The $450 2002 Park Avenue Ultra Experience

Using the improved intake gaskets will be a good selling point if you decide to sell it. The piece of mind is probably worth it as well, although the plastic ones will last a while. How long will you have the car?

81cpcamaro wrote: Using the improved intake gaskets will be a good selling point if you decide to sell it. The piece of mind is probably worth it as well, although the plastic ones will last a while. How long will you have the car?

Honestly, I haven't figured that out yet. There's also still the possibility that I'll pull the engine out to swap into the DeLorean at some point, in which case I'd definitely be wanting the improved gaskets as I'd be looking to make mods to bump up its power a bit. If I don't do that though, once it's back together and the other quibbles ironed out I'll have the car at least long enough to go through the DeLorean and make the repairs necessary to get it running properly. At that point (when the 'D could be used as my backup to my bike again- because by then the weather will be at a point where I should be able to be riding consistently again) it'll be a matter of deciding if I want to try selling it and finding a decent-condition running automatic convertible for us to drive over the summer, or just stick with the PAU and focus on finally getting the El Camino drivable.

The plastic one would last years. If you can reasonably return the aluminum one I would do that. Just my opinion. I doubt you'll drive this car long enough for the plastic gasket to fail.

If you see yourself falling in love with it and driving it for 100k miles then sure, use the aluminum gasket!

So, I dropped the heads off at the cylinder head shop over lunch- and surprisingly it sounds like he's not that busy and is going to get started on checking them out this afternoon and I should hopefully have them back by the end of the week. Which is rather nice- the sooner I can get the PAU back together and one the road the sooner I can get the D's issues resolved and be on to getting the El Camino FINALLY mobile. Which means I need to get going on cleaning up the rest of the parts so I can put it back together once I get the heads back.

dculberson wrote: The plastic one would last years. If you can reasonably return the aluminum one I would do that. Just my opinion. I doubt you'll drive this car long enough for the plastic gasket to fail. If you see yourself falling in love with it and driving it for 100k miles then sure, use the aluminum gasket!

Pretty much all of the parts I've ordered have come from Amazon, so as long as I've not opened the kit (which I haven't...) I can easily return it.

I don't see myself keeping the car for anywhere near that long barring something really unusual happening- it's nice and big, but we already have a SUV for things that need 'big' and since it requires Premium gas it's certainly not the most economical.

Now, the engine I might have for a while- I'm still up in the air on whether I want to pull it and try and swap it into the DeLorean once the Elky is done, in which case I'd definitely want the aluminum gaskets since I'd be trying to up the power output. It's why I'm being quite restrained and only really fixing what needs to be fixed to have the car usable and not fixing it up to the next level to try and sell for top dollar just yet.

The weather has for now held up (unfortunately it's supposed to turn cold and snow tonight- but it's also supposed to be back up into the 50s/60s this weekend... welcome to Kentucky...) so I was able to get a lot done out in the garage last night.

The rest of the parts of the engine besides the heads should now be ready to go back into the car. I cleaned off all of the gasket surfaces and anything else that needed it. Didn't go all-out and clean everything super-shiny since there's not a real point to it, but cleaned up anything that was gunked up and might make it work less than ideally.

The replacement vacuum 'harness' should be showing up at the local Buick dealership this morning and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up over lunch or after work. The shorter line that I had ordered should be here in a few days (that one can be put in after everything is installed since it's right on top), and the replacement vacuum tee that I broke should get here by the weekend.

The injectors were a right pain in the ass to get out of the rail to replace the O-rings. It was half tempting to just not bother since if they're holding on that tight they probably don't absolutely need the upper O-rings replaced. I eventually got all of them off and the rings replaced. Unfortunately the kit I have does not include the plastic retainer rings that hold the O-rings on the business-end of the injectors, but my reading online indicates that they're not really necessary. I did consider picking up the full refresh kit for the injectors which would include the new pintle rings & new filters for the injectors, but I decided that at this level of work on the engine I wasn't going to go that far.

I had been debating whether or not to replace the oil in the supercharger, but when I pulled the cap off and checked it the oil was still VERY clear and clean and there was plenty of it, so I figured that for now I'd not replace it. If I do decide to keep the engine and try and up the power on it though I will be refreshing the oil.

The last thing I decided to check was whether or not I had the right socket for pulling the axle nut off to replace the bearings- and it looks like I unfortunately do not. I have a 32mm and a 36mm- and of course the PAU's nut is apparently a 34mm. So, another late-night Amazon Smile order, and the socket should be here tomorrow. I considered just picking up the set of 5 sockets that Harbor Freight has, but given I already have 2 of them it makes more sense to me to just pick them up as I need them.

34mm socket came in and it was indeed the right size. Weather and time hasn't made it possible to get started on the hubs/bearings though.

Drove out over lunch and picked up the vacuum harness from the local Buick dealership. Kind of annoying to pay $25 for a whole new harness when I really just need one rubber vacuum tee in the middle, but it's probably smart to just have the whole new thing anyway so there's that much less chance of a vacuum leak.

Still nothing unfortunately from the cylinder head shop. Will probably call late tomorrow morning and check so if they're done I can head out and get them to try and get started putting the engine back together over the weekend.

Still nothing from the cylinder head shop, but it's something of a moot point- I headed out on Saturday to the junkyard and pulled two heads that I'm going to drop off over lunch for them to check over as well. If he has managed to track down replacement ones for me, great- I'll take those and get to putting the engine back together and have the ones I pulled checked over as potential spares or to turn around and sell (since they're kind of rare and about $200 refurbed).

Also picked up a few of the other parts I needed like the wiper motor (the motor itself on mine appears to be good, but the drive mechanism is broken), a new driver's multifunction switch & driver's door control module (for good measure) and a replacement climate control unit (the backlight on mine is shot and it's impossible to read).

If I can get the replacement heads today I'll get started on putting it back together this afternoon. If I have to wait for the new heads to be cleaned up, I'll start tackling the hubs/bearings. Am really hoping to have it back together and usable by the next week.

I'm taking it you didn't hear back on the heads?

In reply to Esoteric Nixon:

I didn't hear anything back from the shop but did hear what had happened when I dropped the heads off at the shop yesterday. The shop guy (it's a small shop run entirely by one guy- in some ways I'd actually think it would be an interesting job to have...) told me one of the places he gets parts from told him they had two sets of heads and he tried to get them when he went to get some other parts after he closed on Friday but when he got there he found that they weren't the right heads- they were for the non-SC 3800 (L34 I believe) and not the SC'd one that I have (L67). The L67 heads have the injectors in the heads themselves instead of the intake so they're not interchangeable. So, it worked out well that I had went ahead and gotten the other set.

Hopefully I'll hear back from him today about whether the pair I pulled are good or not. If they are also unusable... I'm probably just going to bite the bullet and order a set of refurbed heads instead of having to take another full morning and a tank of gas + $50/head to try and pull them from another junkyard car (though there are 3 more cars with that engine in the yard I got the most recent ones from) that might also be unusable.

I did get the front hubs/wheel bearings replaced yesterday evening and as a bonus was able to install the replacement wiper motor too. Now I just need cylinder heads to start putting the engine back together again...

Dropped the heads off on Monday and still haven't heard anything back on them either way. Debating whether to call and pester the guy in an hour or so since if I don't need to drive down tomorrow and pick them up over lunch I'll likely ride my bike since the weather is nice. Really hope they're done and passed though so I can get started tomorrow afternoon on putting it all back together.

Finally heard back about the most recent heads. They're not cracked, but the heads had water sitting in them for a while and the valves are badly pitted. Thankfully the valves in the original heads are good, but using them will mean a full valve job. Once this is done, the heads will have been effectively remanufactured- and unfortunately will also have cost about the same as just ordering a set of reman heads from the get-go.

I'll hopefully have the heads back on Wednesday and be able to get going on putting it back together.

Well, I finally heard back from the cylinder head shop, and barring a miracle of figuring out how to retrieve them from across town when I rode my bike in (and I have 4 heads total to pick up, the 2 good ones and the cracked ones to use as cores/porting practice...) to work today, I'll have them back tomorrow and able to start putting the engine back together. Unfortunately, starting tomorrow evening the weather is supposed to head downhill, so Saturday and Sunday may well suck for working outside- but I intend to get done what I can.

Yesterday afternoon I got sick of breathing bondo dust from grinding on the El Camino so I decided to tackle a few of the small things on the PAU. I had discovered a few days ago that the likely problem with all the switches on the driver's door was the simplest: the door skin harness with all the switches wasn't hooked up to the door harness, so of course none would work. I got it hooked up and the door reinstalled so hopefully it will work now. Unfortunately if so it means I bought the control module and window switch for nothing, but I may be able to return them to the salvage yard- or test and confirm they work and put them up on eBay.

I also pulled the dash apart to take care of a few things. I replaced the climate control module with the junkyard one- hopefully the 'new' one's LCD and backlight behave better than the original one. I was also able to pull out the instrument cluster and get the front cover off to (hopefully) fix the two wonky gauges- the temp gauge I just flipped the needle around to where it likely should be, and put the needle back on the fuel gauge. We'll see once the car is back together and I power it back up if all of what I did works or not. If not... honestly as long as I can get the driver's window to roll down I'm not too concerned with the rest of it since it's more and more looking like I will be stealing the car's L67 engine to use in the DeLorean and will be getting rid of the rest of the car (unless it's easy to drop a L34 non-SC 3800 right in and I can do that quickly and cheaply enough to be make it worth the time it would take worthwhile in being able to sell it as a drivable car...).

It's amazing what you can do when you take a nice afternoon off and have about 6 hours straight to work a car. Honestly if I'd wanted to I could have gotten it completely back together but it was getting dark and I wanted to have it light out to look everything over before trying to start it up again. At this point the only things left to install are the fuel rail, alternator, and belts. Which means I should be done tomorrow morning.

Well, the engine is back together and running. The only issue that I can find is that there is a noise coming from one of the belts/pulleys and I've not been able to track down exactly what it is. I have a suspicion that it's the power steering since it seemed to be acting a bit weird, but I'm not 100% certain- I need to pull the supercharger belt first and see if that makes the noise go away, and then keep trying track the noise down.

The driver's door switches are now working- but unfortunately it seems that the driver's door window regulator is shot since everything works except for that. While I'm very seriously looking at pulling the motor for the DMC, I will need to drive this for a few months while I get the El Camino streetable, and not being able to roll down the driver's window is a definite problem, so it's worth the $30 or so to replace the regulator and have a working window.

Other than that, I think I can live with it as it is (though I do still need to clean the interior out).

So, I got a bit into trying to fix some of the remaining issues.

The good news is that the belt noise is now gone- you see, the belt routing diagram is missing from the PAU and I had managed to hook the supercharger drive belt up wrong (but yet in a way that still worked, just that it rubbed the water pump pulley...) -_-;

With the belt routed properly it runs much quieter. It still sounds like the power steering is working a lot harder than it should when sitting still, but I'm not planning on worrying about it because I've come to one overwhelming conclusion...

berkeley this car.

Don't get me wrong, I love the engine and am still pretty solidly convinced that it is what I will be using to swap into the DeLorean- but the car itself can go take a flying leap. Not necessarily all Park Avenues... just this one.

I got into trying to get the driver's window working. Turns out the regulator does work, but the window binds up in the tracks- and broke one of the clips that holds the glass to the regulator. $10 and a new one is on its way- I can NOT do without that window rolling down both for comfort and the fact I have to park in a parking garage at work. The switch itself doesn't seem to work though, so I still need to figure out what exactly is the deal there- whether it wasn't doing anything because of it binding (I was putting power directly to the motor from a spare battery to test it).

The right side axle definitely needs to be replaced. I'm planning on ignoring this as well- it still drives with it and is just annoying when the wheel is turned to lock in one direction or another. None of the cigarette lighters work- and I can't find any problems with the fuses (which are also really berking annoying- there are TWO interior fuse panels and BOTH require taking parts of the car apart to get to...) that would cause it. This is annoying because I can't use my bluetooth FM transmitter to connect my phone up easily- I have to use an ancient tape adapter. The interior lights also don't seem to work for some reason. Despite replacing the climate control unit with one from a junkyard, the new one's backlight has also apparently decided it doesn't need to work so I'm having to guess at what it's set to. I still have no idea why the rear defroster isn't working- but I expect it won't be a problem for a while.

At least I now have the wipers working, so by and large I should be able to drive it pretty much any time I need to.

But I'm now pretty solidly decided that I'm going to drive it until the El Camino is usable for basic transportation and then will pull the engine and get rid of the car itself somehow or another.

For now though, it's functional and I can drive it around- I'm just going to be doing my best to put no more money into it beyond perhaps making some of the power upgrades I'll want on the DMC while it's still in the PAU- perhaps including switching over to running it with a Megasquirt.

Sorry it hasn't been a smooth experience. $450 doesn't get you much car these days!!

dculberson wrote: Sorry it hasn't been a smooth experience. $450 doesn't get you much car these days!!

Eh, it doesn't bother me that much. I went into this pretty much thinking that I would just be interested in it for the engine so I'm just back to where I started plan-wise. It would be nice if it were in better shape to drive around for the next few months while I get the Elky on the road, but it will work well enough for the time being. Just gives me more incentive to not drag my feet on the Elky.

I ran across this, thought of you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABqeibY3XSI

Aaaand, the damn thing threw the supercharger belt on the drive in to work. Still drivable without it, but obviously lacking a lot of power. Have to figure out exactly why it threw it- could be that the belt was just worn out and stretched (I did re-use the old belt), but will have to check the tensioner and idlers to make sure they're not off alignment so it's not constantly eating belts...

interior lights, cig lighter, climate backlight, and possibly rear defrost are probably all related.

A friend in HS had a blazer that when I accidentally fried the cig lighter popped a fuse. The fuse was not in any fuse panel though, it ended up being ON THE BACK OF THE RADIO.

You also may have like a "convenience" or "interior" or "comfort" relay (these are usually up under the dashboard) that isn't clicking on and that is your problem. Come to think of it, your driver's window may have auto down or up and it may be tied to that same relay while the other windows are not.

Took a few minutes over lunch and went down and looked over the pulleys for the S/C system. All of them spin, but the lower smooth idler pulley definitely has a lot more resistance to it than the others. I'm also kind of curious if the front idler (the only grooved one) isn't slightly off alignment, but it's hard to tell without a belt on it.

It looks like most Advance stores have the replacement pulley for not too much more than Amazon or RockAuto, I'll probably pick it up and replace it before I put the new belt on.

Robbie wrote: interior lights, cig lighter, climate backlight, and possibly rear defrost are probably all related. A friend in HS had a blazer that when I accidentally fried the cig lighter popped a fuse. The fuse was not in any fuse panel though, it ended up being ON THE BACK OF THE RADIO. You also may have like a "convenience" or "interior" or "comfort" relay (these are usually up under the dashboard) that isn't clicking on and that is your problem. Come to think of it, your driver's window may have auto down or up and it may be tied to that same relay while the other windows are not.

I'll keep that in mind, I need to look up the schematics in the repair manual and see if I can figure out what might be causing it- though honestly as long as I can get the driver's window working I'm not too worried about the rest.

Ashyukun wrote: None of the cigarette lighters work- and I can't find any problems with the fuses (which are *also* really berking annoying- there are TWO interior fuse panels and BOTH require taking parts of the car apart to get to...)

Do you have an owners manual for the car? My wife had a 2000 LeSabre. The fuse for the cigarette lighter was in the fuse box under the hood.

But more importantly, the fuse was a two position deal like this: - - - If the fuse was in the right two sockets the lighter was hot all the time. If it was in the left two sockets the lighter was hot only when the key was On or ACC.

Hal wrote:

Ashyukun wrote: None of the cigarette lighters work- and I can't find any problems with the fuses (which are *also* really berking annoying- there are TWO interior fuse panels and BOTH require taking parts of the car apart to get to...)

Do you have an owners manual for the car? My wife had a 2000 LeSabre. The fuse for the cigarette lighter was in the fuse box under the hood. But more importantly, the fuse was a two position deal like this: - - - If the fuse was in the right two sockets the lighter was hot all the time. If it was in the left two sockets the lighter was hot only when the key was On or ACC.

The car didn't come with the owner's manual. I'd be shocked if the previous owner even knew what an owner's manual was.

Interesting about the fuse- I'll have to look into that again. Though if it is the case for mine, it would appear at the moment that it's in the 'hot only when car is on fire' position...