I got the information from several posts on the the Corvette Forum  http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-tech-performance-48/?id=48  ,  from 101 Projects for the Corvette by Richard Newton  and from a friend, Rod, who has done the job himself.(Rod’s comments in italics)

There are plenty of warnings on the Corvette Forum NOT to buy cheap Chinese bearings.

I bought the bearings from Corvette Recycling  http://www.corvetterecycling.com/ in 2009 for us$356

Each side has a steel, teflon coated washer which is important to prevent noises. I found them at Corvette Central, us$35 inc shipping.

Here are my notes to Steve the owner/mechanic at Advanced Automotive Cairns, who looks after my vette really well -

Hi Steve,

Have supplied two new washers (see diagram) these are very important and stop a click noise – they must go the right way round and should fit flush with the hub- note how the old ones are fitted. Please use plenty of anti seize grease on splines and washers.

Some people remove the halfshaft, some leave it in place and get at the torx bolts with a 6″ or 12″ extension- The torx bolts need to be clean and if stuck can be heated carefully.

Taking shaft out makes access easier but more work. Problem is torx bolts are often frozen in and you have a problem getting the right leverage around the shaft.  Spray with WD40 before. Make sure torx bolt heads clean first so no slip.

Note: Steve left the halfshaft in place, but says he needed several extensions to get access and he used a NEW torx bit.

Make sure you wire brush the splines on the yoke clean

PROCEDURE:

1 Remove ABS sensor to prevent damage

2 Undo 2 bolts holding caliper to knuckle ( spindle / upright / whatever you want to call it )  and tie caliper assembly out of the way.

3 remove brake rotor

4 remove cotter pin (36mm) and washer from brake assembly
Hub nut is 36mm; should be tight , very f’ing tight.

5 Mark half shaft so it can be replaced same position

6 Remove UJ straps and drop half shaft
Don’t always work like that. Shaft will not necessarily drop out without removing other suspension parts ( bottom chamber arm ) so knuckle can be levered out to gain clearance room for uni cap to clear side yoke

7. Undo three 55mm torx bolts that hold bearing in

Refit
1 Tighten torx bolts to 66ftlbs

2 Fit new thin Teflon coated washers on splined area of half shaft
Must fit up flush to the inside. If there is a gap they are on backwards
Put a little grease on both sides. Washers should fit directly against the bearing

3 Install halfshaft, leave caps off

4 Place calliper bracket and bearing on rear spindle- lube splines with anti seize grease

5 Install spindle washer and nut

6 Tighten nut to 185-192 Ft/Lbs – get it tight on car and finish when wheels on ground

7 Replace nut retainer and fit

8 Replace brake rotor

9 Install calliper

10 Install abs sensor new cotter pin

Split View Diagram – Teflon Washer arrowed- (NOTE Main nut Torque setting incorrect here)

My old sailing mate Reidy was visiting from NSW and he shared the driving. I spent a day cleaning,  polishing and getting ready for the trip, including checking the engine over for loose connections and possible problems.

We left Cairns just before 9am Friday morning. Bob’s Falcon Wagon with most of our gear was in the lead with Ross, his brother in law and Bruce in the wagon because both their Camaro’s are being restored. Bob drove roofless the 7 hrs to Charters Towers in his 76 Stingray, and we were at the rear in my 88 C4 Corvette.

We had a sedate 2 hr drive to Cardwell where we stopped. I was busting for a pee and as I limped painfully to the toilet block at the servo, many body parts aching and my bladder full, I saw there was a cleaners sign barring the mens toilets- Oh NO!!!! Luckily the cleaner saw my distress and let me in!!

Reidy was semi reluctant to drive because he was afraid to damage the vette. He is a fast motorbike rider but a careful bloke, I had no worries at all letting him drive. I got him in the drivers seat, put my hand over the hood and slowly moved it forwards, telling him to say stop when he thought I was at the front- he stopped me short by about 600mm !!! as expected. It’s always a good idea to know where the front of the car is and with that sorted, he drove two hours to Townsville.

I found it extremely comfortable in the passenger side, more leg room and not having to concentrate. We played a few CD’s and time went by quickly. Soon we were at the BP fuel depo Southside of Townsville. We had some food there, hamburger and chips etc, refueled and continued the journey to Charters Towers. The outback road had some big B Double trucks plus caravans and cars with trailers going to the show. We arrived about 4.30pm and signed into the motel.

We’d driven through a light shower and the vette was dirty so we gave it a quick shampoo while Bob waxed his car. We had a few beers then walked into town about 6.30pm to get some food. We couldn’t find any pubs that had people eating in them, which is our way of finding out where the good food is - the place was fairly dead for a Friday night. We ended up at a Chinese Restaurant run by Chinese people. Food was only average, grog expensive. It was v warm in there and v cold outside when we walked back to the Motel, the stars shining brightly in this old outback mining town. Bob, Bruce & Ross had the room next to us in the motel and we had a few more beers and lots of laughs, standing outisde, next to our Corvettes, then watched the footy replay on Foxtel TV before going to sleep.

Saturday morning we drove to the showgrounds and had breakfast at 8.30am. I didn’t enter the competition, just happy to be part of the club display. Many of the American Car Club committee have caravans and stay at the showgrounds on the spot where we display – they get use of the toilet block, water and electricity at real bargain prices, it looks like a good thing. What I reckon is funny is that some of them have huge American cars but tiny caravans!! They had a good display planned and we helped to set it up – my vette at the front with hood up.

Also notice the orange footprints we sprayed on the ground. 

 We spent the morning looking at all the cars on display and walking through the swapmeet. I didn’t realise I had so much valuable old stuff at home, I saw several things at the swapmeet that I have just thrown out!! My right groin began to really hurt and continued to give me trouble all through the weekend whenever standing. I could ease it by sitting and sometimes go a few minutes standing or walking before it hurt again. It turned out to be a hernia.
My damm body needs reconditioning!!

We had a drive through the streets at midday. By then the sky was blue and the weather was perfect. Bob and I had a running gag for the 2 day show because whenever we are together, driving or parked, people always look at his Stingray and not my C4. This time I had a lot of people looking at mine and I kept calling out a viewer report to him, like 3 and none!! meaning 3 around mine and none around his.

Ross Bob & Bruce the 3 center guys with hats -

Around 4.30pm we drove back to the motel and had a few beers outside the motel room. Friends from Ingham hadn’t been able to book our motel this year, so they walked round from their motel to visit us and slowly an impromptu party happened under the stars. Eventually about 20 people were all drinking laughing etc out in the cold night air. The Ingham mob went to book the motel for next year and came back saying there were only 3 or 4 rooms left, so Bob and I swiftly went to re-book our rooms for next years Queens Birthday weekend.

At about 9pm my ears were dropping off with the cold, I’m used to our hot humid Cairns weather. There were two old bikies with us and both were wearing beanies so I put mine on and stood with them for a while. Bob reckoned I looked like a big tough bugger standing by the bikies with the beany on. He said he looked up and suddenly there were 3 bikies and he wondered who the other bloke was!! hehehe it was me!  We got hungry and ordered Pizzas for about 15 of us – there was a 90 minute delay!!! In Charters Towers!! By the time it arrived we were all v hungry and there was a Piranha like feeding frenzy to gobble as much Pizza as possible.

Sunday morning we drove back to the show. This was the official judging day of the show and Bob had waxed his vette again the night before, it was so shiny that NOTHING could stick to it!!
Bob’s Stingray center of pic -

Mid morning a bloke I met on the Aussie Corvette forum, Troppo Vette arrived from Townsville and we had a long chat and looked at each other’s vette’s. His white paintwork is very good but he hasn’t had time yet to clean up the engine bay. He was reluctant to lift the hood – always a sign hehehe. I could see that it would clean up easily and he liked my chrome rocker covers. I appeared very knowledgeable about matters C4 and gave him some handy info- also to Rob Casper who had his gleaming red 87 parked beside Troppo. It’s amazing how much knowledge I have picked up in 7 years of vette ownership!! My thanks to everyone who is heping me on my Corvette journey.

At 2pm we drove around the streets again then waited for the presentation at 3.30pm. Our club won the display last year and this year there really was no other displays worth mentioning so I was very surprised when another club won – hmmm, must send the judges some magnifying glasses- we had 3 helium balloons per car, a tall 5 metre mast with helium balloons and American flag stuff everywhere, every car had a poster saying what happened the year that car was built – BTW in 1988 Prozac was invented !!

 We drove back to the motel, had a few beers then at dusk walked to the RSL club about 2 kms away. The stars in the outback are amazing and reached almost to the horizon on this moonless night.  On the way there John passed us in his Buick Wildcat, then stopped to pick up Bob & Ross who were 20 metres in front of us. Kel & Coral, Bruce & Helen also drove past us in their big American cars while Reidy, Bruce & I continued walking to the RSL. When we got there we heard there was not enough food for everyone, so John’s Wildcat and Bruce’s GTO ferried a bunch of us to the Waverley pub where we had thick juicy steaks and a very reasonable price.

A few more drinks back at the Motel and we turned in around midnight. Woke up Monday morning 7.15am, loaded the cars, paid our bill and began the long drive home. Bob decided to keep his roof on and started off in the lead. We had breakfast just north of Townsville at a servo. Half chicken and chips filled a hole – $7. Reidy took over driving and we left first, a few mins ahead of the others. I plugged the MP3 player into the CD and we listened to an interview with Wayne Bennet among other things.

We refueled at Cardwell and I took over driving back to Cairns. We saw some speed traps but they were all working the north-south side of the road. We arrived home 3.30pm, about 6 hours of driving and 30 mins of breakfasting.

My vette used no oil during the trip. Water temps were too low, we only saw 73-79C most of the time, The radiator shop have put the wrong T stat in because I usually have minimum set at 84C so I will have to change that. Oil pressure was 63psi at 1900 revs which is good.

As always it was the people who made the weekend – Bob, Ross, Bruce, the Ingham Crowd, the American Car club etc. Having my old mate Reidy along was a bonus, we’ve sailed thousands of miles together and had a ton of laughs along the way. He’s a retired aircraft engineer and has restored old jags as well as raced motorbikes so he was interested in everything at the show. I haven’t seen him for a few years and catching up was great.

My vette got it’s fair share of attention -

January
New Radiator Hoses from Pontiworld

February
New Nippondenso Airconditioner compressor, dryer and orifice tube. Flushed twice.

New Serpentine Belt

March
Replaced heater and oil cooler hoses.
Replaced power steering hoses. Although they were only 3.5 years old, they were leaking -

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It set hard in a few hours and made the black paint look very shiny. I think it will be an excellent rust preventer because it is a thick semi hard coat and the drips were very hard to remove (with Kerosene).

I had many replies to my post on the Corvette forum about which weatherstip glue to use for the weatherstrip.

May – replaced front disc pads with Brembo ones,(FM-1000m 0412). The EBC pads were hardly worn, but they only worked when extremely hot and were very poor when cold. The Bembro’s made a big difference.

July – Replaced all six universal joints. Although 5 of the old UJ’s looked OK, there was a noticeable difference with the new ones, and the car felt better, tighter.

Fitted new Monroe Sensatrac rear shock absorbers. I spent some time at the Corvette Forum, researching a good but soft shock absorber. The advice I got was excellent. Will upgrade the front shock absorbers too.

New Polyurethane rear suspension, well greased.

August – Fitted new waterpump, Flow Kooler 1688 from Summit Racing- 30% more flow up to 3500rpm.

Replaced the rear MAF relay because the warning light came on, this instantly fixed the problem.

Fitted quick fill fuel cap and two small louvres in tops of doors.

Fitted new Bosch style Altenator

Fitted New Internal Electric Fuel Pump.  I foiund a Holden one that was identical including the plug. Hi Pressure in tank for VN VS Commodore 6-8cyl. Repco # FPE-250A 

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The factory service manual states that the C Beam must be removed to replace the universal joints on the propellor shaft. Some members of the Corvette Forum said that this was true, BUT a few said it was possible to do it and NOT disturb the C Beam – possibly this only applies to Auto trans like mine?

After some research I got confirmation from forum member rodj and some clear instructions on how to do this. The advantages of not removing the C beam is that it reduces the time of the job, possibly by a few hours! and there is no chance that the C beam will not be put back properly, nuts not tight enough etc because it is a well known PITA to work with due to lack of room – it has to be wrangled in and out and also very hard to get at the front nuts which are above the beam.

The first part of this info concentrates on the prop shaft UJ’s, and then scorp508 has given permission for me to host his excellent write up on replacing the halfshaft UJ’s

Below is a copy of my write up for the mechanic who did the job for me, and after that scorp508’s tech tip with photo’s. The mechanic reported that my FAQ sheet was a huge help to him and confirmed that everything was correct.

NOTE – Driveshaft and halfshafts are made from soft aluminium and easily damaged.

All nuts/bolts are Metric.

Factory Manual and Haynes Manual supplied

Hood release under LEFT HAND side of dash,

This fact sheet is compiled from info received from other Corvette owners who have done the U/J replacement job themselves and is vouched for by several owners who have followed these or similar instructions.

The manual says to remove the Driveline Support Beam (C Beam) but this is NOT RECOMMENDED – all reports say this is a tricky job –

“The C beam is a PITA to remove if you have never seen one before. You need small hands to get up side of tunnel and hold open ender on top of beam while undoing bolts underneath.Then you have to get it out which is a work of art in itself. Replacement also involves measuring alignement, R/R just for the C beam can take hours.”

The instructions for Driveshaft removal came from Rod in Sydney who has done the job many times and it can come out in as little as 10 mins.

REMOVE DRIVESHAFT FIRST so that brakes can lock diff to allow easy undoing of rear UJ Straps on diff.

Mark the drive shaft so you can install it back in the same position to keep the correct balance.

DRIVE SHAFT REMOVAL –

Hoist Car

Drop exhaust

Undo bolts holding uni to diff,  You may need the diff locked in order to crack the strap bolts loose , you can only really work on one bolt at a time and then need to rotate.

Use a long 1/4 drive ext for better access

MANIPULATE DRIVESHAFT OUT –

Driveshaft will  move foward on the trans yoke allowing you to get rear uni’s caps off the diff yoke. Need trans out of gear and handbrake off so you can rotate yoke to best position to get caps out .

Take rubber hammer, and tap the drive shaft FORWARD into the transmission, angle the drive shaft so its above the handbrake cable that goes horizontally across the car.

Take the rubber hammer, and tap the drive shaft out of the transmission.

DS will slide back beside diff head over handbrake cable enough for the  yoke to come free from trans.

The handbrake cable can be undone if needed, but I don’t recommend it because it’s 20 years old and may be brittle and break. (It’s made to come apart at the clip about in the middle)

May wish to have a catch pan under the rear of the tailshaft to keep transmission fluid from leaking on your shop floor

DS can then be moved foward to clear handbrake cable and down.

Check rear trans seal while you have DS out , cheap insurance against leaks.

Remove old UJ’s and fit Spicer K5 -13 XRHD

HALFSHAFT UJ’S

Below is a link to the excellent write up by scorp508, with clear photo’s for the halfshaft UJ replacement. I found a post by him, after he had done his UJ’s which showed there was one alteration to the way he showed the removal. Instead of undoing the camber strut at the inbord adjustment end, he undid it at the outer end, which prevents the camber from being altered and saves having a rear wheel alignement.

Click
HERE for a link to scorps write up for the halfshaft UJ’s. (Opens in a new window)

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