Official GM Corvette Manuals

[Tom K.]

Hello Everyone,

I am wondering about which GM publications would be helpful for determining which parts are correct for a given year Corvette. I recently purchased a set of Chassis and Body Parts catalogs covering 1953-1979 Corvettes. I was thinking this would be a great resource with various part numbers for each year clearly defined.
Not so much...

Its obviously going to be useful, but one book has the technical illustrations and the other has the part numbers. Its not real clear to me yet which parts are used for which year cars, and its not like they show illustrations for every year, they seem pretty generic.

I am hoping to build up a decent resource to check which part number were used on which cars for various systems. If I were to start with steering components, are there different GM parts books or shop manuals I should be looking for?
Will I still need one for every model year?

Im thinking it might be best to buy more TM&JG's. I like to support NCRS, but geezzz that get expensive...

Thanks for your time


Tom Krause

[Mark F.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Hello Everyone, I am wondering about which GM publications would be helpful for determining which parts are correct for a given year Corvette. I recently purchased a set of Chassis and Body Parts catalogs covering 1953-1979 Corvettes. I was thinking this would be a great resource with various part numbers for each year clearly defined. Not so much...Nobody on this TDB knows part numbers; applications; supersessions; service vs production; on and on than Joe Lucia. He'll probably chime in on this. And, yeah, those GM combination pubs covering that many years can be misleading for what was on these cars as they rolled out of St. Louis.

Its obviously going to be useful, but one book has the technical illustrations and the other has the part numbers. Its not real clear to me yet which parts are used for which year cars, and its not like they show illustrations for every year, they seem pretty generic. YEP

I am hoping to build up a decent resource to check which part number were used on which cars for various systems. Ambitious goal, indeed ! If I were to start with steering components, are there different GM parts books or shop manuals I should be looking for? Will I still need one for every model year?

Im thinking it might be best to buy more TM&JG's. I'm biased , but for any given year, or set of years, I don't think you'll find any better book discussing what was original on a Corvette than a TIMJG for the year(s) you're interested in. When you think of all the years some of them have been under development; review; improvements you're getting a big bang for the buck IMHO. I like to support NCRS, but geezzz that get expensive...Thanks for your time Tom
Krause

Tom,

See above for my thoughts on the matter.
I'm sure others will chime in, too.
Good luck on your pursuit !

[Tom K.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Hi Mark,

Yes, I have learned quite a bit from Joe Lucia's posts. There is always a ton of info in them.
thanks for the reply Mark

Tom

[Terry M.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Tom

As you have found parts books have limitations. So do any other resource.

I am biased, having had my fingerprints on a few, but the TIM&JG are a good resource, but they too have limitations. The number of pages is limited and so is the information in terms of part numbers. They will describe or show in photographs the means of identifying specific parts. These descriptions are better than part numbers if you are looking for parts. Often parts don't have part numbers on them, and sometimes the PRODUCTION installed part differs from the over-the-counter (or SERVICE) part even though the part number is the same. Then there are parts that were never available in SERVICE. See how complected this gets?

Then there is the AIM (Assembly Instruction Manual) for the year(s) you are interested in. This will show you part numbers for items installed at St Louis (or Bowling Green for those cars). Those also have limitations. Some items came to the Assembly Plant as assemblies. For example the engine, transmission, differential and brake assemblies all came assembled so you will not find the part number for a cylinder head, or brake rotor -- just as two quick examples.

If you really want to work at it you can combine information from all three sources and get much of hat you want, but it will be a formidable task and I have to ask to what end? Most of those parts are long gone from Chevrolet's SERVICE inventory. You might occasionally hit one on evil bay, but you will probably get two failures and wasted money for every success story. All that said, one can get lucky once in a while, but it usually takes knowing more then the seller to get "lucky."

[Ray K.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Tom,

All steering components are listed in Group #6.000. Example - Steering Knuckle is Gr 6.020.

Ray

[Tom K.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Hello Terry,

Thanks for your thoughts. You are right, I have already had some 'less than lucky' experiences on EBay. I think the JG's are going to be he place to start and then fill in with GM doc's when there is a question.

As always, thanks everyone for such a great resource


Tom

[Duke W.]

Re: Official GM Corvette Manuals

Spend some time learning how the parts are grouped and GM part name lingo. There is a part name index for each group and one at the front of the book for every part on the car.

For example, what most guys call a "sway bar", and I call an "anti-roll bar", which is a more generic engineering name for the device that is not corporate specific, GM calls a "SHAFT, stabilizer". At least they're cataloged in Group 7, Frame, Springs, Shocks, Bumpers, but it wouldn't be illogical to catalog them in Groups 5 and/or 6.

Speaking of illogical, sometimes that's the way some parts are catalogued, at least IMO.

Case in point. The Cosworth Vega has a three-piece anodized aluminum trim set on the front end. The center piece stretches across the bottom of the front grille with two additional pieces that extend from the ends of the center piece and wrap around the bottom of the headlight buckets to the front edge of the fenders.

Looking at the group names it would seem logical to catalog these trim parts in Group 12, Body Moldings - Sheet metal, but NOOOOOOOO!

The center piece is cataloged in Group 1, Coolant, Grille, Oil System, and the two end pieces are in Group 2, Chassis Wiring, Lamps. Go figure!

Also, remember that having an OE part number, either factory installed or a later different part number replacement can help in finding aftermarket replacement parts since their catalogs sometimes list the OE parts that their part replaces.

Last item to note: There a lots of errors in the parts books, and since the aftermarket follows GM their books are often wrong, too, due to some ill-advised parts consolidations done by GM over the years, VACs (vacuum advance controls) and accessory drive belts come to mind.

I was fortunate to obtain two Corvette parts books ('77 and '79 revisions) and a Corvette IPB along with a '76-up passenger car parts book and IPB from a dealer I did a lot of business with in the seventies. They closed circa 1980 and gave me the above books. They've proved to be a valuable resource over the years.

It's always great to have multiple sets of documents, and having the requisite GM docs like the AIMs parts books and the NCRS JGs puts you ahead of everyone but Joe Lucia, and if you can't sort it out, Joe is always willing to help out and usually has the complete history of a particular part.

Duke