'96 Century general project thread

[LeftVentricle]

Pretty good fuel economy but thats quite a bit of driving. Was it all highway for the last tank?

Yeah. I wanna say that tank was cheating a bit, since it was "downhill" between Tonopah and Las Vegas, and also I do 65 on the highway because that's where this car does the best. Gotta say, that's the best number I've ever put down, even with the original engine (L82), or the first couple of years of the LX9 swap with the original highway gears (2.97) in the transmission. LX9 + 3.33 final has basically no downsides.

[young gun]

The car performed flawlessly, and averaged 24.7 mpg, including a high score

[LeftVentricle]

Non-update update. I've been meaning to write up a post about the 2000 mile road trip I took the wagon on during Thanksgiving, but the circumstances of the trip weren't fun. I'm having a hard time coming up with the right words. The car performed flawlessly, and averaged 24.7 mpg, including a high score of 30.9 on the final tank before arriving back home. I took plenty of pictures. I'll give it a shot this weekend, I think.

I can't be bothered to write a real post about this, so I'll just give you all a little bit of drama and move on.

My dad died a few days before Thanksgiving at age 59 of multiple organ failure. He'd been a long time alcoholic and was homeless for ten years, and that catches up with you. The 2000 mile trip was from Vegas to the Bay Area and back to try to handle is final affairs. The day before he died, my wife decided she was done, and wanted to move out. I put her on a plane to her mom's place in Kansas on January 29th. So I haven't really been in the mood to write up a real post. I will give you guys probably the two best photos I have ever taken of this car though.

Near the Golden Gate Bridge:


And in the Sierra Nevada mountains at a spot called Peddler's Hill:



That aside, I'm planning to get what I hope will be a reliable daily driver so I can stop worrying about whether George is going to start in the morning, what's that noise this time, and so on. Found another '96 wagon on Marketplace IN THE SAME CITY I BOUGHT GEORGE IN. After basically interviewing the guy over the last couple says, I feel like it will be a good daily. Lots of preventive maintenance done recently, including the ever-vulnerable lower intake gaskets, silly custom interior stuff, and a front clip swap from an '85 Century.

[dbral]

Sorry to hear about your loss and how life has been treating you. Been following your progress with the wagon over the years and it seems like you got it dialed in now. Made a 2k mile journey with no probs. so at least the ol' Buick has been treating you well. Drive it 'till the wheels fall off and put'em back on again. Best wishes bud

[LeftVentricle]

Been following your progress with the wagon over the years and it seems like you got it dialed in now. Made a 2k mile journey with no probs. so at least the ol' Buick has been treating you well. Drive it 'till the wheels fall off and put'em back on again. Best wishes bud

It's good enough, but the kludges and deferred maintenance are starting to catch up. Hence getting a reliable second car. That, and Nevada recently changed insurance requirements for cars registered as classic, and classic insurance doesn't allow you to daily the car.

[LeftVentricle]

Shit went sideways last night, but all things considered, everything went way better than it could have. I got some new tires put on the wagon. I left the shop, drove a short distance, stopped to get out to take a picture of my new kicks, then had a gigantic freakout.



A transmission cooler line blew off suddenly. I got it fixed and refilled, but man, that was wild. If I hadn't gone to get tires, that could have happened on my commute this morning. That would have turned a $50 oopsie into a $2000 transmission rebuild.

[LeftVentricle]

GENTLEMEN

[SappySE107]

Wow, another one I would like to find a wagon bigger than the cavalier, but its such a rare find. Whats the plan for the new one?

[LeftVentricle]

Wow, another one I would like to find a wagon bigger than the cavalier, but its such a rare find. Whats the plan for the new one?

No modifications planned. It needs an alternator, battery, belt, tensioner, and tires. It has functional air conditioning, which will be very useful in a couple months.

In other news, FUCK Interstate 40.



Potholes on that shitty stretch of tarmac completely buggered the alignment on the white wagon. These tires are three weeks old, with less than 3000 miles on them.

[SappySE107]

You just need to look at it from another angle. Start your own extreme camber company, and take your customer's cars down I-40 for a bit. Thats what the wear looks like to me anyway. Extreme.

[young gun]

Sorry to hear about the recent stories LV. Maybe your new alignment business can pop off!

[LeftVentricle]

Image hosting site Imgur will be removing images not associated with an account.

Like many of you, I have been using imgur for hosting for a long time, anonymously. It will be a monumental task to rehost everything I've posted here over the years. I feel like a lot of this thread (and my old head gasket thread from 2013) will probably end up dying. I'll do what I can, but there isn't a ton of time. May 15th, apparently.

[SappySE107]

I upload everything to this site. Not as convienent to share across multiple platforms but Brad and I can make backups for what is on here. Not sure if you have the originals still or would want to reupload everything but its an option.

[LeftVentricle]

Here's a little treat for y'all that's relevant to the thread. (just ignore the Buick lump underhood)

And here's a couple photos of work done on the black wagon.

Getting started:


On the agenda is general tune-up stuff: rotate tires, spark plugs and wires, air filter, clean the MAF, fuel filter, engine oil and filter, transmission oil and filter. I've been experiencing what feels like a misfire recently, so the goal is to chase that down.

We've all done plugs before, so here's the important image:


Looks like #2 had a pretty bad crack in it, unless that's just gunk. They're all the correct Delco plug for the engine (41-601), which is nice to see. I replaced them with Autolite 605 gapped to 0.060". Everything else went about how one would expect for a tune-up. The transmission oil smelled and looked a bit spicy but not quite burnt, and the magnet didn't have very much on it.


Couple interesting things to note. It seems as though someone has been in this transmission at some point. There was RTV gunked all around the pan's edge. The pan was unpainted, and is probably aftermarket, since it doesn't have

DIV OF GMC
Hydra-Matic
4T60

embossed into it, and the gasket was the typical aftermarket rubber style. The side pan had RTV in the edge as well. I'm not complaining about any of that, mind you. It's just pleasantly surprising.

The misfire cleared up quite a bit after all that, and it starts faster with a fresh fuel filter. However, I still feel it sometimes when passing on the highway. I'm going to try rerouting the 7x crank sensor wire to see if that's the problem. I had that issue on the white wagon a number of years ago:

[SappySE107]

Cut wires are always a good time. GM updated the tuning to remove the MAF, which had issues that I don't recall the details on. Might be worth updating it though.