1988 Corvette - for once I got a pretty good car to start

Good news on the Corvette; the pump is fixed. As I was trying to get the dimensions the news reached me that a pulley was found. I hope this week it will pass the MOT. Then finally the V8 rumble can be heard again.

Last year did not turn out so great for the Corvette. All events cancelled and such. I tried to start the year well by driving it a bit and even found a classic car tour that was corona-proof in setup.









But at this classic car tour things went bad. Not too long after the start we had to use the highway to cross a river. At the top of this highway bridge I suddenly pushed the brake pedal to the floor. Only a little bit of brake pressure all the way at the end of the pedal. And all of a sudden. Using engine braking, that little remaining brake and the parkbrake I came to a safe stop at the gasstation that was very conveniently located. Looking at the brake reservoir and all seemed well. No brake fluid leak anywhere. And after a minute I had brake pressure again as normal. I suspected the not even a year old brake master cilinder of a failure. It had happened before when the Corvette was still in the workshop; within a few days of replacing that master cilinder.






So we and the Corvette came home on a flatbed. The workshop was kind enough to pick-up the Corvette the day after and cover the repairs. The still very new brake master cilinder was send to a rebuild specialist who took it apart and though he could not find anything wrong with it also rebuild it. It then ran a weekend on his testbench without any single issue. But both the workshop and the rebuild specialist agreed that there must be something wrong. I don't remember the manufacturer of the part but this is clearly one to avoid. A different master cilinder was ordered (this time in the USA), tested and build into the car. 
I did not drive the Corvette much after that as the trust is still coming back slowly. Just loosing brakes nearly completely is not funny.



Oh, and BTW it developed a little oil leak on the automatic. Enough that I frequently have to top off and suspected also to be too much to pass the MOT. So I can drive it a bit these weeks but in April it is booked into the workshop again. I really love it but there seems to be always something wrong or about to go wrong.

On a not too cold and not too wet January day I got some wok done on the Corvette. I worked on fixing the odometer.

Its part of the cluster and by the looks it is the only analog part of the entire digital dash.


Dashboard stuff is never much fun. All these hidden screws and then to figure out how to get the component out


Here we go. The cluster also contains the cruise control function so it is pretty full. This is a rebuild cluster though I don't know what they all did. It does have some newer circuitboard on the right.


Thats the motor of the odometer...  Yes it only appears to be analog but really it is also electronic. The motor is calibrated but luckily I got a tested identical example from the USA. It should be the same for all odometers in miles (there is a rare cluster that is all in km) so variation in drivetrain and final drive should be handled somewhere else in the cluster.


See.. thats the whole thing.

Corvette wake-up



No issues, no hard start... it all just worked. 


It needed a new MOT for which nothing major had to be done. A bit annoying is that the odometer that I fixed about a year ago has again stopped functioning. 




To celebrate the new MOT I took it to a yearly gathering of Corvette clubs (one of two in the country). On a rainy day but sometimes that's ok.



Quite a few C8's around and they stand-out with a very different profile. As I own a small modern mid-engined sportscar also (Alpine) I know what a different driving dynamic this setup gives. And I trust the Alpine more when going fast. But the sensation of being pretty much at the rear axle with a very long and sloping bonnet in front of you is something unique as well. I think the C8 is less Corvette but more cool supercar, and its funny that even in the days of the C4 they considered going mid-engined. 



The event was next door to the Corvette museum in Wezep - with an even larger collection than the Corvette factory museum in Kentucky has. New to me was a collection of Callaways (tuned Corvettes with sometimes extensive aerodynamic re-design). 


This is a Callaway that at the time you could order at the Chevrolet dealer - with GM warranty still in place. Twin Turbo. Many high-speed records were broken with these cars.

Lately the cruise control had a mind-of-its-own and at some point stopped working even. Some fear was developing what could be wrong but on the first check I found this.


Just a split vacuum hose.. Thats all. Just shortened it for now but I'll add on the list to go round and replace quite a few of these hoses since they are all about the same age.

I took the Corvette out for a driving lesson on slippery road surfaces. Its been a while and I've not pushed it hard before to feel the limit.


Obviously not many pictures of the Corvette as I and other participants had our hands full..




Braking into a slippery corner was easy giving the well working ABS and a surprising amount of wet grip from the very wide tyres. Pre-Corona times on the old Nexen tyres I had some scary moments on a very wet trip in the Eifel area. The replacement ones (I don't remember the brand) are much better.
In the end I only had a bit of trouble rounding the corner at above 50km/h where most cars (especially the non-ABS group) struggled with 40km/h.


Oversteer practice (throttle induced with a little steering angle) was a lot harder. If there is a bit oversteer its easy to catch. To introduce enough oversteer as the instructor wanted (about what this Holden Ute displays) the rotation got quicker than I could countersteer. I only captured it once in three times. So.. the Corvette grips a lot and a tiny bit of oversteer on say exit of corner is fine. But provoke it too much and its a hard car to catch. I've learned to drift a Mercedes C-class on wet the last time I had a training like this but my skills do have their limit clearly.

After a couple of tries and having to wait before it was my turn the Corvette started to display high traffic jam temperature levels. To the point again as I have had happen before in hot temperatures that once the engine is switched off its hard to start after. Not interested in pushing my luck I've parked up and let it cool with the bonnet opened.