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1993 Service Ride Control | SRC Code 14

echo4golf

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 9, 2017
Messages
55
Location
BaltoWash MD
Corvette
1993 40th Anniversary Coupe
Today, my plan was to reassemble the console and then either tackle the driver's side window regulator (and lock mechanism while I've got it apart) or see what was up with the Service Ride Control light. The latter won out due to commitments for Dad's Taxi Service. The SRC light has been coming on since I got the car in late 2011. My son and I pulled the code (14) yesterday while we were out and about ("testing" the ABS | ASR repairs). I looked up the code in my FSM and saw that it was for a time out from the right front. As I understand it, that means that the shock is not cycling properly either due to a bad actuator or a bad shock. I pulled the actuator off and discovered that the small gear on the shock (not the actuator, which appears to be cycling as advertised) was broken. Not sure whether I can just replace the gear or what, so more research is in order.

Any advice?

Thanks!
Jerry
 
There used to be someone who would fix those. I'll try to remember where.
 
There used to be someone who would fix those. I'll try to remember where.

Captain Z CNC in WI, maybe? I just ordered the little adjustment gear from them. The had the best price ($35 + 7-something shipping). I had to overcome a bit of sticker shock, especially at the shipping but another vendor wanted $45 for the gear and $11 for shipping. Ecklers and Zip were less than that but still more expensive than Capt. Z especially after adding shipping.

Thanks!

Best,
Jerry
 
Captain Z CNC in WI, maybe? I just ordered the little adjustment gear from them. The had the best price ($35 + 7-something shipping). I had to overcome a bit of sticker shock, especially at the shipping but another vendor wanted $45 for the gear and $11 for shipping. Ecklers and Zip were less than that but still more expensive than Capt. Z especially after adding shipping.

Thanks!

Best,
Jerry

That's the one! :thumb
 
Only problem is, you don't know why the gear broke. If it broke because the bypass valve assy is hard to turn or has seized, it may break again.

Once you install the new gear, you should be able to easily turn the gear with your fingers.

Also, check the inside of the actuator to make sure the broken gear did not destroy the splines in the actuator.
 
Only problem is, you don't know why the gear broke. If it broke because the bypass valve assy is hard to turn or has seized, it may break again.

Once you install the new gear, you should be able to easily turn the gear with your fingers.

Also, check the inside of the actuator to make sure the broken gear did not destroy the splines in the actuator.
Good point. The inner plastic gearing on the actuator looks OK. The shaft on the shock turns easily. Should I be able to turn it to a stop? I didn't try that.

The other thing that I'm wondering about is the life of the shocks. I don't think Dad mentioned getting them rebuilt but he was aware of the system and liked it. I'm guessing the thing to do is to install the gear and see if that fixes the code. (It would need to be done anyway, and shock rebuild / replace x 2 or 4 isn't in the cards this year.) Then drive it on a highway with expansion strips and see if I can feel the system?

Best,
Jerry

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk
 
Simply shocking couple of hours...

This afternoon, I sat down and put the driver's side door back together after replacing the window regulator yesterday. Then it was time to sit down and spend some time grading student work... And then the mail arrived with my new shock gear from Captain Z.

Fireworks. Bells ringing. Banners flying. What could I do but install it?

I opened up the hood, popped the actuator off! If you haven't been into one of these yet, let me tell you: the retaining pin that holds the gear onto the shock is small. Really small. I mean it is so small I had to go outside... Well, you get the idea. I used a small allen wrench from precision screwdriver set as a drift pin, paying careful attention to not losing that little pin. I carefully tapped the allen wrench when it got to the point that I could no longer push easily by hand.

Almost there... (Now, you all know what's coming next.)

Despite my "light" taps, when the pin came loose, it went flying. Or so it seemed. Actually, it fell down into the actuator cup and was quite easy to find once I calmed down and stopped searching the next block over. I managed to dig it out with an awl.

But then the fun really began. You never realize just how large your hands are until trying to replace something like this. It rapidly became clear to me that doing it by hand wasn't going to get it. So I switched to a pair of needle nose pliers. I carefully put the pin into the plier jaws and was carefully getting ready to attempt to insert it into the gear on the shock when I noticed how much slop there was in the jaws of the <sproing!>

This time I know, roughly, where the pin landed. Even so, man, that's a tiny pin in a large driveway. At one point I thought about trying to replace the pin with a piece of paperclip but that proved just as problematic as the pin, so I went back and found the pin.

Needle nose pliers take two... And I dropped the pin into the actuator cup. Yep, those hands *are* mighty large. And how is it that my fingers are suddenly twice as large as my hand?

This time the awl wouldn't pick the pin up. My magnet was too large to get anywhere near the pin, but once I discovered that a steel nail (and not a number of other things!) stuck to the magnet, could reach where my suddenly gargantuan fingers couldn't, it worked nicely to retrieve the pin and the bits of paperclip that had suffered the same fate.

Switched out the needle nose pliers for a set of slip-joint and... Hmm. Dropped it pretty fast that time. And watched it bounce its merry little way between the tire and the inner fender all the way to halfway under the car.

By now, I'm used to looking for the little devil, you understand, so it took mere minutes to find.

Turns out the trick seems to be to start the pin through the gear before you mount the gear on the shock. This way, the thing goes right together. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. So here, the FSM failed me. The instructions note that you shouldn't need a lot of force to reseat the actuator and that there should be an audible "click". Nothing about how to line up the gear before mounting the actuator. Well, I got nothing. Nary a click nor anything else for that matter. I did finally get the thing to seat well enough to get the retaining ring to retain the actuator, so that's something...

I get in. I start the car. Systems do their thing and come online and (drum roll, please): the DIC is dark! No warnings, nothing!

Then I went over to talk to my neighbor for a bit, and when I came back the Service Ride System lit back up. <sigh>

So I pulled the new codes and got:

14 -- Maybe I didn't get the actuator mounted properly. Hopefully, that's it as I'd rather not have to rebuild actuators yet.
23 -- probably not anything but rather from when I was turning the key off and on working on the regulator.
32 -- Actuator out of position. This is new. But 32 is the right front, which is the one on which I just replaced the gear.

So, my friends, my question to you is: how to properly align and install the actuator once the new gear is in place? All tips welcome!

Thanks,
Jerry

Edit: as I was putting up my tools, I found the pin that I installed when I replaced the gear... What, you say? I'm wondering if perhaps the pin broke in two when the gear broke or somehow wound up in two pieces? I'll look at it again tomorrow and see if I installed only part of the pin, in which case, I'll tap in the left-over piece, assuming that I can get it started. If I do that successfully, do you suppose it will stress the new gear?
 
Last edited:
Follow up: started the car this morning and everything came online nicely. Drove about 20 miles to work and no DIC lights. Still going to check the pin on the passenger front shock actuator at some point. Actually, if I can find a replacement, I'll just straight out replace it.
 

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