in here can you just be gone for a minute let's live in there pretty decent got the fan connections already on but i'll make sure them are plugged in tight once we get her back up in the air gonna pop these hoses on next i suppose got 74 connections over there to figure out just realize that it fills up from that tank i don't know some sort of wizardry or something got to figure that out still don't know where this thing goes but it's going i mean things are happening you know a guy gets asked every now and then oh something just cracked i don't know what that was how come i don't like working on things past 1984. you're looking at it you're looking straight at it what kind of a player okay this is just getting out of hand all right well i don't know why they use hose clamps from the titanic i just help me understand this hose i got so many wires in the way can't even tell what day it is bring this around this way i can't even this is i've never spent this much time on a hose in my life can i do both at once the answer is pending well now i took the clamp all the way off the hose to cut this thing off of here and start over you stubborn little thing is where you're supposed to be left arm stuck wow got it got her back everything's fine really easy process put this in piece of cake fans are clipped in really tight in here wiring harness is clipped to the cage of the whirly woos in here this is easier getting on from the bottom lo and behold i mean i knew that as just you know testing out the top route what is this one that looks fairly important thinking that's to the air conditioning we don't need that where we're going but i think that's in and done look how crooked this is now once you get like a reference point she's it's tweaked the side is significantly lower than that side kind of odd but this wheel lock replacement information sticker was laying up here must have fell out of the fender up there somewhere when i was you know gently putting in the rad there and panicked a little bit so i went around and made sure there isn't any locking lug nuts on here right now thankfully because that would be a fight i think a lot of them are just a six spline anymore but you never know that could turn into a deal well let's bring her back down and we got the other 74 hoses to figure out now it's looking like this guy here goes over to the air make it happener i'm gonna assume it's the smaller of the two and then this is the overflow sure plug that in here it's gotta clamp them down and i think i think we're there now we can try to figure out all this plastic alien stuff up here clips into there and it does stuff yep yeah take some berryman and just make her brand new again you know take all this plastic garbly out of here that would make sense well maybe i won't what kind of a band is that now oh yeah we got bugs and flies careful not to blow air on those tiny little sensors though get on out of there that's brand new floor is coming back around now too i'll be dipped got this little vacuum line fixed that snapped off earlier this uh top what do we call it brad support plastic holder inner coupler device she's broken see on the side there's two bolts numbers snap clean off so the rad is just flopping in here right now that's okay i'm just gonna bungee cord it forward or something so it doesn't hit pull these for now i got to plug in some of these doodads that one looks like it goes here sure this one must be that guy over there so we're getting close we can fire this thing back up again start putting some ice cube juice in it and then we can see if it gets hot or not the fans turn on and hopefully run it long enough we can see if it pulls any more codes see what kind of shape this thing's really in well are you backwards maybe do you go this way okay sure well let's see if we can get her fired up again get it up to temperature get some juice back in this thing is it on i think so oh battery pack ain't got enough battery let's go with the assist of the super start over here we'll set that up here on the battery bench sure bring this guy down here can we can i double plug this somehow there and there and this i don't know bring it down to the engine somewhere i saw a spark okay i know what i'm missing bring the thunder thunder is not being brought i need to recharge on this one i've been hooking my timing lights to it some other stuff this one was dead in the tractor and i think i tried it in that dodge d100 and something else and it was dead so i got that one plugged back in maybe it'll work now and then i got this uh phone charger thing this one's plugged in never tried to jump car i've got a gallon in here got a head start on it you know let's try it again [Music] [Music] [Music] i overfilled her so she's easy to see you know but no leaks down here yet other than where i spilled while we're filling it [Music] got up to about 205 degrees the fans did kick on drop back down to 196 sure 195 whatever got cooler you know and sounds okayish so far no leaks everything's going pretty good engine light did kick on i have a feeling it's going to be egr or something or other i got a hose hanging off over there making up but whatever that means so i guess in the morning we'll throw the scanner on it see what we got going on ignore everything put tape over the light change on the oil slam the hood and let's just go for a cruise and see if the clutch works and the brake and i'm curious to see how bad it pulls left because it looks pretty violent so far well by the time i grab my computer box down there the dangle battery's already dead she won't even give me nothing so i'm gonna pull out this one run down to the store and grab another one dang i hate doing that they're expensive ain't nothing like some turkey cheese and horseradish and a mountain soda to wash her down i don't care who you are missing the battery holder down her upper thingy that's okay we'll just let her flop around against the hot manifold and the fender that's falling off seems fine this took a very specific battery and that was the cheapest one with a go handle should be good now turn the key on and we'll run the scanner tool seems like that's getting better every time i open it okay this thing plugs into some computer box port thing down here this turns forward there we go stuff's happening auto lincoln sure ford mercury lincoln i don't know boy this seat is shot what's it saying now a bunch of beeps camshaft position sensor oh no cam shaft position sensor low input camshaft position sensor repair immediately let's just unplug this and turn the key off and pretend we didn't see that okay so that camshaft position sensor thing basically what it's doing is it's flip-flopping the timing 180 degrees while looking at the mass airflow sensor trying to get that initial timing for startup and that's why this thing was starting so hard is it was just always messing with the timing i'm hoping that it's because of the dead battery and was turning over so slow that's usually the case two percent of the time so you're saying there's a chance if it's the sensor it's a bugger and a half and we'll just keep deleting the code i think i got her out right now i think we'll lift her up change on the oil mazel we heard it run right and then uh the cisco you know test on her give me fuel give me fire give me that which i desire oh wow i had to lift the old car up here so i can get my dumplater basket under here this thing is lower than expected now i can get this oil pan bolt off how many m m's is this socket a guy came in here with his fingers and cleaned this up to get her out and look at this it was just sitting in here so that's actually good news we can clean that up in a hurry how am i supposed to up like this maybe it's going to come out this way too far oh we're good no metal on the magnet surprisingly today's oil flavor is shallow rotella heavy duty diesel oil it's a cyan ethic bland and it says it's got technologies in it this is a t5 it has 1200 ppm in it which is really high and compared to the other big box brands it's literally like a third of the price she's got all the dinosaurs and vitamins you need new lightning cube fresh earl let's see if she fires up got that code cleared so maybe she'll fire right off nope there it goes if you heard that back firing out the exhaust that's when it flips the timing so we might actually have a bad sensor which is a bummer because i think you got to take the whole intake off to switch that out great oh what was i doing oil pressure yeah it's it's got some it's got all the pressures what else i think that's it is this shut now or no we got excessive smoke up here but that's just for me spilling about three quarts directly on the manifold that's fine 397.3 turn later i got her you know we're this way now visa that way the ps juice is gone all leaked out so i'm gonna put some more in this really good expensive stuff and just let that leak back out as well but maybe i'll have some steering capabilities when we test drive this thing just been sitting here looking this over and i got this gut feeling i mean other than that i could use a steak tater right now there's just something i'm not ready there's something i need to do something maybe it's this hood maybe i gotta fix these latches or something make sure this hood stays down that's probably it that's fixed but still just not feeling right about this oh airbags yeah let's um let's make sure the fuse is out so we don't get any fires and i gotta fix this as well that's fixed and so is that one but i'm still just not feeling right about this i don't know what oh duh strawberry flavors there no maybe still just not still just not feeling this well let's see what we got here okay oh no can't be well this part is fairly interesting no um do what oh okay i think i think i got it i ran up a check i might do it again enemies closed had me thinking now friends ten toes down i'll be freeing to the end crib outside the city i don't feel sleep in my ass took so many years i'm just waiting for the wins i'm in debt to know him but the one who took my sins i do it for real there's no reason to pretend if i do it once i do it again [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now we're ready let's go take this for a burn we got some tea time at 20. let's go quite sloppy in the front not quite sure what would cause that but man alive it's not good let's just keep going hold key wait 10 seconds nope not gonna do that i'm not sure what's more comfortable these shorts keep riding up farther or this alignment i mean it's well whatever it's good enough what's lifting see i knew i should have fixed that other latch too i just knew it i wonder if a guy can get a size 13s to move fast enough how does anyone wear these in real life not having a shift knob is inconvenient i'm finding it well so far it's staying cool you know that's what i'm testing on right now is coolage we should probably see how it pulls from about 30 huh that was about 95 starting to lose my power steering again that's fine just keep ignoring it well other than the front end doing everything it's not supposed to the car runs great clutch surprisingly works it's got brakes that's a new one on me it doesn't have some of the creature comforts like a shift knob but that's an easy fix but i wasn't expecting it to just go on the road this easy so i still don't have a plan as far as what i'm supposed to do with this vet carts are kind of it's been done too many times do i make it into a rally course car maybe monster truck drag car maybe just fix it put 87 million dollars into a frame machine and make her brand new nope that's probably not a good idea i don't know is what i'm saying clearly so help me out throw some ideas down there in the bleep bloop box and i'll pick one maybe two jam them together not sure thanks for watching guys appreciate it very much see you next time here we go oh don't you dare we were just getting along there we go favorite key of the whole fleet and i ain't kidding you [Music] you

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 817,541

Rating: 4.954814 out of 5

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, stolen car, recovered car, corvette, ls3, ls7, convertible, wrecked, crashed, auction, lemon buy, lemon car, i bought a, will it run, will it drive, abandoned, revival, chevy, chevrolet

Id: -BGA_bJrFKc

Length: 50min 2sec (3002 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021