I've made the leap from wagon lurker to wagon owner

I'm a big fan of stock vehicles but I'm thinking that I may deviate in some small ways with the Roadmaster. I've been looking at many of the mods, repairs, and improvements that Stewart has done over at http://www.roadmonster.org and reading threads on ImpalaSS sites and forums. While I don't want the car to be radically different from stock, I do want to make a few changes to make the car my own. I thought I would start with the intake system on the LT1 and I have been doing lots of reading in order to start the improvements next year. I figured removing the home plate from the LT1 was a good place to start and I would just "hockey puck" the intake to feel like I've done something until I decide what other changes I want for the car. While the cost benefit of the hockey puck makes sense, it just didn't feel right doing something like that to the car. I found this little goodie on eBay and just had to have one.


I'm loving the slight change in the exhaust sound and I think, if such a thing is possible, that I enjoy driving the wagon even more now.

 

Those are really nice wheel covers, I wouldn't mind a set on my Caprice.

 

i just caught up with this thread here now,.
you now have 4400+ in your car,. i would,ve sold you my black flame car for 5000 certified and emissions tested,.As for your car passing the tests after the egr passages cleaned out,. well thats interesting,. egr on an lt1 is a pipe from the pass manifold right to the intake,. i,d be interested to see what they "cleaned" but i,m glad it worked out for you,.
The long roof forum is where you should be asking your questions etc,.
the drains for the rear wheel well are visible from underneath the car,. take a popsicle stick and push it up into the slots right at the bottom of the fender on the outside ALL wagons have drains on BOTH sides,.
leak is likely from the roof rack down,.
a mechanical fan will tell you it has 2:93's for the tow pac,. twin electric fans are 2:56's,.
i have some decent program files for the ecm too,.you can swap my old 94 ogrotmrr's ecm and see how you like it, and i'll load a better file in yours,.
not sure what the problem is with an lt1 in the snow?? i drove one in the snow for 6 years,.i still have 2-3 parts cars,. but none with your color interior,. you could have come and got a sway bar for free if you pulled it yourself,.and its not a necessary item for the safety,. neither is the rad,. but as long as you are happy,.
I know full well what you went thru regarding the safety blitz that ontario is famous for,. more of a revenue generation than anything about safety,.
the emissions guy was/is dead wrong,. temp plates are good for 10 days,.and are issued regardless of the status with emissions or safety,.
I brought my dually back from boston,. crossed the border at 3:am,. stopped in mississagua for breakfast with freinds,. then got a ticket from an OPP for no yellow sticker,.jeeezuz! the truck wasn't even plated yet and had only been in the country for 6hrs,.
they dropped the charge in court,. but the OPP robot had been programmed (that week) to be on the look out for 1 ton trucks without the yellow sticker,.and my circumstances meant diddley squat to him,.


Nick

 

I'm familiar with Stewart's Roadmonster from his old posts on ImpalaSS forum. That's a nice vehicle to use as a benchmark. I like how most (if not all) of his mods appear as if the factory would have done it.

 

I remember looking at your black wagon a while back when you mentioned it to me in a thread. I wasn't sure if I understood you correctly about selling it and when I inquired I didn't hear back from you so I figured that I must have misunderstood. I didn't have the money at the time anyway, so I didn't bother to PM you about it. I had read some of your frustrated posts on either GMLongRoof or Buickforums as well, back when it was giving you trouble and I thought maybe it might be wiser for me to find my own albatross. For a while there, it was looking very much like I succeeded. Only time will tell I guess.

It hadn't occurred to me that you would have had a sway bar or a rad on your wagon farm. To be honest, even though you're not too far from me, I don't know you well enough to feel comfortable even posing the question. I realize that it might not be a big deal, I'm just weird that way. I knew that neither they rad nor sway bar were required for the safety, but once I got it into the shop, I just decided to go ahead with the repairs and get it all done. I'm not even a mediocre amateur mechanic at this point so I figured, with winter coming on, the more I could get done in the shop the better.

A lot of people that I've spoken to agree with you that the MoE officer was totally in the wrong. I'm not certain what would have possessed him to issue the ticket. He was a 10 year veteran and the newspaper reported that during the entire blitz he only issued 4 tickets. Maybe he was just looking to get a morning off to sit in a courtroom or was making the Saturday spent sitting in the car more worthwhile. I suppose it all worked out for the best in the end with out too much inconvenience for me so I can't complain too much.

 

actually the 'Albatross has behaved itself and truned out to be a reliable car,. i think the threat of making the flames 'real' smartened it up,
we took it on a couple of long trips this year, and it worked great, i finally got the ecm tuned right, shift points etc,.and it pulled a respectable 22mpg avg on the way to portsmouth NH and back,.me the wife and small ones and not really trying for fuel mileage,.
Don't be shy, if i can give you something you need, you can trade for tim hortons coffee cards,. Everybody is a mediocre mechanic when they start, you are usually defined as a mechanic by how much stuff you screw up then have to fix that wasn't in the original job ,
Glad you got an LT1 car,. it makes owning a wagon fun, but like everything else, cars, wives girlfreinds etc,. its only amatter of time before it'll give you aggravation right out of the blue just when you thought things were going smoothly,.:banghead3:
My pal Bill is the guy in cambridge, with the wheels,. he owns the SS thats cloned out as an olds and he races the car on the weekends in autocross, has a cult following, there's something cool about a 4750lb big black "race car complete with roll cage, slicks, 13" brakes and 10:1 steering ratio,.etc,. that brings a smile to people.
he does repairs on cars and he's priced right and has plenty of experience with b-bodies,.he fabbed up the front hubs for my c5 13" 4 piston brakes,., sells new tires too,.
pm me for his phone number,.

nick

 

We're in the midst of an unseasonably warm stretch this week. The temperature got high enough today to clear all of the ice and snow off of the driveway and we're down to clean asphalt. I didn't notice before but there are a number of yellow spots scattered around the driveway. The spots consist of a thick yellow greasy sludge that's quite oily. I have a grade to my driveway and I generally back in with the tailgate up by my garage door. For the last few days I've been pulling the car nose up to the garage door. The spots are at the top and bottom of the driveway so I'm not entirely sure where they're coming from. I backed the car out of the driveway and hosed it all down so I can have a look for fresh spots in the morning.

I've noticed over the last while that the transmission kicks a little bit when shifting and I've planned a replace/rebuild but was hoping it could wait a while. Looks like my schedule may be adjusted slightly for me.

 

Cyber - when I can't find a leak I put a piece of clean cardboard under the car. It is pretty easy to see where the leak(s) are after it has been sitting like that for a while. To keep the cardboard in place I make sure a piece is under one of the wheels so it can't blow around.

 

Yeah, that's my plan for tomorrow night now that the driveway is clean and I have a fresh start. Since there were spots at the top and bottom of the drive, I didn't know where to put the cardboard and an 18'x6' piece of cardboard seemed like overkill. I should have at least a few drops by morning and I'll know where to start looking.

 

I haven't figured out yet why it's yellow, but from the look of where the leak is coming from, I think it's oil. I forgot to have the oil changed after I ran the Seafoam through it. Anyone know if Seafoam discolours the oil? It looks fine on the dipstick.

The transmission was acting a little funny when I got to my parking spot this morning. When I shifted into reverse it hesitated before backing up. I moved it forward and backward and even took a few 3 point turns around the lot and it was very consistent. When I got to my office i called the local Mister Transmission and booked the car in for a looksee. They took it in an hour later and the car behaved perfectly on the drive over as well as during the mechanics test run.

They dropped the pan and had a look. It seems that the seller must have changed the fluid before selling because it was clean as a whistle. The pan, however, was littered with shavings. They're looking it over now to ensure that they know where it's coming from and they'll call me back. I asked about parts that might be superior to OEM as this really isn't something that I want to cheap out on. The guy had some ideas about some other parts but said he'd let me know and we'll discuss it first.

The guys were pretty nice to deal with. My father advised me that the local Mr. T is really good and I got good vibes from them. I had the owner drive me home to pick up my Pontiac. I guess I can drive it until the Roadmaster gets a clean bill of health.

Anyone got any suggestions on improvements I might want to make now that the guts are torn open?

 

Yeah, wiz.....go over to impalass and take a look.

 

I've popped over there a few times to browse. (I like it here better) I signed up to post a while ago and received my confirmation email but wasn't able to log in. I lost interest and came back here. Challenging enough to keep up with one forum it may as well be one that I'm really happy at.

Today was hectic enough that I didn't get much time to do any research and just went ahead with the default repair. I did add a kit to smooth the shifting a little bit and asked to upgrade some parts to those a little heavier duty. I haven't gone through all of it yet but I'm down for a torque converter and some U-Joints. Not a cheap repair but I'm pleased that it will be a good one. The wife isn't nearly as pleased but one hurdle at a time

 

I haven’t been outside to work on the Roadmaster much over the last little while. It’s been too darn cold for the most part, and I’ve been nursing some back problems. I moved the Pontiac out of the garage and cleaned up in there a little bit a couple of weeks ago during an unseasonably warm day. I’m a bit of a hoarder and the garage is packed full of electronic equipment from my various adventures. These are all items that I had planned to sell on eBay. Most of them are either not selling, or too bulky to ship so there they sit, getting in the way of my automotive projects. The garage is pretty tiny, so I installed a wall mounted tire rack to store the Roadmaster’s summer tires on. Needless to say, the following morning, my back was very displeased at having had to do all that work lifting the tires up to the rack. I’ve been just relaxing my back, updating my blog, and surfing the ‘Net shopping for parts and seeing what other folks are doing to resolve some of the problems I want to address when the warmer weather arrives. After the transmission repair, it’s tough to justify shopping for parts but, at the very least, I’m getting a good shopping list ready.


The transmission wound up being a pretty major repair. The guys at Mister Transmission here are top notch. Cory and Ken have been handling drive trains here for over 20 years and seem to instinctively know what needs to be done. I called them to set up a time and they took the wagon in an hour later. Once I spoke with Ken, I knew that the Roadmaster was in good hands and I didn’t mind leaving it there for a couple of days. Following the diagnostics, Cory gave me a call at work to deliver the bad news. I believe the exact quote was “I have no idea how this car got here under it’s own power”. It seems that the previous owner had done a bit of disguise work to make me believe there weren’t any issues. Based upon the damage that they found, the pan should have had way more shavings in it than it did, and the fluid had clearly been changed recently. It seems I got suckered. I knew I would want to do a lot of work to the car, and that would include the transmission, but I had hoped to putz away with the little cosmetic things that I could do on my own for a while before a major expense cropped up. After the repairs, Cory was more than happy to explain what had been done, and give me more insight on the upgrades that I had asked for. Transmissions are a mystery to me and might as well be magic for all I know about them. In any case, I saw no reason in putting the transmission exactly back the way it was if I can make a few improvements at the same time…right? I’m a pretty big fan of stock vehicles, so I’m not looking to go hog-wild but if I can make the transmission operate a little better and/or last a little longer then that’s what I’ll do. Ken and Cory knew right away what I was looking for and upgraded the critical parts to some that will operate a little above the OEM part specs to keep the temperature down and they added a shift kit to get rid of a little of that slushbox overlap and make the gear changes a little smoother. The bill was pretty hefty, slightly more than what I paid for the car. It seems this particular Roadmaster is going to make me work for my operational comfort level. In all, I’m happy knowing that I’ve at least made some improvements to the car rather than just having it suffer through the winter before I can start getting it cleaned up properly come spring.



I'm pretty anxious for the warmer weather so I can get out there polishing and cleaning. I think my priorities will have to be in addressing the roof leak, the few odd rust spots around and getting the floor pans coated and the carpets dried out/cleaned or replaced. I'm really looking forward to it.


We had a bit of a cold snap this week and a couple of mornings it was -20C when I went out for work. I let the Roadmaster idle for a while to warm up while I cleaned off the snow. I noticed the drivers side exhaust pipe making an odd sound. It sounded similar to the sound you get when a piece of ice falls from the eaves trough down the drain pipe. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It only occurred every 10 seconds or so and it was like the exhaust was choking on something. It only occurred on the drivers side and not the passenger side. Pretty weird. Not sure what to make of it, and it was too cold to stand out there listening to it. One more thing for the list I guess.

 

Probably a catalytic converter, wiz.

 

have you tried to tighten all the screws that hold the luggage rack to the roof, my chevy had loose screws all around, and they were all almost out of the threaded grommet that holds them in. tightened them up and dropped a little glue around the screw heada nd havent had a problem with them backing out again.