Texas82GP's Roadmaster

[Ribbedroof]

I don't mind flying, it's the crashing that troubles me

Seriously though, the post 9/11 landscape has taken the value out of flying, IMO.

Yay for LT1, boo it wasn't a wagon 😛

Nice ride.

 

[rustydustydoc]

That thing have a Cutlass front bumper on it?

Yes lol. I bought this car after it was in a wreck, it slammed into a ditch or something. Sat for two years and was about to get scraped. It had ruined a radiator and bent a ti-rod plus no front bumper or anything. We jumped it and it fired right up. I put the cutlass bumper on it because thats all i had. I run it in a class thats suppse to remain"stock", knock the windows out, add a cage and go.

actually the car he ran into had a Cutlass front bumper on the rear.....

the long wheel bases were ok on dirt but too slow on the corners on asphalt tracks

Don't get me wrong, this thing is a turd. No torque, all top end speed. I run a 1/4 mile track and it came with 3.52 gears, I had to put 4.10s in just to get out the corners. But its has a 8.5 rear end with disk brakes I thought was pretty cool. Blast to drive.

 

[clean8485]

Nice score Jared. I have a soft spot for those cars as well. I worked in a Chevrolet dealership in the mid 1990s and I liked driving the Caprices, and I really liked driving the Impala SS cars. Room and comfort with some get up and go.

 

[Doug Chahoy]

That is one beautiful car. The only things other than maintenance that I’d do to it would be a set of Cadillac Fleetwood real wire wheels and better breathing in and out without going loud.

 

[Texas82GP]

Beautiful car; ida paid that all day long. A 6.0 (twins for bonus points) and 4L80E= send it.
Yes, I do like LS engines in vehicles newer than 1991.

I would put a bone stock 5.3 and 4L80E in it and you could drive that thing for a million miles... Nice ride

Thanks guys. If I had bought a tenth generation Olds 98 I'm pretty sure I would have ended up doing a 5.3/4L80E swap. Part of the reason I bought this car is I didn't want to get into another big project so it's staying stock. I'm quite satisfied with how it runs with the LT1/4L60E. The 60E "SHOULD" be ok for stock duty and I'm not going to drive this car hard.

If I put twin turbos on anything it is going to be sportier than this Roadmaster!

That is sick. Well done! I was very close to a late-90s B-body before we settled on the LeMans.
Personally I wouldn't touch a thing.

Thanks Mike. I agree with you. I'm keeping this one completely stock. This is the first car I've ever owned that I felt that way about.

That thing is gramptastic! Don't change a thing. And congrats.

It really is "gramptastic" isn't it? I love it. I'm keeping it bone stock. Thanks!

Nice score on the Roadmaster, Jared.
That looks like a clean, well cared for car. I like it. They're nice comfortable road cars.
I always kinda liked the wagon version, but they're either beat to death or way over priced.
I'm sure this car will give you many miles of pleasurable driving, whether local or long distance. Good luck with it!
It couldn't have found a better, more caring owner than you.

Thanks Jack. I was completely open to the wagon. This sedan just came along for the right price. Since buying it, I've been surprised to learn how many differences there are between the wagons and the sedans. Even the hood ornament is different. Thanks for the kind words. I intend to really care for/improve/preserve this car. I don't see ever selling it at this point. The seller didn't really want to sell it but had too many cars. He was very pleased when I told him I was keeping it stock and that it had found a good home. He said "I was afraid the buyer would paint is some wild color and put huge rims on it."

That's a beautiful car and how big is that storage shed?.... 😳

Thanks Steve. The storage is 14'x40'. I'm guessing the ceiling is 20' high. A 12' ladder gets you to the shelves that are up high on the south and west walls. I wish I was buying it instead of renting it, wish it had a bathroom, wish it had 220V, wish it was tighter to the weather and climate controlled but I love having it. It gives me the opportunity to have the Grand Prix. The opportunity to have the Roadmaster. It gave me the opportunity to fix my truck my way when it was hit and run instead of just putting it in a collision shop. It gave me the opportunity to do the 4L80E swap on my truck the last time the 4L65E gave up instead of just putting it in a transmission shop or pulling the transmission in the driveway. I can do some work in the driveway at home but we live in a deed restricted subdivision so we are very limited there. The storage gives me the freedom to have this hobby.

I don't mind flying, it's the crashing that troubles me. Seriously though, the post 9/11 landscape has taken the value out of flying, IMO. Yay for LT1, boo it wasn't a wagon 😛. Nice ride.

Thanks Brian (correct me if misspelled - your autosig is gone). I mind both flying and the thought of crashing. I don't like heights. I hate being helpless. The thought of falling a few miles before dying really scares the hell out of me. I know it is an irrational fear but I can't change how I feel. I would have bought a wagon if a deal had come along. I like those wagons. Thanks for the kind words.

Nice score Jared. I have a soft spot for those cars as well. I worked in a Chevrolet dealership in the mid 1990s and I liked driving the Caprices, and I really liked driving the Impala SS cars. Room and comfort with some get up and go.

Thanks Jeff. Grandpa had a 95 Caprice that was really nicely appointed (leather, etc.). I always like it. I think it was part of what put the notion in the back of my mind that I would like to one day own one of these last-gen B bodies. I really like the SS but it wasn't what I was going for on this car. For this one I wanted plush. I've got the truck and the GP for sporty. It's funny. I drove the Roadmaster for about a week and then put it in the storage and got the truck out. They are definitely opposite ends of the spectrum. The Roadmaster is Dr. Jekyll and the truck is Mr. Hyde.

That is one beautiful car. The only things other than maintenance that I’d do to it would be a set of Cadillac Fleetwood real wire wheels and better breathing in and out without going loud.

Thanks Doug. I appreciate it. I'll have to check out the Fleetwood wheels. I was surprised to see this car has true dual exhaust. It has a converter, muffler and resonator on each bank. I thought for sure it would have a y-pipe, but no.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I really appreciate it. Update coming....

 

[Doug Chahoy]

Thanks guys. If I had bought a tenth generation Olds 98 I'm pretty sure I would have ended up doing a 5.3/4L80E swap. Part of the reason I bought this car is I didn't want to get into another big project so it's staying stock. I'm quite satisfied with how it runs with the LT1/4L60E. The 60E "SHOULD" be ok for stock duty and I'm not going to drive this car hard.

If I put twin turbos on anything it is going to be sportier than this Roadmaster!


Thanks Mike. I agree with you. I'm keeping this one completely stock. This is the first car I've ever owned that I felt that way about.


It really is "gramptastic" isn't it? I love it. I'm keeping it bone stock. Thanks!


Thanks Jack. I was completely open to the wagon. This sedan just came along for the right price. Since buying it, I've been surprised to learn how many differences there are between the wagons and the sedans. Even the hood ornament is different. Thanks for the kind words. I intend to really care for/improve/preserve this car. I don't see ever selling it at this point. The seller didn't really want to sell it but had too many cars. He was very pleased when I told him I was keeping it stock and that it had found a good home. He said "I was afraid the buyer would paint is some wild color and put huge rims on it."


Thanks Steve. The storage is 14'x40'. I'm guessing the ceiling is 20' high. A 12' ladder gets you to the shelves that are up high on the south and west walls. I wish I was buying it instead of renting it, wish it had a bathroom, wish it had 220V, wish it was tighter to the weather and climate controlled but I love having it. It gives me the opportunity to have the Grand Prix. The opportunity to have the Roadmaster. It gave me the opportunity to fix my truck my way when it was hit and run instead of just putting it in a collision shop. It gave me the opportunity to do the 4L80E swap on my truck the last time the 4L65E gave up instead of just putting it in a transmission shop or pulling the transmission in the driveway. I can do some work in the driveway at home but we live in a deed restricted subdivision so we are very limited there. The storage gives me the freedom to have this hobby.


Thanks Brian (correct me if misspelled - your autosig is gone). I mind both flying and the thought of crashing. I don't like heights. I hate being helpless. The thought of falling a few miles before dying really scares the hell out of me. I know it is an irrational fear but I can't change how I feel. I would have bought a wagon if a deal had come along. I like those wagons. Thanks for the kind words.


Thanks Jeff. Grandpa had a 95 Caprice that was really nicely appointed (leather, etc.). I always like it. I think it was part of what put the notion in the back of my mind that I would like to one day own one of these last-gen B bodies. I really like the SS but it wasn't what I was going for on this car. For this one I wanted plush. I've got the truck and the GP for sporty. It's funny. I drove the Roadmaster for about a week and then put it in the storage and got the truck out. They are definitely opposite ends of the spectrum. The Roadmaster is Dr. Jekyll and the truck is Mr. Hyde.


Thanks Doug. I appreciate it. I'll have to check out the Fleetwood wheels. I was surprised to see this car has true dual exhaust. It has a converter, muffler and resonator on each bank. I thought for sure it would have a y-pipe, but no.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I really appreciate it. Update coming....

The true duals was how to tell if one of those cars had the LT-1. Caprice, Fleetwood and Roadmaster. All the same as the Impala SS. Single exhaust was a 305. Back in their day Super Chevy magazine said the exhaust and air intake was why they had 15 less horsepower than the Z-28.

 

[pontiacgp]

I mind both flying and the thought of crashing. I don't like heights. I hate being helpless. The thought of falling a few miles before dying really scares the hell out of me. I know it is an irrational fear but I can't change how I feel. I would have bought a wagon if a deal had come along. I like those wagons. Thanks for the kind words.

In the aeronautical world the definition of the landing is a controlled crash.....so you end up crashing one way or another.... 😊

 

[Texas82GP]

So the owner disclosed some minor imperfections the car had through the eBay ad and the YouTube video. As a result, I started buying parts for the car as soon as I bought it and before it had been shipped. The car showed up on Sunday December 15th. Unfortunately, I had woke up with a sore throat that morning. I inspected and drove the car a little bit and took some family for a ride and then put it in the storage. I just wasn't feeling up to working on it. The sore throat turned into the flu so I didn't mess with the car until the following Saturday (12/21). My first concern was getting the car where it would pass our safety/smog inspection so I could transfer the title, register the car in my name and get Texas plates for it. That Saturday, I drove dad and Sean to breakfast in the car. When I got home I started chipping away at the little things including:

1. Replaced trunk closing motor. You could see in the pictures that the trunk wasn't completely closed and the seller disclosed that the closing motor didn't work. I bought a new AC Delco assembly from Rock Auto. I put it on and now the truck closes properly. I kept the old assembly and might look into repairing it since most of the parts are available. I just wanted a fresh start and figured a new assembly would last me a long time.
2. Replaced power antenna. You could see the antenna wasn't working in the ad and in the video. It was permanently up. I bought a nice used antenna off of a Roadmaster on eBay for around $60 shipped. I went this way instead of buying a new one-size fits most antenna from AC Delco or another supplier for $100+. It worked out well. It fit perfect and fixed that problem.
3. Replaced a burned out left rear stop/turn bulb that was keeping the left turn signal from functioning.
4. Replaced a burned out park light bulb under the driver's side headlight.
5. Fixed the horn by installing the correct fuse (fuse was missing for some reason).
6. Adjusted the emergency brake to tighten it up so it would hold the car.
7. Replaced one of the hubcaps that was pretty badly bent with one I had bought on eBay.
8. Fixed the underhood light by installing a bulb and by replacing a burned out fuse in the underhood fuse center.

Sunday 12/22 I drove out to San Angelo in the truck. I wanted to take the Roadmaster really bad but with only an expired Florida plate and not knowing the car all that well yet, I decided to take the truck. I had business in San Angelo Monday morning and then drove home. I took off from work 12/24-1/1. There was lots of family time and some other projects but the Roadmaster got more attention including:

1. I took it and had the safety/smog inspection performed.
2. I got it registered in my name and got license plates for it.
3. I was able to find and install a front license plate holder. In Florida, where the car was from, they aren't required to display a front plate. Finding the correct plate holder was a little tougher than you would think. It is a 91-96 Roadmaster specific part. It has been discontinued. I couldn't find a new one anywhere. Sean and I went to a Pick-Your-Part on 12/26 and they had one Roadmaster. It had the plate holder but it was in sad shape. I bought it anyway for the $4 to have an example. The next day I went to another Pick-Your-Part across town, which had a Roadmaster and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the holder was in better shape. The front of the car had been wrecked and the plate holder was a little bent out of whack shape wise from being on a wrecked bumper for so long but I was able to fix it up pretty decent with the heat gun. If anyone is in the yards and sees a nice front plate holder on a 91-96 Roadmaster, grab it for me. I'll take care of you.
4. I oiled all the door hinges and the hood latch.
5. I put on a new set of wiper blades that I got on RockAuto on wholesaler close out. They were NAPA branded Trico exact fit. They were asking like $1.25 each for them. I bought 6 (three pairs).
6. I had acquired a second key fob on eBay, as I only got one with the car. I programmed both fobs to the car and put new batteries in each.
7. I did an exterior wash of the car including cleaning the jambs real well and cleaning behind the license frame where you put the fuel in.
8. I got the tires rotated and balanced. The tires have 8k miles on them. They are Hankook Optimo H724's which I'm not that crazy about. They had never been rotated. One was hammering at 60-75 mph so I was hoping rotating and balancing them would cure that. It didn't so I'm not sure how long those will stay on the car. I'm going to put a few more miles on them and see what happens.
9. I replaced the four rubber isolators (hangers) that the two exhaust resonators/turndowns hang from, just ahead of the rear bumper. The Driver's side turndown was hanging lower than the passenger side. This was one of those projects I thought would be easy but was a fight. I got all the isolators replaced and the exhaust was hanging exactly the same. I ended up "adjusting" the hanger on the driver's side and got it looking right.
10. I replaced a missing bolt that secures one of the cooling fans to the radiator. Again, easier said than done. The missing bolt was a really odd duck. It was about three inches long and had a very coarse thread, almost like a wood screw. When I was at the junkyard across town, I grabbed some bolts that were laying on the core support of the Roadmaster the front plate holder came off of, thinking they were the bolts for the missing cooling fans. They weren't. A few days later I went back over there, now knowing what I was looking for. I looked everywhere in and around that car but no dice. I then started looking at all the other cars in the GM section to see if something else would have the bolt I was looking for. The Roadmaster on my side of town was a 92 so it had a clutch fan. There was only one other B-Body in a Pick-Your-Part and it was at the third location, across town as well. It was a Caprice with a clutch fan though. When I got to the last row of cars and was figuring I was going to strike out, I looked at a 94 Fleetwood and success! To look under the hood, that car looked just like mine. I got two examples of the bolt which I soaked in Ospho and then primed and painted. This was one of those small details that took a lot of time.
11. Re-aimed the headlights. They were pointed at the ground. To look at the assemblies on the car they were pointed so extremely that you would have thought something was broken. Thankfully no, they just needed aimed reasonably.
12. I replaced the driver's side lumbar switch in the seat. The switch that came with the car was missing the chrome portion of the "button" or rocker switch. It only had a red nub. I had grabbed a nice switch out of one of the wrecks.

I might be missing something but I think that is what I got done over the holidays as well as buying more parts. If you got through this post, you're a trooper. I have another update to go to get the thread caught up. Thanks for the interest.

Best,

Jared

 

[Texas82GP]

The true duals was how to tell if one of those cars had the LT-1. Caprice, Fleetwood and Roadmaster. All the same as the Impala SS. Single exhaust was a 305. Back in their day Super Chevy magazine said the exhaust and air intake was why they had 15 less horsepower than the Z-28.

Thanks for the info Doug. It was my understanding, and I'm not saying this is fact, that the difference in the B-Body LT1 relative to the F and Y bodies was the cam. I was told the B-Body (and presumably the D-Body had a cam that was biased towards low end torque to get those goliaths rolling.

 

[Texas82GP]

I drove the Roadmaster to work on 1/2 and 1/3. By then I had burned a little bit more than a tank of gas in it. Saturday 1/4, we had some projects at the house. That afternoon I took the Roadmaster to the storage and got the truck out. It was time for some maintenance on the Roadmaster, namely a tune-up. The car has just over 105k miles on it and I think the cap, rotor, wires and plugs might be original. On a nice dry day the car has a very slight flutter in the idle. One of the days I drove it up to work it was raining pretty steady and by the time I got there it had a pretty pronounced misfire at idle. As soon as you roll into the throttle it's gone but I think it is jumping fire or perhaps there is a moisture problem in the Opti-spark. In the interest in building reliability in the car and making it run as well as it can, I decided to do a major tune-up. Since you have to pull the water pump to get to the Opti-spark, I decided to go back with a new water pump and new hoses. It's definitely had some new hoses at some point but who knows how old they are. This project will include:
1. New distributor cap and rotor (MSD - choices for an LT1 are limited and the Delco cap and rotor is unobtanium. The MSD unit appears to be high quality).
2. New plug wires (Delco)
3. New Spark Plugs (Delco Rapid Fire)
4. New Water Pump (Delco)
5. New belt (Delco)
6. New tensioner (Delco)
7. New balancer (Dayco Powerbond) - The elastomer on the original balancer doesn't look too good
8. New thermostat (Delco) - I found a 160° Motorad thermostat in it which explains why it runs so cool (only 1/16th of the gauge). 180° is the OE temp.
9. New hoses (all) - Mostly Delco but some Gates and some Continental
10. New coolant overflow bottle (GM) - the existing bottle is opaque
11. Clean throttle body
12. Clean IAC
13. Clean MAF
14. New throttle body gasket (don't remember)
15. New Air Filter (Wix)
16. New Fuel Filter (Delco)
17. New PCV Valve (Delco)
18. Oil change (Delco filter and Valvoline conventional 5W-30)
19. New Oil cooler hose assembly (Delco) - the original lines are leaking at the crimp connection in front of the engine

I ran a bottle of Chevron fuel system cleaner in the tank of gas I just burned. If for some reason I'm not happy with the outcome of this tune-up, I might have the injectors professionally cleaned but I think this is going to have it running real smooth and put a lot of life and reliability back into it. Last Sunday I started the teardown. Sean came and visited and provided a second set of hands, particularly with working the constant tension hose clamp pliers while I was up on the core support on my knees struggling with the heater hose connections at the heater core. The heater hose assembly on this car reminds me a lot of the on my brother's old 95 Camaro. What a pain! I don't know if you can see it but the heater hose connections are hiding back behind the transmission dipstick in this picture...

This is how far we got with the teardown...

All of the coolant/heater hoses are off. I started out cleaning everything as I pulled it off so I spent some time on all the air intake parts and the hat that sits on top of the engine. I vacuumed out the air box and installed the new air filter. There is only one bolt holding the water pump. The air pump needs to come off first to get to it. Then we'll pull the water pump, the belt, the tensioner and the balancer. Then we should be ready to service the Opti-spark and start on the fun project of changing the plug wires.

That's it for now friends. That gets the thread caught up. Hopefully I have a good update after next weekend. Until then, thanks for following along.

Best,

Jared