Since everyone else is buying cars (SOLD - page 9)

[SSsuperchargedEi]

lol yours was horrible... now its arguably the best. not too shabby on the SE too dude...

[BonneMe]

So i'm guessing you didn't put the SE carpet ontop of the SSEi thru a carwash

[harofreak00]

I did them one at a time and put them in a large garbage bag to keep the water out of my trunk.

[petraman]

Wow, when you want to do something, you do it right man! The carpet looks good, I'd imagine that's what mine will look like (if not, more) when I take it out (which will probably not happen, haha..). And I thought you sold that van? I haven't heard it mentioned in a while...

[harofreak00]

The van died at the junk yard. That was just a post from a long time ago when I redid my car, thats why it was quoted

[petraman]

Oh, durr, missed that...

[agrazela]

You'll get that overdrive fixed, no worries.

[pearl_bonnie02]

Wow Andrew! Nice deal! And wow on them carpets!!! Can't wait to see the finished product.

[harofreak00]

I did the title transfer today. A quick glance at it showed that the title was last transfered in 2006, with 50k on the odometer. Its now 2008, with 210k, thats 160k in 2 years, or 80k a year. Holy crap. She wasn't kidding when she said he put highway miles on it. The 40k/year quote in the forsale thread wasn't even close. Oh well, I'm not concerned.

The carfax shows it was a 2 owner car. Originally registered in Pennsylvania, which is why it probably has the Secondary AIR Injection Pump

I also ordered a new headliner kit, fuel sender and LIM gaskets.

I hope to have the car back together and detailed this week. Then the engine/transmission work begins.

[2000Silverbullet]

160,000 miles in 2 years !!!!............that's 256,000 kilometers!!
Wow. He must have loved to drive that car.

I wish I could buy a car from you Haro. Too bad I live so far away.

[repinS]

That's INSANE. Over 2 yeras that's over 1500 miles per week EVERY week no matter what, and if you drove 5 days a week it works out to over 300 miles per day.

Holy crap!

[pearl_bonnie02]

Man, if he wouldn't of driven it so much, imagine the nice low miles it would of had

But then it wouldn't be your cheap diamond in the rough to flip

[harofreak00]

I lost a post during the DB backup, so I'll start over with some more pics.

I located some new door sealant for the magical price of free, so I got the door seals mounted up properly.





Then all the interior pieces got a hot soaking bath


I got the headliner fabric in and recovered the headliner. Its so much easier to do without a sunroof, there aren't as many hills and valleys.


Then the interior starts to come together.


Here is how the rear seat turned out. Some Mr. Clean Magic Erasers did the trick.



And the front seats back in...



And the new headliner installed. The flash really brings out the differences in the visors, but its hardly noticable.



Here is the trunk cleaned up.


I changed the fuel level sensor with Hans' solution.




There was a large chunk of paint missing from the passenger side mirror. I could have repainted the entire mirror, but I didn't feel like it.



You won't notice it unless you are looking for it.


Here is a few pics of the cars together. The SE is MUCH cleaner than the SSEi.




Next week the real fixing will begin. I'll be disconnecting the subframe and then lifting the front of the unibody about 1' in the air in order to get the transmission side cover off. Here are the parts I received from agrazela to do the repairs.

[bonnevillain]

nice! i need to do this to my car... and i look forward to the trans work!

[2000Silverbullet]

Interesting that the gasket kit has a rubber and a cork pan gasket. I would use the rubber one.

What else is in the kit? What is the real problem?

[harofreak00]

I guess I just assumed the rubber one is for the pan, the cork is for the side cover. We'll see, I'm a n00b at this. Its not a real kit, just parts that agrazela had sitting around.

The real problem is there is no overdrive. We are assuming its stripped splines on the shaft shown in the picture.

[radomirthegreat]

Yes! Yes! I love transmission work. Actually, I'm surprised we haven't had more of it shown here. Looks like fun. I was talking to a homie G one day and discussing what Intense has to say about the weak splines on the 4th gear. It seems one should shift down to 3rd before gunning the engine at a high speed. That puts less stress on these weaker splines. Not that the previous owner actually did that, but it's something cool for all of us to consider. It's apparent that with this high mileage, the car just spent too much time in 4th. Best of luck, you Andrews!

[agrazela]

Interesting that the gasket kit has a rubber and a cork pan gasket. I would use the rubber one.

What else is in the kit? What is the real problem?

Both of those are pan gaskets. The rubber one is an OEM used but good. The cork came with a WIX filter IIRC. I threw them both in because I need neither, and since this is a flip, haro can figure whether which he wants to use and which to save for the next flip
(Chances are he'll need neither, but what the heck, doesn't hurt to have.)

As said, it is most likely that the only real problem in the trans is the common issue of a stripped 4th clutch hub; I guess 40 bazillion highway miles/year is a hub-killer
The one in the pic is a used but good 2003+ hardened hub I had as an uneeded spare. Only other parts he should need for that hub job are the valve body separator plate gaskets and channel plate gaskets shown in the box.

The side cover gasket on haro's trans should be reuseable.

[TenGHz]

Nice progress, Andrew. I'd like to do a gut 'n' clean on my interior too.

[harofreak00]

This weekend I was informed by a friend that he was parting out a 97 Regal GS and I could take any parts I wanted off of it. I took lots of parts including the trans, now I have a practice trans to mess with before I get inside the Bonneville trans. So this morning was spent pulling the engine/trans out of the Regal and this afternoon I started work on the Bonneville. I should be able to get the side cover off tomorrow with all the work I did tonight.