Ultra Mega 18 month long overdue update!!...pg 7

[BonnieBoy08]

That's me! And I washed it yesterday, so that's why its raining today. But its supposed to be 60 on Sunday, so you're welcome! :p

[BonneMe]

Want to talk about Thursday and Friday yet?

[BonnieBoy08]

*sigh* No.

[BonnieBoy08]

Those lines look like your transmission cooler lines.
Just replace them.
Just did it on my wifes 2004 SLE, no big deal.

Leon

I am finding otherwise! Those metal c clips were a SOB to get off. And my new lines from Rock Auto didn't fit into the radiator

[Zeik75]

Probably get adapters for npt threads into the radiator.

[BonnieBoy08]

I got them from the dealership today. Were only $12 more than what i got them from rock auto.Idk why they ever switched from that style?! My 95 Grand Prix had those and they were a piece of cake.

[BonnieBoy08]

Few updates I haven't made here yet. Did a full brake job a couple weeks ago and installed my mud flaps finally. The brakes were long overdue and I like how the mud flaps look, hopefully it saves on the rocker paint too.

Was finally able to do a hand wash and clay bar for the first time all season, this was a couple weeks ago though and the car is filthy again.


They look great and perform even better!






I have a busy weekend ahead of me to try and get this beast Michigan ready!
-sand down and refinish headlights
-replace ball joint/ control arm on driver side
-full hand wash / polish
-complete interior detail including carpet shampoo. I still have my winter floor mats in!
-install GXP handles and carbon fiber door bezels if I can get them wrapped this week.

[Zeik75]

Be warned the door handle bezels are a pain to wrap.

[BonnieBoy08]

Lots of stuff happened this weekend and I am happy to report Gina is very much ready for Michigan!

This was my drive home Friday afternoon, temp gauge did not like 90* and miles of stop and go traffic. Kept running just fine and didn't stumble at all which made me happy. Probably about due for a coolant flush soonish though. Hopefully someone with a tuner can change my fan turn on to 180* this weekend.


To kick off Saturday morning I started with a long overdue headlight restoration. Got the kit for xmas, pretty much the exact same process as the urethane/paint thinner but maybe (hopefully) this will hold up a little better.


Before, pic doesn't really show how terrible they were


Wet sanding time!



Tada! Like new again Forgot how clear and crisp the beams can shine at night, such a huge difference!


Then it was new control arm/ ball joint time. Huge thanks to Ryan for his helpful pointers over the phone! The next one will be a breeze! The ball joint separator was a must!


Out with the old


In with the new



But first new sway bar end link/ bushings. The old one was toast!

Not sure how much life this one had left! Thinking it would probably be pretty bad if this failed?


Good as new!



Also got a good look at the air filter, still looking pretty clean!


Then Sunday was onto cleaning mode! Still cleans up nice but is starting to show its age :( The front bumper is pretty sandblasted under the fog lights, the rear bumper paint is starting to crack, and hood herpes are starting to appear on top of the hood (under has been peeling awhile now), and the paint chips on the hood/ mirrors are starting to add up. And the gas cap rust will be thru the paint within a year I bet, still planning on fixing that though. This was after the wash and before polish, no grille inserts or wiper arms (I repainted both)


Whatever degreaser stuff that comes in the purple bottle (super clean?) did wonders on bringing the exhaust tips back to life!


My girlfriends mom gave me this piece of magic to use! I was skeptical but am VERY impressed! Got the carpets looking pretty darn good! Check out all that nastiness in the right tank!

These are like new now! There is a slight crustiness though, next time I think I will run just water thru the machine on the last pass.

Kinda forgot to take some after pics of the car but here's a couple. A few of you will see it in person soon!

Thursday morning cannot come soon enough!!!!!

And lastly, I have the best girlfriend ever! She fixed me up with some snacks for the trip! Pretty lucky guy

[98SSE]

Looks real good. I need to take care of my wifes headlights on her car, they look awful. Yours turned out really good and purple power/super clean is the whip, I've been using it continually for years now.

[crash93ssei]

Looks great, can't wait to see it in person!

[bs009]

I love new parts! Good work all around

[2003 SSEi]

I have some surprises for everyone

[crash93ssei]

Me too! OK ok... I guess I will just let the cat out of the bag.... Pat and I are trading cars. He likes my black SSEi so much better then his white that he doesn't even care about the rust and piles of miles more and custom mods he has

[2003 SSEi]

shhhhh don't give it away

[SSEiMan01]

Lucky! Mine is unpresentable. So forgive me rolling up in a nasty car for once. Lol. Looks great!

[BonnieBoy08]

Thanks guys! Can't wait to meet all of you. It looks better in pictures than in person but it still cleans up nicely. I really need to buy that Griots Garage polisher

[BonnieBoy08]

Ooof, been a long time since I made an update! The car has come a ways since the last update over 18 months ago but is pretty much just on DD duty lately. Turns out buying a house, a truck, and a dog take A LOT of time away. I’ll try to get the highlights since the last update though. I actually do have that Griots polisher now and loved it the couple times I actually managed to use it. I polished my girlfriend’s old Regal with it and it came out nicely. I only managed to pass over my car with the polish #3. Never got to polish #4 which is the final step and never got to putting a coat of wax on. I just can’t find the time to spend on this car that I used to but I’m hopeful that can change this year, we’ll see.


At the Michigan 2014 meet I purchased an Aeroforce from Intense, John gave me a great show special and it was the first step if I wanted to pulley down. I love it and want to buy one for my truck too. There are so many different parameters to read and you can view and clear CEL codes. Although I have been told they are inaccurate you can also read 1/4 mile, 1/8 mile, and 0-60 times.


In winter of 2014 I manage to get the intake temp below zero. Since the Aeroforce doesn’t read negative numbers it looked as if I was driving straight thru hell


It fits perfectly in the vent hole if you pull it out and cut the back of it out. Lucky for me, Ed was nice enough to give me his. After selling his SSEi he had no use for it anymore


You can dispay 2 parameters at once. I have 1 field showing knock retard at all times and the other field scrolls thru 4 different parameters. Right now I have it set for intake temp, trans temp, coolant temp, and boost I think. I recommend buying this first before doing any mods.


John gave me a free can coozie and I put it to use on the 4th of July


It didn’t take me long to buy a 3.6 pulley. I went up to my girlfriend’s mom’s cabin in Hackensack and swung into Browerville on the way up to have Andrew pull the stock pulley off with his puller and install the new MPS for me. There was a little more get up and go after this but I did get some knock after dropping. Within a couple weeks I had Randy unlock my PCM with his HP Tuners and he set me up with a custom tune from dyno Brian. We drove the car around for 15 mins recording everything my car was doing and then emailed the info to Brian and he came up with a tune based on that. It woke the car up nicely and got rid of my knock too thanks to more fuel. My injectors were at 96% duty cycle I think.


Fall of 2014 brought a road trip to the north shore with my girlfriend to see the fall colors and take a 3 day vacation. She was a little annoyed with me but I couldn't pass up a perfect scenic photo opportunity. The car ran great until I ran out of 93 octane and had to fill with 91. Was tricky keeping the KR down after that. Other than that it was a great trip and a fun drive.







Winter 2014 was my second season with snow tires and I will never go another winter without them! Last year was pretty brutal compared to what this year has been so far.



My girlfriend and I got a condo together in West St. Paul in fall of 2014. It had an underground parking garage which was awesome in the winter. Nothing like a fresh car wash in winter!



January 2015 in what seemed like the coldest week of the year my blower fan quit on me! I was able to limp in by for a bit by banging it with my ice scraper but it eventually gave up entirely. Andrew didn’t have any used ones in stock and recommended a TYC one off Amazon. When it arrived I drove up to my parents to use their garage/ tools to install it. It works good but is already squealing which is painfully annoying. Might have to bite the bullet and buy a new OEM one even though they’re stupid expensive. I also bought a new cabin filter at this time. When I popped the cover is was surprised to find nothing at all in there. After emailing Andrew he informed me I needed to buy a filter holder. I went to the dealer and it was a struggle to find the part number. One parts guy told me its only the filter but a different one got to the bottom of it and set me up with the proper holder. Apparently a cabin air filter was a dealer installed option when these cars were new.



Not the first time the blower fan was replaced.


New cabin filter:


Empty!


Here is the filter in its proper holder


At some point in time (I think fall 2014) I upgraded to HIR bulbs. These are a nice plug and play improvement over stock and better than the Silverstar garbage. They’re a little pricey so I started with just low beam bulbs but eventually got high beams too.



Fast forward to Spring 2015 Car Guy Carl set me up with a pair of retrofitted projector headlights! I’m ashamed to say it but I still haven’t found time to install them yet. The lenses on them have micro-cracks from the previous owner running HIDs with no projector so I want to swap lenses out with my stock headlights and put them on the retros and then sand them down and restore them. In fairness he gave me a discount because of this. So far I at least got the jumper wire installed to disable the DRLs.




Spring 2015 also brought on a loud suspension noises in my front end and a need to replace the struts. I got new KYB shocks and re-used my factory springs. Lowering springs were tempting at this point but my mud flaps already scrape the pavement in driveways and the extra ground clearance is handy in winter so I decided to pass. Randy was nice enough to lend me his spring compressors and they worked good. Install wasn’t bad and will be even easier next time around. I also got new Moog mounts/ bearings. I was originally very happy with this setup but my passenger side is already loud as hell, not sure if it’s the mount or the shock. I will note that if you get Moog mounts the plastic alignment tabs do not line up and you need to pull them out. Also the new bolts they provide do not thread into the mount so you have to reuse your old ones. I also replaced the passenger side sway bar end link and drivers side CV axle at this time. I was getting some loud pops/ clunks thru turns that eventually led to a whole new steering rack.



About April 2015 I decided I had enough of the 3.6 setup and it was time to do some more modding so I purchased a set of headers. I drove the car up to Andrew to get the install done. Originally I was going to assist him with the install but as the to do list grew he wasn’t sure he could do it all in one day and wanted to just do the work himself. Randy followed me up there with the BMW and gave me a ride back to my house. About a week later Andrew put my car on a dolly and delivered it back to me due to time constraints and distance. While it was in his hands he installed new headers, new oil pan gasket, new steering rack, new tie rod ends, new power steering pump, and a new pressure line.




All was good after the install, no leaks, no broken bolts. It helped with KR, opened up the exhaust, and gave a nice little boost in HP. Only problem was that my dumba$$ forgot to buy a w-body dipstick. I didn’t realize this until it was too late. Andrew put an assembly plug in the dipstick tubes place but that decided to pop out on my one night :( Luckily this didn’t happen while driving down the road but when I opened up the garage door my heart sank. I was really worried but all was ok with the trans once I got the w-body dipstick tube in. Which was a real PITA btw. Still not a perfect fit, getting that bolt started took a lot of doing and it still leaks a tiny bit of fluid if the car isn’t on a level surface. I have a new seal now and hope to install it soon but for now I have just been keeping an eye on the fluid and it’s been fine. I’m going to try and get both seals on the tube if I can still manage to get the bolt to tighten.


The piece that didn’t hold in place

This *dang* filter seal gets me every effing time

I also got a coolant flush around this time and replaced the thermostat. Never ever buy a drilled one from ZZP, they drill 2 giant holes in it that pretty much make it useless. The opening is pretty small too. I ended up using a Gates brand one it has a huge opening that didn’t even allow room to drill a hole so I just gave up on having a drilled thermostat.

Awaiting parts. Is that a garage? Yes! Yes it is. I am thrilled to report that the end of March 2015 I closed on my first house. Complete with a 24x40 four car garage!

Fluid in the pan looked good. I replaced with MaxLife but will never do that again. The trans runs a good 20 degrees hotter than the AC Delco Dex VI from the dealer so when I do another pan drop I’m going back to that.


Here are a couple more pics of the garage! It has changed a lot since but maybe I will make a different thread for that project




My first garage also gave me the opportunity to purchase my first tool set. I bought a Craftsman top chest with a 309 piece mechanics tool set to get me started. Finally having a workspace to call my own is a really great feeling


Harbor Freight socket trays FTW!!!


After the headers I dropped down to a 3.4 without issue but late spring 2015 KR started getting more persistent. I found a way to rule out weather it was false knock or not...

Found this gold at a station near my new house. Guy also has a dyno which I'd like to run on sometime, I'd just need to get Randy over with HPT. It ran beautiful with this, not even a blurp of KR, but at $8.50 per gallon I'd go broke. So I knew my problem was somewhere else.
I've learned that plugs need to be replaced...alot. These only had maybe 12,000 miles on them and were giving me KR issues. I had Autolite 604 and then went to NGK TR6 and then TR5 but there is no clear chart on heat ranges for NGK. With NGK the no knock was good but my fuel economy suffered. I am now back to Autolite 104s and just change them out every 3,000+/- miles when I change oil. This has been pretty successful for me in maintaining fuel mileage and keeping the KR down


A couple weeks before the Michigan 2015 meet I decided to pull the trigger on some LED bulbs. I did the tail/ brake lights, marker lights, turn signals (with resistors), and back-up lights. I bought them off of ijdmtoy.com, I found out about this site from Greg and am overall pretty pleased with their products.






I also bought new tires before Michigan. Being I have winter tires I wanted a good performing summer tire, something with decent handling that was sticky. After much research I ended up with Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s.


Overall I'm pretty pleased with how they're performing.

I also did a front brake job before the trip. They had a warped feeling under light pedal that went away the harder I braked. I had Brakemotive products and was happy with them until this point so I decided to try them again. The new ones are noisy and not very smooth either. I'm the only one I know who's had a bad experience with their product so maybe they changed who makes their product or something I'm not really sure but I know I will be trying something different next time.



The 2015 Michigan meet was pretty fun overall. I enjoyed 2014 more but that was just because of less stress in my personal life and less responsibility since I didn't own a house yet. I feel a little more settled now so hopefully 2016 is better in that regard.

Summer 2015 brought on many house projects. I didn't buy my truck until September so the Bonneville was my truck until then. With a little finagling I was able to haul alot...
Like lumber

And sod


But this landscaping project turned out really well in the end. This was all rock when I bought the house. I removed it all, added a small block wall, planted some hostas my mom gave me, and finished it off with a new strip of grass up to the sidewalk


I also patched in a spot in the backyard where the previous owner had a dog kennel. They left it behind and I sold it on Craigslist for $120 score!


This brings us to winter 2015. Here's a couple pics putting on the snow tires for season #3



I purchased a tire rack to store my tires/ rims in the off season, it works nice

Also put the winter mats in and cleaned up the interior a little. Oh and I got a Valentine One radar detector, love that thing! It has definitely saved my ass a couple times. I was fed up with all of the unmarked cop cars around here so decided to level the playing field.

My toolbox grew some over the winter too!

[nos4blood70]

The car is looking great! But you NEED to get those lights on… Hahaha!

Very jelly of that garage. Nice ingenuity pulling the seat back.. Who needs fold down seats?

[gweg_b]

You've had a lot going in the last year and a half, Nick! The Bonneville is looking good! I still remember basking in your amazing, cold A/C during the 2015 meet. it was like paradise in that muggy heat! It's so nice having a garage, isn't it? Mine's just not attached to a house, and it's already filled with two project cars - no room for a Bonneville.

And you will get addicted to using that polisher once you get some quality time with it.