Potential New Owner; 1994 RRRoadmaster Wagon In Florida Going On A Road Trip...

Hi folks, I am a Rrrrroad Trip addict and my next planned trip is flying to Florida, buying a '94 Roadmaster wagon and driving north to the Adirondacks.

Anyhow, the car has 225k and needs a radiator due to a crack by the upper hose. Advance has various junk China parts starting at $155. If I was staying local, I would try JB Weld, but we're hitting da road, so the $100 or so for a rad is well spent. Advance has various discounts, so after paying $150 I'm out the door for $100 or so, same price as Rockauto. I bot a copper rad for for '84 6.2 diesel Suburban and even tho it was a "Premium", it was made in China, had the wrong hose nipples, and leaked after 18 months, so back it went at my expense for shipping, and a loss of several hours RR. So much for that.

Same thing for the heater core. I read here that it's only 1 nut that is hard to get to, but which core should I get? And can I expect to find DexCool junk in the cooling system?

FYI, I'm paying $1000 with good tires, a 2" hitch and a big dent in the hood and smashed grille. My 2nd stop will be a junkyard for various little trim parts.

Lastly I have a '66 Skylark GS 401 nailhead vert that I bought 35 years ago as a teenager. I drove it one summer, and it's been dry stored since, and if I can't sell it for what the heated storage cost, I'll have it restored, but it's New England rusted, and I'd rather have a 409 Cheby and I collect Corvairs too.

(I posted this at the Buick Forum, and was directed here, maybe a more suitable place to hang...)

Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you have a lot of fun projects. I too like Corvairs, and other oddball cars.

As for parts, I've had very good luck with RockAuto stuff. I tend to try and stay with Delco or major "known" brands for my toys.....as they usually fit, but yep, everything comes from China these days it seems.

Good luck with your Roady. I love road trips as well, and a Roadmaster makes a great trip car!

-Mike

Glad you made it over here, that was me who directed you over. You will like it over here, good guys and we have all the answers. Sometimes we get them correct.

There's a pretty good wagon following in your NY area. Actually I'm probably fairly close to you in northern NH. You should be able to find the hood in FL. I believe the Caprice wagon will fit and maybe the Caprice sedan, but not the Roadmaster sedan. The grill will be a little harder to find.

I'm sure the guys will drop in with radiator recommendations.

I'll through it out there, but I'm sure you know of the Corvair guy in western MA.

Have a good trip.

Tom

Yup Tom, Clark's Corvair, I go there every 2nd year for the open house...

What's the scoop on aftermarket grilles? Sometimes they same cost as a junkyard. We're going to got with a billet for the Mrs Suburban, $150, but ins co is paying

Thx for the link to here Tom.. I always thot these were cool, and have had a few wagons over the years, and switched to 3/4 ton 4x4 diesel Suburbans 10 years ago, and really will prolly never drive anything else, but I really hate to sell stuff once I get home. Luckily I have a very large warehouse, and Mrs keeps nagging to drop the price on my CL ads...

Any advice on the radiator? Or is it all in the forums? I'm kinda overwhelmed with getting things tidyed up before we leave for Florida in 2 weeks, and have to find parts for Mrs '95 Suburban that she crunched last year, and will be going into the body shop when we're away.

And about the LT1, how was production split between non LT1 versions? How was the option marketed? What was the extra cost?

My '84 Sub tranny gave up shifting on a road trip back from Michigan last year. It came back to life a couple of aggravating hours, 100 miles later, but stopped shifting again 2 weeks later, so I dropped the valve body twice, tinkered with it, new governor, but same no shift, so after rebuilding the 4L80E in my diesel pickup 2 years ago, I've got trannys on my mind. the 1st shop that did the 4L80 went to jail for ripping folks off, me included, so a former mechanic/hi-school buddy and I tackled it very successfully, but he's 400 miles away, and eBay trannys are just too cheap with 100% feedback to warrant disrupting his life, but I'm drifting OT.

I will def change the tranny oil and engine oil & filter immediately upon arrival in Florida. I usually vid the drama of oil running down my arm, and I don't expect any change in MO here lol... I also always fill the oil filter and use a $10 K&N or Mobil 1 or similar filter. On the Mercedes I drove back from Sacramento last all, the tranny oil was black, but I disregarded advice to leave it, and it also had a drain plug in the torque convertor, so was able to dump most of the heavily deposit rich oil. It shifted just fine on the 5500 mile trip home, loaded with Corvair and Suburban parts. BTW, Mercedes specifies $9 per quart German oil, more than triple the cost of WW oil, but I followed forum suggestion and used FEBI-Bilstein oil.

Feel free to rant about your Roadmaster follies, I will be carrying on if I'm allowed to!

Andrew, funny seeing you over here! It's as great little forum with a lot of knowledgeable and helpful members. I'll let the experts answer your technical questions. I will wish you good luck at the junk yard looking for trim parts. Cash for Clunkers made a lot of these cars disappear so pickings can be slim... you'll have to be patient seeking out those type of parts.

- Andrew from CCF

Welcome, I've been subscribed to your YouTube channel for a few years now. Wagon is a beautiful color, enjoy!

Around these parts Station Wagons are listed as Suburbans, and glad to be along. If I sell my BMW and Mercedes, maybe I'll keep the RM. Is the dark blue I showed from the CL ad the only dark blue? I'm not a fan of medium blue, like the new F150's, it really makes me puke

Welcome and I've always been a fan of corvairs.Both my brothers first cars were corvairs.

Welcome aboard! check your private messages as I had an off topic question for you....

I'm running an all aluminum Silla radiator its serving me well. I would suggest deleting the oil cooler if you need to replace the engine to cooler lines. Mine used to leak from there but is no longer an issue all the parts will be less than 200. Jeff

Welcome to LongRoof and congrats on your new wagon! Hope the trip is trouble free for you.

Welcome to the forum. Look around the place, lots of info here. Most of your present, and future questions have been answered in older posts. Happy hunting.

Dex-Cool wasn't used until 1996, so the '94 should be free of it.

The LT1 was installed in the 1994-1996 B body wagons, while the tbi cars were 1991-1993. No options during '94-'96, it was the std. engine.

Mike

So I made it to Fort Lauderdale Florida, drove 325 miles to Brooker, in a rental 20 miles north of Gainesville, and disappointed, the car is ruffer than described. Large rot hole in LR 1/4, filthy interior, almost bald tires, (claimed 2 years old), front pads down beyond the rivets, both reasonators unbolted and dangling...

But it's kinda too late, all the parts I thot I needed were purchased, so I started the repairs. Changed rad, removed and slid back pass seat, dropped tranny oil pan, which showed minimal wear, and after the entire day tranny pan is back on, heater core ise installed, rad is in, just had to send Mrs 25 miles by bicycle (her choice) for rad hoses and brake pads in the closest town.

Anti freeze was nasty, hoses looked terrible inside, door hinges never saw a drop of oil, but I'll fix er up and drive it back to Ft Laud, and then back home and sell her. Miles are 230xxx and she drives nice, the few hundred feet I test drove her.

The left front rotor is kinda scored up, and FLAP has Carquest made in China for $55, Rock Auto has a variety of Centric and AC Delco for a few dollars less + SH. FLAP offers Wagner for $50, but ONLY ship to home.

I wonder what the difference is in the economy and daily driver from Rock? AC Delco offers them in both price ranges. I will try visit a junkyard for a variety of other parts that I need, and may get the rotor there.

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In my experience the scored rotor doesn't do much more than chew up the pads a bit. I drove the car a little bit and the brakes felt smooth notwithstanding the rivets on rotor. I've already put too much into this car and will 100% be selling it once I get home.

"In my experience the scored rotor doesn't do much more than chew up the pads a bit. I drove the car a little bit and the brakes felt smooth notwithstanding the rivets on rotor. I've already put too much into this car and will 100% be selling it once I get home."        Fell out love already? Say it isnt so!!!

I'm a long time (former) ASE mechanic, and even tho the riveted pads have scored the rotors, that doesn't mean they're junk. No matter how bad the rotors are scored (to a point), their effectiveness isn't especially compromised. The pads will wear to the grooves in the rotor and give you all the clamping force as new smooth rotors.

Back in the early 80's, when the front drive X body GM's hit the road, I would regularly see rotors that were worn rite thru the metal 1/2 on the caliper piston side. So the rotor was basically 1/2 a rotor, like an Oreo cookie missing one half the cookie. And the customer would only come in for a brake job cause the piston would pop out of the caliper and they would be only stopping on the rear brakes.

I've vidded the entire scenario, it's at CORVAIRWILD on ytube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XroeaZxmspg

After watching the video I know why there is no tread on the tires

Well thats a bummer. I definitely would have asked for more details and photos if I was flying to Florida for a car.

Always opportunity to find another, I've taken my OCC on a 350 mile trip to see my grandparents and it drove wonderfully, I found a few other bugs but nothing too crazy.


Another one means another road trip anyhow.

We drove the hour from the hotel to the sellers house Thursday, I had had it running in the sellers driveway for a little bit to warm it up and get the air out of the cooling system and after 15 minutes it started misfiring and shaking and wouldn't take any throttle, so I quickly figured out it was out of gas. Mrs went to get a couple gallons of gas and after a few seconds it was running smooth and quiet.

So I finished most of the repairs I had planned, as we had to be in Fort Lauderdale early the next morning, 325 miles away. We packed up the car, and I drove away from the sellers house and the engine was and stumbling a bit. I chalked it up to the lack of gas or? I filled it up with 19.26 gallons a few blocks away, checked for leaks and took off, and the stumbling and hesitating continued under acceleration or cruise.

After 4 miles I made a decision to turn around and give the car back and now we're going to have to fite for our money back for the sale price and repairs I did.

This is going to change the direction of the conversation here, and that's fine with me.

I don't believe the seller was honest with me. He claimed he had washed the car, but only mentioned the large rust hole behind the LR wheel after we showed up a few weeks after getting the deposit from me. I never negotiated the asking price, and was aware the car needed a heater core and rad. He also showed the damage to the hood and grille, but the interior was filthy, windows dirty inside and out, tree debris and colonys of ants the clogged under and packed inside the rubber door moldings. The "2 year old" tires were bald, the resonators had been unbolted to stop them from banging on the body as both tailpipes had been bent from low curbs.

When I started the car on the ramps and backed it down, the air compressor under the air cleaner fired up and was obviously worn and really loud. It took a while to find the fuse to turn it off. The one on top of the fuse box labeled air susp or similar didn't stop the compressor, so I started pulling fuses until it stopped. The fuse box was also corroded, and all the fuse tips had white powder on them. The heater fan was really loud, as if it was rubbing on something, and a few other small issues that I figured I could address downstate after the trip.

The seller was out of town the 2nd day I did repairs, and his wife was able to reach him, and he offered to refund my money after the car sold to someone else. Obviously it's alot more marketable now that it's driveable, but we aren't willing to wait as he lives 20 miles from the closest town and I'm really fed up with the waste of time and money. We asked for the $1000 we paid, $350 for the cost of the parts and $150 for my labor, basically $10 and hour (I put in at least 16 hours) and the traveling time will be our loss. We spent plenty of time chasing parts etc etc.

Thoughts?

Enjoy the rest of your time in Florida. And, you're never too old to learn a lesson. Hopefully, you can get most of the money back

Tom

Yeah, talk about losing the wind in my sails. I made more videos, and they are being saved. The connection at the hotel is slow, so it will post in an hour or so, and the drive from the gas station may have to wait till tonite.

I'm looking at a '93 Mercedes wagon now on CL... Rrrroadmasters are few and further between. There was a white faded one closer by, but smoked in, and the seller changed her mind to sell, and it was still on CL days later...

Dude I feel for you.  Had a similar situation a couple years ago but got my money back the day I went to pick it up as I pointed out all the obvious things that the seller neglected to mention and I mean big things.  That rust should have been disclosed period.

Your challenge is now they don't have to give your money back as you bought it and began fixing it up.  Had you left it untouched you would have stood a better chance.  It is buyer beware.

The bright side is that it is all fixable.  Don't be disheartened.  If you keep it you would have a nice road cruiser.

Good luck on getting your money back and I hope they will for you since it was misrepresented.

I'd say the seller is getting a hell of a deal. Roadmasters are still out there and finding a gem won't be too difficult.

A friend back home has expressed interest if I could fix the RM and deliver it. I'll search for possible causes of the stumble

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, with this one. There are better ones out there.....

Would have demanded my money back as soon as I saw the rust hole he neglected to tell you about,what else has he not told you.Truly hope you get your money refunded and please don't start making any repairs until you are certain that the car is what you really want.

So what are the symptoms of a bad Optispark? And I should have checked the plugs. I hear the plugs are crucial

there are multiple symptoms of a bad opti and probably dozens of threads about them over on the impalassforum.com

That said, when I bought my 94 RMW, it had a miss drove like poop, unless I went to WOT then it roared (but was still missing). Fuel economy was horrible, but at highway speed it was tolerable as the PCM was making adjustments for the miss in number 7. I had it wrongly diagnosed by two different mechanics who said it was a bad fuel injector. That didn't help it, finally I broke down and pulled the opti cap to find (original with 136K on it) very corroded contacts and hole burned through the backing plate that was letting it arc to ground through the hole.

Is it more than one cylinder missing? It could be a plug(s), wire(s), the opti, or a fuel injector.
Could also be shitty gas you bought, or by adding the new gas stirred up old crappy stuff that was left in the tank. (I'd recommend a can of sea foam) too. Did you check the fuel filter (99% of the time not the issue).

You mentioned it idled fine for some time in the driveway. Did it stumble immediately or a couple of miles down the road?

Here's how things played out... I bot the car long distance, so when I arrived at the sellers house a few weeks later, I was pretty excited. I fired hr up, and being aware that radiator was cracked on top, and the coolant was kinda low, I knew I could only take a very brief test drive. I pulled out of the driveway and immediately did a brake stand and peeled out, drove a few hundred feet, turned around and repeated my teenage immaturity. This entire episode from cold crank to back to parking spot prolly lasted 2 minutes, and she wasn't hot when I parked her and popped the hood.

I drained the coolant-sludge, got about 2-3 quarts, pretty pathetic. Anyhow, 2 days later, rad and heater core are swapped, and I flushed sludge-coolant with a garden hose as best I could, re-filled and started her up on the ramps. Fuel gauge showed empty, and after running 10-15 minutes and bleeding thru t-stat housing it started rumbling-shaking and pinging. I figured out pretty quickly it was out of gas and turned it off within about 30 seconds of this episode.

Mrs went to get 2.5 gallons gas, and she fired rite up and smoothed out in a few seconds.

I packed up my crap and pulled outta the sellers driveway and proceeded to the gas station less than a mile away, filled er up, and I don't recall if she was stumbling hesitating on this 1st short jaunt. But she sure was immediately after I hit the road, and when I pulled over the GPS said 4.4 miles to sellers house where I was returned to dump her off. Idle was fine, power was there, but the mis-fire was apparent at any throttle speed on the total 9 miles driven. I made a video of the return trip, but obviously no camera can pick up what our seat of the pants feels...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XroeaZxmspg

As far as weather it's one cylinder mis-firing or a random spark loss, good question. Had it not been so late in the evening, (we had a 325 mile trip back to Fort Lauderdale to make), I would have pulled a couple of plugs and the dist cap, but Mrs was with me, and as it was we didn't get to Fort Laud (in the rental) till 3 AM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL-ba5u4CL8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsjOufRjgW0

I wish I could answer if the stumble was there on my little immature demonstration or before I got to the gas station... sorry, my brain is misfiring lol