'96 Century general project thread

[LeftVentricle]

If its an aftermarket crank pulley, its probably the ring and not the sensor. It sounds like you have a bad computer too though, if it didn't throw any codes while the other one did. Glad you had a successful fishing trip on that injector clip

That is the 3rd PCM I've put in it. The original one wouldn't communicate with the emissions testing station's computer (that's a fail of the test), so I swapped the white wagon's original PCM (which passed). Now it's running the '97 PCM I got from Milzy, which works well enough. Not sure what it is about the '96 PCMs that suck so badly.

As for the crank sensor stuff, I don't know if the balancer was replaced prior to my acquisition of the car. I'll find that out later, I suppose, but as I said, I'm not terribly concerned at the moment.

[86euro]

Considering this at some point in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbO-WqKUnjQ

Someone on the A-body forum did a write-up on making your own coilovers a while back, but the owner took the site down at the end of 2023 without any notice, and all of the years of knowledge stored there is gone.

I don't recall who originally did the coilover swap, but it left something to be desired. At one point, I did a bunch of research and came up with part numbers for everything that should have made for a real nice setup, but I never got around to doing it. Mitch (zalorian) did though, on Steve's 5-speed Celebrity and he did that nice tutorial thread. I'm betting that Mitch still has all the part numbers and sources saved.

[LeftVentricle]

I hate the 3300 engine.


HATE IT.


Well, hate is probably too strong. It has a couple good qualities.


Despite not having a balance shaft like the 3800, it runs pretty smooth.


And as I noted in a post from a few years ago, it gets phenomenal fuel economy on the highway, which I will be needing soon.


I will be taking another trip to Kansas in a month or so. 2500 miles of driving uses plenty of fuel. So I need this car to be road ready and running well.


Neither of the wagons are suitable at this time, for very different reasons. One is mechanical, one is clerical.


The yellow sedan has been sitting in the garage since mid-2021 with a seized starter. In addition to the images you're seeing, I finally got around to that. It is not a particularly fun task, but I would do it again a dozen times if it meant I wouldn't have to do THIS JOB.


Everything you see above is about 2.5 hours of TEARDOWN to get to the thermostat on this engine. It's stuck open, which is fine in the summer but not so much in the winter. It means it didn't have anything approaching effective heat, it ran in whatever loop it is when cold and drank gas, the torque converter wouldn't lock because the transmission was cold. All of which translate to a miserable highway trip. As a contrast, when I've done a thermostat on the wagons, which have an L82 and an LX9, I'm in and out in like 45 minutes. I'm REALLY not looking forward to putting this all back together.

To answer a potential question, yeah, it may have been "easier" to pull the throttle body instead, but that risks breaking all kinds of water and vacuum hoses and the TB gasket that are quite difficult to come by, since this variant of the Buick engine was only used for a few years, and not very widely.

In related news, I robbed the radiator from the yellow car a few months back to install in the black wagon when it started leaking. So I need a replacement. Public service announcement: as cool as they are generally, I do not recommend buying a radiator through Rock Auto.



That kind of damage to the plastic portion is annoying, but understandable. THIS BULLSHIT ON THE OTHER HAND



I cannot fathom how it could have been CUT like this. I didn't take a picture, but the other side had a cut like this as well. To their credit, Rock Auto issued me a refund quite quickly and so far hasn't asked for it to be returned. I may attempt to have it repaired, though that would exceed the cost of replacing it. I know what that cost is, because I still needed something to put in the yellow car. So I yanked the core from George.



This is what ~10 years in Las Vegas looks like. I took it to a nearby radiator repair shop (those still exist!) and $150 later, this is what I have.



They cleaned it (necessary after running straight water for several months in an iron block engine) and repaired a small leak. Ready to run for another ten years!

[SappySE107]

I think the radiator is supposed to cut like that for thermal expansion. Not saying its necessary, but I think it was done on purpose. The aluminum radiator cleaned up pretty good

[LeftVentricle]

The folks in my thread on Something Awful agree. I just have never seen that before, and I have purchased a few radiators in my time. I'm still not using it right now due to the damaged plastic, and I don't really need to repair it any time soon.