Weight Reduction

Discuss your 2000-2005 Bonneville SE, SLE, SSEi, Buick Le Sabre 00-05 and Buick Park Avenue 97-05. Please use General Chat for non-mechanical issues, and Performance and Brainstorming for improvements.
01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

yourgrandma wrote:Not sure how I got quoted there...

As things would have it, I do not have a spare tire, not to save weight but because my brakes are kind of a big deal.
That is odd, I probably highlighted/deleted a quote mark. Will fix.

So what are you gonna do when you get a flat in the middle of no where?
Last edited by 01bonneSC on Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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yourgrandma
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by yourgrandma »

Use my boyish good looks to get a ride from a trucker. Same risk I run on long motorcycle trips. I do have a can of fix a flat but have serious doubts as to its effectiveness. Especially in the winter when its frozen. Once I get my 18s rolling ill be able to use one of the winter wheels as a spare.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 00Beast »

:laughing3:

Fix-a-flat works fine if you pick up a nail or something. Doesn't work well when your entire sidewall is disintegrated....
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Sirius wrote:Think about it. You’re tooling down the road in your Prius, knowing full-well that this thing being green is as big a sham as federally mandated ethanol-enriched gas, Russia pulling out of Ukraine, and Obamacare.
01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

Ahhhhh touche on the motorcycle, never thought about them. Eyes are being opened to new things everyday lol.
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by FIND »

What do you suppose the weight difference is between leather and cloth seats? How about the weight on the trunk and hood? The doors are gonna be a heavy part, but, it is pretty hard to do full doors out of fiberglass or CF, and they suck to have on road cars.

Not really a lot of good places for weight loss on these cars when I think about it.

If anything, I would add aero... Like a belly pan or something.
01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

iirc the hood is aluminum. and the bottom of the 00+ Bonnes is pretty darn flat as is. Belly pan would just add weight.
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by LeSabre in Buffalo »

01bonneSC wrote:
LeSabre in Buffalo wrote:
Best weight reduction would be ditching the spare/jack and getting some lightweight wheels.
Sounds like the OP want to lose weight and keep it as a daily. Losing the jack/spare would be the dumbest thing, hello flat tire. For the, track sure! And the "work" to remove it isnt worth the gain.
My car doesn't have a spare tire, and one cannot be ordered as an option even. It's got a compressor, a can of (won't) fix-a-flat, and an AAA membership to flatbed it back to the tire store. It doesn't bother me since I've used a spare tire for its intended purpose exactly once.
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01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

LeSabre in Buffalo wrote: My car doesn't have a spare tire, and one cannot be ordered as an option even. It's got a compressor, a can of (won't) fix-a-flat, and an AAA membership to flatbed it back to the tire store. It doesn't bother me since I've used a spare tire for its intended purpose exactly once.

Really? Man, they (car manufacturers) really DO NOT want people to work on anything huh? Thats insane.
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by LeSabre in Buffalo »

01bonneSC wrote:
LeSabre in Buffalo wrote: My car doesn't have a spare tire, and one cannot be ordered as an option even. It's got a compressor, a can of (won't) fix-a-flat, and an AAA membership to flatbed it back to the tire store. It doesn't bother me since I've used a spare tire for its intended purpose exactly once.

Really? Man, they (car manufacturers) really DO NOT want people to work on anything huh? Thats insane.
You should see the engine bay. It's all security Torx and external Torx.

I still stand by my position for ditching the spare.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by FIND »

01bonneSC wrote:iirc the hood is aluminum. and the bottom of the 00+ Bonnes is pretty darn flat as is. Belly pan would just add weight.
Yes, the hood is aluminum, so probably not much weight can come off it, but there is still the trunk, not that any of it would make a lot of difference to a 2 ton car. The bottom isn't really THAT flat, and a couple pounds won't make much difference anyway.

Meh, this is why I put all my concerns for fuel saving into reducing electrical loads and minor tuning. Not a lot of places to improve on these Bonnevilles anyway I guess.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 00Beast »

The weight difference between any of the seats will be the power features they do or don't have. Otherwise it's the same cloth or leather.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by bon-evil »

Well instead of getting racing seats couldn't a bench seat manual slider bracket work? You just have to keep the wiring for the side airbags in tact. Please correct me if I'm wrong because the cloth bench seat as in the whole thing seems to weigh half of what a single power bucket weighs. Anybody know exactly how much the powers weigh? My money is on approx 60lbs each
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 00Beast »

More than that. I'd say 90.
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Sirius wrote:Think about it. You’re tooling down the road in your Prius, knowing full-well that this thing being green is as big a sham as federally mandated ethanol-enriched gas, Russia pulling out of Ukraine, and Obamacare.
01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

SE has column shift Im assuming?
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 00Beast »

It's like 50/50.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by bon-evil »

Mines a floor shift but its also a fully optioned se. I think I'm gonna get my hands on some slider seat brackets and do a little weight comparison
2000 Bonneville intake, exhaust, 1.8 rr's, 75 shot of cheater spray, grand Prix ft 17's 245/50/17 g-force kdw tires, f-body brakes 10k hid's.
01bonneSC
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by 01bonneSC »

Gonna take a good amount of console fab to make a bench look good.
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00Beast wrote:Less off-topic than Lane's Heated Steering wheel, but yeah, back to the topic.
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by bon-evil »

I'm not putting in a bench I'm gonna take the brackets and sliders off a bench seat and toss them on the buckets
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Re: Weight Reduction

Post by Grimm »

I seriously doubt you can get much weight reduction drilling holes in stuff. Take something like a 12 GA bracket, a quarter inch hole will reduce weight by .002 pounds. I don't know what gauge the frame parts are, but say they are 7 GA, you would be lucky to reduce weight by .004 pounds. So you could drill a thousand holes, and only reduce five pounds of steel.
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