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I love my C3. I drive it almost every day. But lately stuff has been breaking faster than I can keep up. First my power antenna stopped working. Then the rear window defroster stopped working. Not that I need it right now. And now my radio has stopped working. It seems that as soon as I fix something another problem arises.
Hopefully these are fuse/circuit breaker issues. It's not very easy to even get to the fuse box on my '81. I usually take the seat out to get under the dash. I've even invested in a 12" and 16" hemostat to reach the little devils. These are a great help in reaching into the fuse box. I highly recommend that you guys try them.
Anyway just needed to rant some. Thanks for listening.
Fuse/circuit breaker issues are generally just the reporters of bad news elsewhere in the system. The hemostat is a good solution for the tight confines we have to work in.
If the original wiring those are all separate circuits. The antenna gets power from the CTSY fuse. Do you have courtesy lights? If so then the fuse isn't blown.
Rear defog is on its own circuit. So is the radio.
The power antenna relay coil does get its power from the radio (energized with the radio "on") but otherwise they are completely isolated from each other as they don't even have a common ground point. (The relay coil and antenna have a ground connection near the relay; the radio is grounded by the main dash harness ground on the driver door hinge pillar.)
I love my C3. I drive it almost every day. But lately stuff has been breaking faster than I can keep up. First my power antenna stopped working. Then the rear window defroster stopped working. Not that I need it right now. And now my radio has stopped working. It seems that as soon as I fix something another problem arises.
Hopefully these are fuse/circuit breaker issues. It's not very easy to even get to the fuse box on my '81. I usually take the seat out to get under the dash. I've even invested in a 12" and 16" hemostat to reach the little devils. These are a great help in reaching into the fuse box. I highly recommend that you guys try them.
Anyway just needed to rant some. Thanks for listening.
I'm beginning to think that Corvette owners who make their own repairs need a degree in...........(wait for it)...................
Geez. I hate all that crap happening. I may have to get one of those hemostats. My wife is a RN, maybe she can get one on the cheap! My radio and antenna are both aftermarket so I no longer have the antenna relay, wired directly to the radio. Ifor the radio is cropping out, could that affect the antenna?
Has anyone installed replaced the original antenna with one of the newer shark fin antenna's on the roof of the car? I'm going to do it, but was curious if anyone already did.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Originally Posted by Cool bean
Has anyone installed replaced the original antenna with one of the newer shark fin antenna's on the roof of the car? I'm going to do it, but was curious if anyone already did.
Well I decided to push the RESET button on my JVC radio and it started working.
I have no clue why it did what it did. Had to go through all the menus again as I lost my presets. Well worth the trouble though.
Got to get this antenna fixed now.
The antenna was an easy fix. Dumb dumb here didn't hook the ground wire back up when I was painting the frame.
The other day I actually needed my heater to defog my windshield. Guess what no heat. So after tracing all of the vacuum and water hoses I found the problem. I'm running the 3/4 hose out of my intake manifold. I'm running the 5/8 hose off the water pump. After reviewing my AIM I see that this is backwards on my year model. So I've got to change these around to fix it.