Greetings from Indiana!

Hi-diddly-ho there wag-o-roonies!

My name is Andrew and I'm 37 years old. As my screen name suggests, I live in Indiana and I'm a father of two young boys. I've spent the last 20 years in the vinyl vehicle graphics business. I've been lurking here for a couple of months now. I'm no stranger to B bodies, but nothing this "new". Up until the boys were born my daily driver was a 63 Chevrolet. I also have a few Corvairs. I decided it was time to get something a bit more safe and modern to haul them asking in. In my estimation station wagons > minivans. So I started looking for a nice one.

After looking at a wide range of wagons for several months, I finally found one that suited me. In October I bought a '96 RMW Limited at an estate sale only 5 miles away. 81k miles, 1 owner, garage kept, almost no rust. DGGM paint, Leather power heated memory seats (wife's favorite feature), Auto Leveling, SunGate windshield, steel wheels with wire hubcaps. No tow package, posi, or CD player, but I plan on adding the latter two.

Overall the car is in pretty good shape mechanically. Since I bought it I serviced the brakes with severe duty pads, repacked and adjusted the wheel bearings, and flushed the brake fluid. The ABS and CEL were on when I got it. A little bit of searching here taught me how to pull codes on the climate control. I replaced an after cat O² and the LF ABS sensor and that cleared those lights.

One cold morning I got a really strong gasoline smell inside the car while warming it up. This happened again a few days later. After looking at the fuel lines from the tank to the charcoal can I finally tracked it down to a leak at the FPR. It wasn't leaking thru the diaphragm to the nipple, but rather at the swaged crimp. It was a minor leak that only happened when it was in the 20's, but it must have been pulling fumes in thru the heater. I'd like to find the engineer that designed the fuel line clamp with the Torx screw pointing upwards right over the EGR solenoid and kick him in the shin.

When working on the FPR I noticed I have a common LT1 problem. The rear bolt on the left exhaust manifold is broken off flush with the head. I never noticed an exhaust leak before but now that I know it's broken I can hear a slight tick. Seems like it will be hard to drill it out in the car. Welding a nut on the remaining threads seems like a bad idea so close to plastic fuel lines. Not quite sure what I'm going to do about it yet.

I noticed at parking lot speeds or in creep and crawl traffic that the engine seemed to stumble a bit. I tested then changed out the TPS and that problem seems to have been cured.

I'm low on heat inside the car while idling. It heats up once moving. I've learned this is a common problem with these cars. Temp is coming up by the gauge and climate control, coolant level is good, no air that I tell, and both heater hoses get hot. I'm also getting a coolant smell inside the car, but no puddle in the floor. The car has a newer radiator and hoses and AC drier and hoses. I've bought a new heater core, 3 heater hoses, and restrictor and T. I'm planning on flushing the entire system when I change out the core.

Cosmetically the car is pretty good but it does have a few hiccups. The old lady that had the car had a long curvy driveway that you had to hook to get into the garage. I think she felt her way in on occasion. Both lower quarters are dented in under the stainless. The grill is cracked all the way across the teeth, and there are some scratches on the hood. Both bumpers are scuffed a bit but I think that'll rub out. The right quarter stainless is missing the rubber strip and a few pieces had some dings and waves. The wood grain vinyl is in excellent shape. The wood border trim is holding up well to but some of the clear vinyl on top is lifting off the curved pieces near the headlights-nothing I can't handle. I had to re-glue 3 of the vent window hinges. I used super glue and one of them has already popped again.

The little rust that there is is localised. The very bottom of the spare tire well is soft, about a 2" patch. Also the spare tire brace is rusted off at the bend of the flange at the bottom. I assume this is from a leaky vent window. There is also some rust inside the passenger side door jamb under the bottom hinge. I wonder if a leaky heater core or AC evaporator caused this because the rest of the car is clean. I need to arrest it and have it painted when I fix the quarters. The car doesn't have any hail damage or oxidation though and is very presentable even with the flaws it has.

Inside the car the leather is in really nice shape with just a 1/2 hole by the driver side lumbar control. I'm missing the driver side floor mat and the carpets could use a good cleaning. The vinyl on the third row seat is coming loose at the floor hinge. I think some new pop rivets will fix it.

So aside from those issues, it is really clean considering 80's l.p. a 20 year old salty road rust belt car. I thought I got a good deal on the car when I purchased it, but after reading some things here on the forum I'm pretty sure I stole it.

I was at the junkyard to find a cargo net floor hook that was broken and possibly a clean CD player. I found a 92 Caprice wagon with the tow package on it. It had posi, but I couldn't get the tail gate open to check the ratio code. The gate was unlocked but there was no key to unlatch the window. Anyway, some searching here leads me to believe it might be a 3.23 gear. I'm going to go back and pull the cover. If it is a good gear I'm going to pull the entire rear end for a swap. I'll assume that a 160k mile posi will need new clutches and shimming? I did a 200 mile round trip to Louisville recently and got 23.5 mpg averaging 80 mph. Gotta love that. Any idea how much 3.23 would cut into the highway mileage?

Anyways, if you've made it this far you can probably tell that I'm completely enamored with this car. I think the issues it has are a good trade off with the mileage and overall condition. I don't think I could find another 8 passenger vehicle, with 80k miles, this fast, that rides this nice for $2k.

Welcome and great introduction. Search the forum and you will find threads to assist/solve many of the issues you brought up.

From the sound of it you did get a terrific deal!

Welcome to Longroof! Sounds like you're already chipping away at the little things.

Welcome aboard. Careful as these cars are addicting like Potato Chips (can't have just one...).

Sounds like you got a pretty decent one...

Greetings from the bluegrass state. Nice find on the wagon. I'll chime in on the 3.23 rear end. I believe the consensus was 3.23 came standard on the 91-93 tow pack cars. However the Posi was not standard. So make sure that it's an actual Posi before you pull that thing (G80 RPO, but you can always pull the diff. cover to be 100% positive). I also believe GU5 was the RPO for 3.23 rear diff ratio.

I have a 93 tow pack and gas mileage is suffering. On straight highway trips I get close to 20 mpg at 70 MPH; This is due to the fact that Ms. Roadie stops going into lock up when she's warmed up. I'm lazy and have just been dealing with the poor gas mileage issue. I would expect at least 2-4 mpg increase if she would go into lockup. So I don't think you will see much difference in MPG on the highway.

Welcome and a great find
Pete

Welcome! I got a good chuckle out of the point that the "new" wagon is three decades newer than the last daily driver, but still three decades old older then truly"new" Some day we'll get you into this century. But sounds like you found a good replacement in the meantime.

Dave

Welcome,sounds like you got a really great deal on your ride. You have definitely landed in the right spot.Post some pics as soon as you are able to.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I've been reading the forum for awhile now and have learned quite a bit about these cars already. I just spent the last hour or so downloading photos to photobucket and crafting a reply. Turns out that new members can't post external links for their first 7 days. Surely it's an anti spam measure. I'll post pictures when I can.

The junkyard Chevy wagon I was looking at definitely has a posi tag on the cover. It also had a receiver hitch. I don't know for certain that it has the v92 package because I'm not really sure what all that entailed in '92. I assume it at least has an external oil or transmission cooler. With no key and the back glass locked I couldn't look at the SPID tag without breaking something. The driveshaft had already been removed so I could easily count the input turns to a wheel revolution. I'm going to drop the cover and look at the ring gear. That will answer two questions at once. Should also give me a chance to survey the condition of the diff somewhat. The center section was rather greasy on the outside which isn't a good sign. But I know these self service years drain all the fluids so it may be partially from that. I also want to see if the hitch is a bolt-on or welded on. I'll post my findings in a more appropriate section after I go back.

Yes it's an anti spam measure. Also it's for keeping out the "one and done" folk with something to sell.

if it is a class III bolt on hitch, Grab it as they don't make them anymore. If you don't want it, someone on here does.

Congrats on getting your wagon, I'm over in the worthless tree nut state and keeping my eyes out of a good one from somewhere they don't use salt and have less seasons.

It's been 7 days so I should be able to link photos now. Keep in mind that these pictures were taken on the day that I looked at it at the estate sale. They really didn't clean anything up or even out of the car before selling it.

I hope I didn't oversell the condition of this car in my previous post. It has its issues but I think I'm showing the worst of them. To me it's hard to argue with low miles, garage kept, and 86 year old lady previous owner. I'm sure the wheels were never spun intentionally. I also didn't have to drive across the country to find it. I think I can wipe away some of the cosmetic issues easier than taking miles off the clock.

I think it was the best car around here in my price range. Tell me what you think though. I have thick skin.

THE GOOD:

Drivers side

Wish it had whitewalls, but the receipt in the glovebox says the Bridgestone tires are less than 2 years old with about 1900 miles on them.



Passenger side

I have already re-taped the floppy door rubber strip. The quarter piece is missing.



Engine compartment

This photo was taken a few days ago. I cleaned it up a bit first.



Front Seat

This picture was also taken recently. The toe-in wheel alignment is good. I just parked with the wheel turned. My 2 year old was playing in the front seat and found out that the back edge of the passenger door wood trim was loose. It has broken tabs now but the piece is good otherwise. It looks like it's identical to the rear doors and there is no right or left. Might glue it back on if I can't find another.



Rear seat

Cargo cover is installed now and is in great shape. There's a few stains in the carpet.



Jump Seat

I cleaned quite a bit of broken glass shards out of here and behind the side panels. According to the PO's son-in-law, she backed the car out of her garage twice with the glass hatch up, hitting the garage door. I think I got most of it out but a few pieces have reappeared.

THE BAD:

Passenger side lower quarter. Shouldn't be too bad to push out from the inside. I don't have a picture but the driver side is pushed in also but not as much as the right side.



The right rear corner. The bumper cover is bowed out a little under the light. Hoping a lot of this is due to the quarter.



Jump seat hinge and covering. The pop rivets holding the hinge to the sub-panel have loosened on the right side. The covering is also loose. I think it'll be an easy fix.



Right front bumper. I think the scuff will rub out. The stainless is a little tweaked. Hopefully that'll straighten out a bit. You can also see that the grill it's cracked across the middle.



Wheel covers. This is the worst one. One other is curb scuffed on the edge. The other two are very clean. I'd rather have the factory alloy wheels if I could find some nice one ones close to me.

THE UGLY:

Passenger side door jamb. This is easily the worst looking part of the car. It's not soft but that's the best I can say about that. My best guess as to why a garage kept car looks like this is from a heater core or AC drain leak into the wrong place. I've heard there is a drain nipple in the heater box that's easy to break when pulling the box. I wonder if that could have caused this. I need to address this ASAP! I have scraped of the loose paint and sprayed on some rust converter to hold me over during the winter.



Tailgate. Some surface rust on the filler panel. Nothing major yet.



There's also a 2" soft spot in the spare tire well, and the inner brace for the tire is separated at the bottom. Should be an easy fix when I do the quarters in the spring.

I also found the battery tray had some surface rust when I pulled the battery to get at the charcoal canister. Again, nothing major, but worth fixing before it turns into something more.

The frame, floor pans, and wheel houses have no rust or only very minor spotty surface rust. Compared to the other 4 Indiana wagons I looked at its a real peach. I'm planning on doing the bodywork and paint in the spring. Hopefully I'll be able to find the stainless trim pieces I'll need before then. Luckily the places that need repainted aren't areas where a perfect color match or blending will be critical.

Welcome from another Hoosier and new wagon owner.

Look's good you got a nice wagon for a good price.