1998 Chevy Lumina

[MostMint]

Found this one on Craig's List. Asking price was $850. I offered $650 and he took it. Edmunds says this is worth $1700 in average condition, maybe a little more since it has some options.

Car has 107K on it. Seats are clean. Runs good and shifts smooth. Steers and stops straight.

Needs tires, pass side mirror, driver side power window switch, check engine light is on, has a noticeable lifter tick at idle, but it was gone after the drive home from Strongsville. Also need tha jack and the cover for the spare (you know the flat thing that goes over the spare that is actually part of the trunk floor). A/C does not work. Has a few minor dings but nothing major. The exhaust hangers in the middle are not holding but the pipes are stainless so I'll fix the hangers.

I need this car like a hole in the head, but I have the disease, so I will fix it up and sell it.

This is a big step up from the Calais that I sold for $850.

Going to put the tires from the wife's car on this one (they have like 20K on them so they are still good, but 4 years old) and treat her to a new set of Bridgestones.

It probably needs plugs and wires, and maybe an O2 sensor, based on the codes in the computer.

[MostMint]

Started in on the car this weekend. The kids helped - had a lot of fun cleaning out the interior. They found $1.83 in change, a debit card, a college ID and the usual trash. There was not a lot of trash, but all under the seats got cleaned etc. I let my son take out the bottom of the back seat as part of the effort.

Cleaned up the nesting materials from the engine compartment and inside the front bumper - found a couple grocery bags full at least. Took the shop vac in some places and compressed air in others to clean all the tree garbage out of all the nooks and crannies.

Changed the tires too. Changing tires is a dirty job as it is, but put a seven and eight year old in the mix and it goes to a new level. Funny thing is they liked it so much they want to change more tires! The car now has 65,000 mile tires with only about 21,000 miles on them.

A few surprises: looks like the fuel tank is leaking, one of the front lugnuts won't go on because the stud is messed up, and the positive cable at the battery end looks really bad, most of it was eaten up by corrosion.

The $20 ebay pass side mirror arrived on Fri. Looks good.

edit:
Bought spark plugs too.
Transferred the title for $52.

6/25/07 - Son wants to put the mirror on. So we put the mirror on. It is actually not faded like the driver side mirror. Hopefully no one will notice.

7/15/07 - bought a window switch on ebay. I could get one at a junkyard for $45. Been bidding up to $35 on ebay. It took about six or eight tries but finally snagged one for $22 and change including shipping.

7/18/07 - put the switch on and it works. Had to use the plastic bezel that came with the switch since most of the tabs that hold the switch in the old bezel were broken.

[MostMint]

Time to shake the dust off this one.

During the nice weather earlier this week, I started on the rust/touch up. Most of the rust is superficial, just one hole in the right rocker panel. That rocker is dented which must have wrecked tha galvanize and allowed it to rust through. I scratched off the rust and loose paint, and put some Extend on there.

Started the stud changing process. Quickly learned that the stud will not come all the way out of the hub - it hits the bearing housing. So I disconnected the bearing housing from the strut housing and the new stud is installed.

Picked up the new gas tank last night.

Next will be to reassemble the right front, touch up paint and drop the tank.

[markss327]

Hummm. Looks like you're getting her ready to unload.
Could this have anything to do with the pic (13.71 on the T/A) that the 32valve guy posted?

[MostMint]

Mark,

Either drop it or drive it for the winter - not determined yet. It has nothing to do with the numbers - unless it is some subliminal thing.

Update:

Dropped the tank and installed the new tank - finished 10/27. Took a while mostly because it is not very exciting work.

The tank was so bad that it had visible holes once the rust chunks fell off after I removed it. Luckily all the fuel lines from the sending unit are plastic so they did not rust out. Had to cut the metal fuel line to get the filter off - tried with a pipe wrench and a bar on the other wrench - but it would not break free. Filter has a special fitting on the out side so I had to buy a tube with that fitting pre-made (there is an o-ring in it). Autozone had no clue. Federated Auto Parts had it for under $8.

Lots of brown nasty gas came out of the old filter so no doubt that rusty tank was plugging up the filter.

The grooves in the rear drums have a lot of rust and are dragging on the backing plates. Not a big deal except try to explain that to a buyer. Right side came off last night with a little help from the air chisel. Used same chisel to clean big rust our of the groove.

Could not get the left side off. Tried with air chisel, heat (bernzomatic), penetrating oil. Also tried leaving the lugnuts almost finger tight and locking the brakes. Problem is right where the drum opens for the hub to pass through. I can see the area near the studs is freed up. Yikes.

I can see someone else tried this before me but all they did was bend up the secondary shields on the backing plate.

The sheet metal is still in pretty good shape, but I am surprised to see all this undercarriage rust on a 1998 model. Got to stay away from cars that are in that salt all the time.

I think I can drive it now, so time to get insurance and temp tags.

[markss327]

I like the Lumina too. Anything with buckets, and floor shift. An LTZ, 3.8, alloys, 4 wheel discs...

[MostMint]

I like the Lumina too. Anything with buckets, and floor shift. An LTZ, 3.8, alloys, 4 wheel discs...

Now if I could just find one of those for $650!

I wnet back to that drum the next night after soaking in penetrating oil. I reapplied air chisel and some pressure with a screwdriver. I tried hitting it with a decent size hammer with no luck either.

Fred32v suggested I file right at the point where the hub and drum meet. I took that idea and modified it slightly, using a die grinder to grind down some of the material of the drum at that point. If figured make that connection a little narrower and the air chisel would work. That did it.

So I cleaned the groove on that side, straighted the backing plate (like the other side), opened the hub hole in the drum by a little, and put it back together. I then took the broken bolt out of the suspension, and have since bought a new bolt. Should be ready for a test drive tomorrow.

[MostMint]

Last night I installed the bolt and replaced one of the bad hangers on the exhaust. Exh pipe is small - maybe 1 and 3/4".

This AM called my insurance company and put on insurance and picked up temp tags.

Took it out around for a test drive. No gas leaks. Now has a slight pulse under moderate to heavy braking. I am still getting a trouble code indicating misfire on #6. After warming it up I reset the codes so we'll see if the code comes back with regular driving.

It could probably stand new wires too.

[MostMint]

I put on new wires and the misfire on #6 keeps coming back.

I am starting to think the injector might be the problem, as I am having a lot of part throttle hesitation.

So I am trying to find the best way out of this without breaking the bank. New injectors are expensive, so I don't think that is a good option. You can get a kit to clean injectors in the car, but I had Firestone store do that in car cleaning on my Camaro and it did not fix the problem.

I found a website of a guy who will clean the injectors for $17 each plus shipping. He has a lenghty description of the process, and even gives you a report of before and after flow readings. I am thinking serious about trying it.

Any thoughts?

[wxo]

Andy, could you swap injectors to see if the DTC moves to another cylinder?

[Basement Paul]

A good point WXO. Also, you have a spare Camaro engine, if the injectors are the same color, you could swap one from that motor in...

-BP

[wxo]

Back when I had my Black '89 Firebird Formula, I had the injectors cleaned by Marren Motorsports (http://www.injector.com/injectorservice.php). I was pleased with their service. They provided the documented results of the before and after tests. After a quick comparison of prices, though, it looks like your guy is significantly cheaper than Marren.

[MostMint]

Good idea WXO, and BP. I cross checked and the 95 Camaro 3.4 and 98 Lumina 3.1 have the same replacement part # at Autozone. So it looks like I need to make a switch here to find out if the injector is really the issue. Maybe I'll borrow an injector from the 3.4.

I want to talk with this guy, but this is interesting documentation on how he cleans the injectors: http://www.cruzinperformance.com/injsteps.html Hopefully the service will be prompt.

[TireSmoker]

I've seen that cruizin performance place mentioned a lot on the EFI related forums I read, so I believe he's pretty reputable.

-Dave

[MostMint]

So I switched the #6 injector out - put the replacment from my spare V6 in #4, and moved #4 to #6. Changed all the O rings, cleaned off the intake, put it all back together.

Started right up. No codes.

On the test drive it felt better. Particularly when it is cold. Been having a problem with the headlights flickering last couple times I drove it. On the test drive it was happening, until it stopped when the alternator died. Funny the battery light never came on, but after a couple short drives the battery was weak enough it would not start the car.

Figured it was the regulator, but most places had regulator for $50. Advance Auto had it for $30 but not in stock. So for $99 I bought a new alternator.

Took it out this AM to get to echeck. Made it about 3 miles and the check engine light came on again. P0302 - #2 misfire and P0141 - heating unit in O2 sensor (I believe it is the after cat sensor). I had this code before but forgot about it. I am sad the computer apparently does not record more than one cylinder misfire at a time.

Going to try the trick I just learned to free up the injector (tap it gently while running), and get a new O2 sensor. Thinking hard about the bypass sensor, not sure I want to lay the car up a week while it gets shipped here.