how the hell do you do general maintenance on thes

[no_doz]

within the next week im seriously considering getting rid of the wagon and getting a olds cutlass with the 3.4 dohc-having had one already i love the power & torque & mileage-but when i had it i couldnt even figure out how to change all of the damn spark plugs! how does one go about changing the plugs & such-or putting on things like headers & etc? does the motor need pulled or what? im stuck between this or an olds toronado (both are 92's) with the 3.8-the olds is a tad heavier with like 40 less hp-but its saving grace is itd be a LOT easier to work on from what i currently know (unless you guys can enlighten me)-but im afraid the olds is going to get worse mileage. both are autos which sucks-on a side note-how hard would it be to put a 5 speed in the cutlass? thanks guys

[no_doz]

also-how hard would it be to swap in a 3500 into one of these if the motor ever decided to take a shit on me?

[walterdude]

As for the plugs,,, I used to pull the DogBone mount and use a small come-along to rotate the engine forward. Later I got wise and used a hole-saw to make cutouts. I can do the plugs in about 5 minutes,,, literally....
Works for MeE!!!
Tom

[no_doz]

thanks a bunch on the plug q-that sounds like a great idea-i tried pullin the motor forward & that didnt help for shit-but the cutout thing sounds perfect.

[DnaProRacing]

walterdude, i see your dash is curling in those pix you posted. here is what i did to cure that. the top picture was after i removed all the nylon. it took some time to clean the plastic after that but was well worth it. only 5 bolts hold the dash down.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


I got the cover from coverking.com for $35. they also offer them for the back window as well.

[gpse3400]

also-how hard would it be to swap in a 3500 into one of these if the motor ever decided to take a shit on me?

For the 3500, not too bad at all really. You run all thre same hardeware its just the wiring needs to be lenthend in some spots, you will need to get a down pipe and all 3100 related parts which are easlily obtained.

3.4 tDC to be fair, other than the timing belt, alternator and any thing else in the lower rear or the motor, the rest of it is straight forward with the spark plugs being rather easy. the Body does get in the way of the rears but there are ways to get around it, as shown.

[no_doz]

sounds good-you guys have been a great help

[stoneymonk]

As for the plugs,,, I used to pull the DogBone mount and use a small come-along to rotate the engine forward. Later I got wise and used a hole-saw to make cutouts. I can do the plugs in about 5 minutes,,, literally....
Works for MeE!!!
Tom

I used the same idea as yours except i didnt cut,I just bend the the steel up and just bend it back after doin the rear plugs.

[pocket-rocket]

I used to live in a park where my drive was sloped, so I parked with the nose to the road (down) and pulled the dogbone with the car in gear, which would rotate it for me. Once plugs were done I used a wheel chock, popped it in neutral, put the dogbone back and was done. Nick, the previous owner of the 92 had epoxied the edges of the defrost vent and other portions of the dash down, so mine haven't peeled up on that car yet.

[no_doz]

really? i tried everything, even pulling the engine forward (gently as hell of course) with an automatic atv & i didnt get more than like half an inch, & i sure as hell wasnt going to try and force anything so i said screw it & left the back 3 plugs for a later date, but the car blew the hell up 2 months later so that was pretty much the end of that.

[pocket-rocket]

Gentle doesn't really work well. You have to "pursued" it. You're fighting rubber mounts that don't want to give a whole lot, so you have to do like the song says and "put your back into it!", or like mentioned above, use a come-along or hill if you aren't going to chop that sill.

[bve32k]

Don't know how much the Grand Prix firewall area is different, but I could do mine just by taking off the weather stripping and nothing else. The lip the weather stripping goes on is not bent neither.

Now it takes longer to do mine because I have a complete 96 DOHC motor in it now.

I don't think the engine is going to move to much in the 3.4 DOHC. Only car I have seen that works in is the pushrods..mainly the 2.8's, 3.1's, 3100's, 3400's. I don't know to much about the 3500's.

The pushrod engines have these mounts which are made to move more then the 3.4 DOHC's.

Middle on pushrod engines:


And here are the 3.4 DOHC motor mmounts.

Rear:


Front:

[Juglenaut]

I had both the Z and the GTP and had no problems and never had to move the engine or cut the sill. Having the proper extensions, and a high quality elbow with a long ratchet that adjustable or not. Also, I used to have a full kent moore maintainance tool set for these and had no tool in it for a tune up procedure. I still have the tool placard that has kent moore numbers on it.

On the pushers I used a tool to pull the engine only because the one I have is made for pushers, doesn't work so well on 3.4L's.

[Juglenaut]

One more thing is that if you have the originals there is a good chance that the engine needs upper engine PM, worse case from the heads up or typical upper and lower intake maintanance, fuel system maintainance and such. Alot of things come up at around 90-135k

[savannaz34]

i agree,i havnt had to tilt the motor or take the dog bone off to change the rear plugs on my 91 0r my 92.just the right lenth extension and the ratchet sits right on top of the plenum.the hardest part is when the rubber gets stuck on one plug you just put in and you dont realize it until you try taking the next plug out.LOL(that sucks,but no biggie)