The Slow Decay: How Plastic is RUINING Vintage Sports Cars! 

The 80's to mid 90's were overall bad for cars that weren't japanese.

Yeah, that's a big IF. Also, I'm done with fiddling with carburetors and distributors. Glad those are gone now.

I'm good at working on the tricky ones.

I started working in a garage in 1981, the very first year for cars with ECU's and yes, those early one's were absolutely horrible and I don't care what anyone says the newer cars are easier to work on than them, over the year's the engineer's definitely took feedback from the mechanics and have simplified the systems, those early through mid 80's computer controlled engine's had by far the most amount of vacuum hoses on an engine than anything before or since, open the hood and take the air cleaner off and it looked like spaghetti all over the place, there was so many you had to tag them if you were putting intake gaskets on something or doing some kind of a job like pulling the head's where it required you to pull the intake, if you didn't tag them guaranteed you'd get a couple mixed up that'd cause problems when you put it back together, now you look under the hood of a car and it's like the 60's as far as vacuum lines with them only having 3 or maybe 4. Younger people don't believe me when I tell them there were actually ECU cars that had carburetors on them, most domestic cars from 81 to 85 actually had computer controlled carburetors on them, they were a real nightmare to, undoubtedly the hardest era of cars to work on.

Yeah but they are junk , rust buckets and overweight boats

Agreed. A water pump on an 85 corvette is not hard to do. Just takes a little more time

Yea anytime you get a 3 hr bill to change a horn fuse, you may have an issue lol

Nah, I rather just pay someone to fix it. Don’t have joy in working on cars anymore. Just like driving them.

C4 Corvettes are generally easy to work on and parts are readily available. Many of them upgraded. Perfect for a young enthusiast who wants to work on his own car. Don’t buy one if you must farm out the work. They make good father/son projects. I like to try to look on the bright side of things.

Unless you're willing to pay proper mechanics like The Wizard and his team.

Many cars have power windows that use plastic clips and even rollers. Almost all eventually fail when one or more of those parts break from old age. On my Jeep Grand Cherokee every single one of those powered windows eventually failed.

@@Notfiveo0 still.. he’s a huge asset!

After the consume all the available space, they then cover everything in plastic beauty covers....

I might have missed that

I heard it and was confused by it 😂

So many questions.. Why does the driver no longer blow? Did he ever? Will he again? Why does the Wizard know the driver no longer blows?

Hahaha Hahaha Hahaha Hahaha Hahaha Hahaha

The horns did blow. They blew fuses.

I remember about five or so years ago, I ran across a video where a dude was in a junkyard getting an ecu for a 2nd gen Explorer because Ford stops supporting cars after about ten years. He was saying something along the lines of; at some point cars [around that era] will just end up inoperable because key components can't be had. Not much of a case today with all the standalones, but I understood what he was getting at.

we're getting to the point where people will be able to fabricate parts from castings or using 3d printing. all is not lost, just requires demand and effort.

Time to start building an open library of 3D scans and re-implementations of old plastics and castings. 3D printing is already viable for small parts and the tech is getting better all the time.

@@ItsDaJax Stuff that will probably be hard to get in the future is gonna be post-2015 era when infotainment and BCM systems became standard on all but the most stripped down fleet and poverty trim levels. An ECM is a pretty generic thing, it runs an engine and not much more; a BCM is very specific to a model, and even if the physical hardware is shared across models the firmware or setup is different. Could it be re-implemented? Sure. Will someone expend the effort to do it? Pretty unlikely unless it's a very special car with a lot of fans and a particular problem with BCMs.

correct and some of them have been replaced since the car was new but was replaced when good quality genuine GM parts were still available. A low mileage/use genuine GM water pump would be better than a new chinese one in my opinion.

I had a working water pump replaced because they already had the timing belt off. That new pump failed and I wonder if I should have left the OEM one in there

its a toss up. Unless you have a previous owner receipt of a replaced water pump at a dealership with genuine GM parts. its a toss up. @@amarsta

As others have mentioned, if you do your own repairs, you can decide which parts to replace & when. Car Wizard just doing right by the customer by trying not to create a bigger problem later on, but you don't always have to replace everything.

Exactly! No AC, no power anything!

Exactly...an '85-'86 is old chronologically, but in the car world, in this context, it is not...

Yep,91 Coup DeVille all plastic below the chrome trim is rotted by the sun, and Good luck finding replacements. Especially a Coup.

@@dionrau5580 That's why you spend a little more and buy cars from this era that have been kept in a garage. Saves you a ton of trouble and money down the road. The sun destroys a lot more than just the plastics. F's up all the electronics too. Ruins the seats, the dash, the paint, etc, etc, etc...

Lot like my 93 cougar

Yep. And the TPI intake looks better than it works.

Everyone missed that.

Of course they did, not many engineers here. Just laymen.

Few years ago we had a flood and a dude who lived along the river built a raft, parked his vintage Porsche on it and chained it to his tree. I'd have kept both those vettes and rebuilt them. They wouldn't be original, but there's more than enough of those.

@@ItsDaJaxunfortunately, by the time it was realized we were going to take a direct hit in Fort Myers there wasn’t anything we could do. The flooding came FAST. I also don’t have the capacity to basically rebuild 2 corvettes in the condo we live in. I sold them to another enthusiast and he has one up and running 1 year later, he’s going to LS swap the second and I get updates once in awhile. I’m just glad they’re still surviving and in good hands.

Exactly, when the C4 era Corvettes came out from 1984-1996, the talk was how much simpler the C3's were to work. I have always been a Corvette guy and fortunate to have owned several, from the first a 1968 327 4 speed to an automatic commentative edition 2004. Currently have a 1995 LT1. The Opti Spark (Distributor System) is one of the most insane/dumbest design location for this distributor system in the lower front of the motor and directly under the water pump of which GM grues designed a "weep hole" for the pump to drip fluid as a notice that the internal bearing was failing. As with this video, other fuses on the C4 are also hidden under and behind the dash. These idiots design things without the common sense understanding that parts ware out and must be replaced!!!

Usually the gears are fine. No need for new gears. Its those 3 plastic pellets that are dust by now.

Short circuit f.e.

You would of to buy a shop manual.

Pre-ls or even gen 2 lt-1 GM cars a waste of time and money imho.

​​@@triggerjerk01That rules out a lot of really interesting GM cars. A shame to see you missing out. Those TPI engines are beautiful, didn't make a ton of power from the factory but had lots of aftermarket support.

Solid metal rather than sintered metal as well.....

I’m adding some carbon fiber overlays for extra strength to a bunch of my interior parts

Bs.

Tyler’s C1 was honestly a pleasure to work on. The exception being the upper shock mounts.

@@GrimesGarage my 61 was in pieces when i bought it , body was in good shape, no engine etc. i put in a 350 gm crate motor and a 5 speed stick. al knocks did the seats door panels and the rest or the interior i just put it together. body color white and coves fawn, and fawn interior. it looks stock in and out, period correct mags.

Now I’m curious and I’m gonna look for it tomorrow. 😂

C6 Series (2005-2013) is one of the best series. If you can afford the extra cost. Now driving around in a 2022 C8, very happy..until something breaks when it is eventually beyond warranty!

c4’s are very easy to diy. ive had 8. i dont get what this video is about. a mechanic should not be whining about having to grab a few sockets and extensions …. diy will take 4 hrs if its your very first time. find a breakdown of the job on corvetteforum. If you want a real kick in the junk, replace a clutch on a c5 or c6. This video misrepresents how hard this is.

The problem isn't the SBC, the problem is the Corvette. You can see the primary consideration was appearance not good design.