Keeping Up With Maintenance - 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Keeping Up With Maintenance - 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Long-Term Road Test

Surprise! After about 600 miles of use, our 1966 Chevrolet Corvette needs a quart of oil and some air for the tires.

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kirkhilles1

So... you're NOT keeping up with the maintenance/repairs if you still haven't fixed that odometer yet. Are you just going to give up and never get it fixed?

lmbvette

Edmunds, I really don't understand what you guys are doing with this Corvette. You bought a classic car that requires a lot of DIY type projects and your aren't doing them.

I'd really like to see the bloggers that are most handy do a few of these projects on the Vette and document how they researched (YouTube, Corvette Forum, etc), where they shopped for parts and how long it took them to fix the issue. All of this should be helpfully documented with pictures.

IMHO, you guys are really blowing a great opportunity for more clicks and a solid following.

defyant15

The Vette is being repaired in a reactive -'as failure' occurs way, which makes it an interesting read - real life train wreck. They did the same with the CL63AMG.

I would prefer though if they actually fixed the failure points once identified, and do it properly.

miata52

They stopped doing useful, DIY posts a while back...

allthingshonda

lmbvette said:

Edmunds, I really don't understand what you guys are doing with this Corvette. You bought a classic car that requires a lot of DIY type projects and your aren't doing them.

I'd really like to see the bloggers that are most handy do a few of these projects on the Vette and document how they researched (YouTube, Corvette Forum, etc), where they shopped for parts and how long it took them to fix the issue. All of this should be helpfully documented with pictures.

IMHO, you guys are really blowing a great opportunity for more clicks and a solid following.

What he said.

desmolicious

Why did Edmunds get this car? They care more about eeking out mpgs from the Sonata in the previous post, so why did they bother with the Vette?
There are now three cars on the fleet like this - the Miata, the Yugo (you'll see), and this one.

tlangness

We've got the Corvette up on the lift today doing a DIY project to hopefully help fix the oil leak and we fixed the headlight switch on the floor as well (that post will go up soon). We're definitely working on this car ourselves, but we're driving it too which requires some oil between fill ups. We'd hate to have it parked all the time for tiny non-issue projects and never get behind the wheel. The idea was to get it road-worthy as soon as possible and figure out the other details from there.

tlangness

miata52 said:

They stopped doing useful, DIY posts a while back...

We've revived our How-To Series on youtube and we plan on doing several additional videos that can help a larger audience. (Plus a few fun things here and there.) Let us know if there's anything else you'd like to see us do!

fordson1

tlangness said:

miata52 said:

They stopped doing useful, DIY posts a while back...

We've revived our How-To Series on youtube and we plan on doing several additional videos that can help a larger audience. (Plus a few fun things here and there.) Let us know if there's anything else you'd like to see us do!

Yeah - I'd like to see you NOT check oil level 90 seconds after you shut the engine down next to a gas pump...you realize that you're always going to get the handy-dandy 1 quart low reading, because there is still 1 quart of oil that has not had time to drain down to the sump yet...especially with something as heavy as 20W-50 oil. Oil is checked with the engine cold or after sitting shut down for 15 minutes (more with heavier oil) on a flat, level surface.

This is car maintenance 101...more like the high school prerequisite for car maintenance 101.

SMH...SMH...

s197gt

hold on now...

http://www.cartalk.com/content/when-are-you-supposed-check-your-oil-when

RAY: But a few years ago, Ford Motor Company started recommending that people check their oil on Fords, Lincolns and Mercuries when the engine was warm.

TOM: "Warm!" we said. "How can this be?" So we called Ford and they told us that they determined that very few idiots like us were going out first thing in the morning in their bare tootsies and checking the oil. Most people, they said, tended to check their oil when they stopped for gas, when the engine was warm. So they simply recalibrated their dipsticks to read correctly in a warm engine, when the oil has heated up and expanded.

........

RAY: He said the amount of oil at the top of the engine wouldn't be enough to make any significant difference. "Unless the oil passages are all plugged up, you're probably talking about an eighth of a quart or less," he said. Not enough to induce you to add a quart when you don't really need one.

TOM: So there you have it, folks. The answer is; it hardly matters. So our advice is to follow the instructions in your owner's manual when you're in the mood for a really accurate reading. If it says to check the oil cold, the dipstick has been calibrated for cold, unexpanded oil. If it says to check it warm, we and Deep Dipstick hereby give you our heartfelt blessings.

tlangness

I put 9 gallons of fuel in before I checked the oil @fordson1 and if I'm honest, I checked the oil in the office parking structure before I ever took the thing home -- it needed oil even when cold. This level of oil consumption/leakage is consistent with our previous checks on the car as well. As much as I appreciate the vote of confidence in my speedy ability to top off fluids, I didn't turn off the car then sprint in a mad dash to check the oil as quick as possible.

thecardoc3

For those that are concerned about expansion, or drain down all someone has to do is check the level under varying conditions and see how much variance it causes. In a normal engine you should find that the difference between the measurements is negligible. If the level is lower when hot, especially if checked right after stopping then suspect the return passages are probably restricted.

Why is this getting 20W50 motor oil? Contrary to what some might believe depending on exactly what is being purchased it might not be as thick as a 5W40 Euro spec oil (ACEA A3/B4). Depending on how recently the engine was rebuilt and exactly what camshaft is in this it might be necessary to add a ZDP/ZDDP additive to todays SM or SN standard products. An SL (obsolete) would be marginal in some cases and satisfactory in others. But a 20W50 isn't as regulated of a product like the more common grades (0W20, 5W20, 5W30 etc.) and the base stock could be anything.

fordson1

Less than an eighth of a quart, huh? So like three ounces? I bet there's that much just clinging to the sides of the sump, never mind the rest of the engine. Ask yourself how long you let each oil bottle drain when you are filling up during a change...and that is with a smooth HDPE surface that was engineered to shed oil.

Anyway, you did check it cold (surely the method specified in the manual back in 1966) and it's low.

I wonder about the zinc package they are using...also about the heads...if it has been given hardened valve seats, or they're using a lead additive.

Also wondered about the dimmer switch repair and how that went down...check Dan Edmunds' Twitter feed back in mid-June...