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Picket these up at Car Quest for a better price than offered on the Corvette websites. The timing chain is a double roller with a crank gear that can be moved + or – 2 degrees. I will need to degree the cam to see what setting to use.

The oil pump is an A55HV high volume unit. That should help with the low oil pressure. Melling states that these pumps will not put extra stress on the cam or distributor gears.

Work for next winter.

I have set up the brake and turn signal lights on the rear to work on both the regular rear lights and the backup lights. I have kept the backup light lenses and used 1156 red LED bulbs. The only problem was using all four red lights for backing up. I was getting back feed through the backup light harness. So I installed a couple of diodes between the backup switch (power) and each tail light lead. Works fine now. Four brake lights should give enough light to back up even if it is red.

More kits for next winter. Power Steering piston and control valve kits and two new ventilators for the dash centre.

In the meantime there are still jobs I can get done. Like the new seal for the right pillar post.

The windshield post weatherstrip clips are held on with rivets. Here I have used 1/8″ rivets. I used a small electric grinder with a metal burr to remove the excess material on the inside. The rubber seal isn’t bothered by the slight bumps left over.

I found it easier to mount the weatherstrip channel first and then fit in the seal. This isn’t permanent as I’m ordering new channel screws. I will glue the seal down later. For the time being it holds itself in place with the channel lips.

Next I’ll take it for a test run to check the brakes and then off to a garage for a safety check so I can finally get it’s registration finished and a new plate.

Finally the big day and I got the new windshield in place. Looks nice, but what you can’t see is all the rust in the window channel. I convinced the shop to install anyway – I did have to drive home. I’ll pull the windshield next winter and deal with the rust so the windshield butyl seal will have a good sealing surface.

When I arrived at the windshield shop smoke was coming from the right rear wheel well. Not good. Looked like the brake pad was sticking to the rotor. Turns out one of the four piston seals had given way. The leaking brake fluid likely caused the smoke. So I drove it home in stages, letting the brake cool off each time.

The rotor looks a bit rough, but it should smooth out OK with a new caliper and pads.

Comparing the new pads with the old. The calipers and pads were new when I got the car.

Nice new rebuild caliper (Mexico) and new pads. I really could use two pad spreaders. I set one end of the caliper on the rotor and then move the spreader to the other end.

Caliper in place. Following the service manual I bled both rear calipers. I assume the front are OK.

Using this set-up I’ll get my wife K to press the brake pedal and I’ll double check that there are not bubbles.

I will eventually change it all over to DOT5, but that’s a job for another day.

New 3″ driving lights. Also new 2357 amber bulbs for the front and red 1156 leds for the rear. 2357 bulbs are a bit brighter than the regular 1157 units. Every bit helps I say when it comes to daytime driving. The red leds are so bright that I’ll need to install red 1157 bulbs in the regular lenses to get an even brightness. The two black thingies are blocks to raise the driving lights into a good position behind the grille.

Should be bright enough for a driving light and a fog light when needed.

Nicely tucked away behind the grille. I did have to shave a tad off one grille vane on each side to allow for enough up-an-down adjustment.

Upper bolts come out easier if the weight is taken off them by jacking up the suspension. The rear shocks actually hold up the suspension when the car is on the hoist.

The lower mount is held together with a wide fine thread nut, a cupped washer and a lock washer( missing from one side). I assembled the lower mount and ended up installing the cupped washer the wrong way. The cup faces outward for some reason.

It was a 50/50 guess as to which end to mount first. I chose the lower – wrong! With these shocks it is almost impossible to get the upper mounting bolt through the frame mount with the lower end mounted. Once the upper bolt is in place the shock can be twisted to fit onto the lower mounting pin. All in place now and top and bottoms torqued to spec

An interesting tid-bit in the service manual is a procedure to get the oil properly re-located after the shocks have been sitting flat for a period of time. It recommends that each shock be stretched and compressed five times. I don’t know how long the shocks have lain flat so I opted to do it.

Front shocks out. One had no resistance either way and the other a bit only one way. Got the sense that these might be the originals that came with the car.

Often the most difficult part to remove is the upper front nuts as you need to hold the shock rod with vice grips to stop it from turning. If the nut is too corroded it is hard to get a good enough grip on the rod to remove the nuts. If that doesn’t work then a nut splitter or cutting torches are needed. Fortunately these came off relatively easily. I had sprayed them a couple of times over the last couple of weeks with penetrating oil and it seems to have helped.

The bottom screws were well lubricated with engine and leaked shock oil. They came off easily.

Lots of shocks available for this car. Many of them are performance units and the price is sky high – like $500+! I’ve opted for basic original equipment replacements from Monroe. A much more reasonable price $282 taxes in from a local parts supplier.

New front shocks in place. I’ve only wiped off the shock mounting surface. Proper cleaning and painting will happen when I tear down the front end and replace all the bushings and maybe new springs.

The service manual calls for 150 inch pounds of torque. Didn’t seem like much, but when I tried it after with a regular wrench they seemed tight enough. Still I used some blue lock-tight to be sure.

Now onto the rear shocks.

The Corvette actually has a working light under the rear bumper to show the spare tire at night. Good idea. I’ve replaced the bulb with an led unit. I cleaned the crud from the bulb housing and it now shines nicely

Normally this car’s rear lighting for park and brake only work on the outer lights. I wanted to have all 4 working. I worked over the wiring and installed two red 1156 Led bulbs in the inner lights. Now I have 4 lights for braking and turn signals. I’ll replace the inner sockets with 1157 units later so that I also have 4 parking lights as well. That will mean some rewiring.

I also tried to tie in the backup lights so that I would have 4 brake lights shining for reverse. No luck. I am getting back feed and all four lights flash with the turn signal. Not a problem. I’m going to install two diodes on the backup light feeds so I will get 4 bright red lights for backing up. Should be passable and I get to keep the original lens look 🙂

Picked up a nice set of yellow driving lights on Amazon. Same as the ones I fitted to my ’74 Dodge truck. Really nice and bright. I want to install them behind the front grilles to the inside of the parking lights. They will fit, but they can’t be turned to face directly ahead. I’d have to make a special bracket. Rather than do that I returned them and ordered a smaller set that (only 3″ across instead of the 5″ or so) should be manoeuvrable.

The bearing on the AC compressor sounds a bit loud, but I decided to give it a try. I started the engine and filled the system with 12A gas. Sadly no cold air coming out of the vents. I checked the service manual AC checks and it appears that the evaporation tube orifice may be blocked. The next day I took the car out for a drive hoping that the system might clear itself and get going with the pump running at driving speeds. Unfortunately the system had leaked down enough that the pump quit. I may try recharging the systems and adding a can of stop-leak they taking if for a drive.

The final option – for next winter – will be to buy the R134a conversion kit from Corvette Depot and doing a full overhaul of the system. Might be the best bet anyway.

Meanwhile I have parts on the way and lots of little things to look at before the end of the driving season.

Time to wire up for a set of driving lights. Easier to work with the seat out. I’m also going to install a new ignition lock. My plan was to tap into the radio power lead for the driving lights as the power would be on only with the key in the ON or ACCESSORY position.

After thinking about it for a bit I thought I’d try to use the optional accessory electric fan circuit, but that didn’t pan out. Just above it was a free fuse connection. I tested it out and one side had power only when the key was in the ON position – that’s even better. I soldered up a spade connector to one side of an inline fuse (see the white wire going into the fuse panel about the centre of the picture. I’m using a 15 amp old style fuse.

Next I squeezed the #14 wire (soldered to the inline fuse) beside the speedometer cable firewall grommet and out into the engine compartment. I then tucked it into the existing harness cover going to the headlights and left a coil of wire under the front for the new lights. Got an email today that I’ll be getting the driving lights are being delivered – picket them up on Amazon.

Unfortunately the ignition lock I bought from Corvette Depot wasn’t right for my ’79 model. It didn’t have a groove on the underside to accept a locking screw. They are taking back the unit for a store credit – I could have had a refund – and I’ll order a new set.

Nice new heater valve with bracket. The illustration manual shows a heater valve, but without a mounting bracket. It is simply fitted in the small heater hose and left to hang there and bang around.

The best place to mount it is where the old heater hose bracket was located.

Fortunately the bracket was held on with aluminum rivits so was easy to remove and cut flush with the inner fender.

To get it mounted on the flat part of the inner fender I had to drill an extra hole just to the left of centre on the bracket. I also enlarged the holes to take 1/4″ stainless bolts. I’m using the large body washers to provide extra support on the outside of the inner fender.

Drilling the holes was easy, but I also had to shave the heater valve bracket to fit by the raised sections of the inner fender that were used to mount the heater hose bracket.

Valve mounted and secued through the fiberglass inner fender with the large body washers. First chance I get I’ll spray them with rock guard to keep the washers from rusting. The bolts and nuts are stainless and I used shake-proof galvanized locks.

All nicely in place and working fine. The location will make it a little more of a pain to get at plugs 2 & 4 – if I had put it where the illustration manual indicates, it would have been in the way of plugs 6 & 8 so no real loss or gain.

Next: time for more inside work.

One of the trans cooling lines rusted bad enough to start leaking. So I replaced two sections with rubber hose until I buy a new set of lines. I added a bit too much oil to the trans thinking I lost more oil than I did. So it had to go or the oil might start to foam in the trans. I’m using a brake bleeder setup to extract the extra oil.

I used the vacuum pump to suck out the extra oil. Worked a charm. I took enough out so that I would need to add oil when the trans was up to temperature. Which I did.

My old hood release cable that runs across the firewall had begun to fray (the outer cover) so I bought a new cable from a Corvette supplier. It fitted OK, but it kept stretching and would only release the left side. I had to reach under the hood to grab the cable and pull it until the right side popped. I then had to re-adjust it. After doing this four times or so the bracket on the left broke. The cable core also pulled out. When I released the cable tab on the right side it broke off. Seems the tab plastic is too brittle and breaks easily. Also, the cable stretches.

I wrapped up the old cable with dry vinyl (I don’t use regular electrical tape unless I have to since in a short time the glue turns to goop if it gets heated at all!). The old tabs are fine and the cable seems OK. Put it back on the car using the original adjustment hole and it is working perfectly.