Cheap wrenches are customizable wrenches, grind, heat and bend, weld, whatever. If it breaks you're either out a dollar or two or your warranty claim is successful and you get another one to hack up.
Cheap wrenches are customizable wrenches, grind, heat and bend, weld, whatever. If it breaks you're either out a dollar or two or your warranty claim is successful and you get another one to hack up.
I'm not intimately familiar with Corvettes, but usually on small block GM serpentine R4 setups like that the bolt in question has a flat on one side of the flange that interfaces with the bracket to keep the bolt from turning. You just have to remove the nut with one hand while holding the bolt head down firmly with the fingers of your other hand. Once you've done that you can push the bolt out slightly and turn it so that the flat side is lined up to allow the bolt to squeak closely by the compressor clutch and be removed.
Here is a picture I took of a crate engine I have in my shop. This one has AC delete, but you can see how each bolt has a flat casting next to the hole for the D shaped bolt head so it won't rotate .
In reply to Cousin_Eddie:
That's a pretty slick setup. Unfortunately(if I'm reading the diagram right) it looks like the bolt on the Vette threads into a blind hole.
I'll pick up another 13mm box-end wrench next week & grind it down. Though that means I'll need to get a grinder stand built first. Which also means I'll need to get a tank & gas for my new welder...so it might not happen until next weekend. 
If it goes in the block, its standard. Not metric. 9/16.
Stampie wrote: In reply to golfduke: You should have seen the then younger and skinny me trying to stop a 70 Cadillac Sedan DeVille from rolling out the garage aimed at the neighbor's house across the street.
Quote of the day and follows practical advice few of us would have considered. You sir win the internet today.
In reply to Dusterbd13:
Hmm...that makes sense, but I had no idea! I'll try a 9/16 and grind one down if needed - I have plenty of crap standard-size wrenches.
If a 13mm fits, it's prob 1/2"
Yup. Should have said 1/2.
I forgot who here explained gm of the 80s to me: if it goes into the engine(alternator bracket to head bolt), its standard. If it goes ON the engine (alternator to bracket, etc)its metric.
Chassis side, find which fits cause its a crap shoot.
In reply to petegossett:
Excuse me sir. I can understand taking Christmas day off and I sorta understand Christmas Eve off, but you've now taken 4 days off in a row. Where's our update?
In reply to Stampie:
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:
I'm a happily divorced man. Of course I can. Now at least.
In reply to Stampie:
I've been on the road, though Santa did leave a couple packages while I was gone.
Woohoo
So I had a bit of an epiphany today...aka I'm a berkeleying dumbass for not thinking of this sooner: The bad motors in the driver's power-seat track has been preventing me from installing the driver's seat, since it kinda needs to be able to move fore & aft. However that's not much of a concern for the passenger's seat, although it does need to remain securely in position.
So I snuck out to the garage for a few minutes & bolted the seat tracks back together, minus motors, just to ensure the don't slide freely - and success! The gearing inside the gearbox prevents movement. I can also use my electric drill to move the seat for better mounting bolt access, then move it all the way back when done. 
Now I just need to take the passenger seat out, swap in these tracks, reinstall passenger seat, swap manual tracks to driver's side, then install the driver's seat.
This might be a dumb question, but why don't you just go to a junkyard and pull another triple motor assembly? That setup looks identical to the one in my mom's old 80's Buick Park Avenue. I'm thinking the General used the same parts bin engineering in a number of different cars.
In reply to mblommel:
Good question. I'm 99% ignorant of anything GM beyond the 88 C1500 & 99 E3500 I owned, so I have/had no idea if it was something common. I'd rather swap to a manual track & save weight anyway, but I have no idea if it would be common with anything else either?
I think the likelihood of finding a C4 in a junkyard around here would be pretty slim, and honestly with the proliferation of car-part.com, eBay, and the internet in general, IME it's been hard to find good prices at junkyards...it seems they all know what the street-value of an item is & wont budge from that price.
People seem to think C4s are worth a mint around here: non-running cars with trashed interiors & the seller won't budge from $2200, salvage cars bringing that much & more. While in a way I feel like mine should have been a $500-&800 car, for here/now $1k was actually cheaper than I expected to find.
In reply to petegossett:
Meh, looks like I was wrong. A quick check of ebay shows the '84-'86 vette had a unique motor. Used one's are like $100.
BTW your thread is making me have bad thoughts: http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/cto/5933323064.html
In reply to mblommel: That car looks like a decent example.
You guys need to come up to PA. Looks like here is where they all go to languish in driveways and front yards....look one has a "rebuilt engine with 4 miles" on it, another has a "Jasper"engine but might have parked too close to a bonfire..heh 
Day-20(2.5-hours):
I received the new fuel pump-to-tank gasket today, so I decided to get it buttoned up. Other than being a bit of a "ship-in-a-bottle" job working through the access hole in the rear deck it isn't too bad.
I also received the rest of the brake parts.
I went ahead and reassembled the left-rear caliper since it was polished and honed.
I also got new guide pin boots...this is the first vehicle I've ever worked on that weren't seized. 
Also the "Corvette" is a nice touch, though I wonder why they cast it here?
I decided to start on the right-rear since it was the most challenging one, although I haven't honed or polished that caliper yet, so I'll need to finish it up tomorrow. I also pulled the inner fender - partly for better access to tighten the new hose, and partly because through the gap I saw a fairly large mud wasp nest. It turned out there were three of them.
In reply to Agent98:
If that black 85 for $2k were close I'd scrounge up some cash.
In reply to mblommel:
Vettes generally seem to be priced more realistic in FL. As Aeromoto pointed out - FL was the cocaine capital of the 1980's, and a lot of drug dealers drove Corvettes.
conesare2seconds wrote: In reply to mblommel: That car looks like a decent example.
Yeah, it's one of the three that have a manual trans.
petegossett wrote: Also the "Corvette" is a nice touch, though I wonder why they cast it here?
So they can charge 3X as much as they charge foe the same part for a Buick.
In reply to DrBoost:
It's so odd - all these brake parts have been quite reasonable - but I looked at ball joints, and the Moog ones are $45/$65-each!
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