project: 2001 Park Avenue Ultra

[harofreak00]

Drives excellent. I was kinda nervous to put that much work into it and then have the tranny be bad.. but the first day I drove about 20 miles on it, never getting over 3k RPM, and it shifted well. The next day on a test drive, I really got into it. It shifts great at WOT.

The interior is 100% OEM. I think Buick changed the interior in 2000 or 2001. Instead of the wood, they have a black carbon fiberish looking pattern on it. I'll get a closeup of it to show you.

[Black Pearl]

Is that shrapnal from just the one piston?

[harofreak00]

Yes, but most of the shrapnal is from the rod.

[95naSTA]

The progress looks awesome so far. Nice work as always.

[LeSabreUltra]

The interior is 100% OEM. I think Buick changed the interior in 2000 or 2001. Instead of the wood, they have a black carbon fiberish looking pattern on it. I'll get a closeup of it to show you.

I'd be interested in seeing that when you get a chance. I hadn't ever noticed that before.

I guess it was Buick's attempt to make their flagship sedan look more "modern". Personally, I prefer the wood as I am not a fan of carbon fiber interior trim, but I don't suppose it would be that difficult to change out to the older style if one were so inclined.
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[harofreak00]

It was like 70° out today, so I couldn't resist working on the car.

I pulled the interior for its cleaning, man it was gross. I got everything out, and then realized that I was heading down to the cities to pick up a new project, so everything got put away and on hold for now. I'll let the pics do the talking.
















Carpets will get their standard cleaning, the seats will get the magic eraser treatment, and then everything will go back together… but that’s another day now.

[myfirstbonnie]

Looking good andrew.

[97seagain]

From another 2001 Park Avenue owner... how hard is it to pull the carpet out like that?

Also, you have the black trim in the interior because its an Ultra. The non-supercharged PA's still have the woodgrain. I personally much prefer the black to woodgrain, but I suspect it would be a pain to change over.

[harofreak00]

The hardest part is getting the seats out. Since they use a notched system and only 2 bolts, instead of the 4 bolts like the Bonneville. You have to angle the seats forward and then lift to get it out of the notch. Not easy considering the driver seat weighs about 125lbs, and you can't really get a good angle on it.

What you see there only took about 20 minutes.

[harofreak00]

Carpet finished drying today (washed it yesterday and had it out in the sun all day). It turned out real good, everything came out except for the red stain in the rear, but the floormat should cover that.





Tonight I'm working on cleaning the seats. Now be honest, can you even tell I did anything?


oh wait, how about now?


Gross huh?

[00Beast]

Wow. That clean half of the seat looks amazing!!

Carpet looks good too! I need to get at that one of these days with my car...

[*B2*]

You've done a great job of cleaning some very dirty leather seats. IIRC you are using the magic eraser for most of the work? I can't help but wonder if a diluted woolite solution and a gentle toothbrush would be faster and possibly yield even better results. It would be an interesting test, but you obviously have a combo that works. Keep up the good work man!

[harofreak00]

Magic eraser does ALL the work. I doubt anything can do better. These things work incredibly well, and super fast. Its honestly like using a pencil eraser on paper. I finished both sections of the rear seats, but I ran out of erasers to do the front seats. I'll start up again tomorrow.

[97seagain]

Wow... you do some awesome work... you have me in the mood to disassemble my interior to clean it all up!

And I agree 100%... the magic eraser is amazing on leather, as long as you treat it immediately.

[harofreak00]

Front seats today. Before and after:




















Then I did some work on the panel gaps. Fender had to come off to align the body mounts. Found out its an aftermarket replacement



All done. It really wasn't that bad, so I don't have a before pic. But basically at the top where it runs flush with the door, it was was sticking up about 1/8".



Here is the interior back together. I'm still waiting on getting those seat bezels. Gonna need new floormats, and a new heated seat switch.




And here is that texture some of you wanted to see.

[Blown93SSEi]

Nice job as usual.

How much are you going to try and sell it for?

[ChilinMichael]

That car is coming out amazing!

[bonnevillain]

I've been feeling too lazy to rip out my seats and carpet even though I need to. You seem to be doing it every other day!

[crazyjoe]

Speechless!!!!!!!!

[ga93sle]

I want it so bad! I'm even closer to it now!