work and repairs for my 94 RMW

well decided to open a thread here do to me doing more work then expected sooner then expected on my 94 rmw.

first off while replacing the fan clutch to try to solve a slow warm up issue, I had the upper fan shroud off and noticed some major issues with the radiator compounding issues that I already knew about, such as remains of old oil cooler lines seized at the connection to the side tank so can't be removed without most likely breaking the plastic side tank, but now found that the radiator has twisted tubes and fins falling out aswell as an area blocked solid.

so my current list of parts getting replaced once I get my tax return is.

Radiator
a/c condenser (pulled orifice tube and found metal fragments in it)
opti cap and rotor at minimum
ICM
upper and lower radiator hoses
thermostat again
thermostat housing
timing cover seals and gasket (Including seals for water pump shaft and opti)


work already done
fan clutch
intake manifold gasket
fuel pump with sending unit (multiple times thank god for lifetime warranty)
ignition coil
spark plugs
intake air temp sensor
coolant temp sensor at the pump
all new seals on rear diff (also records that came with the car show rear diff rebuilt, new bearings and seals back in 2004)
rear wheel cylinders
rear air shocks and lines
front shocks
manifold pressure sensor
center link, inner and outer tie rods, idler arm and steering damper
oem style K&N air filter
thermostat (but then had to put old one back in)
struts for rear lift glass
driver power window switch


things need to replace or fix

rear window defrost grid (only got three or four hot spots on entire window, biggest the size of a half dollar)
driver front door panel [blue] (common crack but previous owner removed and broke several of the clip holders so panel can not be held completely secure to the door.)
both front side markers (probably go with new euro style assemblies rather then just the corners)
A/C compressor and accumulator
emergency brake cables
fan tensioner pulley
wood grain vinyl
dent in tailgate

well started pulling everything apart and so far only snapped one bolt, the lower mounting bolt for the air pump(which wasn't even plugged in for who knows how long), but the issue I now found is the water pump.

when I pulled it off I noticed a plastic ring on the extension and curious looked at the back side of the pump, and that's where it came from, as I could see all the ball bearings for the bearing, including the fact that there where a large number missing.

so now I'm stalled till I can get a new water pump, but I'm also now afraid that I'll have to do more then just a cap and rotor on the opti.

before I go jacking up the car, does anyone have any advice for the steel shield/holder for the plug wire for the rear drivers side spark plug?

Not all of the plugs had the steel shield. That may be one that did not. I have some of them for sale if you need any. All of the cars I have seen have 4-5 of them, generally on the 3,5,4,6 plugs, and maybe one more. Where the exhaust manifold surrounds the plug by 50%.

When you get to the AC, you should do a complete flush. You need at least a new orifice tube, and maybe more.

I don't need to buy any, and I'm not talking about those thin covers over the plug boots.

I'm talking about the plug wire going to the last plug on the drivers side of the block, there is a steel shield holding it too the block, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on it's removal other then by crawling underneath to unbolt it.


right now I'm just doing the condenser, the A/C compressor was removed by a previous owner and a bypass pulley put in, but maybe next month I'll try to get the kit from rock auto which has the accumulator, compressor, and orifice tube, I would install everything but not hook it up and have a shop do a flush and the final hookups and then fill the system.

I pull the boots then remove the bracket from the block. Change all the wires and put it all back together. All from the top.

Did you verify the aux post is brass and not aluminum? 94s got mostly aluminum nuntil really late in the model year. It is a fire hazard and should be swapped.

Any 95 or 96 in a JY will have the brass post

my Buick has the brass post

Also anyone have the small mounting bolt for the rear bracket for the A/C compressor, as it turned out I had to have a shop do the job, as who ever pulled the compressor snapped off the bolts in the block, managed to get the bracket from a junkyard but they only included the bolts that hold the bracket to the compressor, the shop was only able to find a replacement for one of the bolts holding the bracket to the block, but I do have nice cold A/C, one of the techs put a thermometer in the vent and it got down to the 30's.

on another note I just recently got a 3d printer and now have a better looking plug for the hole in the intake tube other then the plain silver aluminum one. though first I made a test strip that I mounted where homeplate goes and had it there on a trip from Stevens Point Wisconsin, down to Milwaukee Wisconsin, I have a picture below of the plug

Like the logo in the air intake plug!

well I was thinking of offering to sell them to others here on the forum, I have the buick emblem, two different chevy emblems and I think I might have an impala emblem.

but so far I've only had the plug installed during the winter, and it hasn't gotten hot so the material is holding up perfectly fine, I have the black, a blue and a red filament that I can use for making the plugs, but with my 3d printer I can only do one color at a time, though I have been tempted to paint the black one to match the real emblem.

a small project I'm working on for my buick for a set of steel rally rims I pulled from my parents 88 suburban that seem to fit fine on my buick, so here's a pick of the center cap that attached to the rim.

not sure if I want to repaint the rim silver/grey or a matt black.

Wagon body color.

I've got a set of Vette style ralley wheels with flat caps ( no logos ) that I will be painting . I found some VHT wheel paint at AutoZone that's a close match to my car color .This is the first time using this stuff so I'll see how it holds up if not I'll have them powdercoated over the winter

I've got a set of Vette style ralley wheels with flat caps ( no logos ) and no trim rings that I will be painting . I found some VHT wheel paint at AutoZone that's a close match to my car color .This is the first time using this stuff so I'll see how it holds up if not I'll have them powdercoated over the winter

Wojtek wrote:

I've got a set of Vette style ralley wheels with flat caps ( no logos ) and no trim rings  that I will be painting . I found some VHT wheel paint at AutoZone that's a close match to my car color .This is the first time using this stuff so I'll see how it holds up if not I'll have them powdercoated over the winter

You must have similar to these, which are 17" aluminum rally wheels with generic flat caps that I put a logo into.  I have toyed with painting them with the bright silver of the car, but kind of like the gunmetal that came on them.

Rev Bob wrote:

Wagon body color.

my wagon is white with the wood grain, I was planning on getting tires with at least a thin white stripe on the sidewall if not a larger actual white wall

finally got started on doing some of the easy rust repair on the passenger side, starting with the worst which is on the rear passenger door.

And find out that my car might not be as original as I had first thought, as when I pulled the three pieces of trim off find that all the trim clips are held onto the door with screws and not the normal type rivets, I'll try to post pics so the rest of you all can see what I mean and what you guys thinks, sadly with the limited space I have for auto work in my garage I don't have a lot of confidence in trying to do proper repainting once I get the rust cleaned up, let alone getting new vinyl done and having it look good so that would most likely be a job waiting till I can afford to have it taken to a body shop and have them to the finishing.

I see lots of cracked body filler that has began to separate from the metal. Front edge looks like it is being pushed away buy rust/rot that has formed underneath it. Scary stuff.

Car has been wrecked by a previous owner and was poorly repaired. Rather than replace the studs and attach things properly they shoved some screws in there.

I had a 94 that was treated the same way in its original state of Michigan. Quarter panel was beaten no where near straight with a hammer and covered with Bobdo.

94Woody wrote:

I see lots of cracked body filler that has began to separate from the metal. Front edge looks like it is being pushed away buy rust/rot that has formed underneath it.   Scary stuff.

Car has been wrecked by a previous owner and was poorly repaired. Rather than replace the studs and attach things properly they shoved some screws in there.

I had a 94 that was treated the same way in its original state of Michigan. Quarter panel was beaten no where near straight with a hammer and covered with Bobdo.

I agree, that door repair doesn't look great. Maybe, remove the interior panel and look inside the door to get a better look at what damage was done. That might tell you if it's worth fixing or if you should look for a different door. Might want to check 1/4 panel and front door too, and make sure the damage doesn't go further than the rear door.

I had figured that the wood grain had already been redone on the passenger side at least, as on the front fender they used several pieces instead of one solid piece, well the rust spot you see under the trim holder in the bottom pic is the primary reason I started doing this, but now sadly to keep the car looking original will probably now mean even more money at a professional shop for not only smoothing all that crap out, putting new vinyl on, and also for repairing the well for the spare tire which has rusted through in numerous spots.

But I think this door might actually be a replacement not only because of the screws, but also the holes for the screws that hold the front and rear of the trim pieces some seem to be drilled multiple times, so I'm thinking this was either a brand new door put on at some point years ago, or a junkyard door off a non wood grain car.

well did a little but more work on it today and found what seems to be some of the original woodgrain under the new stuff, if you look on the last photo of the previous post that blackish strip keeps going but as I carefully peeled off the newer vinyl and body filler and paint it was adhered to it was revealed that the back strip is adhesive from the original vinyl that was at least partially left on.

probably wont be doing anything more in the garage until the end of the week when temps go back above freezing.

well I now sadly have a better idea as to why there is so much body filler, as I just removed the stainless steel trim on the rear passenger quarter and started taking care of some of the exposed rust and then ground through the body filler to find about a 5in long and maybe 3 in at it's tallest rust hole in the wheel arch, and I'm fairly certain that this is the reason for the body filler as there's drill holes in the metal near the hole that the body filler was forced through, I cleaned off most of the body filler from around most of the arch except right up by the door and so far this is the only real destructive rust on the arch.


who ever did this was a lazy hack though, as I'm finding more of the original vinyl woodgrain under the body filler.

Booster, I really like those wheels. I was imagining something similar for my car because I don't have much to do lately except play on the internet thingie. But there isn't much point to replacing the wheels unless I can go 17", and the budget isn't going to allow that. I, too, like the gunmetal but I wouldn't be averse to painting them body color (white in my case). My concern is (and I am not an engineer) that most similar wheels I've seen in 15" x 7" are rated at 1500 pounds. I assume they leave themselves massive room for error, and I don't even know if the load rating means what it sounds like, but a 2.5 ton car going around a sharp cloverleaf at high speed could put an awful lot of weight on the left fron wheel. Makes me think there is a lot I don't know about this.

finally got around to getting a couple of pics of the last cleanup I did on my buick

dwardo wrote:

Booster, I really like those wheels. I was imagining something similar for my car because I don't have much to do lately except play on the internet thingie. But there isn't much point to replacing the wheels unless I can go 17", and the budget isn't going to allow that. I, too, like the gunmetal but I wouldn't be averse to painting them body color (white in my case). My concern is (and I am not an engineer) that most similar wheels I've seen in 15" x 7" are rated at 1500 pounds. I assume they leave themselves massive room for error, and I don't even know if the load rating means what it sounds like, but a 2.5 ton car going around a sharp cloverleaf at high speed could put an awful lot of weight on the left fron wheel. Makes me think there is a lot I don't know about this.

I went through all of that same thing when I went looking. I don't hate the very common 5 spoke wheels we see so much of, but I wanted something different that matched the kind of theme of the care of being somewhat old school but covering many years of old. I also didn't want a lot of open area in the wheels with daily driver ugly suspension knuckles and brake drums showing. I also prefer hidden lug nuts. This are rated for the same or higher than the tire rating of the stock tires, I think they were about 1900#. Like you mention most don't go that high and are at 1500 including Torque Thrust IIRC. They also were not all the expensive compared to other wheels. It was a couple of years ago but they were $121 plus $20 for metal center. These are 17X7 Vision Wheel Rally wheels in aluminum. Centers are clones of 60s Corvette centers, I think, and say Power Disc Brakes instead of Corvette. The Buick center cap logo is a $5 for 4 aluminum center cap insert for some other Buick, maybe Lacrosse, and was just the right size. Stuck them on with silicone caulk.

Yep. I was looking at those. I did see a couple rated at 1900 or even higher and I'd be more comfortable with that. That said, if I ever dip my hand in piggy bank for wheels, weight will top the priority list. Even comparing custom wheel to custom wheel, it's easy to find a 10lb weight difference between the higher and the lower end of the scale. Rally wheels seem to mostly fall on the high end. I don't know how much our OEM alloy wheels weigh cuz I never weighed one, but they feel mighty heavy. If you change a tire on the Roadmonster and then change one on my Mercury Grand Marquis with OEM 16" alloys, your back will thank you! They are quite remarkably lighter. I would think losing 10 or more pounds at each wheel would make a difference you could feel. In some future ...

The lighter the unsprung weight vs sprung weight, the better the ride quality. Suspension arms are equal to half the weight of the arm.

Wheel weight certainly changes the unsprung weight a bit, with more benefit in the front I think because in the rear the wheel weight is small compared to the rear axle weight.

Load capacity requires more material, better materials, or better process in general so large capacity wheels get heavier. The 4500# rated ones for our one ton Express van are very heavy, especially in the steel versions.

Fat tires also have a better ride than the rubber bands on some big rims. Somewhere in the middle is the best handling. A wide rim will also get you better handling, but you give up some ride qualities.

Another hard to get part that will give you a better ride is a bias ply tire. The reason for that is; the bias ply tire cords are at an angle, and do not transmit the surface texture of the road to the wheel as efficiently as the vertical cords of a radial tire.

Yikes, those pictures are scary. Car is in pretty bad shape because the rot has spread on the panels underneath. Hence the reason they call this stuff Cancer. Previous owner had it covered with filler for a quick repair to save money.

Proper repair involves removing the quarter panel skin and removing any crusty/rotted metal underneath it all. That will require donor parts from a rust free car because NOTHING is available through aftermarket channels. One could get creative with some sheet metal but that takes a lot of time and money. Since you said you drive this car during a salt belt winter I would be going over the entire car before going any further.

How are the floors, body mount locations, etc?

Vehicles up here in the salt belt that are driven in the winter are consumable items - the sooner that one realizes and accepts that and only drive "keeper" cars between ~May and ~October, the better.

this is the only significant rust I have found other then the spare tire well, the car was originally from Florida, still has the dealer decal on the tailgate, and I have been under the car multiple time and no rust there.

and with me now being unemployed and fully reliant on my disability benefits I don't plan on driving much during the winter and I have some carwash cards stockpiled so even if I do take the car out in the winter after I get this fixed I can get it washed fairly easily.


but I also really hate giving up, that's why I still have my two trucks and havn't just either scrapped them or sold them.

more cleaning done, only rust is along the top of the wheel arch and the spare tire well

talked to a shop that would be willing to patch as long as I also provided a quarter panel they could cut the patches out of, so I put up a parts wanted ad for anyone who has some part cars sitting around.

goldwolfnhn wrote:

more cleaning done, only rust is along the top of the wheel arch and the spare tire well

talked to a shop that would be willing to patch as long as I also provided a quarter panel they could cut the patches out of, so I put up a parts wanted ad for anyone who has some part cars sitting around.

Try Buicknutt. He has a lot of parts cars.

apparently I should have done this sooner, reached out to buicknutt and he said he's scrapped them, and all the southern yards I've called either are pickup only or have crushed the cars they had

One of the local yards here banned power saws from the yard. I used to cut out panels, but I am getting a little old for that.

all the yards here by me in Stevens point have banned saws and the main one I went to back in Green Bay never allowed saws in, you wanted anything cut off you had to have the yard cut it off.

That's going to be a pretty tall order. These wagons are getting harder to find every day and I haven't seen one in a junk yard in years. used to find them being parted out on craigslist FB Marketplace but that has dried up as well.

Cars are getting so rare that I have lost count of the amount of random people that tell me that on a daily basis while I am driving mine.

I have seen two in the last six months. One was a real rustbucket, and the other I can not take a sawzall in the yard. It would be nice if I were about twenty years younger as well.

well, I put a part request in at car-part.com which sources parts from salvage yards and I know there where some yards in Florida, but even there the closest yard to me is still in Milwaukee that said they had a roadmaster, problem with that one would probably be the parts I need would probably be rusted out more than mine. so might have to wait till the old car meet nearby starts up again and ask some of the people there if they do any fabrication and see if they would be willing to help me fab some patch panels.

After the cost of the part, and shipping, it may be cheaper to have the panels made.

Would the top of the wheel well from a 91- 92 sedan be a close enough match?

It may well fit, or at least be close. The trim for the Caprice sedan and the wagon wheel opening are compatible with both. The sedan is narrower by about 1 inch on each side, so take as much as you can up to the pinch weld at the top of the wheelhouse, maybe a little extra. The center of the outside skin should be similar, but may have a little bow to it for the wagon. If it is similar enough the body guy should be able to manipulate it to fit with a skim coat of filler to make it perfect.

would the wheel wells be the same, as whoever did the original body work (looks like it had a minor side swipe) when they drilled the holes assumedly to use to pull the panel back out, they punched through the wheel well, that's why the inside of the wheel well has gotten rusty, because of the holes punched through it by a previous body repair.


also, if anyone has a good white door preferably with wood grain, I would be interested in that aswell, as the lower rust spot on my passenger rear door has turned out to be worse then I thought and that along with the problems where the new skin was not fully welded all the way across means it would be better to just replace the door then mess with this one.

I'm not sure what your goals are for this car, but sometimes you need to step back and figure out where to stop...I'm horrible at it

that's why my dually is going to be getting turned into a mad max/Deathrace build instead of my restoring it to factory due to how rusted out that truck has gotten.

my goal is to get it looking factory and keep it around as long as possible.

But with this car so far that's the worst, I know that the section that is still heavily dented could be smoothed out with body filler, again, but the rust needs new steel, and I think that rust is just because when someone did the dent repair they punched through the wheel well which allowed the inside to rust the way it has, so other than this quarter panel issue, the only other part I'm probably going to have to replace is the passenger fender so nowhere near as bad as my truck.

The door rust doesn't look terrible, but the ungodly amount of bondo may be hiding more.