I have a half decent 84. There has been a lot of things to address and I've been tackling them for the past month or two. My question today is why I don't have interior lights. Looks like the bulbs for the most part are okay. I have not taken the door lights apart to check them but the light bulbs behind the seats over my head are okay, as are the under dash bulbs.

I have lubricated the door switches with WD-40 and they go in and out okay. But my thinking is that there s something systemic. I bought another light switch worrying that the rheostat might have failed but I have not yet installed it. Also, the Atari dash does not work. The PO put some aftermarket gauges for temp and oil pressure and they seem to work. The tach he put on does not, but that may be because I don't have it hooked up at the distributor. My plan for the dash is to send it in to Batee.

I am going to install a radio but I'm not sure it will get power. I have put a multimeter to all of the terminals and there is nothing when the key is on Accessory. There was a light on the clock while the old Bose unit was in there so it was not completely dead. And I heard static from the speakers,

I have the FSM but I don't have a lot of experience with car maintenance, especially electrical work. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Oh, and the blower fan does not come on either. This is such fun.

 

Not picking but read your manual. Maintenance is in section 0. That section discribes what needs done and when.
Section 1 has HVAC and 8A -60 - 68 will have the wiring diagrams.
In the first pages of section 8A will have basic auto electrical principles. Each section will have diagnostic trouble trees.
With the radio: some factory radios are stamped with what terminals are for what. I would get the plug kit to connect to the radio you choose to install. I wouldn't cut up factory wiring harness.
Interior lights check fuse first.

 

Not nitpicking at all. I need the advice. The picture here is from the FSM electrical supplement 8A-52. It looks to me that there is a pink/white wire going to S260. Everything branches out from there. . I'm assuming that the S stands for switch. Where can that be found? I went ahead and checked the CTSY/CLK fuse and it was loose. When I wiggled it the door lights came on. So I am making progress. I think that the blades on the fuse are too short and I can look for longer blades.

I am going to have the radio installed by a pro.

 

S means "splice" most of the time a soldered joint. Splice locations are approximate and can buried within harness. At end of sub section there should be s component locator and it many time references a page & figure numbers. You might check for voltage at the various components before searching for splice. C means Connector.
Loose fuse - Sometimes a angled pick tool can tighten up fuse contacts without taking fuse box apart.

 

I would like to tell you a probable spot for the trouble you are experiencing. I have a 1988 C4 Coupe and on my car the post is below and slightly to the rear of the battery. It is a little post that stands up and has a nut securing the connectors tight. On my car that post was covered in rust and others forms of corrosion, the solution was to clean the terminals individually with sand paper or whatever and clean the post as well. Once you get ready to re-assemble the pieces be sure that they are all nice and secure. The connectors at this particular post supplies power to at least SEVEN fusible links which get their power right from the battery.

Before finding this post I was having trouble getting the proper voltages at the fuse block as well. It turned out that there are some cheap aluminum fuses out there that actually corrode in the fuse block. Be sure that your fuse block is clean and corrosion free, mine had to be cleaned with a points file to be sure I had a good solid contact.

You might have the post in a different location but I highly doubt it knowing GM. Be sure to clean your battery connections every year, even when they look just "fine"..

Good Luck, I think your problems will soon be over, sometimes it is good just to verify that the engine is grounded, if not you will have all sorts of trouble. My C4 is now close to 32 years old, am I surprised that the electrical system wants a bit of help now and then? Cleanliness is next to Godliness in the electrical/Electronics world. If you ever have any issues with your Atari dashboard just go online to BATEE.COM. The owner is awesome and very reasonably priced, I strongly recommend him.

Enjoy your 1984 Corvette to the fullest, It is a Corvette after all!

Chris

P.S. Those fusible links that I described, they are the source of power that supplies the fuse blocks.

 

Want you to know that I appreciate the help. I did find out that the S means splice, so that shows my level of expertise. I was looking at the fuse box and found that the CTSY/CLK fuse was loose and I was able to wiggle it enough to get the door lights to work. Actually by accident. Not sure of which other fuses control the rest of the lights. Had to stop early last night. There may be other fuses with the same problem and I'll go through them all and make sure they are all clean. The PO has been a bit busy in there because there was a wire connected to one of the fuses. I took it out but not sure which one it was now.

There are three radio terminals that plug into the radio and it doesn't look like I have power to any of them. Taking your advice ctmccloskey and will start near the battery and do some cleaning up from there. And I had already found Batee and went through his repair videos. Not going to do that myself. Also found replacement / rebuilt dash units from Gary's Corvettes. They are a bit cheaper??? I'm going to get this.

BTW, took a ride in it last night. Ran great but it is weird not to know how fast I was going, or a gas gauge.

 

Oh, one big win. I got the heater control unit to work. I now have blower, heat, and lo and behold, cool air conditioning.

 

You are getting power through the post if your AC is working. Good work!

I bought the parts from BATEE.COM and that worked out very well for me. I was able to understand why nothing was working properly. I only know of BATEE.com and he is the one I trust. He sells the kits to do it yourself for those with some soldering skills. It is easy to do for the most part. What I learned is that my 32 year old Corvette was built with Electrolytic capacitors that had a life expectancy of 15 years or so. I also found plastic connectors that had warped over the years that was causing trouble on my C68 Electronic A/C controller. Now I don't have to keep tapping the bottom of the dash to get it to light back up for me. It is nice to have a working Atari dashboard isn't it?

So many problems on these cars can be attributed to their power connections getting dirty or corroded.

It sounds like you are on the way to having a fully Functional Corvette to drive!! Get out there and enjoy that feeling that only a Corvette can give you!

Best Regards,
Chris a.k.a. ctmccloskey

 

Be sure to read and understand pages 8A-2 thru 8A-7 in your '84 FSM! The '84 is quite different than later years C4's, so be careful about advice from owners of later cars. Changes were made every year, and major changes were made in '88, even though the cars look the same!

I'm glad to see that you have the '84 FSM. You're on the right track!

 

I found a ground near the battery and will clean that up. I'll report back. I'm going to use tomorrow to read through the electrical supplement basics.