May 22, 2016
OK... So I'm not really proud of this one but... The air filter housing on my car had a broken air filter cover mounting ear. This is a common problem on early C4's and I thought I could fix this by following the suggestions of the CorvetteForum.com folks (grind off the old ears, fabricate new mounts from aluminum flat-stock and epoxy'ing the piece of to the back side of the housing). But as I looked at the housing it became clear that even if I could fix the filter cover mounts it would still be an inadequate repair because the housing had warped to the point that the air filter didn't seal properly against the housing. So it looks like the housing is not salvageable. The metal air cleaner cover is in great shape but the plastic housing is a loss.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to spend the $130 to $200 that I see the reproduction units selling for because the air cleaner housing is just a piss-poor design to begin with and I'd just be throwing my money away on another soon-to-be-defective air cleaner housing.
I guess I'll start looking for a good after-market intake system. But in the mean-time I have a problem. I really don't want to drive the car without a working air cleaner and so far, straps, duct-tape etc. haven't been an adequate solution to getting the air cleaner to seal against the air cleaner housing.
So like I said, I'm not proud of this one but here's what I did in the name of expediency:
I drilled 1/16" holes in the rubber air cleaner flange and the housing and lashed the air cleaner to the housing with zip-ties. The air cleaner now seals against the housing so I'm comfortable driving the car. It's an ugly fix but it will do until I can come up with a better solution.