I went into the local Checker auto parts today to buy some autolite platinum spark plugs and the guy behind the counter argued with me that chevrolet never made a 1987 corvette. he claimed that my car was either an 86 or an 88 but not an 87. I asked him if he would like to see my 87 vette when I had it back up and running and he said no because it looked just like all of the other C4 vettes out there. my question is wheather he is correct or if he should go back to working on shopping carts (Ricers).

Thanks,
Greg
Fort Collins, Colorado

 

He's wrong. As far as I know, they never made an 83 vette. Tell him to go back to working on the carts.

 

They made an '87 vette. Lots of them.

Chevy never sold the 83 vette. They made some small number, 3 or 5 or something, basically late 82s and called them '83s, then put them in museums ( I think there may be one '83 at Bowling Green) or crushed them or something so they could claim that there was no gap in production from 54 onward, but they never offered them to sale, instead when the 82 went out of avaiaiblity in mid 82 they just waited a bit and went straight to selling the first C4 ('84) model in early 83.

 

also when going to checker,advance,napa, or autozone remember must decent auto techs make a minium of $14.00 an hour but yet the clowns at the auto parts stores only make 6.50 an hour so take that into account when getting their info which they will always give even if you dont ask for it.

 

I have an 87, there is no 83.

 

How much trouble is it to change instrument panel bulbs on the 87

 

that's why those guy only make $8 an hour (lol), most of them don't know too much more about cars than you or I.

 

Instrument panel is LED and can't replace them, has to be rebuilt.

 

There are 4 halegen bulbs that light the inst. cluster/panel. Mech259 is almost right. It's lcd, not led. the bulbs backlite the LCD to show you your display. The bulbs can be replaced from the front but its a pain as you will need some kind of rubber tiped pliers to actually grab onto the glass part of the bulb to pull them out. Then they have 2 pins that will need to be lined up in the socket before you push them back in. It can be done, I did it twice. The other option is to remove the cluster from the car. The problem here is that you need to split the cluster to get at the twist type sockets. I was a little nervous being the car is an 88 and I didn't want to crack something taking it apart.

I took a med. sized (I think they call em forceps) like a doctors pliers. I dipped the tips into that rubber stuff you can get at hardware stores to coat tool handles. it helped grip the bulb. I never had one break. Take your time and you can get it. One more word of warning though. Be preparred. The bulbs cost in the $20 each range.

Hope this helps and Good luck with it.

joe

 

That could work, although on my '86 I replaced bulbs and still didn't work. I had to send it in to Zener Electronics in Houston to have it rebuilt. The problem was in lighting controls in the head. Hope he doesn't have to do that, since it cost around $500.00.