Berlinetta00

I just finished a marathon of third gen (and fourth for that matter) work at the shop over the weekend. It makes me tired to think about all the hours I have into this one car.

It started with a swap to an A/C delete housing, which led me to see that my heater core had started to leak again.

I have heard you can replace the heater core without removing the dash, but that is not the case with berlinetta models. The BCM prevents movement of the hvac access panel, so pulling the upper dash pad, dropping the steering column, and removing the control pods is required. Just a note of warning to my fellow star wars dash fans. Also, the newer Napa aluminum heater cores fit much better, but the coolant flow is worse than the copper units.

Anyways, ran into tons of problems along the way, such as the bcm mounting bracket cracking and a bad caliper. Go figure.

What I thought was really interesting however was the transmission mount. I have the two piece mount, and a 96 lt1 z28 I was working on did not. Both transmission mounts were virtually identical, but when I installed a poly mount on the 96 it induced a huge vibration at 3000-3500 rpm.

I installed a factory mount back in the 96, and the vibration was almost gone.

Installed the same poly mount into the 84 two piece, and tons of vibration at 3000 rpm but less than the 96. Installed new lower and upper bushings into the 84, and it is smoother than the 96. Two piece mounts work.

Also of note is I installed new u joints and pinion seals in both cars, none of which had any impact on the vibration. (Why is it that pinion seals always leak on torque arm cars?)

I also installed KBY front strut mounts from rock auto. They work great, but the rear most holes are way too large and require a massive washer. Not sure if that was intentional, but if you get them make sure you get an M8 washer that is 5mm thick (ish) and 30 mm wide (non-negotiable). I tried a smaller washer first, but it would not keep alignment specs while on the rack.

I had a braking problem after I installed the "performance" set of calipers, rotors, and pads from rock auto. I dont recall the p/n, but they always pulled to the left while braking. I thought it was my crappy old rubber lines, replaced some time when I first bought the car, but no! Turns out the caliper was loose on the pins, allowing the pad to ride too far out on the rotor. Both inner and outer pads had a good 2mm overhang on the rotor. New eclipse calipers from napa solved that at a whopping $25 a piece, painted. Now I just have to deal with some break noise as the pads wear into their new position. Lesson learned: do not use the slotted/cross drilled "performance" set.

On a positive note, the u joints are all the same for the most part across gm vehicles, so the spare chevy truck u joints I had worked great. The pinion seals are pretty much the same for all 10 bolts too, just be sure to check pinion end play first and replace the crush sleeve if it's more than 1/8" (or it feels sloppy in calibrated hands).

Glad Im done now, except I figured out that my t stat is bad, but that is fortunately an easy home project. Hope my blunders help someone else,

Semper Fi.

LiveIt!