Howdy. Just got my SSE back from the trans shop, had the tranny rebuilt. Seems I need a new kick down, or TV cable now. Mine is quite worn but ok for now the guy tells me. His phone calls out to local parts places was futile. Any suggestions on that one? Pick a part maybe..?

Ok. so my main topic here today is now I would like to get the engine rebuilt. It has 240,000 plus miles on her, and still runs well, but the oil pressure has resisted my attempts at any lasting correction. Have changed the rod bearings, oil pump, oil sending unit three times, put in 20/50 oil with a non Fram filter, plus an oil additive aimed at correcting low oil pressure. It starts out cold around 45, then once warmed up and stopped at a light, the pressure drops so low that without me popping it into neutral, the light flickers and I can hear the ECM under passenger dash clicking away, and the gauge will read like a 10. There are no signs of smoke or major oil leaks, and I of course am keeping it full at all times. When we pulled the pan off, there were some metal pieces in there, and my friend said we caught the rod bearings right before they were really going to go bye bye. We did a compression test recently before doing the above mentioned bearings, etc, and it read like 110, 115 on two cylinders, the rest were up around 150-160. Figure my girl is just plum tired and wore out, and needs some new parts.

Question is, where is the best place to buy a master rebuild kit, the one with new camshaft and lifters, along with valves, pistons, rings, gaskets, timing stuff, etc..? I saw on ebay a place called Grumpy's Performance from up in Oregon has a kit for $711 with free shipping? Good deal?

I have a good friend that will do the rebuild, but I would like to know from you guys how I should go about it, meaning, let him remove engine, then bring the block, heads, and crankshaft to a good machine shop here in Los Angeles and have them do their thing, before I send for a rebuild kit, so we know how much we need to go up from stock bore sizes, etc? I would like more performance and better gas mileage if possible of course. I don't know where I should keep things, just a minimum up from stock, as the engine allows kind of thing?

Have you considered a used engine? This may be the cheaper route to go. You may also want to look in to the L27 engine, as this uses the same block, and I believe the heads and 2 piece manifold can be moved over with little effort to gain a few horses.

_________________
~Randall~


1993 Buick Park Avenue - 197k - Some odds and ends done - Simply won't die
1994 Buick Regal - 78k - Bone stock - Always ready for a good kicking
1990 Oldsmobile 88 - Gone to a better place

Well..since I have owned this car since day one, I would rather rebuild what I already have. My friend I trust to do it right, and he won't charge me too much.. So I'm looking at the cost of the rebuild parts, some machine work on heads, block, crank maybe.. And throwing my buddy maybe couple of hundred for his help.

I tend to agree with RJolly87. I had an '88 toro that lost overdrive. A trans shop gave me a website wherein I keyed in the VIN and my zip and got a listing of salvage yards that had what I needed. I ran that swapped trans for about 2 years with no problems until I sold the car. It should work the same for an engine. There should be plenty of good, strong running engines/trans out there for you to choose from for $250-$500. Just my 2 cents worth.

It seems you don't want to replace the engine with a used one, but prefer to rebuild your original. Certainly you will keep the car original, although I doubt that would affect it value in the marketplace. No doubt the car is worth much more to you than its Blue Book value.
If you have the engine built with good parts and by a competent mechanic you should see many thousands of miles of reliable service from it.
Maybe if you hang out at some local cruise ins or go to some rwyb events at the local drag strip and ask around you could get good advice on what parts are decent quality and which to avoid. You will almost certainly get well intended but bad advice too, but if you find a general consensus that Smiths parts are good but steer clear of Jones' ones it 's probably good advice.

Roger.

Greetings. Well, into the rebuild project as mentioned prior on 1989 bonneviile sse. Got a used 3800 vin c low mileage engine from a 1990 Buick Reatta, local to me in Cali. My buddy and I are rebuilding that one so as not to have much downtime on my daily driver Bonnie.

The engine was in very good condition, but we decided to do the heads of course. The man who did them build race engines, etc, and did a nice 3 angle grind with some fluxin and polishin, whatever they call it, lol, but I am assured it will run very nicely with a few extra ponies to get er movin.
The block was just tanked twice and honed, it didn't have any appreciable wear so pistons are good to go stock after a good cleaning too. Will put new rings, main bearings. Cam and crank have been cleaned and polished too..will install new cam bearings also.
Was playing around with the balance shaft, the machinist weas able to get it off without damaging those ball bearing seal things in front and pincg bearing in back, but my friend thinks we should change them out. Called the dealer close to me in LA, and waiting to hear back if they are available. Anyone know where to get new balance shaft bearings, front and back? More to come...