'96 Century general project thread

Time for my quarterly update!

Do some work for once instead of constantly complaining.

Services performed today: Replace blower motor, engine oil change, transmission oil/filter change. Click for bigger.

Begin.

Unhook the battery. The alternator has to be pulled to R&R the motor.

Belt off.

Alternator. It's much easier to just unbolt its mounting bracket from the cylinder head.

Plenty of room.

Motor out. It did not spin freely and made the entire car vibrate when I turned it on.

Part of the reason it failed is that, a while back, one of the bolts for the dogbone engine mount somehow fled, and the engine leaned back, and the fan on the alternator ground into the blower motor, seen here.

All buttoned up.

Up we go. (Take note of the Duralast filter and Walmart oil. Only the best for George.)

I've talked about this before, but the pan on a 4T60E has TWENTY FUCKING BOLTS holding it on. The filter is inside the transmission. If you don't have a drain plug (factory pans do not), it's an absolute mess to drain. Mine is Dorman branded, but a couple other outfits carry pans with drain plugs. If you have a car with a 4T60E, do yourself a favor and get one of those pans.

Then it was time to break this bad boy out.

Quinn digital torque wrench. I bought it last year but haven't really had the chance to use it. It beeps rapidly when you get close to the selected torque specification, then a solid tone when you're there, which was super annoying at first, but I got used to it. Pan to case torque spec is 151 inch pounds.

Engine: Wix 51040 filter and six quarts of Walmart high mileage full synthetic 5W-30.

Transmission: Duralast TF207 filter and five quarts of Dexron VI (recommended by the transmission builder) and a bottle of Lucas.

Now, astute readers may notice that I've changed wheels again. That is because...

I had a blowout. Lucky for me it was not sudden and catastrophic, or I may have crashed. It let go about as gently as it could, but it was a complete failure. This is because the tire was SIX YEARS OLD and I definitely should not have been driving on six year old tires. So I bought two new 16s on the Grand Am wheels and swapped back to those. I like the Olds crosslaces, but not enough to drop, ya know, $600 on a full set of 15s.

So it looks like it's been four years since I posted in this thread. I don't honestly know how I could have overlooked you guys in that time. Sorry.

I will bring you all up to date though. A lot has happened.

June 23, 2017:
I fuck around and find out.

November 12, 2017:
Productive trip to the yard to procure replacement parts.

November 17, 2017:
P1671 code appears (quad driver C). I had no idea what that was at the time, but I did find out pretty quickly what the symptoms were. Most immediately obvious was no gear changes in the transmission. Shifting into drive or 3 locked it into 3rd, but I could manually shift to 2 and have 2nd. Next, I didn't discover until it got hot again in Vegas, but the cooling fan didn't work. I ultimately ended up wasting money on another PCM from Milzy that didn't correct the issue.

Christmas day: I installed the non-broken face parts after getting the header painted to match.

February 12, 2018: #3 spark plug exited the chat while accelerating onto the highway. That was unexpected and would end up a bit expensive. $260 at a shop.

April 11, 2018:
Something that has been discussed here, but not implemented in the way I'm doing it: van struts! Instead of messing around with changing springs and whatnot, I just went ahead and bought quick struts for a van and slapped them on. They fit just like stock without modification. Part number 171820, available from a couple different manufacturers under that number. (Car struts are 171771) Applications: U-body, 1990-1996.

Old and busted vs. new hotness.

I had a helper: my oldest daughter. She did really well for not ever having touched a wrench before.

Work in progress. Doing a quick strut change on this car is dead simple. Three bolts up top on the tower, two on the knuckle. Don't mind the collapsed CV boot, it worked itself back out.

Then we moved on to the rear.
FACE
DOWN
ASS
UP

Again, old and busted vs. new hotness. I am installing variable rate springs in the rear, Moog CC632. Application: A-body and X-body, all years, apparently.

Before I tore everything apart. Stone-simple torsion beam suspension. Nothing fancy.

Passenger side out. This involved unbolting the shock and lowering the axle. I suppose you could undo the control arm as well, but I didn't think of that until well after I was done.

"Installation is the reverse of removal." Installation proved to be a bit more difficult. Here's me bouncing on the axle while my daughter jams the spring back in.

Driver's side installed.

I kicked myself for not taking pictures of it so you all can laugh nervously at me, but I did something that you probably shouldn't when stuffing the driver's spring in. I couldn't get the axle to come down far enough just by applying my own body weight to it, so I got the screw jack out of the back of the car and used that to press down on it by raising it against the body while sitting on the top of the axle. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I probably could have got it to drop if I unbolted the track bar. But, you know, if it's stupid but it works...

All done.

IMPRESSIONS
First off, even through an image, ride height has been altered noticeably. It was weird the first couple times I reached to open the door and missed the handle because it was higher up than I expected. You sort of get used to stuff like that after five years of owning the same car.

Second, ride quality is greatly improved. The seasickness is all but gone.

Third, handling is greatly improved. Body roll is diminished.

Fourth, diving under braking is reduced.

Overall, I would recommend this upgrade.

April 29, 2018:
First and most important,

The wagon rolled to 200k miles!

I also did some long-put-off repairs. One of the bolts holding the EGR to the intake backed out, probably almost immediately after being installed way back when, so I've had an EGR leak for forever. Doing a helicoil on it probably would have involved pulling the upper intake, so I just decided to swap it with another one I had lying around.

Old one on the right, "new" one on the left. Because I still give a shit about my sleeper appearance, I ground off the "3400 SFI" on the replacement manifold. The LG8 and LA1 uppers are physically identical aside from the branding.

Disassembled.

Action shot of me torquing the manifold back down.

Then it was time for the PCM. I ordered a new one from Milzy. On my car, it's behind the glove box. Pulling the passenger seat makes accessing it a bit easier, so I went ahead and pulled both seats and my wife volunteered to clean up for me.

The symptoms I was hoping to fix with the PCM swap were the cooling fans not turning on on their own and the transmission not shifting at all. Unfortunately for me and my wallet, the new PCM did not alter the behavior. It ended up being a popped fuse for the quad driver module that was the culprit the entire time. With that replaced the fans turned on and the transmission had all its gears again.

Now for the bad news. The converter won't lock up (which is what the SES light in the 200k image is for, P0740) and the trans sometimes does not like to 1->2 shift. It's in bad shape. So I'm going to have to swap it again. My fault, of course, so I only have myself to be angry at. I will contact Mike Miller on Monday to see it he'd be willing to work with me about at least a partial refund on the PCM, but if not, again, oh well. Git gud at diagnostics scrub.

June 30, 2018:
I have been getting a P0300 in the wagon recently, and it's been missing like crazy, to the point of being nearly undriveable. After spending money I didn't need to on an ignition module and coils at the yard, and contemplating if I'm going to have to pull the upper intake so I can test the fuel injectors, I caught a comment about someone having a misfire on their 2.8 Celebrity, and the suggestion given was to inspect the 7x crank sensor wire. Hey, my engine also has a 7x sensor.

Yeah, that will probably do it. The wire was sitting on the axle on that side and being abraded, causing the misfire. I went to the yard and got a wire off a Cutlass that someone else had helpfully pulled the entire top end from, and slapped it on. All is well now.

September 18, 2018:
the transmission in the wagon is completely dead now. No forward, no reverse. My mom drove it to the corner store and when she came back and went to park in the driveway, it slipped out of gear and coasted back down into the street. I left it in the street for a little while, tried a couple bits of diagnostic (fluid level, wiring, shifter actuation, swapping the PCM for my "backup"), but the trans is entirely unresponsive. My mom is not a "car person", so she wasn't able to tell me anything other than "it just stopped working", so I have no clue if it made any noise before failing.

November 24, 2018:
Time to pull the transmission! Assume the position.

Passenger side brace off.

Driver side brace off.

Air cleaner and battery out.

Throttle body off.

Wifey pulling that last spark plug wire.

Upper intake off.

Power steering pump shoved aside.

Fuel rail shoved aside.

Lower intake stuffed.

That's about all my back could handle for the day.

November 25, 2018:
Radiator out.

Action shots of me vacuuming the sand out of the lower intake so it doesn't fall into the injector bosses. (lol the first image has SAND in the file name)

Passenger axle punched out of the knuckle. Of minor note, this axle is original to the car. I've replaced the driver's side twice, both times due to a torn boot.

Driver axle out.

I also popped off most of the rest of the wiring, the transmission range sensor (aka PRNDL switch), found the other lift bracket and bolted it on to the front head, and made a bit of a mess with spilled coolant, as anticipated. Steady progress will now come to a screeching halt.

January 2, 2019:
Drivetrain out. Obligatory stand in the engine bay photo.

I forgot to drain the transmissin before yanking it. It made a mess.

Need to clean the subframe. It's grody.

March 24, 2019:

I guess when you buy an engine from LKQ, they REALLY want you to remember where you got it from.

Air tools are loud. Definitely wear hearing protection. I bought these at a NASCAR race, so they should work well enough, yeah?

Draining the transmission for transport.

Pan does not look good.

Yuck.

Wipe off the magnet...

That would explain the seven neutrals. I thought that was only a 4L60E thing though???

If the pan and magnet look like that, what horrors lie within this guy?

Then my brother showed up. He recently picked up this '04 Silverado. 5.3, 2WD, cloth interior, looks like LT package (debadged by a previous owner).

He shall be my courier since I don't have the use of my station wagon at the moment. Kind of silly, that it would be piss easy to transport the wagon's transmission to the rebuilder if the wagon were working.

So there are two units in this image. The one on the left, with the blue converter still attached, is the wagon's. The one on the right is a used one I grabbed back in early 2018, from a 1996 Grand Prix. That will be the parts donor, since the GP trans was of unknown provenance. I chose to not believe the owner's pleas of "ran when pulled, only pulled due to engine knocking". The donor shall give up the drive chain and sprockets, so that my overdriven drive will turn into direct drive, for that sweet sweet 3.33 final drive.

Aw, he looks so sad without his dance partner.

I mean yeah, I could buy this stuff, but rather than take the chance of not properly flushing out the cooler, I bitched out and bought a new one. And why not upgrade while I'm at it?

The new one is like twice the height of the old one. Bigger is better, right? Especially in this car, which I beat on mercilessly.

April 7, 2019:
Carnage time!

One half of the transmission oil pump housing:

Other half:

Valve body:

Input shaft, I guess it's called?

That bit is still inside the converter, I would imagine:

Another hard part I forgot what the guy called it:

Draggin' ass.

The 4T60E weighs somewhere around 170 lbs empty.

Looks like the oil pump broke, among other things, which is why I had nothing either forward or reverse. There was also the expected roasted clutches and accumulator pistons and springs and other things I can't remember the names of. When I break shit, I put my entire ass into it. No half measures. The donor trans gave its valve body, drive chain and sprockets (1:1), and all those other busted hard parts. I need to go back and pick up my converter tomorrow, which will be similar to the one I was running before. Woven clutch (PWM and on-off compatible), 2095 stall. I will also be pouring in some Dexron VI, in a bid to increase longevity.

April 28, 2019:
There was progress. Then there was regress. Then there was progress.

First off, I entreated my wife to do some cleaning for me in the engine bay. Years of oil leaks on the old 3.1 left the subframe quite gross.

Grody.

Torque converter. (It's in the box) It's a BU21W service number, which is a woven clutch and 2095 stall, basically the highest stall you could get stock on a V6 of the era. If I wanted higher, it would have to be specified for, like, a Quad 4, which gets a bit silly (2795 I think).

Hard at work.

While she was doing that, I set myself to an equally important but incredibly tedious task: filling the converter with oil.

Dexron VI was recommended by the builder, so I bought some of the good stuff.

With the subframe as clean as it was going to get, I blasted it with some water to rinse everything, then blasted it with air to dry it, then blasted it with high heat black so it doesn't rust. Yeah, Las Vegas doesn't have rust, but whatever.

Then I was an ape, and broke something, which killed my motivation for a couple weeks.

Instead of, you know, taking it easy and being patient about lining the engine and transmission up before I bolt them together, I tried to force them together by tightening the bolts. This made quite the noise, I'm sure you can imagine.

After consulting with my brother, who is a metal worker, and someone else at the shop who does most of the aluminum work there, I was told to "send it". So I did.

Engine and transmission are now remarried.

May 12, 2019:
Time to stop stalling and just do the damn thing. Summer won't wait.

Wife is unimpressed by the power plant.

It's unimpressive, honestly.

Bolted the Grand Am air conditioning compressor finally. I am not doing another summer without AC. It's balls.

However, after getting the drivetrain back in the engine bay, I found that the new location of the refrigerant lines entering the compressor interferes with the oil filter. I will need to go to the yard and look at a 3.1L Grand Am to see what the setup is. Probably just a remote filter.

Dumping this lump back in was the usual touch and go of lower it, check interference of wiring/hoses/brake booster, lower, check, etc. until I got it lined up with the trans mounts.

The spousal unit was gracious enough to perform the unenviable task of bolting down the rear transmission mount. On this car, it's right up against the firewall, bracketed by the trans case and steering rack. It's hell. I despise it. I love her for doing it while I fucked with other things. This is her after crawling back out from under the car.

Here it is back in its home, bolted to the subframe mounts.

So I went hog wild and bolted a bunch of shit back on.

May 27, 2019:

I had to swap the intake manifold AGAIN because I blew out one of the EGR bolt holes AGAIN. It was sucking air in and the engine refused to start at first, then idled at 2500, then idled between 600 and 1000 like total dog shit. I put blue thread locker on this time. (future me says it worked)

Once that was sorted...

As I said in the video, the downpipe was not bolted to the rear manifold. I've done that a couple times now, and it sucks majorly on your back with a swivel, threading the needle between the steering rack and the firewall. So I took it to my nearest reputable mechanic shop and paid them to do it, along with an alignment. They also repaired the alternator charge wire, which was a giant piece of shit for a long time.

The first daylight George has seen in six months. I also slapped those LeSabre/Reatta wheels on. Uniroyal Tiger Paws in 215-60/15. No center caps for now, since they're surprisingly difficult to find.

And since I had the transmission regeared, out came the trusty old laptop to change the tune. Just need to set the final drive multiplier to 1 in HP Tuners.

Watch this space for burnouts and a new time slip.

3.33 FINAL DRIVE IMPRESSIONS

I've only been driving for a few days now, and it's been long enough that I don't really remember how the car behaved before, but it seem a bit more sprightly now with the 3.33 final, as opposed to the 2.97 it had before. It's definitely easier to spin the tires from a stop, and passing on the highway requires less effort. I haven't refueled yet, but it appears as though fuel economy will be at least the same as before, which seems odd to me. "Legs" are shorter, naturally, but it's still easy to get up to 110 or so and not be out of RPM in third. I don't have a tach, but a calculator says it's about 4900 rpm, so about 900 more left in it.

Also, turns out that the 2095 stall converter stalls at almost 2800 in this car!

Things were quiet for a while. The wagon ran like a champ and went like a stabbed rat, surprising a fair number of folks during the On Ramp Grand Prix and the Stop Light Drags. But, as is the nature of project cars...

February 8, 2020:
George broke down today, in the most George way possible: the smallest part ground the entire operation to a complete halt. It had to be dragged back home by my other car.

Here we see George in his natural habitat: occupying the parking spot of shame in the street.

Here we see the problem.

To the untrained eye, there might not be anything amiss. The missing part: the 7x trigger wheel that used to be bolted to the crank pulley, which is necessary for the engine to run. It fell off today.

It's probably going to be a little while before I can get another one. So tomorrow I'm going to have to put on my big boy underoos and do some work on the yellow sedan to make it worthy of my daily commute.

This shit always seems to happen right after I fill the tank with gas too.

May 2, 2020:
I apparently didn't post about it, but I acquired a 7x trigger from a Canadian that runs the Mod Everything Youtube channel and installed it. Milzy's trigger ended up being rather cheaply made, with just a couple of tack welds holding the hub to the wheel. The one I got was fully welded:

Seven years into this car, and I arrive largely back where I started. An engine, two transmissions, three sets of suspension and front brakes, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Today's travails encompass a misfire so bad, the PCM doesn't even notice it. It's been getting worse over the course of the week, culminating in stalling at idle, hard bucking under acceleration, and random coughs when cruising. I've been through the fuel system a couple times, so I'm sure it's not that. If, say, the fuel filter were clogged, it would just make shit for power, not shit itself at random.

I picked up a multimeter to test the ignition coils. GM waste spark coils are known for being pretty durable, to the point that even L67 guys usually don't think twice about sending them on high HP builds. You can get some from MSD, but I can't justify $54 each just because they're red. The resistance range for GM coils is 5k to 8k ohms. All three were right around 6k. I then pulled the module and had it tested. It tested fine.

So I'm scratching my head in the Autozone parking lot. Coils ohm'd out fine, module tested fine, the 7x trigger wire wasn't dragging on the axle like last time, fueling was fine. Time to actually check spark, the hard way. I pulled the plug wire off the post of the 1-4 coil while it was running, and there was hardly any spark at all. Limped it home, slammed on another coil from the pile I have laying on the garage floor, and all is well. Saved me the trouble of pulling the intake to test the injectors.

George be doin' me like this though. Just coming up with ways to cause me anxiety. I'm going to have to replace the driver's side axle AGAIN because the outer boot split AGAIN. STILL don't have air conditioning, turn signals are non-op. I'm really starting to consider getting a roller skate with AC to commute with. As much as I love this car, it's really getting to me these days.

June 30, 2020:
After the adventure a couple months ago of having to order a new external crank trigger from a dude in Canada, it started making some unusual noises from the transmission. It wasn't internal, that much was for sure.

Here we have one (1) torque converter bolt. This car uses three (3) of them to secure the converter to the flexplate. I found this one in the driveway. Those with a keen eye will note the absolutely munged threads. Past Daniel was an entire clown and did not put thread locker on these bolts when installing the rebuilt transmission last time. So now the holes in the flexplate are wallowed out. Which means I will have to replace the flexplate. Which means the drivetrain has to come out. Again.

At least I have a kitty to comfort me.

July 11, 2020:
Bad news lads! I'm an absolutely clumsy fucking clown who probably shouldn't be allowed near a car again.

So as I said in an earlier post, I am having issues with the torque converter bolts. Or bolt, as it were. The issue being, the last one of three that's still present is backing out. Keeping George on the road is a priority, so I've been tightening the one bolt daily. On Thursday, this all went wrong. I did not position the jack correctly, and the car fell off the jack. Damage report:
-No damage to any human(s) involved.
-Snapped off the fan shroud. No big, just a trip to the yard.
-Snapped the oil pressure sender in half. A little more concerning, but since it didn't damage the block, and the computer doesn't seem to care, I am less worried than I am about...
-Snapped the solenoid off the starter. Slightly bigger problem. Just fucking destroyed it.
-Snapped my fucking patience.

On the bright side, I've been meaning to change the starter anyway, since it sometimes hangs up in the way a failing starter does. I wanted to upgrade to a high torque unit for, say, the Malibu the engine came from, but there was something like a $70 price difference, so I just went with a stock replacement. Having the starter out also meant I could access the flexplate and replace the lost torque converter bolts. WITH THREAD LOCKER THIS TIME YOU ASSHOLE. All's well that ends well, as they say.

July 31, 2020:
Finally chased down this goddamn misfire in the wagon. Parts replaced:
-7x crank sensor
-Ignition module
-ignition coils
-spark plug wires
-spark plugs
Basically the whole ignition system...except #6 plug. It's cross threaded. Past Daniel jammed that fucker in there without a care in the world. It will probably pull the threads out of the head, so I'll take it to a shop to have it helicoiled, eventually.

September 16, 2020:
I went ahead and spent some money on some parts I definitely don't need for a car that doesn't deserve it. Ported upper intake, LX5 65 mm throttle body and adapter, and linkage bracket to match. When combined with the headers I found at the yard last year, these parts should hopefully wake this engine up to its true performance potential.

3100 upper for the sleeper aspect, and the vacuum ports I need.

LX5 throttle body.

Big mouth.

Modified linkage. It looks like the modification is to accommodate the adapter plate's thickness?

The linkage is different from the LA1 throttle body I'm running. I settled on cables from a Lumina, and Milzy swapped the linkage out for me to match. According to Ben at WOT, the linkage is non-serviceable on this TB, so I will need a new cruise cable to match it. Good thing there's a yard just up the street.

With this, I might even be able to dip into the 16s in the quarter mile!

March 28, 2021:
Another nice span of nothing to talk about!
Today's misadventures involve the fuel pressure regulator on the wagon. I've been having extended cranking times when cold. If I cycle the key 4 or 5 times, it starts fine. Says FPR to me. Let's get started.

The regulator is easily accessible on this car. Unlike newer cars with returnless fuel systems, the regulator is attached to the fuel rail.

Intake tube off.

Throttle body off.

The fitting on the bottom is L A R G E. The small screw on the side that I did not take a photo of is a T27.

Out.

Installation is the reverse of removal.

I will find out if this fixes the issue for sure tomorrow morning.

April 21, 2021:
Bought a street/strip cam and custom pushrods.

April 26, 2021:
Picked up a spare LX9. I will build this one, then swap it into the wagon. I might hang on to the "old" one, since I want to get a W-body Century at some point in the future, and swap it into that one.

Truck doing truck things.

The little engine that couldn't.

It's the correct one.

Unfortunately for me, the car this engine came from was in a crash, and the yard I bought it from said that they typically don't get the key when they come in like that, so I have no idea how many miles are on it. However, I will be tearing it down this time, if only for the cam install.

June 30, 2021:
I've mentioned this in the past, but there's an upgrade I've been wanting to do for some time on the wagon, namely van brakes. It's a fairly simple swap, with the majority of the parts readily available from any parts house or Rock Auto. Everything except the most important bit: the steering knuckles. The knuckles are the only part not available anywhere but salvage. You also need outer tie rods, ball joints, brake hoses, rotors and calipers, and the hub from the Century.

I went to the yard this past weekend with my brother, and lo and behold, there was a '94 Trans Sport freshly put out. Just what I needed. However, as we all know, Las Vegas summers are brutal and unforgiving. Did I really want to spend a couple hours sweating to death to pull the parts myself?

lol no I would much rather drive 600 miles and pay someone else $35 a pop to pull them from a '96 Lumina van that's been sitting in their yard since 2009, so that's what I did yesterday.. They didn't bother playing around with it though, so I got the brakes and hub still attached.

As the above photo illustrates, a car sitting for 13 years tends to collect rust. I need to disassemble the extraneous parts so I can get the knuckles blasted and painted or blued. So I got to work this morning.

Today's participants:

Rusty garbage. The hub, caliper and rotor will go in the bin.

The little Makita wasn't cutting it, so I brought out The Big Guns.

The Earthquake XT and a little further persuasion got the caliper, rotor, and hub knocked off.

Second verse, same as the first.

Hero of the day.

Zero of the day.

Announcement

'96 Century general project thread

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment: