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 Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)

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1phastsswagon
brokecello
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uxwbill
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uxwbill

uxwbill


Posts : 319
Join date : 2012-08-01
Age : 41
Location : Illinois

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 8:26 pm

Well, I reckon the place to start is to say "hello" to everyone here. I'm the new owner of a 1993 Chevrolet Caprice Classic station wagon. Naturally, I am just tickled pink about this (= very happy, if not ecstatic).

I love station wagons of all kinds.

I've long wanted to find a GM B-body automobile, and I wasn't really all too picky about which one. Anything would be nice. Of course, I never seemed to have the money or the luck to find the right car. A co-worker of mine and her husband had a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne station wagon in "pretty darn good" condition, and I'd been eyeballing it for a while. And then the great misfortune that was Cash for Clunkers came along. Her husband turned their poor old wagon in. pale I really did try to intervene, even going so far as to visit the dealership that collected it. They took me seriously enough to put a sticker on the keys, but I just couldn't beat what the evil C4C had to offer.

As stupid as it may sound, I could have cried.

If anything, this increased my resolve to find one, before they were all gone. I'd seen some potentially promising ones, even inquired about a few and still nothing really panned out. Until about two weeks ago, when I saw this sitting on a used car lot. Now I'd really been looking for an older, boxier model. None of those ever showed up at a price I was willing to pay.

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Front

From a distance, it looked immaculate. Looking closer revealed some rear quarter panel rot, much worse on the spare tire side than the other. I still took it for a test drive. I heard an exhaust leak, but everything else seemed to be in good working order. To my great surprise, when I popped the hood, I found a 350 (!!!!) V8..

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Engine

This car was produced at GM's Willow Run assembly plant in early 1993. Later, a Chevrolet dealership did the R134a A/C conversion. Though it works and works well, they really should have changed out that filter/drier. It kind of makes one wonder what else they didn't do. Neutral The A/C compressor idler bearing is making a noise, same as the R4 compressor in a GM pickup truck before it did. I will have to see what can be done to fix that before this compressor does what the one in the truck did.

I couldn't believe how clean the interior was. It looks better than the camera makes it look. As I later found out, this was a "little old lady" car. I'm the third owner. The "little old lady" (or maybe it was a guy...their name was one for any gender...) passed away and from what I could gather, their children sold the car to the dealer where I found it. I don't think anyone even so much as sat in the back seat.

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Drivers-side

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Driver Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Passenger
(well, that picture taking adventure didn't work out quite as planned)

Oh, I wanted to buy it badly...not just to have one at long, long last, but also to keep the heathens away from it who would thoughtlessly destroy yet another one of these wonderful cars.

What the heck. I went and did something rather, ah, "capricious".

Asking price was $3,000 plus tax/title/license. I didn't think it was worth that, so I went home and stewed about it for a day or two before calling the dealership and asking them if they'd take an offer. $1,500 they wouldn't do, but $1,700 they did, with my paying the tax/title/license fees. Call it $2,000. I asked them if they would hold the car, which they did until I could get there with the money. I don't know that I've ever been so anxious in my life, thinking that someone would come along and offer more than I had. bounce I had asked for the whole deal in writing, but the dealer said he wouldn't do that until there was actually a sale. (Yes, it was "that" kind of dealership. Thankfully they did do exactly what they had agreed to.)

It didn't help matters that I was just waiting for the whole deal to go pear shaped. Yet it didn't, and on July 31st, 2012, I picked the wagon up from the dealer!

It's loaded with most all of the optional goodies...the only notable omissions being keyless entry, Twilight Sentinel automatic headlights and the fluid monitor. Other than those, we have power locks, power windows, power radio antenna, two power seats in the front, rear windshield wiper, cruise control, interval wipers and the basic AM/FM cassette stereo (of which more later). I later discovered an automatic dimming rearview mirror to be in place.

Changing gears (ha-ha) a little bit, perhaps some of you may know me from Youtube. Yes, I am "that" uxwbill. So, naturally, I made a video about test driving the car. (Edit: linked now)

There are definitely some things that need to be done. I should air the car out since it smells a bit stale/musty, look into some shocks, figure out how to repair the rear quarter panel rot, fix the radio, repair the one rear window that goes off of its track and patch up the exhaust system.

There are other things I'm curious about, like this badge near the instrument panel.

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Sl-badge

Other than that, it's a beast and I just love it. The total mileage is 82,113 and 9/10ths at this very instant. (The length has led to some hilarity. One of my brothers drove it and did not realize just how long of a car it really is. Fortunately, he only came close to knocking over a plastic trash can.) I hope that I can keep it as nice as the previous owner did, if not better. It's going to be stored indoors during the winter and only come out on nice days.

As found, and without any real work done to it just yet, it floats down the highway very nicely. One can get to running 80-90MPH without a care in the world if not careful!

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Back

I did get a bit of a scare taking it home. You see, the stingy dealership did not put any gas in the car, and I knew it was running on fumes. As I drove to the gas station, the engine started to sputter badly and after a little of this, the Service Engine Soon light came on! I got that sinking feeling, like I was soon going to be pushing this thing down the highway. Instead, I looked at the instrument panel and said "don't you even think about it". On we went to the gas station. Filling it with gas solved all of that problem (and the SES light turned off).

I have more, and larger pictures if anyone wants to see them. I was going to post a link, but I see now that I have to wait.

I think I did alright. One thing is for sure...nobody is going to take this car away from me! Thanks for reading all of this. Smile


Last edited by uxwbill on Tue Aug 14, 2012 12:50 pm; edited 3 times in total (Reason for editing : added the links at long last, maybe I'll add more later)
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BigBlackBeaSSt

BigBlackBeaSSt


Posts : 4560
Join date : 2009-08-01
Age : 58
Location : Sanford, NC

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 9:00 pm

Welcome, boy are YOU going to fit in with this crew. Officially a wagon kook!!!!

LET THE MODS BEGIN!!!!
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95BRMW

95BRMW


Posts : 1692
Join date : 2009-08-15
Age : 39
Location : Connecticut

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 9:08 pm

Welcome to the forum Bill, glad you could join us with your new toy. BTW, I'm moldymac on youtube Very Happy
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brokecello
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brokecello


Posts : 3478
Join date : 2009-05-28
Age : 45
Location : Greenville, SC

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 9:39 pm

Welcome! Love that color blue...that wagon is hardly broken in! Nice find Smile

Chris
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1phastsswagon

1phastsswagon


Posts : 770
Join date : 2011-10-19
Age : 55
Location : Concord North Carolina 28081

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 11:30 pm

Nice wagon - Welcome to the Madness / Let the Mods begin
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Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeWed Aug 01, 2012 11:46 pm

Welcome to the gang Bill.Thats a sharp looking Caprice.same color as my 91 OCC which just
turned 72000 miles yesterday.Let the mods and laughs begin!
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uxwbill

uxwbill


Posts : 319
Join date : 2012-08-01
Age : 41
Location : Illinois

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 2:18 am

Thanks for the welcome, everyone. I'll be honest, I'm still pretty stoked about this. And...maybe not entirely convinced yet that I'm not dreaming! (Be sure to remind me of how stoked I was when I'm cleaning out the garage this weekend to make room.)

I had some fun tonight and took the mighty wagon out to the Interstate/freeway. At first I soft pedaled it because I really wasn't sure of the handling and just how far it would go. It does need some shock/suspension work for sure.

Color me pretty impressed. At first I behaved pretty reasonably and then I got a little naughty. Twisted Evil After passing a whole line of trucks, I was coming up behind this little Prius that was just tooling along and I decided it was time to pass that as well. There's that Prius trying hard to save energy, and I'm piloting a road sofa alongside it, not really caring about fuel economy all that much. It's my belief that these two opposing types of vehicles probably cancelled one another out and nothing happened.

One thing's for sure...it's all too easy to just start speeding along. I really wondered how the Caprice would behave at high speeds. The answer seems to be "not a whole lot differently than it does at normal speeds". It comfortably ran 80-90 MPH "for a little while" without complaint or bad behavior.
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Krzdimond
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Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 4:13 am

80-90? Those are daily commute speeds around here. Wait until you hook up the tunercat and remove the speed limiter. These things are stable to somewhere around 135, then they start to get "squirrely"
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uxwbill

uxwbill


Posts : 319
Join date : 2012-08-01
Age : 41
Location : Illinois

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 10:11 am

Krzdimond wrote:
80-90? Those are daily commute speeds around here.
Yeah, I'm stuck here in slow-moving Illinois, where it's 65 MPH. Nobody actually obeys the speed limit, and I've had more than one police officer tell me they don't look for people doing 70-75 MPH. Empirical observation ("I've run 70+ MPH and never had any trouble over the past decade, knock on wood.") seems to suggest that there is some credence to this.

I was stunned when I drove down to Texas (to pick up some old computers--my other money pit hobby) and found both higher speed limits and people driving even faster than that!

Krzdimond wrote:
Wait until you hook up the tunercat and remove the speed limiter. These things are stable to somewhere around 135, then they start to get "squirrely"
I've never personally had a vehicle over 90 MPH before losing my nerve. I'd really rather not qualify for a Darwin Award. (That said, I've been in a Chrysler Minivan doing 110 MPH and a Honda Prelude doing nearly 125.)

This station wagon's previous owner did a good job of keeping it nice, and I hope to keep it at least as nice as they did (and hopefully better). I want to maintain it as a nice unspoiled, basically stock example of the species, outside of repairing broken and worn out stuff. Lots of modifications aren't really my thing. If the opportunity to obtain a nice sedan were to come along, that one would probably be the playground. I'm not really looking. There are, oh, about twelve cars here between all of my brothers, parents and myself.
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scoffman

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Posts : 555
Join date : 2012-02-21
Age : 47
Location : Lawrenceburg, KY

Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 11:31 am

Welcome aboard. Nice score on that puuuurrrty wagon.
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uxwbill

uxwbill


Posts : 319
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Location : Illinois

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 1:42 pm

scoffman wrote:
Welcome aboard. Nice score on that puuuurrrty wagon.
Thanks. Overall, it's in awesome condition (especially for a car that began its life in Illinois). Frame's good, body is mostly rust free (a few "here and there spots") yet there is considerable rot on the rear quarters. I can see the very bottom of the spare tire!

Though this one is no LT1 either, I'll gladly make the trade if it means not having to deal with OptiSpark when it goes wrong. I've got no complaint at all about the power this engine is making!


Last edited by uxwbill on Thu Aug 02, 2012 1:43 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : oops: repeated word)
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gmtech

gmtech


Posts : 224
Join date : 2012-03-21
Location : Tornado Alley Oklahoma

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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeThu Aug 02, 2012 11:14 pm

Welcome to the forum!
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vinyldavid

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Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitimeFri Aug 03, 2012 4:43 pm

Hey! You look familiar!

Welcome to the wagon forums Very Happy
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PostSubject: Re: Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!)   Hello All From Illinois (new longroof/B-body owner!) Icon_minitime

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