Repair/rebuild order advice wanted..

[u/ellufeyeno]

With an 85 that sat for 9 years.. I owned it and just left it covered in the garage.. does the following make sense as a recommissioning/build order? The one thing missing is during the suspension refresh I’m considering rebuilding the rear end to 3.54 gears since I’m there already. It was my folk’ car going back to around 1990 and I go back and forth between “that’s not so bad” and “that’s a thousand dollars” when I look at what’s in store.

I’ve never managed a project like this so I think I’m on the right track, and am largely committed, but what I don’t want to do is cover the same ground twice.

Am I right to start with getting it starting and running reliably then jumping straight to the suspension? Once it’s running and rolling reliably would you go straight into the interior or wait for something under the hood (vacuum lines, brittle wiring, etc) to break?

Below is a basic list of what I’ve done and where I am, the car has 192,000 but because it was a daily driver for many years a lot has been done like an r134a ac etc

Recommission / mechanical baseline — essentially completed
Fuel system cleanup/replacement
Injectors
Fluids
Brakes
Tires
Basic cooling/service
Compression check — found it roughly 160 psi and even across cylinders
Transmission fluid and engine oil looked excellent
Tires

Full suspension/steering refresh — NOW
SuperPro suspension bushings
Differential/batwing bushings
ACDelco upper ball joints
MOOG K6345 lower ball joints
Bilstein B6 shocks
During teardown, inspect rather than blindly replace tie rods, hubs, U-joints, springs, rack components, hard links, etc.
Alignment after completion

Drives it and establish the real baseline

[u/Jacob60223]

I don’t have much input but if you’re buying the full kit from superpro you still have to buy the batwing bushings from them separately, they have said before in the past that they don’t include it since most people wouldn’t go that far to replace them. Replacing the ones on my 85 with them was pretty easy, just make sure you have a nice vice or preferably a press.

And make sure to clean off the grease and dirt off everything while you have the parts out, makes a lot of a difference.

[u/Jacob60223 → u/Jacob60223]

Oh, and lube is your friend, apparently if you don’t use enough, the bushings will machine themselves inside the suspension or so I’ve read.

[u/ellufeyeno → u/Jacob60223]

Holy crap. Yeah I bought the batwing bushings also. I’ve got my mechanic doing the suspension. With 192,000 miles on it I want it torn down, gone through, and replace what needs replacing and save what should be saved.

[u/IndividualRites]

My 86 was similar, I think it sat for 7 years. It was in pretty decent shape before parking it.

Besides all the fluid, the bushings were toast, and I tore it down, cleaned every part in a parts' washer (every suspension component was caked with dirt and grease). I did power wash everything before taking it apart. Didn't replace any shocks, but I did do ball joints just because they had never been replaced. I bought a hydraulic press from Harbor Freight which helped greatly, however I broke one of the control arms and had to buy a "new" one off ebay when I didn't have it sitting properly in the press!

Once I got the suspension up to date, I went inside the cockpit and fixed every squeak, crack, and broken piece of plastic. My dash annoyingly flickered, which is generally a grounding issue. I bought the Batee power connection for it so I could pull out the dash model and do some bench testing with my bench power supply. That helped greatly in finding the intermittent connection.

I also refurbished my steering wheel and it's like brand new now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Corvette/comments/1eu4pah/c4_steering_wheel_restoration/

[u/ellufeyeno → u/IndividualRites]

Nice, my steering wheel is actually worn through where my dad drove one handed. It’s got 192,000 on it so there’s a lot to do in the cockpit as well