This was first discovered in 2007 during NCRS Flight Judging. I bought this car new. It hasn't been beat on regularly, nor ever "tracked". It has 44,000 miles. It has received  an NCRS 5-Star Crossed Flags Award. It is a very "original" car. during a recent trip up US Hwy 50 to Lake Tahoe I was driving it kinda fast, and having fun. I was experiencing a good amount of oversteer that had never been present in this car in the previous 28 years. something had changed. Investigation revealed that reducing front spring rate increases oversteer, So the partially broken spring is soft enough to affect handling.

If a spring were to totally fracture unexpectedly while the suspension was loaded, this could cause loss of control. My neat old "original" 85 wouldn't be very original any longer. Something to check:


Cracked front spring


(modified large image to link-aapple)


|UPDATED|7/12/2013 9:54:58 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Looked like it fractured / split from sitting in one place to long then used, 85 vette with only 44000 shame on you. crossed duhikes an all with a wing

Good catch on that one! A disaster waiting to happen, fer sher.
It's not just the cars that are getting old, either...my "springs"(knees) are not quite as flexible as they used to be, either....and they creak/moan all the time...failure is not only an option, but an inevitability.....

did it look like it was sitting a little lower    I have noticed when they sit for long periods of time they sag if the springs are cracked    and 44 k   how manny cars do you own I cant get enough seat time in mine Just kidding  keep her stock   in the long run your better off than a LOT of late night wrenchin on the hot-rod vet


(duplicate post deleted-aapple)

|UPDATED|7/12/2013 9:56:09 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

I forgot about this thread.

It isn't noticably sitting lower.  The fractured portion isn't much of a percentage of the total spring section. < 5%.  What I did notice was that it affected the handling when driven 'hard'. I will not be driving the 85 more than locally to the Friday show-n-shine untill this is replaced.

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My long time lady friend at the time and I bought this car new. It was never a daily driver. She and I always had another primary driver.  She drove it a lot more than I did the first few summers. She's a teacher and gets summers off.  By 93, it had about 38K miles on it, she and I parted ways in 95, and I purchased an 88 C4 Convertible that I drove and beat on regularly as my "fun car".  The 85 sat in the garage, unregistered and uninsured until 2006 when I resurrected it for its NCRS campaign. My insurance reporting log shows it had 39,211 miles on it from 1996 until 2006. So it sat for 10 years, un-driven.

Now that it is finished in NCRS, and road-rash and accident damage is less of a concern, I'm driving it a bit more. I drove it 3,900 miles in 2009 in pursuit of my founder's Award. Its an OK road car, but the seat bothers my lower back after a few hours, and the Z51 beats me up. After 8 or so hours I just want to get out of it.

As far as "having to maximize seat time in my Corvette". My current "other car" is GMC Syclone and Typhoon. I bought my first Typhoon in 96, and have been hooked ever since.  I currently own 3 Syclones and my third Typhoon. For outright acceleration, any stock SyTy in good stock tune will annihilate any stock C4 in good tune up to the LT5 or LT4. A SyTy vs LT1 is a toss-up.  SyTy's don't have the panache of a Corvette, but they have AWD for all-weather performance (and no off the line traction restraints), are quick enough to surprise most unsuspecting "performance cars" on the street, and because only 2,997 Syclones, and 4,700 Typhoons were produced, there's a degree of mystery and exclusiveness involved with SyTy that is not present with owning one of 1.3 Million-something Corvettes. Not to mention the challenges of keeping a 20+ year old, highly strung turbocharged GM pos running well, if at all.

So I have interests that put my Corvette in a secondary position in my car fleet and activities. For 6 years I was very active with it and my Judging activities in NCRS. The 85 had a more active role during that time. Now it is back to sitting, and being driven a few times a year. I will never sell it, because of the emotional attachment of how I came to own it in the first place. To this day only two people have ever driven it other than service personnel.

Sorry for the long read. But that's my 85's story.
DaveP