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

Ya I'd run it hard, like I said change the oil first though. Don't be afraid to rev it. It can handle it. Also, you probably don't know this but your car has a tachometer ! With the heater off, press the "OFF" and temp up buttons simultaneously on the HVAC control panel and it goes into diagnostic mode. Then you hit the top right button "middle" and scroll to -06. I think you have to hit fan down button to activate each -01, -02, etc mode. But if you play with it or search on ImpalaSSforum you'll figure it out. It even shows trans temp in Celsius or Fahrenheit, engine temp, etc. Anyway I got sidetracked, run it hard to get the gunk out.

BTW, the upper bolts on the rear shocks are a bear. You'll need a lot of extensions to reach up there. Spray some PB blaster on there well ahead of time. Like 24 hrs. The bolt head on top of the frame is held in place with one of those sheetmetal anti-rotation tabs and if you force it too much the tabs will snap and now the bolt head will just spin and spin. Then you'll have to get at it from the top and hold the head with a wrench and turn the ratchet simultaneously. Not easy to do alone and not much room to get a wrench in on top of the frame. plus you'll have to get the broken tabs out of the way before you can even get a wrench on there. Seriously don't rush the PB blaster, give it time to do it's thing. If the nuts don't come right off, spray it again and wait a day or so. I learned the hard way, as usual.

 

Cool tips! Thanks!

I've gotta farm out the shock install I'm afraid. My driveway has a pretty fair slope to it and I don't have anywhere to work on it.

 

Good luck ! I take it you don't have the air ride suspension? Mine does, so I replaced the airshocks with regular ones and use air bags inside the coils instead. Much better than airshocks. You can install them even on a non air ride car. Just fill them with a regular air hose.

If you check the SPID code tag inside the tailgate jamb you can decipher if you have tow package (air ride, 2.93 gear), heavy duty cooling, positraction, etc. I think G80 is posi. You can google those codes. If you don't have the tow package you have a 2.56 axle gear ratio. V92 is 2.93 gear I think. Either way if you have those two codes you have posi and a 2.93 gear, which is part of the tow package. So you probably also have air ride.

 

I tried the HVAC diagnostic mode yesterday. You need to hold the "up temp" button and the "off" buttom for at least 5 seconds. It will fill up the screen with all the possible characters. Then you wait a few seconds until the screen clears and says -01. Then press the up fan speed button to scroll to -06, then press "middle" and you're in tachometer mode.

Pretty fun to watch the shifts and the torque converter lock up visually. If you scroll up into the teens you'll find trans temp etc.

 

I watched a YouTube video last night on using those diagnostic options. Pretty cool.

My window parts didn't arrive today, nor did my shocks. Tracking numbers show that they should be here tomorrow. I took tomorrow and Wednesday off work to get some work done on the car. Guess I won't be seeing my parts until tomorrow or Wednesday afternoon.

 

Well, I realize it's a a small thing, but speaking as a computer geek, I'm pretty stoked about this.

I did my first oil change today. Since my Roadmaster isn't "supposed" to be on the road, I had no choice but to do the oil change myself before the Seafoam run. I don't know that I'll have a burning desire to do it again (unless I pick up a set of ramps) but it was a really rewarding experience and I enjoyed it a lot.

I did the Seafoam bit with 1/3rd in the tank, 1/3rd in the oil, and 1/3rd of the bottle into the vacuum line from the brake booster right around dusk. After it sat for a few minutes it was dark enough to sneak the car out the back roads and really pour the coals to it. I got some decent clouds out of the exhaust but not enough to haze the neighbourhood like I expected. I don't know if this will do the trick but I'd say I've done all I can to get it ready for the emissions test. I took the EGR valve out again and cleaned it while I was doing the oil change and then I ran the Seafoam through it.

Canada Post opted to not ring my doorbell today when they brought my packages. They just put the package pickup notices in my mailbox and took off. Now I won't be able to pick up my Factory Manual, window rollers, and new shocks until tomorrow after 1:00.

Looks like I've also got a leak in my rad as well. Goosing the engine tonight during the Seafoam run I notice that coolant is spraying over the air intake. It's even pooling underneath the air filter. Not sure if it's a hose or a crack in the rad, but it looks to me like the leak is on the front corner of the rad.

I found a mess in the spare tire well today. The spare tire wasn't bolted down and has been flopping back and forth back there. The drain plug is missing from the bottom of the well and each time it got undersprayed it looks like a fair amount got in the spare tire well. The spare tire was caked with undercoating and the was a goopy mess down in the bottom of the well. On the upside, the tire well wasn't rusted. I hit it pretty heavily with de-greaser and got a lot of it cleaned out. It was a minor issue, but it felt pretty cool to get something resolved.

 

I noticed today after changing the oil that I was getting a lot of water dripping from the exhaust. After 5 minutes of idling there was a puddle under each tailpipe as well as under the passenger side muffler. After the Seafoam run there wasn't any moisture coming out of the exhaust anymore. Progress!

 

Great you'll be driving it soon.

 

Yep. I'll finish up the window roller repair and the wiring problems tomorrow. I tried soldering a splice into the wiring today, but the wind was cold and my poor little soldering iron couldn't keep up. I'll have to use my butane iron or borrow a soldering gun to get that fixed. With all of those done I can take the car in on Thursday for the shock installation, rad repair, safety inspection, and emissions test. As long as all of that goes well I should be driving it by the weekend.

 

I commend you on your tenacious dedication to that wagon, wiz! You will have a great wagon when you finish and now we know you will keep it that way.

 

As good as it looked during the walkaround, it definitely has it's secrets. The wiring stuff was pretty weird. it took me forever to find that switch problem and I was slightly uncomfortable about how many of the interior panels don't fit quite right. It looks to me like somebody has put a lot of time into botched attempts to find the wiring issues. I'm definitely going to have to find some door panels soon. The driver's door panel has been all but destroyed and the rear passenger panel isn't really great either. Whoever took them off in the past clearly had no idea how to go about it. It's not the "cherry senior citizen's car" that it seemed to be and I've got my work cut out for me to make it what I want. I don't imagine it'll ever look anything even approaching yours 'Fox unless it gets a rotisserie restoration, but it's a keeper so I'll get it pretty soon enough.

I almost had the wife convinced to look at a larger house last week, with a two car garage. She would get one side for her car, but I would have had more space overall and buying this wagon wouldn't have to mean giving up my Parisienne. I'm gonna hate to have to see it go. There was still a lot more I wanted to do to it.

 

You are on a good start with your wagon.

 

I've been following all your work on your wagon...good luck with the safety

 

Well, I'm almost ready to get it on the road. I finished off the wiring repair in the drivers door today now all of my window switches work again. Unfortunately, in doing the repair I seem to have done some harm to the speaker wire. Looks like it's shorted to the interior lighting switch some how. I doesn't work when I turn the radio on but it buzzes when the interior lights come on. Not a critical issue, but I guess I'll have to start digging again. Hopefully, I can leave that until I find a replacement door panel and do it all in one swoop.

My rollers arrived today so I repaired the rear window regulator. Looks like that's been done once already, the track had already been bent, and the failed slider part was a different colour than the unbroken one. At least all of my interior panels are back in place and it doesn't look so much like it's under construction. The Mrs thinks that she's found another wrecking yard that allows pick-and-pull so we're going to head there on Saturday for a look around for door panels.

My shock order also arrived but apparently I'm a dumbazz and I ordered only one shock without even noticing. I called my Dad and hopefully Napa can find me another Severe Service shock tomorrow.

My rad leak has gotten pretty bad and is spraying coolant all over the front of the engine compartment from a crack in the endcap. I let the car run for a while today and noticed a bit of that brown sludge from the Seafoam coming from the tail pipe so I gave it some gas a few times to clean some more of it out. Unfortunately that aggravates the rad leak. I took it to drop it off for service, but they're booked up solid with snow tire installations and I had to schedule an appointment for Monday. Guess it'll sit in the garage now until Monday. Since the Seafoam still seems to be doing it's job and I can't rev the engine to help it along, I don't have high hopes for the emissions test.

 

Bardhall's Rad Leak works like a charm, even with Aluminum rads. Might help you do stuff until Monday. The rad shop will likely flush it out anyway.