Hi all,

Just bought my first corvette, I got a pretty good deal and couldn't pass it up. When I bought it I knew it didn't run and thinking, worse case scenario, I'd have to drop another engine in it. The guy I got it from charged up the battery and turned it over so I would know at least the engine wasn't locked up. I've decided first to see if I can get the original engine going before I invest in another engine.

I plan on starting out first changing the engine oil and filter (I have no idea how long this car sat) The guy I bought it from had it for a year and never had it running. Then I guess your basic check for fuel to the injectors, and spark to the plugs. If its getting both of these and still not starting I plan on going to the sensors, checking all the sensors I can possibly check. I'm thinking about investing in an obd1 tester to help out with this (which is probably not a bad idea) if not I'll go over all that are possible to check. (I've known of a lot of cars not starting because of a crankshaft position sensor.)

Any ideas would be very helpful with this basic non-starting issue. Even with what I have already stated here, If anyone has an easy way to check and test certain things please feel free to mention them.

It has the L98 Engine and as far as I know everything is stock.
Thanks

 

Just like you said, if you know you have a project but not how severe, I would start with checking:
oil filter
spark plugs
you can use a paper clip to check codes or an old code reader
Timing, and EST wire
MAF
injector connections, and injectors

I don't have your year but, you will find they are all pretty similar, and some of the experts can help you pin point more accurately.
Good luck

 

Thats true, my repair manual says to ground terminal A to B on the (ALCL). The only thing is that the battery has been replaced within the year and I'm sure I will have to pull it to charge it. I know all trouble codes clear when the battery is disconnected. Would it then pull the codes as long as I went through the starting process a few times? giving me the trouble codes that are effecting the starting of the vehicle?


Another thing I thought about was draining the fuel and replacing it with new gas. I bought a vehicle once before (carbureted) that would not start, I noticed something beading up in the carb, come to find out it was water in the carburetor (I guess someone had an enemy or someone didn't want this person driving the vehicle) Is there an easy way to do this or would I have to pull the gas tank to completely empty it?

 

Your primary objective right now is to determine weather it's fuel or spark related.

Two simple and quick tests that will tell you weather this is a fuel or spark problem, or both.

Obvisouly the engine spins over with the starter. Don't worry about the codes right now if you have to remove the battery, although I would just stick a paper clip in it now and see if I get anything. Have your battery charged up at the parts store, or install a fresh one if it's drained.

1. Remove the intake accordion duct from the throttle body temporarily, and hold the throttle blades open by hand. Spray some carb cleaner or starting fluid into the open throttle body using the supplied straw, and reattach duct. Crank the car. If it fires up for a second then dies, your problem is a lack of fuel.

2. Get a timing light and connect it to any spark plug wire. Connect the timing light's positive and negative clips to the battery. Have someone crank the car for you while you hold the timing gun trigger down. Point the light anywhere. If it does not flash while the car cranks, there is no spark.

Go do these two basic tests and report back with your findings.

 

Use a timing light to determine if you have spark and spark at the right time. Use a fuel pressure gauge on the shrader valve on the end of the right fuel rail and turn the ign sw to run and then off. You should see 35-43 psi fuel pressure and it should hold up for a long time, 1/2 hr or so. If it drops rapidly, you may have leaky injectors. Get a noid light or make one with an LED and a series 680 ohm resistor and connect it across an unplugged injector wire and crank the engine to see if the injectors are being pulsed. The homemade light might have to be tried both ways as it will only light with the correct polarity. If you have spark, fuel pressure and injector pulses, measure the compression on each cylinder.

 

Drained the oil and I noticed a smell of gas in the oil. As I've stated before, the guy I bought it from had it for a year and said he couldn't get it running, so I'm thinking from him trying to start it (with no success) perhaps he kept flooding it out. After taking the oil filter off and turning it upside down to let it drain, I noticed some very small metal flakes in the oil (coming out of the oil filter).

I pulled the plugs, he had some kind of bosch splitfire plugs in it (I don't care for splitfire myself) so I went out and bought ac delco AC-R43TS, gapped them to 0.035 and checked to make sure the firing order was correct ...it was. Took the battery off the charger, cleaned the terminals and hooked it up.

First, I checked to see if it was getting spark. Tested the number one cylinder first, The timing light flashed, but slowly. I also checked the number three cylinder, same thing ...strong flash but at a slow pace.

Next I removed the intake accordion duct from the throttle body, held the throttle open and sprayed starting fluid up inside and reattached the duct.

I had my wife turn it over, after about 3 rotations it fired right up. I couldn't believe it, I had her let it run for about 30 seconds and then shut it off. Needless to say the garage filled up quick with smoke from oil that was on the exhaust. Just to make sure. I had her try it again ...it took a little longer this time about 6 rotations and started up again. I let it run for about a minute this time.

I figured the smoke was from oil thats been leaking out of the valve cover gaskets for at least the past year if not longer than that. I plan on going to get valve cover gaskets tomorrow.

The only thing that bothers me is I hear a tapping in the top end. I figure its probably a rocker, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm going to start another thread with this problem. I don't want to run the car for too long of a time with the noise I'm hearing, its not a constant tap but an intermittent one and I didn't rev the engine to see if it would get worse.

Like I said I'll start this issue on another thread. Thanks you guys for the great help. I never tried the timing light thing before to check to see if I was getting spark, I always removed a plug and checked it that way. Its much easier with the light.

Thanks again, I didn't think I would get the car running this easy. I'm going to start the new problem thread with the title "86 vette - top end noise - need help." If you have any ideas of what I should be looking for please comment.


Thanks again all.

 

tapping is prob. just the injectors

 

Injector noise is consistent and can be felt with a finger on one.
Is it possible for you to upload a short video or sound clip so we can hear?

It's not un common to get lifter noise after a car has been sitting for a long time without starting. I'd just let it idle up to normal operating temp so everything can settle in and see if the noise begins to subside as it warms up. If it's definately coming from the valve covers, I'd go ahead and reset the valve lash on each valve when you go to replace the valve cover gaskets.

You can pinpoint it's exact location with great accuracy using a $4 mechanic's stethoscope from Harbor Freight.



Use the one piece rubber Perma Dry Fel-Pro gaskets, available at Kragen, Autozone, or Advanced. They are available for both center bolt (aluminum heads) or perimieter (iron heads) depending on what you have. They go on dry and seal very well. Don't waste your time with the crappy cork or multi piece ones that never seal right. I can never get those damn things to seal reliably. Fel-Pro rubber is all I use on anything I work on.

This is how I adjust my valve lash. This exact procedure applies to the L98.

 

Great video, I was hoping to do this without removing the intake manifold. Couldn't I remove the spark plugs and the serpentine belt, shift the transmission into neutral and turn the crankshaft with a breaker bar (clockwise) until the no.1 piston is at the top dead center? (using a wooden dowel rod in the spark plug hole?) and then move down the firing order? Or am I going to have a hard time turning the crankshaft? I've done it before on a four cylinder. Another question is, Should I go an additional half turn after all lash is removed or an additional one full turn (as my repair manual states)?

 

You DO NOT need to remove the intake. The only thing you need to remove is the valve covers, belt, and MAF sensor with accordion boot for clearance for a breaker bar.

When the intake is in place, the only difference is you'll just look at the movement of the rocker arm or pushrod tip, instead of the lifter in the block going down.

The engine will be easier to turn over with the plugs removed, but you do not need to remove them. I've done it with them in place just fine. If you use a breaker bar, the motor will turn over just fine. You don't even need to know when the piston is at TDC by poking something into the plug hole. There is no need for all this, it's a waste of time. Just like the video shows, you'll know when the lifters are on the base circle of the cam lobes, weather you're looking at the movement of the lifter in the block, or the rocker arm or pushrod tip.

Turn the motor over by hand with a socket & breaker bar on the center crank bolt in a clockwise direction, while looking at the rocker arms moving. Go clockwise so you don't loosen the crank bolt. I use a long torque wrench with ratcheting action which makes it easer to keep turning in limited space.

 

Sorry its been almost 4 months, It got pretty cold around here and haven't been working on anything in the garage since the garage is not heated.

I adjusted my valve lash as instructed in the video. I did end up getting a new set of pushrods, I believe a couple of the old ones were slightly off. So, as far as the video shows, everything went fine, after adjusting the lash on the first cylinder, I only had to rotate the crankshaft 90 to seat the intake lifter on the number 8 cylinder, and adjust the valve lash, and so on down the firing order.

I have one problem though that I'm not understanding. In my repair manual it states "In order to bring the number one piston to TDC on the compression stroke the crankshaft should be turned until the line on the vibration damper is aligned with the zero mark on the timing plate and that the rotor should now be pointing at the mark I put on the plenum (which I did).

I used the repair manuals method of bringing the number one cylinder to TDC before removing the distributor, the intake manifold, plenum, rocker arms pushrods ...etc. The problem that I am having or had before I adjusted the valve lash was that after adjusting the valve lash on the number one cylinder and then continuing on to the number 8 cylinder, before I turned the crankshaft to lower the number 8 cylinder intake lifter, I noticed that the number 8 intake lifter was already seated.

So I turned the crankshaft until I got to where both lifters on the number one cylinder were down and the intake lifter on the number 8 was still up, after adjusting the valve lash on the number one cylinder I was able to turn the crankshaft 90 degrees to lower the number 8 intake cylinder, but the problem with that was that when I was supposedly at TDC according to the video and able to cycle through the cylinders at 90 degree turns, TDC on number 1 wasn't giving me the vibration damper being aligned with the zero mark on the timing plate.

I dont know whats going on here, I would think that if everything was out 360 degrees on the exhaust stroke and not on the compression stroke the car wouldn't have started. I'm starting to pull my hair out here, because I'm not understanding why the video is not matching up with the manual as to where TDC is.


edit: I took the manifold off to replace the gaskets. In doing so I noticed few of the intake manifold bolts were not by any means torqued to what the should have been, just from how easy they were to loosen.

edit 2: I went back out and rotated the crankshaft to see what was going on. When I rotate the crankshaft that the timing mark comes up to TDC the number 1 exhaust lifter lowered and the intake lifter started to rise (this is when the timing mark is a 0 TDC) the number 8 exhaust lifter was up, not the intake lifter, but I DID NOT adjust the valve lash right after the exhaust lifter seated and before the intake lifter came up, I adjusted the lash after the intake lifter seated. So there is where I'm having the issue of not being TDC when I adjusted the valve lash. Is this all making sense to someone?

 

Is that still the old balancer on there?

Your balancer mark might be slipped. The outer ring containing the timing mark sometimes seperates from the balancer hub and it rotates, throwing off the timing mark from it's true position, which throws you off if you don't know it.

Sometimes I don't even use the balancer mark at all. I just rotate the engine while I look at the rocker arms move and go by eye. Once the intake valve closes after the exhaust is already closed on a particular cylinder, I know this is the beginning of the compression stroke (piston coming up) when both lifters are on the base of the cam lobe, and both valves are fully closed wihout even looking at the timing tab/balancer aligment.

I rotate the motor just a little bit more past this point (to where I think the piston must be maybe 1/4-1/2 way up the bore) to guarantee that both valves are full closed during compression stroke. And that's when I set the lash, then I move to the next cylinder.

 

Thanks for the fast reply 86PACER. Like I said, I followed the video, the exhaust stroke came up, went down, the intake stroke came up, went down and seated (i may have went a small bit over, making sure the lifter was fully seated) then I made the adjustment, turned the crank until the next intake lifter in the firing order seated and moved on . As far as I know its the original balancer. I just wanted to check, because of the timing mark being off from what the video is saying was TDC.

It shows TDC (0 at timing mark) right after the exhaust stroke seats and before the intake stroke comes up. If that is the problem with the outer ring slipping on the balancer, I take it the only way to fix the problem is to replace it with a new balancer?

After I get everything I have apart now back together (fire it up and see if that made a big difference) I plan on replacing the time chain and sprocket, I guess that would be a good time to replace the balancer.

thanks again for the fast reply, this has been driving me crazy!

edit: I also wanted to state that the video says to tighten 1/2 turn after the valve lash has been set and the book says to tighten 1 full turn.

 

Can someone give me some input here. The book states to bring the number one piston to TDC on the compression stroke. I want to make sure I have this done correctly before moving on. Is then TDC for the compression stroke after the exhaust lifter lowers and before the intake lifter raises? because thats when the timing mark lines up. Or, shouldnt I worry at all about what the book says and go 100% with the video? If so, I'll have to redo everything because I tightened all rocker nuts 1 full turn instead of a half turn. I'm trying to make sense of what the book says and what the video is showing me, and why they aren't matching up.

Thanks

 

By "exhaust" and "intake" "stroke" you mean valves?

 

I actually meant to say lifters instead of stroke. I'm just worried right now that I over tightened the rocker arm nuts, when the video says half turn and the book I have says 1 full turn. I guess if need be I'll go back and redo everything again only tightening the rocker arm nuts 1/2 turn instead of a full turn.

If the balancer timing mark is where it should be, the book is telling me to adjust the valve lash in between the exhaust lifter seating and before the intake lifter raises (noting they are both seated at that time). The video is saying to wait until the intake lifter seats then adjust. In both instances the lifters are seated. Either way, is tightening the rocker arm nut 1 full turn too much, or should it only be 1/2 turn like the video states?

 

The video is not putting the engine at TDC, on the compression stroke. They have the piston at the start of the compression stroke(on it's way up), so the timing marks will not be there.
This may clear some of the confusion.

 

Either or will work. If the book says 1 turn and that's what you did, just leave it there.

 

Pretty much sums it up^^^

 

I believe thats where my confusion was agent86, for some reason I was thinking the guy was adjusting the valve lash starting at TDC, so that does clear things up.

Thats what my book was calling for on tightening down the rocker arm nuts (on all except for LT4 models) tighten each nut one full turn (360 degrees) to center the lifters. The LT4 engines are suppose to be tightened 18 ft-lbs. after the lash has been removed.

Thanks again, I'll be back if I run into any more issues getting everything back together.