As many of you know, i'm in the process of renovating a fairly beat up 1981. Through doing this, I'vew come accross quite a number of exotic repairs, some of which are chronicled on these pages. These aren't really what I'd call Bubba repairs, but rather the premeditaed work of mechanics that either didn't know any beter or were trying to cut corners. One that immediately comes to mind is that the transmission cooler lines had a leak at the rad and were disconected and piped together with a hose (one of the hose clamps popped off and the oil was pumped out).

I've been working on other items but one thing that has anoyed me but not really registered as wrong was the placement of the oil filler cap on the block. On the 81's (of which this is my first) there is a lot of stuff going over the heads, but I felt that the placement on the front, passenger side was kind of stupid. Little did I know that, at some point, the covers had been removed and put back on the wrong sides!

To get at my oil filler, I've got to remove the air cleaner, remove the flexible air intake, remove one of the Smog hoses and push asside several vacuum hoses. I've only done one oil change on this car so far (when I got it) so it hasn't caused me much grief, but I remember thinking that even by the General's standards, this is a pretty poorly thought out set up.

I need to replace the heads in any case, so it probably didn't cost me anything, but still ticks me off.

Rant over. thanks for listening.

 

Changed a fuse yet?

 

do you have a PCV valve....is that accessible? or even the breather filter.... can you use those?

 

Ah the '81. First year of the ECU. I swear the stock engines had monitors going into each orifice in the engine. I would say take out the damn computer and emmissions junk but I see you live in California.

Fortunetly I don't have that problem with my '81. Smog and computer long removed, but I still have all these wires on the engine firewall that go nowhere. It's amazing these cars ran at all with all those wires and monitors going everywhere.

 

You can take all that junk off and it'll still run?! I've only removed my smog pump, since I'm not going to smog the car ever again.

I feel the pain of changing the oil on the '81. However, I've got a long and skinny funnel that fits right down in there.

Try and add power steering fluid

 

Yeah of course you can take all that junk off. The previous owner did it to mine so I can't say I did it. You may have to change out some top end parts including carb, manifold, and distributor.

Adding power steering fluid is still a pain.

 

I just noticed my power steering fluid was low the other day. To fill it I cut a pop can just a little shorter than half tall, creased a spout into it, and used that to put the fluid in. It worked better than trying to aim a full container of fluid!

Some Previous Owner decided that I needed Edelbrock valve covers on my engine. I think he had 2 of the same side, cuz I don't have an oil filler hole, but I have a PCV valve on each side. I use a funnel into one of them to fill the oil.

Fun fun fun!
Dan

 

You can't get to the power steering reservoir on the 82's without a long funnel.

GM at it's best.

 

Same on the 78,and a little at a time.

 

I'm still surprised at how much damage Bubba did to my car too. From the core support to the running boards Bubba was there. When i found another year core support and that was so rotten i had to replace it i could understand saving a few bucks or limited parts availibility. But cross theading the running board threads by replacing SAE screws with sheet metal screws is totaly Bubba. Also removing all the htr box seals to replace the htr core ruined the ventilation air.
Hey we share your frustration but this forum is a great place for this kind of help and my car is better now for it. cardo0

 

And let not forget when you have to work on these cars, we have to use both SAE and metric tools. This is probably the reason why we love our vettes so much. Total Insainity.

 

ONE of the very nice things abut my '72 hotrod here, it never even HAD a airpump, and NO EGR either, last year before all that insanity.....so it's very very easy to work on as a stock machine...so I had to slip a little fuel hose over a funnel for the P/S fluid...PIA, but what the hell, nuttin's perfect....

since then of course, it's grown all sort of stuff, done MY way...
not a bolt on that car that's not been turned by one of my wrenches...

GENE

 

I use one of those fittings that screws onto the top of teh bottle and has a twist on-off action - there is about a foot long hose attached to the end of the fitting...

Take of PS cap - stick tube in opening in top - Oven valve - when done shut valve - small rag pull it out and set on shelf - drive away - no runs - no drips - no errors

 

Power steering fluid isn't hard.

I was in my hospital one day and saw a large syringe with a hose sticking out of the end and thought I know where I could use that. I asked the med tech VERY NICELY and he gave me a new one with a foot of hose. Use the syringe to suck a little fluid out of a bottle and then GENTLY squirt it into your pump. If you forget to do it GENTLY it only takes about an hour to remove all of the fluid you just sprayed all over your freshly cleaned engine compartment.

Bill