Hi all,
i am just checking in and enjoy reading some great posts about 84 vette. I recently swap my 97 mustang GT with 1984 corvette. It was a clean swap, but my stang was all fixed up and ran perfectly, wilst this z51 package vette is in decent condition but needs a lot of work.. 119000miles, ok exterior, ok suspension and interior, Mechanically so far all seems good and the car runs solid. One question tho.. i have no thermac cover, the TBIs are just having 2 air filters and that’s it. All hoses also that should be connected to the thermac air cover are open. I mean pcv valve system is there, breather hose and smog vent is there but they are not built into air filter housing, as it is missing.. i opened both air filters and watched both injectors perfectly spraying fuel. It does sound as there is a vacuum leak but not sure. Can i run the car like this? Do i need eventually an air housing? Please don’t mind me asking perhaps silly questions..this is my first vette and i have very limited mechanical knowledge, although willing to learn..
Oh and yeah i don’t have any cats, just straight pipes connected to the headers.

 

Welcome to the Forum! I also have a 1984 and a 2001 Corvette. If I were you I would get the factory service manual as it is a must to have with these cars. You can plug the vacuum hose that goes to the filter housing. Is your car idling faster than it should? I would check for vacuum leaks for sure. These cars are getting old and a lot of the rubber hoses are old and cracked. The top plate gasket of the intake has also been known to leak vacuum as well.

I would purchase a factory air filter assy. Post up a want to buy in the C4 parts section and there are a lot of c4 salvage dealers. I bought one off of eBay several years ago for a good price.

It looks like you need a hood support also. Take time to ask questions or use Google to search for 84 problems and use the factory service manual to work through problems. The 84 is not the terrible C4 that a lot of people think it is. The Crossfire fuel system is reliable and lot of them are still running great with lots of miles on them.
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Good luck with your Corvette

 

thanks so much, yeah i guess the original air cleaner and housing assembly is better and i will certainly look for it. I am about to order a service manual of ebay..
For sure i need to weld the broken support as the green broomstick isn’t the cooliest thing on that engine at the moment.😎🙄
On start, the car idles faster a bit it as it should i guess until it reaches the operating temp. But then it does not lower it continues the same i think even faster a bit.
i am sure there is a vacuum leak with this set up so i ll try to figure it out.
I can not run the car just as yet (except low speeds around the hood) since it’s not registered and the tires are over 6 years and shot. Unfortunately, here in dubai there aren’t any 255/50/16s available so i will temporarily get 235/60/16 until i check where to order the correct size. Hope the smaller tires will fit..?

 

Any of the unused Hoses/ports that are not used should be plugged and as Said the Manual and Factory air cleaner System Needed. One thing I would Recommend Though before your next Drive. Remove the Heat Riser pipe from Left Manifold and put in safe place for when you get the Cleaner assembly, you don't need it sending Hot Air at your Brake System.

 

Thanks for the comments. yeah i am trying to source out an air housing. I will check all the vacuum lines and plug/remove accordingly.. with regards to the manifold pipe i just moved it to the side as i was getting ready to clean the engine bay.. i usually point it towards the engine block where normally would be connected to the air housing or towards the outside (facing the tire)

 

I wish you the best of luck in getting parts for a 1984 over in Dubai. I don't know where you buy the parts from but there is a company named ZIP Products that is a Corvette Parts house and they ship internationally.

Having a Corvette in Dubai could be challenging with your temperatures in the Summer. The rest of the year would be no problem but they were not designed for the "Warmer" environments like Dubai.

As you get to "Know" your Corvette make a list and come visit the United States for a big Corvette Show like Corvettes@Carlisle in Pennsylvania every August on the third weekend. You could fill a container with parts and have it shipped home.

I hope you get to enjoy driving the highways of the U.A.E. in your Corvette! I was out in the Sharjah area when I was driving in the desert when some nut in a F-16 passed over my truck at maybe 40' altitude. He almost rolled my Land Cruiser with the wind and sand following him.

I do miss living and working in 54* C. I helped build the Solar Hybrids systems for ETISALAT out in the empty parts of the country.

Best Regards,
Chris

 

Hi Chris

Thanks Chris and it’s nice to hear from fellow emaratian😀
Yeah probably the biggest challenge would be finding the parts but it wouldn’t be the first time struggle as i already owned 1992 corvette, 78 mustang king cobra II and 97 mustang gt. For mustang, I used to get the parts from ebay, AM and CJ which wasn’t too bad, but I don’t see equivalent sites for corvettes. I will try with zip and maybe eckler’s as they also seem to shop internationally.
i d love to come to US i would be like Alice in wonderland!! I d probably end up filling the container with cars rather, like camaro irocz or z28 and maybe one more corvette c3 this time🙈
With regards to f16 encounter i guess you are ‘lucky’ as this can only happen in this part of the world..although pilot could have also been a fellow american..😆
i work in one of the beach resorts and I certainly witnessed some crazy things too.. (a parachuter landing on our beach straight from the sky with no chute for instance.. &#128556
and yes, i am careful about driving the vette in the coming months, we are already approaching 40c and that is just a warm up for dubai..😅😅
i am still working on my baby to get it registered (it failed the emissions test and tires are old) and also few other bits and bobs like faded dash (ordered polarized film from batee.com) and one headlight not flipping (i guess probably a motor)
so Work in progress full speed whilst we all in quarantine!!

 

There's a good chance you don't need a new motor. The '84 headlight is totally different than your '91. The '84 has limit switches inside the motor to detect when the door hits the stops at the end of its travel. These limit switches can get dirty, which can cause this problem. Disassembling the motor isn't too difficult, and the cost for this repair is zero!

There's a lot of confusion on the headlights! The '84-'87 headlight motors have the manual control ***** on the bottom of the motors. The '88-'96 motors have the manual control ***** on the top of the motors. The internal construction is entirely different!!

Here's a link for the repair of the '84-'87 headlight motors. The limit switches are shown, but not highlighted.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...placement.html

 

thanks so much for that, i was hoping it can be repaired and saw it was different to newer c4. (Watched chris fix repairing his 94 and looked pretty complicated especially opening the motor and changing the gear..)
When i got the car it was working all good, but when checked recently, passenger side was not working now. Not sure if my extensive washing of the engine bay could have caused some connection problems. 😬Or as you said some dirt or something could have also caused it. Anyhow the link you provided is super useful so i will get on the task!!

 

so a little update on my headlight: i decided to strip the headlight and check that motor, but before that, i just wanted to fiddle a bit with that manual turn **** after i saw on video on youtube where the guy said that the **** should jot be tight but loose. When i checked, mine was very tight on the passenger side (which was not working) whilst on the driver’s side was loose and could easily turn it. So i put a little force and managed to turn it few degrees just to loosen up. Then i tried the lights and voila!! Bothe flipped like they should!! Not sure what really happened and id i just fixed something temporarily but hey it worked!! 😃

 

I've owned my '84 for 16 years, so I hope you'll consider me experienced on the '84. I don't understand your source that said the **** would normally be easy to turn.

As a test, If you first disconnect your battery, you will find that the headlight doors are jammed against the hard stops at the end of their travel, so it will be normal for the ***** to be difficult to first turn, You can easily try this yourself.

With the battery connected during normal operation, the torque of the motor is adequate to spin the motor away from that initial "jammed" position. Since the motor in your car was apparently not making any noise when it was jammed against the stop, that tells me there was no power applied to your motor.

By moving the manual control **** as you did, you relieved the pressure in the gears, which allowed the limit switch to move, causing power to be applied to the motor, and the motor to spin and the door to open.

During "normal" operation with the headlights off, the door would be closed. If you try to rotate the ****, the limit switch would detect that the door isn't quite closed, so power would be applied too the motor to close the door, and the **** would return to its normal "closed" position, making the **** impossible to turn!

If the headlights are on, the door would normally be open. If you tried to turn the ****, the limit switch would detect that the door was not quite open, and power would be applied to the motor to open the door! This would make the **** impossible to turn! You can easily try these tests, too.

My conclusion for your headlight motor problem: A dirty limit switch.

 

umm starting to understand how these lights work (slowly must admit but at least starting..&#129299 thanks for detailed test it does make sense..
Well, i guess i stated it wrong and in his defense, he (my source) said this whilst the motor was out of the car.. 😃
This **** he said should be loose as he put 2 housing holding the motor assembly back together and as they were firmly pressed against the rotor, he could not turn the ****, so he had to loosen up the last 2 housing screws in order to be able to freely turn the motor with that ****. (jerr spud on youtube)
So i just played a little and it worked.. so i can conclude that maybe i just freed a bit some dirty connections,but the problem probably remains the same as you stated and this is a dirty limit switch.. i will have to take it apart at some point and clean..
But at the moment busy with the digital dash as i disassembled it, removed the old faded polarized film and awaiting the new one to arrive..