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Bought One
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Hey everyone,
I pulled the trigger on a 91 ZR-1. I let emotions get the best of me and I bought it sight unseen [emoji51]. Love the car so far, but I have some questions and I’m looking for advice if I can get it. Full disclosure: I live in Massachusetts and have no mechanical abilities. Here’s what I have on my hands: 1. Car seems to run well and feels pretty fast. Not positive the secondaries are working. I’ve gotten a service engine soon light a few times but it goes away. Sometimes I drive it for an hour without it coming on. Just can’t tell if I’m getting full power. I’ve never drive a C4 so no comparison. 2. Service LTPWS comes on 3. Reverse lights don’t work. Can’t pass inspection without that. 4. Bose sounds like crap and only some speakers work sometimes. 5. Headliner sags. 6. Center console gets pretty hot. Not sure if that’s normal. I took it to a local Chevy dealership to help me to fix the reverse lights. No luck yet. I know they may not be able to troubleshoot the engine but I figured they could fix the reverse lights. Anyways, looking for advice or a good mechanic in the general Massachusetts area. Any advice would be appreciated! I attempted to attach a few pics. Attachment 10487Attachment 10488Attachment 1 Sent from my iPhone using ZR-1 Net Registry |
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Have Fun........:cheers: See Signature for more information :handshak: |
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Welcome to the addiction. Agreed... all that Cliff (Dynomite) said... Stay away from Chevy dealers! 99.999% chance they have no techs that know what they’re doing on an LT5 and will charge you through the nose to experiment on your car with a high likelihood it will be worse when they finish. I was in the car business for 40yrs, take my word for it, New car dealers are not setup to work on 30 year old cars and generally they don’t want to. There are exceptions but don’t count on it! Find a Corvette specialty shop that is willing to work on it. I’m not aware of any in New England, but check with Registry Member Marty Pender at Conte’s Corvettes http://www.contes.com/ in NJ. He might know of a shop in New England.
H :cheers: |
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Welcome, Grats on your ZR-1.
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Welcome to the group. I would suggest you go to Marty at Conte's in NJ or for more local contact Steve (Efnfast) who is in NH. I know he has "a guy".
Good luck and keep us posted. You are always welcome to come to MD for one of our maintenance days which are posted in the Mid-Atlantic section of this forum. |
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If you have a list of issues, maybe you should ship the Z to Mark Haibeck of the ZR1 Specialist in Addison Illinois. He would fix you up in a few days and you could feel safe to drive it anywhere. When I purchased my ZR-1, I had a long list of issues and Mark fixed me right up easily and quickly.
Sure, it would cost you to ship it, but it could/would save you months of messing around with issues. Just a thought. |
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Congratz and welcome to the Registry!
None of the items on your list are serious, w/o knowing what the SES light is about yet. Highly recommend you purchase a "Bible", otherwise known as a Factory Service Manual (FSM) for your 91. Read it cover to cover (3 volumes) + the LT5 supplement), paying special attention to the section on sensors and actuators. Speaking of great technical books, I have found Probst's book on Corvette Fuel Injection* to contain a huge amount of info on the LT5s. *To order one from a book store refer to the ISBN number: ISBN 0-8376-0861-9 Oh, and Hans is absolutely correct: With extremely rare exceptions, you don't want to ever let a dealer get his paws on your LT5 (to practice on:thumbsdo:). But, not to worry. This is the place you need to be to get the help you need and the recommendations, far as where/who to get help from - including the majority of ZR-1 owners who have become at least familiar with and can find their way around the LT5 quite well. :cheers: Paul |
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Thanks for the advice everyone. I've been debating on whether or not to just ship it up to Marc H in Illinois. Might be my best bet. I've only got a few weeks left before the beast needs to be put away for the Winter. I wish I had a lot of time to mess around with the fixes myself, but I just don't. I'll chat with Marty at some point too. I had a conversation with him a while back before I pulled the trigger.
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Welcome to the Brotherhood!! That is a beautiful looking Z. Classic black with red interior......
You have come to the right place for anything LT5 related. I too was in same boat as you, but now I can work on the car myself and have had very few issues. That's only because of the wealth of knowledge and help of the members on here! |
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If you can afford it, shipping it to a specialist like Marc is the way to go. I'm getting mine back from Steve @ Crossed Flags down near Houston today, and it has been really nice letting him track down and fix the half dozen or so issues that I had instead of doing it myself.
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Good luck with the car. If you are mechanically inclined lots of things you can do on your own. If not ship the car for servicing. Marc is a nice guy and has lots of good reviews and feedback. |
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Congrats and welcome!
You can learn a tremendous amount in these forums. There's no better place for 90-95 ZR-1 owners. :cheers: |
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Glad you found one! Have fun with it :cheers:
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Congrats, great color combo! These are very unique cars! Glad you are taking care of one.
Happy Trails! |
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Nice bleeder :cheers:
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Console may be getting hot because the inner shifter boot may be ripped allowing exhaust heat to seep in. You'll need to pull shifter console panel to check it.
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Yeah that may be the case. The stick moves upward a bit during acceleration so could be part of the same problem? Sent from my iPhone using ZR-1 Net Registry |
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Maximum Performance in Bristol RI fixed my reverse lights. The switch is tough to get to so I was willing to pay for that one. I forget what he charged but it was reasonable. I don’t know how much he’d know about the other issues as that’s all I had him do.
Are you actually in Boston? I’m on the south coast. |
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At the very least the C-beam needs to be recentered and the bolts torqued. But, a much better fix is to install Bill Boudreau's C-beam plates; worth every penny! (I'll attach a graphic showing where to position the C-beam for optimum position according to spec. when I can get to my computer.) |
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Thanks for the tip. I’m on the North Shore in Marblehead Sent from my iPhone using ZR-1 Net Registry |
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Congrats and welcome to the addiction you are going to have a smile in every mile that you drive your beast. I have owned mine for 26 years and every time I start it that smile just keeps coming back enjoy.
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Yes, I’ve decided to ship it out to Haibeck. That way I’ll get it ready to go for the future. After that hopefully I can find someone closer to home but at least I’ll know I have a good baseline if I start with Marc Sent from my iPhone using ZR-1 Net Registry |
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Thanks Paul. If I’m sending the car to Haibeck, hopefully this is something he can take care of? Sent from my iPhone using ZR-1 Net Registry |
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I drove mine from Maryland to Marc last fall and he put my 92 into first class condition. You can't do any better. You made the right choice.
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Very beautiful car, congrats! Looks like it's in a very good condition, I think you are not going to have big mechanical problems so don't worry about it. Also I loved the color. Actually I'm even a little bit jealous now.. :p Just kiddin', I was driving a 91 ZR-1 back in my home town in France but I had to sell it when I decided to buy a property in Montenegro years ago. Now I'm driving a 90 ZR-1 but I must admit that sometimes I just miss my old car :)
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Yes, I'm excited to ship it out to Marc. I've been combing his website and making a list of things I want....hopefully I don't go too far overboard.
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Congrats on the car . Like the others have mentioned , you will get lots of help with any issues on your new beast right here on this forum .
Again Congrats ;) Mike |
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After taking my 90 to a couple of local shops, I finally shipped it to Marc Haibeck, ZR-1 Specialist, bear Chicago. The shipping cost pales in comparison to the money you will spend at other well meaning but inexperienced shops. I had many of your issues and he quickly and fixed them at reasonable rates. When you get it back, all you have to do is drive it!
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So, had a "no start" last night. I read a lot on the forums and it looks like the best next step is clutch/starter relay. The VATS was not an issue as the security light was not flashing while I had the key in start position.
Here was series of events yesterday: 1. Started car up 3 times without going more than a few feet (showing it off to neighbors). No issues there. 2. Washed the car. 3. Fired it up to go out to dinner 1.5 miles away. No issues. Came out 1 hour later. No start, no click, not cranking, and all lights working and on. No security light flashing while in start position. Battery is only 10 months old. 4. Jump started the car with jumper cables. Fired up no problem. My question is, if it was the starter switch/clutch switch, would the car still have started with a jump start? Sending the car to Haibeck in a few weeks, but wanted everyone's thoughts. Andrew |
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Check to make sure the floor mat does not roll up and block the clutch pedal. That happened to me when I got my first Z.
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Yeah, I did check that. Everything was as it should be. Plus, it started right up after I put cables on the battery and jumped it.
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You are on the right path.. Unless your clutch switch is intermittent, it would not have made a difference to jump.(been there) If you can go in the garage and turn the car on right now it's very unlikely the switch.
Lights didn't dim when you tried to crank it? Something might be getting heat soaked... You could start it, drive it around and get it warm, then park it again and try again in an hour. Also, some lead acid batteries that I have purchased recently don't seem to last as long. Manufacturing has changed. |
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I know you wouldn't think the battery could be bad, but start at the source.
Do a load test on the battery. Replace if under spec. Clean battery terminals. Pay special attention to the terminal bolts. Take them out of the rubber insulator and give them a good cleaning, or better yet, replace them with new if they show any corrosion. Be sure and clean the contact areas inside the insulator too. These cars are very finicky about low voltage/amperage. I think if you were able to boost start the car, the above should rectify the issue. :cheers: |
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If it is the battery get an AGM style battery. Unless you want to stay original for ncrs it is an easy upgrade.
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When the clutch safety switch OR the starter solenoid contacts begin to fail, they're first intermittent. Both of these and info on some additional items can be found on Marc Haibeck's ZR-1 Specialists web site under the "No Start" heading. There Marc lists a number of easy tests that can be done to identify "zsckly" what is up!
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In a no start condition, jumper cables don’t work from my experience. What is the CCA of 10 month old battery?
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