This reminds me why I dislike early 80’s GM

Doing front and rear covers, ‘82 to ‘84 Corvette, only 24k on it, but man is it cheap, and also has the Crossfire engine
Some fasteners are standard, some metric. I knew that going in, but you can tell GM was really grasping at straws during these years “attach that to this here, put a screw up there, yeah that should hold it!”
Honestly my ‘87 GN wasn’t any better as far as build quality.

 

That was the Roger Smith era at GM. I vaguely recall reading an article - probably something from the New York Times that my brother sent me - that essentially the corporate mantra was "build it cheaper." The build quality was pathetic, and there was no thought to what would happen to GM in the long run.

 

Terrible to work on these vehicles. They come pre-boobie trapped.

 

most larger shops here wont wprk on anything over 3yrs old

 

Its funny - the automotive industry has pretty much solved the rust problem, now they don't want to work on older cars. If I was still running a shop, I'd work on just about anything that wasn't French, but the car owner would need to understand that if I'm going to have to chase oddball parts, it will be at the shop labor rate. The alternative is I'll get it outside, and the customer will pay for storage until he/she comes up with a useable part. Over the years, the problem more often then not is the customer, not the older car.

 

3 Years! WTH?

 

The rear cover I’m painting on the car, the lower dark blue is fine so I’m not messing with that.
The lighter blue is washed out, I removed the “Corvette” nameplate and lights. While I was under the car, I noticed a random, looks like a license light, I’m guessing it’s to illuminate the stupid spare tire holder upper???

 

Been there done that.Restored a 1980 corvette .Worst car I ever worked on.
Never touched a corvette since
Alain platinum 442 4spd factory A/C

 

I’m not knowledged about Corvettes, I know they’ve never been the best appointed GM cars, but DAMN, the interior/dash/fit and finish is appalling, the dash literally looks like the parts came off a plastic tree for a model kit

 

Oh come on Mark.....not like you having to do this haha..

 

That dude must have broke the chin spolier off that by now..

 

82 was a bad year, 84 was the worst year....good thing 83's never made it out.

 

I will say the few Corvettes I’ve tinkered with, I notice they have a hell of a frame and structure.

 

The way I mounted that bumper....you could plow snow and it would be fine

 

It looks so far in front of the tires that it would be tough to pull into a parking lot without it scraping. Around here, it would plow snow!

 

My friends use to call my 82 Regal The "Bic", as in a disposable car.
It took ALOT of maintenance to keep it from rusting and still the passenger side floor rusted out because of the heat that the Cat Convertor put out

 

I own a couple of '82 Corvettes.

The bumpers are indeed terrible (especially the crappy plastic that was sun warped and wavy within two years), but I have no complaints with the Cross-fire injection. It is just a basic throttle body setup that has been split in half.

 

This is my first time seeing one in person I’ll admit, but I’ve read they were crappy, which I can’t figure out why.
The single TBI worked ok, why wouldn’t two?
Was it power output?
Drivability?
Reliability?

 

They had some issues.. I believe the intake runners were only cast half the normal size. I can only guess GM did this to try and get the air speed up due to the crappy placement of the injectors?

I also think they were a twin single barrel/injector..