Living with my "dream car", the revolving door of Buick problems.

Thank you!

I had to make my own power steering pulley installer.  This was a bit tricky because I couldn't confirm the threads in the rusty shaft, nor could I obtain a long enough bolt.  Plus the ID of the pulley got painted so this became a long but successful process.

Upside down flange nut was perfect to get the pulley started.

Once the pulley was started, I had room to use a spacer (big nut) and a washer.

With that method maxed out, I could turn this into a real install tool.

It took some muscles, but it's all the way on.

I plan to buy some ARP bolts to replace the ones holding the pump to the bracket.  I may have failed to mention that I'm replacing a lot of hardware on this engine.  Ever since I found allensfasteners.com I've been going ham.  There are stainless bolt kits available for stuff like the timing cover, but they're all cheap socket heads with washers and very expensive.  Something about replacing a nice flange head bolt with socket heads and washers doesn't sit well with me.  Allen's sells individual ARP bolts in a ton of sizes so I have a bunch of random rusty bolts getting replaced with bling for cheap!

For instance, the crank pulley which I decided to drill and tap to the next largest size is now held on with ARP!

water pump pulley

The coil bracket bolts and random intake bolts that aren't included in the kit were also upgraded.  I'd like to do the water pump and timing cover, but that might be a bit tricky to do with their head sizes.  Socket heads or stock may be the only way to go there.

I am going to try restoring this old AC compressor.  I want to Highway Stars and found reproduction stickers so I'm cool with stripping this down, repainting, and reinstalling it with a new clutch and pulley.  Is this painting stuff starting to sound repetitive?  It certainly FEELS repetitive!

It looks like the factory didn't even put the stickers on straight so there should be very little pressure when I have to do it later.

But now you see it's ugliness.  No way am I putting this thing back on as-is.

I cannot believe I just did that.  Talk about scope creep!  Remember how this all started with a blown turbo..... JUST a blown turbo!  Oh well.  It's fine.  It feels really good to (hopefully) be fixing all the minor annoyances that together reminded me that this car is old, tired, and hurt.  Replacing the compressor clutch would mean that every accessory (including tensioner) has been replaced or rebuilt with new bearing except for the power steering pump.

Why am I thinking about this?  The car developed this goofy chirp over the summer which I've been unable to track.  It goes away when I remove the belt, but WD-40 doesn't help.  It goes away once the car has been driving around for a few minutes, it's a pretty embarrassing sound for the car to be making when rolling in or out of a show.  Hopefully this clutch job does it because I really doubt that the PS pump has anything to do with it.  I can't get a great video, but the AC pulley does not feel the greatest.  I've even experienced it randomly get stuck and bounce the other way when I spin it by hand.  Perhaps that gets translated to a chirp at speed and under tension?  I guess we'll find out.  I found a compressor clutch puller kit on ebay which specifically advertises R4 compatibility.  I should see that soon.

The steering shaft is reinstalled after repainting the part that gets beat with a hammer. lol  I'm getting impatient, so I probably won't touch that up.

I probably won't get any meaningful progress done tonight because the garage is a disaster, and the Buick club folks come tomorrow!  I'm super nervous about scratching this thing.

I knew the day would come, but the engine being in my car still doesn't feel real.  What a journey this has been!  It's far from over either.

In goes the new converter with a quart of fluid.

and in goes the engine.  Thanks to one of my helpers, I managed to get a few good pics at unsuspecting times. lol

This thing required a lot of wrestling.  Who would've thought that dropping a V6 in a G-body would be so dang tight?

We ended up pulling the engine out and starting over twice.  The hot ticket was removing the passenger side mount, getting everything lined up with the driver side and bell housing, then sliding the passenger side mount back in.  I'm super grateful for my friends in the Buick club for helping me with this.  Without them, I think the engine would still not be bolted in right.

With that done I can start thrashing on a lot of other things.  My new AC condenser arrived early, so I wanted to check that out first.

As you can see, it doesn't fit!  So much for drop-in replacement.  Below you can see the difference with the lines.

I'm no stranger to bending hard lines though.  I can make this clear the core support.... but not without minor consequences.

Yep!  No problem.  Despite the shorter/thinner core and goofy mounting fingers, this thing fits in the stock mounts pretty nicely.  The build quality is garbage compared to original.  Honestly doing this "upgrade" feels like replacing a brass radiator with a plastic tank unit, but if it brings my AC temps down, it'll be worth it.  Besides, I won't see it once the radiator is in.  Despite the overall smaller core, the surface area of the tubes in the new core is much higher.  This piece should exchange heat a lot better.

Since I know it'll fit, I guess it's worth keeping and trying to make it actually work.  Lucky for me the original liquid line is already S-shaped.  This should be easy!

Assuming the other line fits, I'd say this was an easy conversion.  Like the original condenser, I am going to lightly spritz the front of it with black paint.  I will of course be careful not to overdo it though.

Before that though, I need to spruce up the radiator.

It took a while to find this.  I was only able to find a can on Amazon, but I finally got some cast iron colored high temp VHT!  I'm super happy with the look.

With an engine and a whole bunch of loose parts out of my way, I decided to move inside.

This was such a pain.  I kinda remember the booster rod being a pain to install on the pedal, but I also had to replace the entire pedal when I did the conversion... It certainly wasn't easy to remove.  I guess good luck to me, when I need to install the new booster.

Also.... ew.  I wasn't quite expecting that, but I probably should have.  The firewall gasket was just a thin piece of paper. I have a new foam one coming int he mail.

That's better.

I know this is such a minor detail to most people but I'm super excited about it.  This firewall has always been such an eyesore for me.  The grommet never fit right because the alky injection wires stretched it to far, the white boost reference line stuck out, and there was a random yellow zinc coated bar that looked original but I never understood its purpose.  I fixed the two most important ones to me.   The grommet pops right in, and found that the yellow zinc bar is a harness holder!  The clip had been hidden this whole time.  I have some black loom I'm going to use to wrap the boost reference.  That should make me fully satiusfied with the look of this area.

While I'm waiting for the firewall gasket, I'm moving on to other things.  Chip time!

I don't remember asking for any extra boost, but it looks like I'm going to get it!  I'm so excited!

Now for more boring things that need paint.  Compressor clutch needed to come off so that I can paint the housing and replace the pulley.

Most of the original paint flew off with compressed air.

Now I wait for the Four Seasons clutch kit to arrive.

As usual, I'll keep stripping and repainting stuff while I wait.

The new AC accumulator came, but like all the others it was bare aluminum.  Originals were black.  Last time, I paid over $100 for a powder coated accumulator.  It looked spectacular, but a $30 paint-it-myself unit seems like a wiser move.  You can't tell from the picture, but the condenser is painted on the front too.  We don't want to see anything shiney through the grill.

Yep, this dingus is actually tearing MORE stuff apart.  I love this GNS radiator support in terms of fit, looks, and function.  However, I hate it for the sounds it makes any time I shut the hood or hit a bump in the road.  It's thin aluminum held together with screws.  The original was plastic zip-tied together.  I'm sure you can image the rattle this makes like dropping a hammer on a building's HVAC duct.

One of the buddies who helped me install the engine sent me a few sheets of sound deadener.  I figure that stuff will fix it.

Home stretch!  I made a few orders for odds and ends today.  I do not foresee needing to buy much else other than some more nuts and bolts to finish the entire project.  This is good because I challenged my goal a little bit this morning.  Almost exactly a month prior to the GS Nationals is another local car show featuring the mobile dyno.  How cool would it be to get this thing going in time to retrieve some power numbers?  That gives me only a month and a half to get this thing back on the road and ready to rip.  We'll see.  I have a feeling it will come down to how quickly I can receive the fuel pump I've been waiting on since November.  It may be out of my hands.

I haven't tried slamming the hood yet, but I don't think noise from the box will be noticeable anymore.  The tinny noise I usually hear can't even be recreated.

https://youtu.be/bbGZHTDbmvQ

Installing the compressor clutch was an adventure.  There are supposed to be some extra installation tools, but a punch and hammer works too.

Installing the clutch itself was the tricky part because you don't set the depth with shims.  You just have to know when to step pressing or begin pulling again.  I think i switched from pressing to pulling three times before finally nailing it.

Then I found out that I failed and clocked the magnet about 10 degrees too close to the compressor bracket hole.   I took all the parts off again, scratched up the brand new paint, and started over.  The touch ups did not want to stick either, so that took a bunch of extra time to correct.  I'll spare you from reading about the redone steps.  Just know that you'll want to take good notes about how to clock the magnet on an R4 compressor.  I think the paint turned out nicer the second time around anyway.

On to better news!  The new vacuum booster is installed for good!

Being under the dash where your feet are supposed to go blows, but forcing a 5/16" hose onto an 11/32" plastic booster check valve was a lot worse.  Obviously chucking a plastic part in the vise is not possible if you don't want bite marks.  Freezing the check valve and heating the hose didn't help.  I actually ended up drilling the hose hose out which worked a lot better than expected.  It's still very tight, but I supposed that just ensures that I won't have any issues when the hose is boosted to 25 psi. 

So here's some fun news.  Almost immediately after I made the last post, I found out that a have a package on the way from Racetronix!  I'm trying not to get too excited and start rushing things together, but I am PUMPED and ready to run this thing!  I am planning to start draining the tank of 93 and start routing the larger return line very soon.

Wow.  Sorry for abandoning the thread.  I don't think there's anyway I can accurately catch you all up to the same degree of detail as before without missing a few heartbreak and epic success stories, but I'll try to give you the cliff notes.

I replaced as many of the rusty/pitted intake fittings with coated aluminum as I could find.

The cam sensors on these turbo Buicks are just modified distributors, so the timing needs to be set appropriately.  It requires a special tool but Caspers makes one with very detailed instructions. 

With that set I was ready to start putting more parts back on the car.  I was also continuing to discover that those parts were no longer up to the same quality as the rest of the rebuild, so the work kept piling up!  Here's my radiator hold down plate equipped with factory paint markings, rust, faded paint, and damaged stickers.

I think this was where the Powermaster recall sticker used to be.  I guess the previous owner thought it looked bad.

I couldn't have such a nice looking engine bay with this big eyesore in front of it.

Let me tell you, this piece did not want to cooperate with the chassis paint.  It fish eyed, orange peeled, and ran like crazy.  It got to a point where I thought about buying a fiberglass reproduction part, but I ultimately settled with "good enough for now." 

I had some reproduction warning stickers to put back into place, but I decided to hold off.  I didn't want to affix those until I was happy with the surface.  There was also a solid chance that I would like it better without.

New oil cooler and radiator hoses

I've been hoarding this intercooler up pipe since I decided to drill a hole in the original for an alky nozzle.  The inside was coated in carbon and outside was covered in rust, scratches, and residue from old rubber couplings.  At least it was free of holes!  The best part is that it's grainy stainless, so it should clean up pretty easily!  Here's after a solvent bath.

Here's after aggressive scotch brite.

And here's after.  This will look perfect!

'

Spoiler:  It's going to take me a while to get through all these pictures from over 6 months ago, but I'll tease you with the fact that this restoration is already a big success!  Stick around if your interested in how I get there.

The new AC accumulator came, but like all the others it was bare aluminum.  Originals were black.  Last time, I paid over $100 for a powder coated accumulator.  It looked spectacular, but a $30 paint-it-myself unit seems like a wiser move.  You can't tell from the picture, but the condenser is painted on the front too.  We don't want to see anything shiney through the grill.

 

I KNOW I am reaching WAY back in the thread but what paint did you use for the accumulator? Im about to replace mine and hate the bare aluminum but have read before painting it with the wrong paint can impact its effectiveness (could be wrong, not an AC guy nor am I going too far down that rabbit hole)

In reply to anger_enginering :

I used Duplicolor DE1635 and heated it with a heat gun because it's a great match to original.  Don't sweat painting the accumulator.  All the heat transferring happens at the evaporator and condenser, so you can paint and insulate all the other parts as much as you like without consequence.

It is still common to paint the condenser so that it looks factory, but a thick layer of paint will hurt the heat transfer.  I spritzed over mine with a coat that's thin enough to darken the material, but it's not a complete coating which is probably about perfect.  I hope that makes sense.

Wow, some nice work going on here!

This was an exciting, but very frustrating time.  For how visible the turbo is on this engine, it is far from being easy to install.  Most of the issues involve the corrugated drain pipe.

At the time, I was very excited to make more progress but couldn't without a gasket.  Apparently I forgot to order one, so I decided to make my own.  A bunch of guys on the forums said a cereal box, so I traced it out on paper with a crayon.

Then cut it out and used it as a template for the "real thing"

Then things started to get ugly.  I screwed up installing the drain on the block side because the flange is a perfect 90 degrees off.  Oops.  I really didn't want to go back and fix it because Buick things!  I would have to remove the heater hose, heater pipe, fuel return line, thermostat housing and cam sensor to gain adequate wrenching access.  I decide to just twist the pipe a little because it was sorta meant to do that.

By the way, it's still REALLY tough to install this turbo on the drain flange with original bolts.  I'm really curious how the factory did it!  Anyway, this was the ugly result.  Lots of twists but all still downhill.  In theory, this should have worked fine.

Moving on to some more fun!

I don't remember how much I had talked about this downpipe in the past, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating information.  I have LOVED this downpipe since the day I bought this car.  As far as I know it's the only factory style down pipe with custom cast iron elbow that was ever made.  While the all tubular single-piece down pipes are arguably prettier and proven to flow more, this one doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.  The catch is that the company who made them has been out of business since the 90s or early 2000s because of their poor business practices.  Those who got their downpipes were lucky.  Those who who held onto it and kept it from rusting away are very few and far between. 

This downpipe is a great match for my mildly upgraded GN.  The stock downpipe is trash, but I don't want a shiny stainless part that requires me to cut the turbo shield and ruin the factory appearance of the engine bay.  SO!  Let's see how badly it can let me down.  First, we're going to bolt it on with a thin layer of RTV.  Gaskets are available, but not recommended due to the waste gate puck being attached to the elbow.  Thanks again GM!  Spacing this out means it needs to be readjusted.  That's no biggy, but the good gaskets have too much give that will cause the puck to leak intermittently.  No thanks.  RTV it is!

I remember taking this picture and loving how slick everything looked with the new hardware, but it was already obvious how much work I had ahead of me.  If it weren't for having a little understanding of fasteners and how things are supposed to fit, I'd be done like the last guy who put this on.  My standards are higher though.

First of all, look at the casting in relation to the bolt heads!  Second of all the bottommost and most critical fastener (not pictured) is not in its home.  Third, I stripped the turbo.  It wasn't really my fault because of how corroded this area was before I had it rebuilt, but it didn't change the fact that repairs were needed. I thought about heli-coiling the turbo, but I just up-sized the bolt which is usually my preferred course of action if I nobody can see that it doesn't match.

The turbo didn't need to come off because I had access to the back side of the hole through the unused external waste gate provision on this aftermarket turbo.  Cool!

Here's where a stud comes out and nut is supposed to clamp the elbow.

Now I know why the previous owner didn't have a nut here!  If he ever put one on, it was not making much contact with the part.  Some grinding with the burr bits should work.  Good thing the casting is thick.

Here's a test fit after I was able to get a nut on the new stainless stud for the first time.  It took a lot more grinding than expected to get the nut to capture a flat(ish) surface.

In true Buick fashion, this is not an easy nut to access even on a factory elbow, but this bigger part made getting my wrench in impossible.... or so I thought.

Never throw away hand tools!  Those junky wrenches with less material can come in handy!  I would not have been comfortable grinding the elbow any further to fit the Snap-on wrench, so I'll just have to whip out the old Craftsman from now on! 

With the elbow installed nicely, I can sit back and enjoy the new view.

Cleaning little parts like this gets really time consuming, but the reward is so worth it.

You may notice that the turbo shield bracket is very blue.  I don't know what happened there other than I must have gotten a bad can of paint.  This eventually got repainted.

The valve cover breather filter made a comeback on this car.  It was on there when I bought the car, but put a stock breather back on to stop the mess.  The aftermarket turbo doesn't have provisions for stock breathers which is fine.  I won't have to worry about oiling down the intercooler again.

By this time, I had to bring the Camaro home from storage because it was the donor for the GNs injectors!  Siemens Deka 80#

One thing I was adamant about fixing in this restoration was the white boost gauge hose.  I didn't want to get rid of the boost gauge, but the white nylon reference hose looked terrible and there was no black equivalent which I could find.  Then I found something even better.

I tried reinstalling the tube and noticed that the hose was all worn out and needed to be replaced.  This gave me an idea.  Let's embrace it!

I slid the next size up hose over the tube and sized the length perfectly to butt against the firewall grommet and the actual connection hose.  It looks very at home now in this factory mess of rubber vacuum hoses!  I wish I had thought of doing that years ago.

I had tried to recharge my AC system a couple times but never quite got the vacuum to hold steady.  I built an adapter to hook shop air to the system so that I could listen for leaks which worked flawlessly.  I could hear air gushing from the always problematic compressor fitting.  It turns out that my new orings were too skinny.  That's my fault!

Much better!

That fixed it.

It's the expensive wrenches that have less material.  You need higher quality steel to have enough strength.

That is why people willingly spend $600 for hand wrenches.