Moby dick! (aka opal tortuga)

RIV-V2

I pulled the trigger on a replacement-in-progress for the turtle. It's a 1999 with 122k on it and for the most part it looks like it has less than half that mileage. The underside is ridiculously clean. The instruments and controls barely look touched for the most part.
Basically the plan is to migrate all of my mods from the green car to this one including the motor, trans, sway bars, rear adjustment links, the heap of accessories/gauges/controls, audio system, etc. For the most part all of it is pretty reversible and butchery-free so I don't feel any guilt about it. I've learned a lot with my first riv and this will be as tasteful as I can make it. By buying this, I've 100% come to terms that this is a riviera first and a project/racecar second. It's a fairly major project in itself. I haven't decided exactly how & when I'm going to go about it but in the meantime, I'm gonna continue driving the green car and keep the white car stabled. I bought it now because I'm afraid I won't be able to readily find a replacement that I can live with in the future when my current car does literally crumble in half or something.

I have to say it is mind-bending driving this cherry bone stock riv since I'm used to my 12 years worth of modded riv. It's unreal how quiet the car is supposed to be.  
The steering and suspension seem like a different car and I didn't think I changed that much in that area. I really don't think my green car has near that much floatiness and lack of sense of speed as the stock '99.

Anyway, this will be the thread I dump all the matters involving the new riv into.




 Thanks in part to Scott Abaddon because I wasn't even looking at auto trader until he posted another car from there.

I'm excited & it's not even my car...

HHHAAAAAA!!!!!!! Awesome, man.

BUILD OFF!

Awesome

Everyone is selling their Rivs and Cody gets a 2nd.

I'm not selling mine!

charlieRobinson wrote:

Everyone is selling their Rivs and Cody gets a 2nd.

I'll sell it when they make a better car

I took this girl out of storage for a couple days to put in an automatic battery trickle charger. I decided while I had it in the garage to finally do some test-fitting of the C5 corvette wheels i've been wanting for years and years. So here's some pics of that... Grab some tissues and enjoy







They are the rear wheels off the corvette so they're 18x9.5 with 275-40-18 tires. I bolted them up using 1.25" thick adapters which sets the wheel offset like stock. The extra width sticks out evenly inside and outside.



Here's the trickle charger install


Here's the fanciest trickle charger I've ever seen lol. got it for christmas


I made these out of aluminum but you can buy the exact same thing usually plated steel and the like. I've been using the same posts on the other riv for a while now so I trust them so far. Anyhow I need them so I can connect the permanent harness to the side-post battery. On the other riv, I also use them for all the additional electronics I've put in.


There's the harness and the posts. It has a fuse too.


Here's the original post lugs. You remove them from the cables and put in the extended ones.




posts installed with the battery maintainer harness connected


That's more or less where I'm putting the box. I'm leaving out that bit of trunk carpeting so I can access it easily and can feed to plug in and out of the cabin vent down in the quarter panel.

Love the wheels! Really nice upgrade.

How do the big rims affect the ride?

Jack the R wrote:

How do the big rims affect the ride?

I can't report on anything yet. I only have two wheels. I've had wheel & tire combos that were at least half way to this and I'd just say that the road influences the car to a much greater degree in casual driving which reciprocates when you want to push it.
I'll report when i put some miles on with a full set