Blue70

I'll kick him in the shins if I catch him :mad

I just spent over 2hrs doing the front differential bushing on my 82..
What the heck is with the drive shaft..who thought of that idea???
I could not spin the driveshaft to where I could get the bolt out of the bushing, so I had to drop the rear of the shaft...Oh waht fun that is :mad
I finally get the bolt out and had to struggle to get what was left of the bushing out, the metal insert was hanging up. I ended up having to put a screwdriver between the diff and the crossmember, slide a jack under it and use the jack as my 3rd hand to pry with. I don't know why they changed the design from the 70's. After getting the bushing in I still had to try to hang the rear of the driveshaft.. :banghead:

Next time it goes to the shop :rant:

OK I feel better now.....good news is the loud banging rom the rear is gone :cheers:

LiveandLetDrive

Took me a while too, seemed like such a simple job when I started! The fact that I was temporarily without hammer didn't help either!

-Chris

Van Steel

next time you do it. get a long, thick screw drive or pry bar and put some pressure on the shaft. It will move a little and you will be able to push the bolt out. Why couldn't you spin the driveshaft?

TedH

That was also the worst part of my differential replacement. The orig bushing was bad and it took forever to get the diff and shaft at the right point to allow me to put the two-piece bushing in and start the bolt. what an incredible pain!

Good luck. Large doses of patience and beer help. :seeya

verskel

:yesnod: - mine went to the shop 2 yrs. ago for that > $60

Congrats on fixing the 'banging' noise ! :cheers:
That's the worst feeling, especially with a 4-spd. !!! :eek:

427V8

You're supposed to drop the front bracket. Makes it a LOT easier...

On the other hand, get used to it, Cars are not ment to be easy to work on

Blue70

Mine is an 82..I don't have a bracket to drop (80-82 are not the same as early ones) :(

Van Steel

:iagree:

427V8

Oh, well then...Nevermind.

Wrecked82

I had mine replaced at a shop near my office. They disconnected the drive shaft so they could lift the differential off the carrier to get to the bushing. Put a poly in so it won't have to do it again for a while.

Interestingly, someone on this forum from the Xfire forum told me that this was one of the easiest driveway replacements I could do on my own. Glad I did not listen to THAT advice!

Twin_Turbo

mine was so easy to replace... just took driveshaft off and replaced it..oh I had the body off :D

Seriosuly, it's things like that that are a result of them building the body and frame seperately and then mating them later on. That type of construction makes for some hard to do things on our cars. The 80-82 one is indeed a pita with the non removable pinion mount.

turtlevette

maybe you should get rid of the vette and get something practical and easy to work on like a Toyota Camry.

good luck.

Gary79

glad you got it fixed. remember the mechanicals on these cars were used from 1963 to 1982, that's 41 yrs ago and you've got the latest upgrade and that's over 20 yrs old!!
BTW, to kick one of these design guys in the shins, you'd have to dig them up first, i think they all died.


[Modified by Gary79, 5:54 AM 3/5/2004]

IRON WILL

Every car out there has got something that is a royal pain in the butt to do. I don't remember what I did when I did mine but I do know that is was no picnic. I put a polyurethane bushing in, I didn't want to deal with it for awhile again. If cars were so easy to work on there wouldn't be a need for skilled mechanics.

ZD75blue

Worst piece of advice I've ever heard! *** cars are the WORST... they give you NO room to work... :yesnod:

turtlevette

Yea, I was trying to be funny. Any new car is a nightmare as you can't even see the spark plugs. Our cars can be flustrating but its the price you pay to drive a nice looking vehicle. A lot of stuff had to be crammed into a small sleek body.

A C

My father and I went to go change plugs at the same time. I had his old 69, which is now mine, and he had a (then) new 95. After an hour, I had all my plugs out, the new ones indexed and in, and he was still on his first plug. :D

I agree with the original poster that there were some really poor design areas on C3's (the black hole next to the wiper area comes to mind), but under the hood was designed pretty well. :cheers:

Darrell's 68

The wiper door contraption on a 68-72 gets my vote for what the #&^$@% were they thinking of when they designed this? :lolg: :lolg: :lolg:

A C

Mine works ok though, and it's kind of neat when you think other cars don't have it, even though it funtionally doesn't do much.

BBShark

Whoever designed all of the latches on my 68 should have been fired by GM. The hood latches and convertible top cover latches are awful. The flimsy cowl/firewall design is also bad.