63 Reliability/Maintainability
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 9,556
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From: Granbury Texas
63 Reliability/Maintainability
We broke a tooth on the differential at TWS two weeks ago, and I wanted to mention that I installed that 4.11 posi in 1979. I have driven it on the street and raced it for more than 26 (hard) years, and it finally broke. We installed a new ring and pinion and freshened everything else up, but there was no other damage. At the same time, we rebuilt my ORIGINAL Muncie aluminum case CR transmission. Nope, nothing was broke, just thought that after 43 years it might be time to "freshen it up". It did need synchros, but everything else was fine, however we did a full rebuild with new parts anyway. These are tough, reliable old cars. You don't have to baby them.....and I don't.
Race Director
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 12,712
Likes: 2,270
The axle is a weak link. I snapped my axle's drive pinion in two at about 30K miles. The break showed a classic case of a surface crack that propagated. I think I was just unlucky and got a "bad" drive pinion.
One nice thing about these cars and other cars of the era is that they are SIMPLE - vastly less complicated than a modern car with way fewer components, which means less things to break.
Due to tight clearances, Corvettes are a little tougher to work on than a '63 Impala, but a lot easier than a new Mercedes or whatever new car you want to name including a new Corvette.
Duke
One nice thing about these cars and other cars of the era is that they are SIMPLE - vastly less complicated than a modern car with way fewer components, which means less things to break.
Due to tight clearances, Corvettes are a little tougher to work on than a '63 Impala, but a lot easier than a new Mercedes or whatever new car you want to name including a new Corvette.
Duke
