So for some context, I was given this 1984 Corvette that has been abandoned for the last several years. Even when it was running, it wasn’t taken care of. Here was my first look at the car.



I was also given a parts car, which I believe to be an 88 Corvette. Here’s a picture.




We came back a few days later and got it (84) off the blocks and dragged it onto the trailer. Not having any keys made the process difficult but we managed to get it done.

The first step was to get a battery, and after installing it we found that the car was alive electrically. Next, since we didn’t have any keys we had to replace the ignition lock cylinder. After this the car would turn over, but wouldn’t run. We poured gas down the throttlebodies and and it started up. It sounded really healthy while running.

The first thing to diagnose is obviously the no-start. I’m just going to assume that sitting with an empty tank for several years killed the fuel pump, but I’m still going to test if it’s getting power just in case. And yes I tried putting gas in It.

After that will be to install the radiator. Before the car was abandoned the previous owner thankfully drained all the water by removing the radiator so that it wouldn’t freeze. Should just need reinstalled, and I have most of the pieces to do so.

It currently has 150,000 miles and is an automatic. Here are some extra pictures.


Engine bay before cleaned




Current state of engine bay (I’m aware that battery won’t fit)

Current state of interior

This won’t be a restoration. This is going to be a revival.

 

You have quite a bit of reviving to do. Looks pretty beat. Have you come up, with a budget for it??

 

as long as you gave very little into it, it should be fun!

will try to follow along!

 

It looks like one you should go get and post a thread on the adventure of getting it home.

 

been a while since ive done that and im definitely looking for another adventure but i do have a certain 84 to repaint first!

good luck to the op, ask for help here u will get it.

 

Bravo! Bravo!! Bravo!!! I love seeing threads resurrection revival threads like this. Thank you for sharing. i will actively follow, wonderful learning opportunity. I've resurrected a couple very dead motorcycles in my day, seeing what they had endured outdoors for decades, it is always rewarding to give them the gift of life.

 

I haven't seen that thread bumped in quite a while. What color are you going to paint it? I'm thinking it was gray?

 

Hi... I hope you don't mind me making a couple of comments that are less than positive...

My daughter just restored a 1985 Pontiac Fiero 2m4 SE 5-Speed. Basically, we went through the car *COMPLETELY*. You could call it a concourse restoration, except no one is doing concourse judging on the restoration of an 85 Fiero. In any case... the car was running when we got it. It was fairly beat up, but it was running... though it had a lot of issues. Almost 30 thousand dollars later... it runs awesome:
Sorry, I don't know how to post the link without it turning it into a big video. Point is to show that it can be done, but only if you're willing to throw insane cash at something that will never be worth financially what you put into it.

Why would anyone spend 30 thousand dollars on a Fiero, you ask? Well... my daughter loved the car, and she restored it entirely herself. So, I considered it a father-daughter bonding experience, and an early college education before she actually goes off to college.


So why am I telling you this?

Because your 84 Corvette is going to cost a lot... I mean a LOT of money to fix up. It's missing a lot of things in the engine bay.


I bought a 1984 Corvette about a year ago.. my daughter is restoring it now, and we're doing a similar thing to the Fiero, but doing a "working restoration," which means we're going to try to keep as much as we can, and just replace or recondition what we need to. I paid $4k for the Corvette, and expect to pay about ~$10,000 to get it into safe and reliable running condition where it "needs nothing" to get down the road and have fun with. But... the Corvette we bought was already complete, and (although barely) already running.


So, I say this only because when I look at that Corvette... I see at least $10k worth of parts it's likely going to need, and you'll still have an engine that has 150k on it.


My recommendation is to take the 88 parts car, totally strip it of all the suspension and rear-end stuff, and sell it to someone on eBay who's converting a C2 into a C4 suspension.

Take the 84, and really decide what you want out of it. Are you hoping to make it like some pristine good-running classic Corvette? Because if you are, this is not the one to do it with. You can get running 84 Corvettes that don't really need anything for $8k, and you'll be so far ahead. I just hate to see someone take a car like this that needs so much, and start putting good money into it.


As for cross fire injection... I'm a huge fan. But if it's missing too much stuff, or it's not in good repair, then I'd remove the whole thing and just buy an inexpensive carb and intake setup.

 

Basically my plan is to get it running and safe. I understand that it would cost too much to fully restore. For example, the carpets are totally trashed, if I went on eBay and got really cheap carpets it’d be a couple hundred dollars at least. Or I could just rip the carpets out and leave it. This car will never be like it was leaving the dealership, and that’s why as I stated my attitude is that of revival, and not of restoration.

Since you seem to be familiar with crossfire, can you tell me what all is missing, besides the obvious and that is the actual air filter housing?

If anything in this post comes off as snarky, I assure you it’s not haha.

 

No, that's totally ok... I think the thing that's getting me is that you're basically going to have to replace everything. It's still an American car, so it's not like buying parts for a Porsche... even if it is still a Corvette. Most parts are cheap... and they're still "GM" so it's not a huge issue.


If this was my car... the first thing I'd do is make sure the engine is even worth working with. At 150k miles, it's pretty much at the end of the line... and you may want to seriously consider pulling the motor and having it rebuilt. Same with the transmission.

I say that because you could put a lot of time and effort into it, but EVEN if you replaced everything, at 150k miles, that motor is going to have significant blow-by and it just isn't going to run right. So the first thing I would do is hook up a battery, check the oil, and try cranking the motor. Not to get it to start, but too see how it cranks. If you hear any mechanical failure noises at all... the engine is toast. You also want to listen for a lumpy crank. That is... it doesn't crank smoothly, but feels like some cyls have more pressure than others... which means you've got a low compression problem.

The transmission is a 700-R4, so it's not a hard transmission to rebuild, but you'll want to have it done.

Personally, I think you should pull the motor and transmission if you actually plan on doing any work on this car. You can easily rebuild that motor with a basic re-ring and bearing kit. If you want to spend a little more for better pistons, you can send the block to the machine shop and then re-assemble it yourself. You just need a good torque wrench.

Expect to spend about $800 for a simple rebuild with machine-shop costs. This is by buying clearance on Rock Auto, and shopping for low prices on eBay.

Transmission, expect to spend about $1000 for a simple rebuild. This is assuming you've taken the engine and transmission out yourself.


Once you've done that, you can start putting a lot of the stuff back on. You're missing the air cleaner assembly, of course, and they no longer make the air filter for this model, so you'll have to find a used one or make one by cutting up some other filters. But you will need to buy a rebuild kit to rebuild both throttle bodies. My daughter has a video for that here:


But before you try to start it... my guess is that you probably need to completely re-do the entire fuel system. You'll want a new fuel sending unit and fuel pump. Buy both at Rock Auto because it's inexpensive. You'll want to get a shop manual too of course. This all assumes your fuel tank isn't rusted... you don't need to remove it, just make sure it's empty. Replace EVERY SINGLE RUBBER FUEL LINE... there's several by the fuel pump, and then again under the car where the fuel filter goes (behind the front passenger wheel under the car), and then again when it goes up the front of the motor.

Hopefully the injectors are OK... they're a little expensive.


You're just starting with a major deficit... I'm merely suggesting you could start with a much better car. But if you want to really learn about this car, this is the way to do it.


But I'm concerned about the brakes and suspension. It's likely all totally shot. The front has wheel hubs, just like the rear. It's not like other older cars where you've got a steering knuckle with a spindle that bearings ride on... it's built more like a modern car with wheel hubs, which are also expensive... and they do go bad. The brake booster is also no longer available, and my guess is that it's probably failed. So you'll want to buy one from an 85 and install it. This itself will make you hate life... but it can be done.


Good luck... we're here to help.

 

@LovesJesus ... here is what I'm talking about. This is a really simple "re-ring" kit...

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=5604357

It's actually a really good price. It's actually a pretty amazing price, to be honest. For $100 bucks, you're getting new crank and rod bearings, new piston rings, and a complete engine gasket kit. With something like that... you don't technically need to even take it to the machine shop. It's considered a little ghetto, but assuming everything is standard size (you'll know when you take it apart)... you can swap out all the bearings, re-torque it all down, and the engine will certainly extend its life for another 50-60k miles. Even if you just swap out the rings... the cyl walls might be oblong from piston slap... but with new rings at least, you'll regain that compression again.

But I really emphasize rebuilding the engine. At 150k miles, you don't want to put any money into that car unless you know the engine is going to be worth it.

 

its all prepped, awaiting temperature!

 

A guy posted a video of a 1984 Corvette "revival" on YouTube under Vice Grip Garage. I highly recommend watching both parts before you start on your 84. The videos are very long but I think they will point you in the right direction.

 

So shortly after I received the car and got it home, I got busy. Bought a daily, got the race cars ready, etc. but recently I got some more time to work on the car. I already knew we had spark, timing, and compression. We just lacked fuel and the cooling system wasn’t together. I decided to mess with the fuel system for a little bit, and found that the relay wasn’t doing anything, so I ran a jumper wire through it. The fuel pump still wasn’t getting any voltage, so I was going to look for a break in the wires somewhere.

I decided while I waited on that I would put the cooling system back together. Installed the radiator, hoses, thermostat, gasket, and….

It was dumping water out of the block faster than I could pour it in. The blocks junk.

I know where I can get another 350 for a couple hundred bucks. I would prefer that anyway because then it would already be carbureted. Then while the motors out I could fix the main seal in the transmission.

The thing is, I’m not restoring the car. I’m getting it running. Carpet is nasty? Take it out. Seats are nasty? Get some junkyard seats from a random car. Heater doesn’t work? Just don’t drive it in winter. You get the point.

Here’s a video of it running after pouring gas down the throttlebodies, (and spraying transmission fluid everywhere ) and a video of water running out of the block.

I might put another engine in it. Or I might sell the parts off of it. Or maybe I’ll do nothing with it. I haven’t decided yet. The biggest enemy right now is the ticks in the the field we have it set in

 

I was just told that the guy I got the corvette from has a 327 block he would give me. Not sure if that would work I’ll have to research that haha

 

The 84 is a "pre-86" block, so it's likely going to be identical to the 327 block. I'm not an expert on Chevy V8s... but I know that in 1986, they went with a 1-piece rear main seal as one of the differences. I am sure there were others... but either way, the small block chevy changed little over the years, so the 327 should fit just fine.

My guess though is that the biggest issue for the 84 is the cam and the heads, along with the intake... being the restrictive thing. The 327 is smaller, obviously, but I know they were typically higher revving and usually had a bit more horsepower than the normal 350. If you don't care about originality, you could swap in a 2-bbl throttle body. It never occured to me, but a couple of people have done that... you basically get a single 2-barrel TBI intake, and connect the factory cross-fire injection wiring harness up to it... and it just works. You'll get better flow and more horsepower, and be able to use an open-element air cleaner.

The criticisms that you're getting are mostly because a lot of people have gone through a similar effort... taking a car that probably should be in a junkyard, and putting a ton of money after it, haha... but it's fun... and I probably would have done the same thing (I more or less did).

 

There are 2 basic iterations of the "327" block. 1962-1967 are "small journal" and 68-up 327 and 350 blocks are "large journal". (I do not recall if the first year 1967 350 which was only available in the Camaro SS350 is small or large journal.) You can't mix cranks, blocks and connecting rods between the two journal sizes. IMO there is no reason to waste time and money on resurrecting a small-journal 327/350 unless it is a numbers-matching project where retaining the original block stamping adds value to the car. Like a 65 Fuel Injected Corvette or 67 Camaro SS350.

Now you know. The OP is never going to resurrect this car, so 327 info is of no value to him.

 

So, 1968 was a big change then too, I did not know this. I guess the problem with the smaller journals is just less meat on the crank for bearing surface, basically, right?



Where was the water running out of? I couldn't really see. I am impressed though that the engine actually ran.

I do have to say, you're not going to be successful unless you can get the car towed / put somewhere on flat ground. I've done some pretty ghetto stuff in a parking lot when I was a very young adult, but you're making so much work for yourself (and potentially dangerous).

Anyway, just curious where the water was coming out of... maybe it was just some bad hoses or something... is the block cracked?

But... the car did run, which means it had spark, compression, and the ECM was working... you just need to figure out fuel (and obviously cooling). A 327 would drop in there, and the bell housing is the same. But, like IHBD says, if it's one of the ones with a smaller journal, maybe not worth the effort to fix up, other than to just sell on eBay.

If you get to the point you decide to junk the Corvette, remember that the suspension is worth quite a bit to C3 Corvette owners. A lot of them swap these parts out to make their C3 Corvettes ride / handle better.

I'd also run the RPO codes to see what options it has... like if it has the better suspension, or what rear-end it has.

 

In small journal SBC the 2.0" rods and their bolts were the problem. Especially at the 6,500 RPM redlines the SHP engines could attain. The rod bolts would fail and destroy the engine. The larger journal 2.10 rods had larger diameter bolts. The cranks were also stronger because of the larger cross-section through the journals. Particularly the #4 main bearing where 75% of the engine's output passes through. Yes, larger diameter journals have more surface area hence higher load capacity for a given oil film strength.

The 327 and its cousin the Z28's 302 (same 4.0" bore, but 3.0" stroke instead of the 327's 3.25) are frivolous high revving engines. They make power at high RPM with large camshaft profiles, good head airflow, and high compression ratios. I've had a small journal 11:1 327 in my Berkely jet ski boat for 50 years. It should have put a rod through the block 49 years ago, but so far, hasn't. It doesn't get used a lot (one 7 day trip a year), but when it finally goes BOOM, which I expect it to do almost every time I get on it from a standing start, it won't owe me a dime.

All 1984 had Dana 36 regardless of transmission. The standard ratio was 3.07, the optional ratio 3.31 was an option for either transmission, with or without Z51. Sources and records hint that the 3.31 ratio was possibly discontinued by Autumn of 1983.

 

Nice! I just looked to see what the difference between the DANA 36 and DANA 44 was, and saw that other years got a final drive ratio of under 3... like 2.57:1, etc. So, 3.07:1 isn't so bad!

Thanks!