Wagon finaly back on the road

Back in the middle of Jan my radiator sprung a leak and and left me without a car. I have been kind of looking for a winter beater anyway and a few days later I found one that will be a good winter car and probably my daily also since I have just rolled 100k on the wagon and the newer one only 79k. I will some pics of both and my red Mustang I took today and one a couple of days after I got my winter car.









I know there are those on here that have a great dislike for the N* and that is justified but from personal experience between my mother and me we have had Had 7 Seville's with just one N* related problem (water pump on my 94). One thing is that this is a 04 which should be the best of the bunch considering that in 2000 they upgraded the casting process of the block and lengthened the threaded portion of the head bolts and for the 04's they made the threads course for better bite.

The very first weekend I got my wagon I took it to Iowa for my sister's wedding and we got a major snow. Driving my wagon I felt like a damn pinball and almost couldn't make it to the motel my brother and I were staying at because of an incline on the way in. Later I was going to make a trip to Sam's and my brother asked me if I wanted to take the Seville which I did and I couldn't believe the difference. Between the traction control and stability system and front wheel drive (which I personally hate) it really felt like I was on dry roads.

One thing I forgot was that losing my radiator when I did saved me from being stranded in the not to distant future. I had been soaking the bottom oil cooler line for a good week before I did the repair since it was quite rusty. After I had the other three lines disconnected I tried to loosen the bottom oil cooler line and with all the force I could muster it wouldn't at all but with just the little flex it had in the rad it started leaking oil. It was so bad that I was able to give the line a decent tug and it came off. Since I have had the car that is one thing that has bothered me and I was sure that changing just the line was not an option since I was sure that the bottom fitting would never come loose. Knowing that I have had both the radiator and oil lines here just a few days after the rad failure figuring that I would take it to a local shop and have it done for a couple hundred. But since I had the Caddi I just waited for good enough weather to do it myself.

For those of you that have done the oil cooler line replacement what did you do concerning the low oil level wire?
I just cut mine since I am fairly certain it didn't work on mine I let it get a little over a quart low last winter and it never came on, all the other cars I have had would stat at a little less than a quart low mostly when parking on an angle.

Had a 69 Boss in that same paint for a grand total of 2 weeks.Thats how long it took my insurance agent to get the VIN,all the alarms went off.No more insurance if I kept the Boss so it went back to the original owner who was a friend of my dads.I think my dad was more upset about it going back than I was.Got my 429 Cyclone that summer with a 3 speed on the floor ,which my agent insisted I bring by and show him!

Some nice looking toys you got there. Glad youre back on the road.

Nice Seville.

Seriously.

Would consider owning another in a second, they are hands down superior to a B-Body in almost every way, except that they didn't make a wagon version.

Put 60K on a 2001 STS and the only powertrain related issue in the entire time I owned it was replacing a coil pack. (And that was likely from being overstressed by the 100K+ mile spark plugs in at at the time of failure.)

Most of the people that complain the loudest about Northstars haven't even owned one, so don't give their opinions too much credit. Usually they are also complaining about distributor holddown bolts when they'd be whining a lot less after they got done changing the frame-side portion of a B-Body motor mount or doing most anything underhood on a Syclone or Typhoon.

Bad move on the cutting low oil level sensor wire, I'd bet money it was working just fine. The connector is the same style as the coolant temperature sensor on the water pump, you just need to reach in the opening with a 90 degree pick and lift the tab to release it.

The light comes on at a little over 2 quarts low, and I've used it several times:

With the manual transmission & my tune you can occasionally get some some detonation if you let the clutch out too fast and give it too much throttle at the same time. When that happens the ring seal goes out the window and it drinks oil. A couple of those combined with a weeping cooler line and you can easily get the warning light just before it's ready for an oil change.

Consider re-connecting it, it really might just save you one day.

- J