I had mentioned earlier that I had either a dying battery or a parasitic draw. So I charged the battery overnight and left the cables unhooked. The next day it had dropped down to 10 volts. No one ever enjoys buying a battery but it's better than chasing a parasitic draw on this car so I am not complaining.
Summit is local to me so I bought my first Optima battery. And before anyone says anything, yes I have heard the good and bad reviews of this brand.
Next I switched gears to the seats. I had bought these seats used just to see if I liked the non-sport seat better than the sport seats. I do indeed so I decided to restore them.
Old stuff was junky.
The old wire support baskets were rusted and wasted.
And all the mechanisms were rusted and inoperable. Evaporust to the rescue.
I upgraded the seat support basket to the later model elastic strap configuration
And finally new foam and covers
Holy cow! Those seats came out amazing!
Okay, more talk about the seats in this car.
Even after the new seat foams and upholstery I still wasn't pleased. This car has the optional power seat on the passenger side along with the obligatory power driver seat, which was standard, I think. Either way I don't care. Neither side worked properly and they were worn and allowed movement of the seat.
So I used the internets and found out that the manual passenger seat tracks of the base model cars is a bolt in for the power track on the driver's side. I bought two sets of used manual tracks and swapped them out. Now my car has power nothing seats.
Comparison of the power pedestal versus the manual rails. The weight difference is remarkable.
Someday there will be folks scouring the earth for these things which I am throwing into my scrap metal pile. Yet another option which the original owner paid money for has now been removed. I told y'all I was going to ruin this car.
At least now the seats don't rattle and rock under my butt. Next up is deleting the power seat controls off of the console.
Where did you buy the new seat parts?
The upholstery came from a company called Top Flight. The seats tracks came from the online auction site.
I actually don't like power seats. Maybe my OCD but I can never get the right.
Replaced rear hatch weatherstrip today. The original one had broken in the corners and shrunk back to allow a significant gap. Much time and effort was spent cleaning the channel before installing the new one. I did get the upgraded aftermarket piece with one piece corners which is said to not fail as the GM design one did.
Have you noticed more headroom with the manual seat rails? Also that hatch gasket is pretty common problem. Mine is broken in the same place.
If the manual rails offer more headroom it's not much. I had the power seats full down and back. Now I run the manual rails full back. Pretty close to the same feeling to me. No more wiggling and rocking from the seat mechanisms though.
I guess I need to face the reality that I'm not too diligent about my builds threads anymore.
Much has happened since the last update.
After a 50 mile drive I would have traces of coolant leaking externally on each side of the engine from the head gaskets. Also it would puff smoke on startup and it ran burn-your-eyes-rich. I don't know why this all annoyed me so much. I usually have limitless patience with my projects.
To repair it, I pulled the heads and did head gaskets and valve stem seals. I spent very little time and zero scope creep. All of the valvetrain parts got thoroughly cleaned in the ultrasonic and the heads got carried into the shop with the green floor and blue roof and degreased real well with the garden hose and Purple Power. These angle plug aluminum heads used the good umbrella stem seals originally so I went back with good Felpro ones to replace them. The original seals were rock hard when I removed them. I also used some high end Felpro head gaskets intended for severe service. Yes, I'm sure I gave up some compression with these versus the shim type of head gaskets it originally had. But I didn't want leaks and I was willing to make the sacrifice.
While I was in there I also installed some new injectors. The car has mismatched injectors in it when I took it apart so I wanted to baseline it with a nice new matched set. I used Standard brand ones from RockAuto. As a little splurge I also used ARP head bolts and intake bolts. I like them better than the original Torx head bolts.
While I was under the car I deleted the factory oil cooler. It was a sandwich deal between the block and the oil filter with external hoses. It was all crusty and aged looking so I took it all off and installed a normal oil filter adapter and deleted the coolant hoses completely. Now I can run the tall style of Chevy oil filter rather than the little shorty required by the cooler. Truth is I have no use for an oil cooler on this car. I just drive it around like an old man anyway. It doesn't see much severe service for sure.
It's now finally running right. I had fixed some obvious vacuum leaks and a bunch of little details while I had it all apart. It now idles nice and slow and doesn't stink from running too rich.
Next step is to finally get tires and install the new wheels on the car. They've been in my guest room closet for a while now. Any GRM'r in DFW area wanting a set of stock 17 inch Corvette wheels with real good but oldish Nitto tires, I'd make you a real good deal on these. Like real good deal...
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Id bet that sandwich adapter was not so much an oil cooler as devised to get oil up to temp quicker for emissions purposes. You'll not miss it.
vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Id bet that sandwich adapter was not so much an oil cooler as devised to get oil up to temp quicker for emissions purposes. You'll not miss it.
I hadn't really thought of it being more of an oil heater but I bet you're onto something there.
GM also has the cooling fans programmed to turn on a 230 degrees. I'm about to address that soon. I installed a lower temp fan switch in the driver side head when I had it apart. I just need to do the wiring to the factory fan relays now and the fans will come on at 200 and go off at 190. I have a 180 thermostat in the car. The super high fan temps of the factory setup were said to be for emissions purposes.
New wheels and tires today.
That is one great looking vehicle there. Perfect color and wheel combination.
I love the Grand Sport style wheels on a C4
So nice. I love and appreciate the detail and attention you are giving this car.
Really nicely done, as always.
I spent some time today lowering the value of my car.
The power seat controls on the console are no longer hooked up since I have manual seats now. And the power suspension stuff doesn't seem to work. I am ordering new shocks to do away with the electrical adjustment doo-dad that the current shocks have.
I removed the console and completely deleted all of the wiring to these controls. Then I made a blank-off plate from some ABS plastic that I had laying around from a previous project. I sprayed it with textured paint.
I know this is all small progress but I do not like useless wiring or controls on my cars. Simpler is better on this turd.
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
That came out looking great! Looks factory.
In reply to Slippery :
Thank you
Next up is replace all four shocks and front sway bar bushings as well as detail and clean the brakes so they look better through the new open centered wheels.
Is the blank off panel big enough for a cup holder? Could be a fun 3d printer project.
I love what your doing. I have a 91 and I've been slowly doing some of the same things as you.
Iusedtobefast said:
I love what your doing. I have a 91 and I've been slowly doing some of the same things as you.
Thank you. Do you have a build thread for your car ? I'd enjoy seeing another person's take on how to build one of these.
