1989 C4 Functional Restoration

[SirReal63]

I should explain the need for UHMWP, the shifter on the ZF S6-40 transmission uses ultra high molecular weight plastic as bushings for the pins on the shifter. They are sort of a wear item but tend to last many decades. Unfortunately on mine they were completely missing. When I opened up the shifter this is what I saw...

I "fixed" it initially with some 3/4 UHMWP round stock that I had. I had to drill it off center to get the height as close as I could, I undersized the hole and drove them on. It was a temporary fix that I hoped would last, it has lasted but needs to be done correctly.

This is what the original shape was like, though this one is incorrect, it came from a Ford F350 ZF 5 speed. The outer dimensions are correct but the pin is smaller on the Ford.

The original part is no longer made and next to impossible to find and if you find them, they are over 3 decades old. This is a part I can make, the plastic is cheap and machines easily.

 

[tom3]

Looking at your rpo sticker I see the 8.5 ring gear and 3.33 ratio, but no positraction code. That car have an open differential? Lots of good work in the car!

 

[SirReal63]

Looking at your rpo sticker I see the 8.5 ring gear and 3.33 ratio, but no positraction code. That car have an open differential? Lots of good work in the car!

Thanks, it has been a labor of madness.

I believe all of the C4's had limited slip, both the Dana 36 (auto) and the Dana 44 (manual) as standard equipment, I don't know what flavor of LSD GM used in them but could probably find out. Both tires do spin the same direction when lifted, I just checked since it is on jack stands while I clean power steering fluid off the front of the engine. I hope it continues to function correctly, I dread the day I have take that down and open it up. This car is about as base model as it gets, the only unusual option was the TPMS.

 

[SirReal63]

Project subwoofer Part One. I went ahead and started this project as I am waiting on formed power steering return hoses, I have the entire power steering system torn apart currently as there is a slow leak, I hate waiting on parts.

I really have missed not having low bass, this car is desperately needing some bump. I had already decided on a Kicker Solo-Baric L7S8 2 ohm DVC as it is a near perfect physical fit in the passenger side rear cubby. It is really the only place to make a sub fit without sacrificing the already non-existent space in the rear compartment. I really want to take this car on one of my mini-vacations and need every inch of space I can get for overnight bags and such. Now to make it work and play low enough.

What I had to work with...

This cubby has it's own issue, there are wires that run through it and exit out behind the seat...

I have no idea what the unconnected plug is for but I zip tied it securely to the other bundle. All of them are now held tightly and will not vibrate.

When I gutted the interior and ran the Frost King and Butyl KilMat I sealed this up as well as I could before putting the jute and carpet back over it. I contorted myself like a pretzel and added more Butyl to the cubby this time and ran a piece along that back wall. That wire is not ideal and short of gutting the interior I can not adequately seal that up to be completely air tight but there will be much less air pressure being exerted on it with a ported box, so it will be what it will be.

I modeled this "enclosure" in WinIsd, BassBox Pro and Unibox408 and wasn't thrilled with any of them, this isn't really a software issue, though all of them gave different results, but more of my box design being too complicated for my designing abilities. Perhaps someone else could model this to perfection, I cannot. Calculating the available space in that cubby was easy and I could have made a sealed design and it would have worked, but it would not have played very low and I want as low as I can get with an 8" so that meant a ported design. I have .86 cu ft. to work with, that is if I do not build a box to fit within that box, more on the solution to that later. The issue is the port and where to put it. The only place to put a long port is over the tunnel and into the right side cubby. The math checked out and I could build my "enclosure" and run a rectangular port over the tunnel but that presented challenges as well, mainly the port size to get the 35hz I wanted to tune it to. Once again every piece of software came up with a different port size to get to 35hz tune. I went with a basic port calculator from the12volt.com and built it.

I made the port 6" wide and 1.5" tall and approx. 20" long, folded to go down into the driver cubby. My hope in terminating the port into that cubby is to slow down the air speed exiting the port into the listening area, no chuffing wanted, and with a 6" wide port it is possible. Of course making the port over the tunnel meant I had to raise the top baffle to allow that 1.5" port. The baffle has to be secured tightly to the car, fortunately the fiberglass shelf the stock enclosure screws to is the perfect place to attach the baffle and the rest of the factory screw locations fit perfectly for the baffle, even the nubs the screws fit into are in a great location to be reused. I used med. density particle board for the baffle, Oak and MDF for the rest of the baffle structure and coating it epoxy and painted it black.

The Oak strip that will the baffle will mount to opposite the waterfall. I added some nutserts to screw the baffle to so it is easily removed if needed and foam gasketing all around. Screws in place to hold it together until the epoxy cures. It isn't pretty but it doesn't have to be, I will add some KilMat over the top of the baffle when I am satisfied with the tuning so it will never be seen and the carpet will cover it. I have some misc. nuts and machine screws coming in tomorrow to attach the sub, all of mine were too short or too big.

I had some blowouts while making the countersinks, I should have epoxied before drilling but it holds down fine.

Final mock up, I will put the stock speaker cover over the driver side hole/port exit. I will need to make a cover for sub, the one Kicker makes is woefully inadequate to protect the sub.

The amp rack as it currently is.

I will need a different amp, though the old RF amps from the 90's were very under rated for actual power output it will not provide enough power for the sub even with channel C bridged. The dynamic rating for the amp is 190 watts bridged @ 4ohms and the sub is rated for 450 watts RMS (375 in ported enclosure) and 900 dynamic. It will work for now but I cannot really drive the sub hard which is OK as my goal is not to be heard from 1/4 mile away but to give some low bass to the system. I looked up what this old amp goes for on evilbay and in good working condition and good cosmetic condition they are selling for over $300 with a couple currently for sale at $400. I may get a different amp and sell this one, as much as I hate to let this old beast go, I am not a museum and have too much junk already.

 

[SirReal63]

This update is a little disjointed and all over the place, it was a weird week.

I finally got all of the power steering soft lines in, have I mentioned I hate waiting on parts?

I thought I had taken a pic of the state of the engine/steering rack/general area before I started cleaning but I did not. It was horrid, the black mess was 1/8-1/4" or more in places. The top of the rack where the lines connect was covered all the way over the top of the nuts that hold the lines in place. It took a few days of soaking, scrubbing and poking it with a stick to get it clean enough to work on.

This isn't really clean, but it was good enough to work on. It had been leaking a very long time.

There were no obvious signs of where it was leaking but the return and feed hoses were rock hard and a little chewed up at the connection points. The pump and brackets cleaned up nicely, this was the only number I found on the pump, I have no idea if it is a replacement or not, I did not take the time to run the number and see.

Project Subwoofer, Part two.

I did finish constructing the sub box, It took a lot of fiddling to get the port length and box volume close enough to make it play like i wanted. The port ended up being 1.5" tall, 6" wide and almost 26" in length which should be tuned at about 28hz, I measured the center of the port to get that length. Total box volume, taking into account the volume of the port, which you typically do when the port is internal to the box, not sure how an external port factors in, I decided to include it which gave me approx. 1.1 cu ft of volume. It does play cleanly and low so I am happy with it. I do have a little buzz at 70hz so I need to figure where that is and correct it.

The folded port...

All buttoned up and ready to play...

How much space did all of this cost me? Not very much, the baffle took up 1.5x11.25x32" which is barely noticeable. There is still enough room for an overnight bag or two.

I am going to revisit the amp rack at some point, probably when I replace the amp as the new amps are significantly smaller in total footprint than the old RF beast. The original Bose speaker cover is being used to cover the port. Now I need to build a cover for the sub, I have a few ideas I am kicking around.

I do realize the passenger cubby isn't stiff enough to prevent any resonating/flexing so I will need to address that. As I stated earlier adding to the interior of the box will only make the volume less and I cannot make the volume less and hit my tuning design. That leaves adding mass and strength to the exterior of the box as much as I can. I am a bit of a hoarder, if something is useable I tend to save it, especially if it something not easily replaced. I have some compressed fiberglass plates that appear to be a perfect fit for the need. I cannot tell if these are SMC or a G10 variety, but they are incredibly stiff.

They are 1/8" thick, 2" wide and 11.5" long. I wanted to see just how stiff so I bent one of them. The deflection with 10lbs of lead dive weights was 1/8" over about 10" of span, it laughed off the first 5lb's. That's pretty strong!

My plan is to strip and sand the underside of the passenger cubby and epoxy a few of these to it. The size works out almost perfectly and should greatly increase the rigidity of the cubby. I will undercoat it when finished to make it blend in. That will happen later because listening to the sub it actually sounds good as is. I just know I can tighten up the bass more with a stiffer box.

I did a lot of tuning of the bass, bought a little O-scope to set the gains. The little FNIRSI DS-O152 mini oscilloscope was impressive and can do a lot more than I would ever need. I first determined the max volume of the headunit before clipping was present, next the gain of the EQ and finally set the gain for all 5 channels of amplification with the bridged sub gain set at 40hz to 120hz and the left/right, front/back speaker gains at 500hz, 1khz, 3.5khz and 8khz. It was pretty easy with downloaded test tones. I spent most of the frequency tuning with the sub to get it to blend in nicely with the fronts. I will need to spend some time tuning the front speakers as they are a little bright on "S's" but overall the sound is fantastic. The sub plays 25hz at about -6db down, 35 hz at about -3db and 40hz flat, you can feel the 25hz with the volume up but it is still 40hz dominant as expected.

I made a little 2 minute video of it playing a bass heavy song. If you know the Boz Skaggs album Dig they you know it is one of the lowest bass recordings out there for mainstream music. It is a spectacular album as well. I used my Blue Yeti first to record the sound and cellphone for video then mixed them together. I was unhappy with the Blue Yeti and it's bass response, which I suspected I would be, it is a great all around mic but better for spoken voice than low bass recording. I hesitantly pulled out my Marantz MPM-100U because it a little on the fragile side but it recorded the sound perfectly. I did no post sound enhancement so the volume is a little low and the S's a little bright, which I will try and tune out with the EQ. Enjoy this little snippet, best listened to on real headphones, home theater or lastly a good set of ear buds but don't expect to get the low bass with ear buds. It obviously will not sound this clean while driving but it will give an indication of how the system sounds.

 

[SirReal63]

I haven't done much actual work on the car, the weather is nice and other things needed attention here.

I do still have a drip in the power steering system, I bought some UV dye and it indicates the leak is where the steering shaft enters the rack. It looks like a reseal is in my future, though it isn't bad, one look at the front of the engine tells me it is bad enough to deal with. This is a job I am not looking forward to, I know it is not going to be easy and the car will be down for however long it takes to do.

I took care of something that has bothered me since I replaced the top. The passenger side lip where the frame attaches to the windshield was not glued correctly and it sticks up like Elvis singing.

The fix was actually easy though it terrified me to do as that area has a lot of pulling force on it when the top is fastened. I removed the trim ring that hides the transition from canvas to metal and gently peeled the canvas away all the way to the middle of the top bow, there was a natural slit in the canvas where the top was glued correctly. I removed the glue from the frame and canvas as best as I could. Cleaned it and reapplied some Weld Contact Cement, let it air dry to the proper tack and clamped it in the correct position. I left it clamped for several days and unclamped for several more days and it is holding now. Hopefully it will not release in the Summer heat, though the trim ring does help keep it in place.

It is a small thing but makes a huge difference.

I finished the sub box, made some simple covers that utilize the stock speaker covers. Just a simple wood surround and some ABS on top to keep the bulk down. They are currently velcro'd in place but I suspect will have to use a screw or bolt to make them secure.

I spent several days fine tuning the stereo. If I push it hard it does heat up more than it ever has, not dangerously hot but the amp is clearly being pushed to it's design limits to run the power hungry Solo-Baric. This old amp is in too nice of condition to abuse so I ordered a more appropriate amp for the system. I researched this to death, as I typically like to do when I can and the car audio world is as slimy as it has ever been. RMS rating are even more useless now than they were in the past for many brands. Every amp I considered I looked at a video of someone testing it on an amp dyno. While some overstate their rating (sometimes massively) some understate them as well, (sometimes massively) and that is just as bad as over rating them. (*cough* D4S *cough*) I was actually going to go for a Down 4 Sound amp as they are probably the best dollar to watt amp out there. The problem is the under rated wattage, this isn't a big deal for an 86dB speaker which wants a lot of power but the Kappas are 95dB sensitivity speaker, very efficient and do not need gobs of power (75rms and 225 dynamic). Since I will be pushing the two fronts hard with the top down and at speed I do not want to fry them.

Finding an amp with appropriate wattage for the Kappas and appropriate wattage for the power hungry sub was a challenge without spending way more money than I want to. I also did not want to go with multiple amps because of the space issue, the old RF already takes up too much space. I had been looking hard at the Stinger line of amps but Stinger had several years of being slimy, though the specs were a perfect fit for my needs. Williston Audio finally did a dyno of one the multi-channel amps I was considering. He had done the mono block before and it met without exceeding it's rating beautifully but I am avoiding multiple amps. I had the MT600.4 on my mind but knowing Stinger in the past I kept it as a contender only. Williston's recent dyno of the MT600.4 showed to actually match it's rating nearly perfect. It gave me the confidence to buy the one I really wanted, the MT1000.5 as the 600.4 would have to be run in 3 channel mode and I may end up with rear speakers again at some point, the 1000.5 gives me that flexibility with 4 speaker channels and one dedicated sub channel.

Aside from acceptable power ratings it is a near perfect fit in other areas. Almost three times the wattage as the old RF and about a third of the size. The most important dimension is height, as what I have now has to be tilted back to fit the top, losing that valuable space at the floor level. The new amp will fit flat against the back wall and it has enough crossover settings that I can eliminate the EQ completely. This should clean things up nicely.

Old and new.

Unfortunately I will have to run new power and ground as the RF could get away with 8 gauge but the new amp needs 4 gauge. I have an adequate quantity of 2 gauge welding wire to handle the task on hand so I will run that. I sure hope I can hide that large wire.

I also ordered a 120 amp Blue Seas Marine circuit breaker for a fuse/cutoff. I am currently running a Chinesium 50 amp breaker on the old amp and it is great to click a button and disable voltage to the amp, but with twice the amperage potential, I went with a brand I trust and have used before. Pray for my alternator.

One other thing I did was wash and wax the car. The first real wax job since painting the body. I really need to paint the hood but that will probably wait until Fall.

 

[SirReal63]

I managed to do a few small piddling things on the car this past week. I deleted the A.I.R. pump last year and while I had the belt off I noticed the bearing on the pulley had some slop, it wasn't making any noise but I felt about 1/16" was too much. I only paid like $36 delivered from Hong Kong for the kit so I didn't feel bad about replacing the bearing. I bought two Timken 6203-2RS and replaced the no name bearing. I plan on keeping one in the car in the tool kit and parts bag I am assembling. It no longer has any slop and $13 for a pair of bearings was cheap enough.

It looks exactly the same but I feel better about it.

I also bought a belt tensioner pulley but it hasn't arrived yet.

I finished up the amp/wiring install. I went ahead and pulled the driver seat and related carpeting to the back of the car. The 8ga. wire wasn't run the best it could be but I won't complain, whomever the installer was probably did the best they could but pushing that wire through the grommet where the throttle cable comes through the firewall probably wasn't the best place. I moved a couple inches down from there and found a flat part of the firewall that was perfect for running a wire through, drilled it and sealed it with butyl. The 2ga. wire is obviously much larger than the 8ga. is and needed to be run correctly. I ran it in the same path as the old wire through the interior though I did have to trim some of the carpet backing to make it fit, but it did fit.

I mounted the Blue Seas System 120 amp breaker/disconnect on the brace by the battery, the same place the old breaker was mounted, put the appropriate ends on the wire, shrink wrapped them and called it good. The positive battery cable is not attached to the post correctly, the old battery has some threads missing so doing it this way makes it a secure connection until the battery finally dies and is replaced, I think it has a 2019 date on it. It is filthy in there, the car has been driven a good deal and it is impossible to keep clean.

The 2ga. power and ground are way too stiff to run directly to the amp, I used a pair of distribution blocks and ran some 4ga. tinned marine copper for the rest of the run to the amp. This allowed me to have a coil of each behind the amp board so I could pull the whole thing out if needed for service. I used one of the 3 push pin holders that secures the carpet to the back wall to attach a block to keep the amp from moving forward in heavy braking. I used simple JackNut into the center hole and a 10/24 bolt secures it.

All finished up, I kept the EQ for a couple of reasons, the sub out on the headunit appears to be electrically dead and it gives a little more flexibility for shaping the sound. The amp board is now vertical instead of sloped which frees up some cargo room. The new amp barely even gets warm at full power and after setting the gains it will never see full power again, all in all I am happy I changed it out. The amp is more appropriate for speaker load and the larger power wire will be easier on the alternator.

I was going to order some vinyl cutout overlay emblems for the "Corvette" on the rear but found the price objectionable, $35 for a sticker seems crazy to me, there is no way I will pay that. I had considered removing that badge completely, if someone doesn't know it is a Corvette they can ask, I generally am not a fan of plastering the name of the car all over it. I decided to leave it, it was body color, mostly, from the painting so I sanded off the paint on the lettering, leaving the black plastic. I painted the face of the lettering only black with a paint pen and used matte clear over it after it cured. I was tempted to go around the outside border of the lettering with silver but decided against that, it would make the "Corvette" stand out and was trying to not do that. The matte clear keeps it from shining, gives it some UV protection and I like the look better this way. The vinyl sticker will fade or curl over time and need to be replaced, the paint will also fade over time but is easy enough to paint again when needed. The next time I will probably use a real automotive paint and clear so it will last longer.

I have no idea what I am going to do to it next, I may just keep the car running and we will enjoy it for a while before tearing into something else on the list.

 

[SirReal63]

I took a little country road drive, got rained on and no leaks on the top that I could find. A few weeks back after I waxed the car I applied some Turtle Wax Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Spray Coating, 2 coats 24 hours apart. I had seen the Project farm video where he tested the major brands of ceramic sprays and the Turtle Wax killed the rest of them. I can say I am completely impressed, after the rain and road grime the car still looks great. The subsequent rain washed the dirt and grime off, I wasn't expecting that.

Prior to the rain...

After the rain...

The car performed flawlessly, I beat on it pretty hard and no real issues that need to be corrected. I left the house with a little over a 1/4 tank of gas and it did stumble around sharp corners, but I believe that is normal. After filling the tank it no longer did that.

The stereo worked as expected, I did have to lean into the volume more than normal at 65 with the top down but it wasn't too bad. I may devise some rear fill that doesn't take up a lot of space, the sub is less noticeable at speed, depending on the song, but a little turn of the bass knob and that is corrected.

 

[mountie]

What a great build thread !! I always liked that C4..... Chevy brought a few of them to Sonoma Raceway to to "shake them down". Bob Bondurant spent a week pushing the car to it's limits. I remember, when the 'Vette was in the right-hand / fast curve, ( turn 10 )... On braking, the right-rear wheel would ..'stop'.. ( he was lifting the right-rear off the ground. They adjusted the suspension ( with the advice of the famed Corvette builder / racing guy, Dick Guldstrand)....... That was a fun week !

 

[SirReal63]

Thanks, I have poured a lot of blood and sweat into this car and not much money, which was the goal.

I always liked them, well, almost always, I wasn't a fan when the 84 came out. In almost every way the C5 is a better car but it lacks the raw feel the C4 has and I prefer to sit in a C4, it just fits around your body and holds you in. I had been wanting to restore one for a long time, this one was the perfect candidate for that. In stock form it was an absolute beast on the track, dominating every showroom stock class car in the world in the mid to late 80's. It set the standard for what Corvettes would be in the future. It was the first Vette that the emphasis was on handling and not straight line acceleration and the nailed it.

Dick is an absolute legend!

 

[mountie]

Thanks, I have poured a lot of blood and sweat into this car and not much money, which was the goal.

I always liked them, well, almost always, I wasn't a fan when the 84 came out. In almost every way the C5 is a better car but it lacks the raw feel the C4 has and I prefer to sit in a C4, it just fits around your body and holds you in. I had been wanting to restore one for a long time, this one was the perfect candidate for that. In stock form it was an absolute beast on the track, dominating every showroom stock class car in the world in the mid to late 80's. It set the standard for what Corvettes would be in the future. It was the first Vette that the emphasis was on handling and not straight line acceleration and the nailed it.

Dick is an absolute legend!

He is... ..also as a race driver !! When he moved his original shop ( Jefferson Blvd. / "Guldstrand Sport Suspension" ) , to Burbank, ( closer to his home / ( Guldstrand Motorsports" ).... He called me to assist on the move, then I worked for him for about 6 months !
He has great stories !!
( Dick gave me one of his personal sweaters )
( PM me your mailing address..... I'll send you an original decal....)

 

[SirReal63]

Not a lot has happened to the car in the past few weeks, life is keeping me busy elsewhere.

I did manage a little more work on the stereo, I picked up a pair of Polk DB522 5.25 marine co-ax drivers for the rear. I built a box for them as a test and while they sound fantastic in the way too large box, it was was a compromise between sound fidelity and space. In the end it was a failure, the sound is great for a 5.25" speaker but the space it took up was too large. The large(ish) enclosure allowed the mid bass to come through which it always tough for 5.25 drivers. I am going to cut it all way down on the next attempt, I have a design in mind that will give me back the space I lost but at the expense of most of the mid bass, it is a compromise I think I can live with that as the vocal region is what is mostly lacking at top down speed from just the front stage, the rear fills it in nicely and takes some pressure off the fronts.

Being built...carpeted with the original carpet on the massive box that was in it. I pretty much slapped this together and it shows.

Installed...in reality it did not cost more floor space than the canted old Rockford amp took up but the goal was to increase space, not keep it the same.

Here is an interesting look at how the Sun plays with the appearance of the car. Light and shadows greatly affect how the paint looks. In photos it always looks like the bottom half is darker than the top half or vice versa but when your eye looks at it the difference is not so stark. The lighter bumpers and hood also changes depending on the direction of the light. I am not ready to paint the hood and bumpers yet but I see the absolute need in doing it.

Taken around noon...the Sun is mostly on the drivers side.

Taken in the afternoon...the Sun is shining from the front of the car.

Taken in the evening...the Sun is mostly on the front passenger side.

I am going to end up replacing the head unit, while sitting it is somewhat easy to maneuver around in but while driving it is really tough to select anything on the screen and navigating the music folders is down right dangerous as you cannot really see the writing on the folders. I did not want to squeeze a double din in there but I see the importance of the extra half an inch.

 

[mountie]

Not a lot has happened to the car in the past few weeks, life is keeping me busy elsewhere.

I did manage a little more work on the stereo, I picked up a pair of Polk DB522 5.25 marine co-ax drivers for the rear. I built a box for them as a test and while they sound fantastic in the way too large box, it was was a compromise between sound fidelity and space. In the end it was a failure, the sound is great for a 5.25" speaker but the space it took up was too large. The large(ish) enclosure allowed the mid bass to come through which it always tough for 5.25 drivers. I am going to cut it all way down on the next attempt, I have a design in mind that will give me back the space I lost but at the expense of most of the mid bass, it is a compromise I think I can live with that as the vocal region is what is mostly lacking at top down speed from just the front stage, the rear fills it in nicely and takes some pressure off the fronts.

Being built...carpeted with the original carpet on the massive box that was in it. I pretty much slapped this together and it shows.

View attachment 457239


View attachment 457240


View attachment 457241

Installed...in reality it did not cost more floor space than the canted old Rockford amp took up but the goal was to increase space, not keep it the same.

View attachment 457242


View attachment 457243


View attachment 457244

Here is an interesting look at how the Sun plays with the appearance of the car. Light and shadows greatly affect how the paint looks. In photos it always looks like the bottom half is darker than the top half or vice versa but when your eye looks at it the difference is not so stark. The lighter bumpers and hood also changes depending on the direction of the light. I am not ready to paint the hood and bumpers yet but I see the absolute need in doing it.

Taken around noon...the Sun is mostly on the drivers side.

View attachment 457245

Taken in the afternoon...the Sun is shining from the front of the car.

View attachment 457246

Taken in the evening...the Sun is mostly on the front passenger side.

View attachment 457247

I am going to end up replacing the head unit, while sitting it is somewhat easy to maneuver around in but while driving it is really tough to select anything on the screen and navigating the music folders is down right dangerous as you cannot really see the writing on the folders. I did not want to squeeze a double din in there but I see the importance of the extra half an inch.

I got busy.... almost forgot..... Did you receive the Guldstrand decal?

 

[SirReal63]

I got busy.... almost forgot..... Did you receive the Guldstrand decal?

Maybe, we haven't been to the post office in a while. I will be sure and let you know when I do.

 

[mountie]

Maybe, we haven't been to the post office in a while. I will be sure and let you know when I do.

No sweat..... It has a long shelf life.....

 

[SirReal63]

We only go when we remember, just about everything is electronically delivered to us and our post office is in the opposite direction of where we shop. I will make sure the Boss stops by on her next feed run.

 

[mountie]

When I worked for Dick Guldstrand, he still had his 'Vette, that broke the word 'closed course' speed record, run at Talladega.
It had a Trico engine.
( Opps.. spelling..... 'Traco' engine )

 

[Tonyrodz]

but I see the importance of the extra half an inch.

That's what she said.




Sorry--couldn't help myself. Always gotta go for the "That's what she said" joke.

 

[SirReal63]

Not much has happened with the car the past few weeks other than getting it dirty from back country roads. It is the time of year that other things have to be tended to before the heat of Summer is here to stay. I did take care of a few things that needed attention, or at least things I wanted to attend to.

This will hopefully be the last iteration of the rear speaker box for a long time, while I have enjoyed the challenge of designing something that functions and doesn't take up a lot space, I believe this design will do what I want.

I rebuilt the rear speaker box, it sounded great but was still taking up more room than I wanted. I rebuilt the existing enclosure to have just two small cubes mounted to a back board with the amp upright between the cubes. I needed a way to get the 4 gauge wire to the amp and still allow the back board to fit as close to the rear wall as possible while not putting any sharp bends in the wire as this can cause the wire to come loose and a direct short is not a pretty thing to see. I mounted the cubes on 5/8" stand offs so I could pass the wires behind the cubes, giving a straight shot to the amp. I need to do the same routing on the input side but haven't had the time to do so yet. You may notice the EQ gone, no more blinding blue LED's. Before the design change I had 16" from the waterfall to the box for luggage, now I have 22" in the center section which is a huge improvement. Mid-bass did drop slightly but it is hardly noticeable.

I went ahead and replaced the head unit, the cheap Android unit worked beautifully, it was fast, smooth and the graphics were good. The problem as discussed above is it was downright dangerous to operate while driving, the screen is too small to glance at and trying to change the volume meant you could easily also change the song as the screen layout isn't ideal. While parked it was an awesome unit, but while in motion it isn't. I had replaced the head unit in the Yukon as the old Kenwood was starting to have issues. I used one of those floating screen units because the wife liked it, and honestly, it is a great improvement, so far. I hope it is durable and gives at least a few years use. I really didn't want a double din in the C4, I know it can be done. What I really wanted was a flip out 7" screen unit but I could not find anything but the cheapo units or older name brand used units, but then I would be using another old unit that could fail at any time. On my old F350 I bought a cheap Dual flip out unit from WalMart and used it for 5 years or so before I sold the truck, it worked fine. I decided to try another one, but an updated version. As a company, Dual makes cheap crap, or at least that has been their reputation for decades. The floating screen unit in the Yukon is a Dual and it impressed me, at least initially. With most lower tier units you either get one that works as intended or you get one you have to replace quickly because it failed. If it makes it 6 months it will probably last years. I took the gamble.

It does give me some advantages, I don't have to cut up the bezel to fit a double din and the screen is larger, it has six 3 volt pre-outs so I can ditch the EQ and have full control from the drivers seat, it has two USB slots, one on the detachable face and a Micro SD slot behind the face and it is really easy to pull out if I have to replace it. I have a CD/DVD player and you can operate the unit with the screen retracted.


On to another issue that cropped up. The bezel that I replaced for the top/door junction broke, more specifically, the pins that hold it on broke. I have no idea how I did that but I did, the pins are hollow and not very strong at the junction where they attach to the bezel. I suspect part of the problem was the bezel also attaches to the door trim by a screw that helps keep it in place but the drivers side piece of that trim was broken off. I need to repair that first.

The problem, a missing piece of plastic. I cut a piece of ABS to fill in the missing piece that the screw goes through.

Glassed into place with two layers...

The finished product... (This piece is mostly covered by the bezel so no need to change the color.)

Now to work on the broken pins since I am not buying another one of these fragile covers.

The vulnerable area is where the pins come out of the bezel, too weak, so I cut some copper wire that fit into the hole in the middle of the pins, heated them up and buried them into the bezel to give better strength and glued them down to hold them for epoxy application. The force on these pins is in shear, the coper while soft will give strength in a shear application rust, certainly more than just the brittle plastic and it won't rust. I cut up some chop mat glass into about 1/8" pieces and mixed it into some 5 minute G-Flex epoxy and used it to reinforce the joint. I did this many years ago on the pins that broke on the bezel of the Yukon and they have held beautifully. I cut some slices into the pins to give the epoxy/glass something to firmly attach to. (Note, this method doesn't work well if the pin fits flush to the piece it fits into. Fortunately there is enough room on this bezel from the rubber gasket to allow the increase in thickness to not be an issue.)

I didn't get as much on the base as I wanted but with the missing screw in place it should be enough.

Time to put it all back together... (I hate those push nuts that go on from underneath.)

The seat back and seat belt cover this area so no one would ever know it had been repaired.

The A/C in the shop is holding it's own but I need to finish insulating the roof which will help greatly.

 

[SirReal63]

I would love to say I have been busy and got a lot done with the car but I have not. I tossed my back out moving the endless grass on our property a few weeks back and have been too sore and drugged up to worry with the car, or much of anything. If thi update is more out of sync and full of gibberish than normal, it is the Vicodin/Gabapentin doing the typing.

I did have to replace the backup camera, the AHD camera from the Android was not really compatible so I found a CMOS style that had the same hookups for the cam so I would not have to re-run any wiring. If I had to run wiring it would not happen as bending over or lifting is not something I cannot currently do, at least for a another week or so. After confirming the new camera was going to work I decided to body color it. It was a completely useless thing to do but I have been bored and it let me do something on the car.

Lightly sanded and paint going on. I left the clear plastic lens cover on while painting so I did not have to clean any paint off of the lens.

Painted and cleared. I used a flat clear as I wasn't to activate a can of 2K clear gloss to clear something so small.

All finished and mounted.

It doesn't really make the cam blend in except at a distance. You can still it is a backup camera but at least it isn't black and is easier to not notice. Completely useless but it kept me busy so I call it a win.

Prior to the camera and head unit replacement I also changed out the transmission fluid. If anyone remembers way back when I changed it the first time it had what smelled like 90 weight gear lube in it. I replaced that with the Castrol 10w-60 Euro Car which did help with shifting smoothness but was really only there to help flush out the gear oil, I now have replaced that with ACDelco 769476 GM Original Equipment 10-4006 Synchromesh which also helped the shifting. I let it drain for a couple of days and rotated the transmission a few times to help any remaining Castrol drain out. The tranny shifts very well now.

I am going to have to replace my alternator, it has been running at 15.7 volts at times with nothing heavy on, no A/C, no stereo, no headlights or other heavy voltage users. It will just randomly jump up to 15.7 and stay there until you restart the car. I know this is a warning sign of impending complete failure of the regulator so it must be changed. I am going to put a PowerMaster 47803 140 amp unit on it but I also want to change the alternator wire and both battery cables. I have the alternator on order but cannot get under the car to get an accurate length for the new cables. I may have to make a post in the Tech section to see if anyone already knows what lengths are needed, unless someone subscribed to this thread has done this job already. It may be a while before I comfortable with getting under the car but hope to have all of the parts on hand when it is time. I really hate waiting on parts to arrive.

I really wish I had more to update because the shop is actually cool enough to work in, the little A/C unit is hanging in there and actually cycles on and off instead of running full blast all of the time.