grumpy please help vette questions

[Guest pvtkary]

I found an 84 (dog) for my old lady. It is owned by a chick with ritch parents from the farm $5.5K . It has some electrical problems, but I'm an EE so I aint scared of that. I'm wondering about some first year of a new model stuff, or other inhearent design flaw kinda of stuff. I've never owned a vet, but I've wanted one since I was 5 years old. What should I watch out for. I haft to grab this one fast or it will be gone.

[Guest Thurem]

It has some electrical problems, but I'm an EE so I aint scared of that.

As a motorcycle mechanic, I had a customer who is also an electrical engineer. I spent 4 hours unf__king the damage he had done to the electrical system on his motorcycle, at 50$ an hour. I'm not trying to say you won't be able to fix it, I'm just trying to warn you if you don't have experience with auto electrics.

Thure

[Mike C]

I had an '84 'vette. I paid $5500 for mine also, but that was in 1993! All was wrong was a hydraulic clutch master and a little wear and tear. In general a pretty fun car with the most phenomenal tow truck style torque delivery. Parts are not cheap, but no worse than any late model vehicle as far as that goes. Engine is by far the cheapest repair... Electrics, especially warning lights, check engine, door ajar, all the stuff in the center console area is a pain in the A$$. Same goes for the erratic instument cluster. I always planned on doing an aluminum panel with autometers and eliminating all of the LCD BS, although it does look kinda' cool. I put about 40k miles on mine, and got it with 120k. Failures were" Alternator pulley (this is common supposedly, but seems retarded...), smog pump, failed PS pump seals, harmonic balancer shelled, water pump, everything with a pulley on it EXCEPT the AC compressor ironically enough. Steering rack was a mess, but it which wasn't too bad a project. I lowered it while the rack was out as the front leaf spring has to come out and it was all apart. I went to 17" Centerline billet stars and a Dynomax muffler setup with stainless tips that point straight out the back. Made the car look 10 years newer, it was amazing. I broke a circlip that retains the stub axle in the diff and when I had it out I rebuilt the Super T-10 as well, but not the OD unit. When the OD crapped out I planned on a Tremec swap, but I really wanted a TPI car and the trans was going to be so much that it was better to unload it (I got what I paid for it)and buy a car with TPI and 6 speed already. I bought my '64 project instead. Be forewarned, wheel bearings are expensive at $250 EACH and that headlight motors will eat the plastic gear but new gears can be had for about $20. Actually, I would think you could pick this car up for less money than $5500. If it has really good paint and only moderate mileage it may still be a good deal, but I would think a TPI car could be had for about the same dollars. The crossfire would ROCK in a jeep... It was a fun daily driver that would hang with lots faster cars stoplight racing. Something to be said for 12" wide tires and IRS with the torquey L-83.

[grumpyvette]

look over this site carefully

http://www.crossfire.homeip.net:81/cftest/startdefault.asp

what youll find is that the crossfire engine is greatly hampered by that throttle body injection system. the vette itself is a nice car, the drive train is easily upgradeable, the crossfire injection is the greatest block to hp as the stock engine has massive torque but only about 210 hp , add headers,heads,cam and a seriously modifyed intake system and you can almost double the hp, if you like the cars body style and the interior is in good shape figure on dumping about another $4000 in drivetrain mods in it and youll have a nice car, if thats too high then pass on the car, vettes are nice cars but they are like women (a constant drain on your wallet) yes its worth it if you like vettes (LIKE I DO) but don,t think youll just jump in and drive it for a few years, 99% of vette owners are constantly adding the next mod on a never ending list (its like a mostly pleasant disease that effects your wallet with a huge support network to supply you with parts and thousands of other infected guys that encourage the diseases progress)yeah its worth it in a weird way and the cars are great, plus its not all that hard to drop a big block chevy into the car if you want to and you don,t need to fabricate many parts as everythings available for a price.

[Guest pvtkary]

Grumpy, guys thanks for the input. I also want to appologise for abusing the board for non V8Z questions, but time was of the essence. I did get the car for 5K. The 84 has alwayse been one of my least favorite body styes. I figured this, and the poor performance of this year would be enough to keep me from falling in love. Wrong! I could brew up some tasty small block stew, but im keeping it bone stock so the old lady wont kill her self. In a few years after shes tired of it Ill warm it up a bit. So far Ive found 33 things that will need some attention prior to letting the old lady use it as her daily driver. I also could still use some help finding good sights for patrs n stuff. Thanks again guys.

[Mike C]

Cool. You should have a lot of fun with it and in no time you will be intimately familiar with it! I like Eckler's Corvette Parts but there are stacks of other companies out there. Get a Hemmings Motor News for a wide selection of not-so-mainstream Corvette parts dealers. Vette magazine or Corvette Fever are good places to start. Honestly, I like the 84-85 cars the best of the C4s. If I bought another C4 it would be a 90-91 with the TPI motor, 6 speed, but still retained the round taillights which I think are WAY better looking than the oval ones that the base car ripped off from the ZR1 in '92.