1988 Convertible for sunny day drives

Wow! Got up this morning and checked the ac gauges. Didn’t loose a spec of vacuum overnight.

Doesn’t get much better than that!

I was actually a little worried the carbon seal on the rotor shaft wasn’t going to survive the remove/install when I had to correct the reed plate placement, but its doing just fine!

:)
 
Well fudge sticks!

Charged up the ac system today and....insert wa wa waaaa noise here.

pressure is fine on both high and low sides. Compressor runs fine.

But the problem is no cold air!

Under hood, the high line gets freaking hot, just like its supposed too. But the low line is supposed to go cold and it doesn’t. When the compressor turns on, you get a second of two of cold and then it goes back to room temperature. This is all while the high line is still freaking hot!

Normally, I would say the system has a clog and its not letting the refrigerant circulate. That usually means the orifice is clogged, but I put a new one in the orifice tube, so thats not the issue.

back to the drawing board, but it would help if I could at least find the chalk. The way it is now, I’m not quite sure where to go next.

Need to sit and ponder on this one for a while. Maybe drop it for a couple days and concentrate on working on the FJ 1200. Hmmmm, the lawn also needs to be aerated and fertilized....maybe a few days away from the ‘Vette isn’t such a bad idea....
 
Well, condenser is toast.

Held vacuum fine. But When I took it out and pressurized it, soapy water could be seen making very tiny bubbles around the base of several tubes.

Lucky for me (sarcasm) 1988 is a "one year" part for the condenser. Had to order it from corvette depot.

680 bucks all in........

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Parts have started to arrive. Today, accumulator, seal kit and another orifice.

Pulled the accumulator out and its the right one, but its so.....boring.

time to polish!

but I needed to make a stand for the polisher. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now and this was a good “push”. So I policed up a bunch of scrap bits and:

E93EF6CD-AAE8-4FF9-875D-BB08852D0401.jpeg


With that done, its just a matter of about 10 mins of work and:

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They wanted another 40 bucks for an already polished one. No thanks, I’ll just polish it myself and save the 40 bucks! Lol!

With the ac system empty and waiting for the condenser, time to start polishing the rest of the ac system. Not looking forward to polishing the compressor though. So many little nooks and crannies....
 
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Not a lot done, but its a start:
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Lines and accumulator polished like chrome.

tomorrow, I’ll pull the compressor off and spend a couple days working on it. Then, the mounting brackets.

That ahoukd take a couple weeks to finish. The condenser should be here by then and I can put the system back together and charge it up.
 
Great work and you make it look so easy. :clean: So the BC plate at the back of the workbench is from when you spent time there?
 
RockyPM said:
Great work and you make it look so easy. :clean: So the BC plate at the back of the workbench is from when you spent time there?
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Yep.

Vancouver Island, Comox, 442 Sqn. I was Chief instructor at the school where we trained CH149 pilots and Flight Engineers. Wasn't all school though, flew lots of operational missions. One of my most memorable was when we found a group of teachers and students in a ravine at 7,000 feet just outside Lillooet. They were from Sask on a school trip and got separated from the main group. They were about there a couple days. Youngest was 7 years old. She was so small I wasn't sure how to hold here when I brought her into the aircraft off the hoist....
 
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Tourmax said:
Yep.

Vancouver Island, Comox, 442 Sqn. I was Chief instructor at the school where we trained CH149 pilots and Flight Engineers. Wasn't all school though, flew lots of operational missions. One of my most memorable was when we found a group of teachers and students in a ravine at 7,000 feet just outside Lillooet. They were from Sask on a school trip and got separated from the main group. They were about there a couple days. Youngest was 7 years old. She was so small I wasn't sure how to hold here when I brought her into the aircraft off the hoist....
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That must have been a great feeling to get them out. Bet they were happy to see you guys. So your the guy @ the end of the hook? Main job or was it in a rotation who went down the line?
 
And it begins:

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Thats just the start if sanding off the cast finish. You can polish a cast finish, but its never going to look quite right. You have to sand it flat and then polish up to a jewelers rouge.

The compressor progress is just so disheartening. I needed a little instant gratification. So:

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Polished rad cap!

I’m such a little tart!

lol!
 
Well, I'm fighting with the paint. I'm getting buffer trails for some reason. I've changed nothing, so I don't understand what has happened.

I buff, looks fantastic, roll it out into the sun and the buffer trails become stupid obvious. Back inside, another round of buffing, paint looks spectacular, roll it out in the sun and.....buffer trails galore.

So it's obvious I need to be able to see the marks while I work them out. Trying to compound and buff a black car in the sun is a loosing battle. I need more light in the garage.

I've already got the overhead LED lights, so the garage is pretty bright as it is. So I need to put light on the panel as I work it.

I check out retail options along these lines:

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But anything worth trying starts at around $75 and it just goes up from there. That's 75 bucks I can better spend somewhere else, so I have a dig around the shop to see what i can come up with.

Some scrap metal, a couple old LED fog lights, an old laptop power brick and a little time with the MIG:

fr_4432_size880.jpg


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Works great! And cost me nothing but some bits I already had laying around. The lights pivot and tilt and the upright extends so I can shine them down on the car's horizontal surfaces. The bolt you see sticking out is the lock so when you extend the upright piece, you can lock it in place.

With the lights on the car door, the buffer trails are easy to see (what you see in the pic is a reflection, not trails). Now I can work on them while inside and be fairly confident i won't be cursing when I roll it back out into the sun.

:)
 
Polished the driver door this morning. Buffer trails are now gone.

I can’t say for certain, but I think my issue was I had switched from mothers spray detailer to Meguier’s. I use the detailer spray to remove residue between buffing sessions. What I think was happening is the spray was leaving a residue that was contaminating my pad/polish. Many of thise detail sprays have a spray wax or silicone that stays behind to “enhance” the shine. But that stuff works against you when you’re trying to correct a paint job.

After I wiped the panel down with windex (intentionally stripping all the waxes and residues off) and a session with polish and the orbital and the paint is shiny smooth again.

also, pretty sure I’m going to make the car a “faux” Stingray. The name was never offered on a C4 (except the prototype “Stingray III” show car) so I’m not cloning anything. It will be a simple addition. Modern stingray emblems on the hood sides, another on the ashtray cover inside and this on the rear where “Corvette” currently resides:

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Its not perfect, but the font is pretty close to the oem font and certainly something you could see being made in the 80’s. Black letters with a thin chrome outline will go nicely with the black paint and make it tie in to “the look” well.

:)
 
netsinah said:
With buffing and logos, it looks like you've almost completed this project. My earlier offer of buying the car from you for what you originally paid, still stands. I'll even waive any warranty! :)
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Oh gawd no!

This car still needs more work than I can swing a dead cat at.

The paint is just a mess and it needs a full repaint. I'm doing paint correction for:

1. practice
2. stretch it out a little longer before a re-spray

Paint is expensive. I usually do all the prep work and trim removal when I get a paint job done, and I leave the final steps (IE: prime, block, paint, etc) to the pros. I can run an HVLP gun, but not up to the standards I would accept on a car. That's one of the skills I never got to perfect, at least not to where I woudl trust myself to spray a whole vehicle without error....
 
OK and thanks for that heads-up. My offer is officially withdrawn but likely to be repeated when you're 110% finished ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING with the car. Until then, I'll sit back and enjoy the show and wish you God's speed and good luck fixing up what might one day become my "sunny day driver". :Lurk5:
 
Well, thats about a 1/3 done:


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Thats the hood and above the body line on the LH side. Hmmm, maybe it’s a little less than a third done.

Not too bad, but still not as clean as I want it. There’s just some scratching and swirling that will not come out. I’ve got to stop here though as I don’t want to burn through the clear layer.

But then again, I’m so picky with paint that even a full re-spray probably wouldn’t satisfy my eye.

At least now, even under direct sun, its going to look clean, smooth and shine like crazy. I’ll have to be satisfied with that I guess....
 
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