'70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

[Jim Ruggieri]

1970 350 4sp. A/C NO transistorized ignition or special radio.

According to the AIM my car should only have the 4 heat shields that bolt to block and fit into the sparkplug manifold area. The AIM doesnt not picture the lower 'V' heatshields that mount underneath.

Should my car have the 2 lower 'V' shields? What other heat shields, if any, did it have from the general?

Thanks,
Jim

[Joe L.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Jim-----

All 63-79 Corvettes had the 4 HEAT shields you described. The remaining shields are RADIO INTERFERENCE shields. The car only gets them if it is radio-equipped. If your car was radio equipped, then it had the lower block "V" shields on both sides, the vertical shields on both sides, the distributor cover shielding, and 4 shields covering all spark plugs (early) OR only 2 shields covering the rear 2 plugs on each side (late).

[Jim Ruggieri]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Thanks for the help.

Jim

[Roberto L.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Hello, be careful with the AIM, if you have an early car as I do, better you get a 69 AIM regarding the shields. The 70 AIM shows the late configuration, so it is not as easy as it seems. I got help from my Chapter at the time.

Roberto, NCRS #30019, RMC

[Jim Ruggieri]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Roberto, thanks for the heads up, my serial number is 'early'.

[Chuck S.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Good info for the uninitiated, Roberto.

In fact, there are changes shown in the late 70 AIM that I doubt ever made it into 70 production. One case in point is the hood seal strip(s) across the radiator support...the late AIM shows the 71 style one-piece seal that is taller in the center for the wind split. If any of those one-piece seal strips made it into 70s, it was intermittently...my last day 70 has the old three piece style. Another example is the 71 style steel vacuum tubing across the firewall...my car didn't have it.

[Roberto L.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Yes, Chuck, it was difficult for me at the time. At first glance you tend to think about the AIM as the Bible. But as time goes on, I manage to see it in perspective. Jack (Humphrey) was a great help to understand those differences.

I have the three piece seals, and the straight tube in firewall vac actuator, but I have a rather early car.

Best regards, Roberto, NCRS #30019, RMC

[Joe L.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Roberto-----

The AIM's and other GM information is amazingly accurate. Not 100%, of course, but amazingly accurate.

One other thing that must be kept in mind: the AIM was a CONSTANTLY EVOLVING DOCUMENT. It was anything but a static document that was printed at the beginning of the model year and "that's it". To my way of thinking, the "definitive document" would be the AIM for any model year that included EVERY revised page ever issued for that model year along with every replaced page for that model year. The copies that we have today are very unlikely to be what could be called the "definitive document". In fact, they are usually far from it---replaced pages are rarely found and we have no way of knowing if every revision page got into the "original" copy from which today's copies were produced. As I understand it, most copies of the AIM's were not religiously kept up-to-date since they were not used much by many of the folks that had them.

So, how diligent was the person that had the "original" for any given model year that's used as the basis for today's copies?

[John H.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

Joe -

I have no idea where the manuals came from that were copied for the ones we have these days, but there was only one up-to-date complete assembly manual in the plant, maintained in the Reliability Supervisor's office; his engineers distributed copies of the change sheets as they came in each week to each affected Production and Inspection foreman's area. That "master copy" didn't have the old superseded sheets in it - just the most current sheets; the old sheets went in the trash when they were replaced. The only place you'd find a "complete" manual, with ALL the sheet history, including the sheets whose revision blocks were full and started over again, and those that pre-dated sheets that were "Redrawn and Redesigned" later on, would be at Chevrolet Engineering Graphics, who issued them. Today, you'd find them on microfiche cards (we called them "aperture cards" back then), buried in the archives.

[Joe L.]

Re: '70 heat shields....what did my car come with?

John-----

I hope that all the stuff like this that remains gets sent off to the new GM archives for permanent preservation.