The long awaited arrival of the one and only BonnSSEI_Lass..

[BonnSSEi_Lass]

Hello Fellow enthusiasts,
Me here, you there; just where we put ourselves.
Wanted to give an intro. The wifey and I were handed down a black on black, fully loaded demon of a car; a 1995 Bonnie SSEi sitting at 37,000 original miles, from my Aunt-in-law, prior personal assistant of one Ross Perot (yep big ear Texan Ross Perot that ran for POTUS way back when). She had no kids, pets, cigs, or even a tolerance for any disorder or degree of lifestyle less than what she decided as a child thaht she deserved equaling that of the upper class coming from a dirt-poor, dirt-floor family; she made this dream a reality and it is completely and totally visible in the condition of her pride and joy of her working woman day when women were given a steel ceiling ending at the secretary desk and never any higher. Not for this hard nose 97yr old broad that I would piti against a pack of frothing-at-the-mouth pittbulls any day of the week even at this age. She is a wonderful woman with a wonderful taste in material possessions that'll punch you right in the face if you refer to her in her career as being a secretary rather than not an actual personal assistant to a man who would not take the answer of NO frfom the Gov't when a group of Americans were held hostage in South America; ordering his private security team mostly made of some type of special forces personnel to retrieve said Hostages abandoned by their own gov't and were home with every one of them before the sun shined its face of the beautiful Eastern seaboard within the same 24hr period. I love the inside scoop received on that situation LOL.

Anyway, here is the skinny on the gem we had land in our laps...
Total Surprises:
Again, she is Black on Black and fully loaded and completely original down to her shoes she struts the town with to this very day. Believe me, I was really surprised to learn this when running over a sharp object and having a flat. I asked our aunt if she still had the receipt from her most recent tire purchase so I could try to get a tire under warranty. Never hurts to try to get a free tire. I was walking around for a week caring for a scraped up chin from it dragging the ground inn my amazement at how well she cared for this car.

Existing Issues:;[
It does have the usual age related issues and the all too familiar electrical issues that after almost my entire life of looking for the source of a ground, short or what have you... was traced by dumb-luck back to the ground block located under the drivers door sill cover. The paint needs buffed out but the leather all has been covered and well cared for. The sun/moonroof has the common leak problem often leaving me hit with a tidalwave of rain water when I forget to ensure it is drained from the failing headliner prior to driving. Most recently I had a huge scare and nightmares of pulling the engine to get the lass fitted with a new ticker for her timing when all of a sudden she started chattering really bad when I started her up one evening. I was a little baffled at the fact that the rattle from the front of the engine would die out when the rpm would raise above idle speed. Luckily I found a very helpful and informative article relating to the rebuilding and servicing of the SC unit, pointing to it most likely being a worn coupler.

Thouughts/Ideas on where to go frm here:
So here I am sitting at the present time searching not only for the best deal on possibly a rebuilt nosedrive; but also a bonafide correct fitment spec aluminum UIM to rid me of any future coolant leaks into the lungs due to some genius of an engineer believinig that a plastic compound was the best route to take for a UIM, especially when the LIM is a metal alloy... a bond og metal and plastic; and possibly not even a gasket in between. I asked my 10 year old daughter what she thought would/could happen to that combo, and she hit it right on the nose with possible warping of the weaker element!!! My 10yo that knows nothing about engine mechanics and dynometrics or whatever lol. Anyway, I can say that I am 1000% satisfied with the complete sleeper that sits at 37,000 original miles and frequently takes the newer 'stangs, Camaro's, etc... by a whirlwind of surprise and air-suckery that whines worse that my little ankle biter lol.
LOVE THE BONNIE, and will forever curse with clinched fists they whom murdered an American legend, and an all to popular brand of automobile in order to lift up a Buick. I mean, come on, really, a Buick over Pontiac?!?!?!! But really folks, I love em all regardless of the make and model because of what we can pull out of em in performance with some greasy hands and some determination. Thanks for this forum even existing. Ive already learned so much about my existing and potential problems from several quick reads through here. Nice to Meet yall...
From lil ole' Oak Hill, down in the Appalachia foothills in Southern Ohio...
BonnSSEi_Lass says; howdy; line em up and let's go!
Pics coming as soon as I transfer from phone and take more to show all what I have on my hands.

[RJolly87]

Welcome!

I look forward to seeing some pics, because this sounds like a very nice find.

A few points to note however, if the car is supercharged (All SSEi's are) there is no plastic UIM, only the metal of the supercharger. Also, the supercharger could be to blame for the noise, but be sure to rule out the harmonic balancer as well. The rubber dries up and breaks loose, allowing the belt path to slop back and forth. If you can grab a belt, and rotate it back and forth, it is likely to blame for the noise.

[skregal]

Gotta love a Black on Black Bonnie.

I've done the harmonic balancer and SC coupler on my 95.
Of course it has 200,000 more miles than yours.

Anyway, if you need to do the LIM gaskets, just send out
the supercharger at the same time to have the coupler rebuilt.
There are shops that will do it. I purchased a rebuilt SC and
just plopped it on when I did my LIM gaskets to save time.

I actually find it hard to believe the SC is your current problem
with so few miles. More likely the rubber harmonic balancer rotted
like RJolly said.

[00Beast]

The coupler is separate from the nosedrive. If it's just the coupler that's bad, they're easily replaced. If the bearings in the nosedrive are bad (not common) then you'll need a different nosedrive. Bad coupler would be shown by removing the belt and seeing if the S/C has internal play by rocking the pulley back and forth. If there's no play, but it spins rough, then there's an internal bearing shot, either in the nosedrive or the rotor pack. Do not run the car without the Supercharger belt, as it also spins the water pump on the Series 1.

Here's good info on the supercharger: http://www.3800supercharger.net/

And yes, check the Harmonic Balancer for the issues too.

And correct, you don't have a plastic UIM. You have an aluminum supercharger serving that duty. And if you had a N/A, you wouldn't have to worry about it leaking. The Series 1's had no leaking UIM problems that I'm aware of. That was Series 2 N/A.

[BonnSSEi_Lass]

Thank you For the input. I am hopinv that it is not the SC. Cannot pinpoint with stethoscope, but i heatsoaked the engine and took the handle end of a breaker bar to the different pulleys to see if any had movement. There was an issue with one of the tensioner pulleys where it felt like the bearing was going bad, was getting difficult to turn so i swapped it out with a good one i had laying around. I replaced the water pump about a month or so ago, and its pulley seemed to have a wobble to it after idling for a lil bit, would start to have slight movement when i pushed on it about 5 min into idle from cold start. Hate to think there is an issue with it being a new part, but we all know how possible that can be lol. Ill check the HB and add the pics as soon as im home from VA appointment. Again, i cant thank yall enough for this info. Its been an uphill battle replacing part after part here lately. Surprises me as well with little mileage on it, but they cant all be peaches lol

[00Beast]

Sitting for long periods is often as bad as having a lot of miles on it. Seals dry out, heat and cold cycles from the climate affect things, water leaks in and starts corrosion, etc.

[CMNTMXR57]

Sitting for long periods is often as bad as having a lot of miles on it. Seals dry out, heat and cold cycles from the climate affect things, water leaks in and starts corrosion, etc.

I was just going to say this. That is a 21/22 y/o car (dependent on in-service date), and being as low mileage as it was means it either sat for long periods of time and/or was driven in very small increments, which can be as bad as it having higher mileage, at least if it's not kept maintained even not being used.

And as to the whole Pontiac going bye-bye thing, that ship has sailed and posting about it, is just beating a dead horse. Which I thought we had a smiley of here.

[jradke61]

Ross Perot is/was a nut case.
There was an ulterior motive for the release of those hostages. The "bad people" who had them wanted said nut case to look good and be crowned "Top Dog" here. I wonder why?

60 Gunner, "Charlie" Co.
2nd Bat./14th Inf.
"Right of the Line" HOOHAH!

On to more important things.
Like the others said, sitting for extended periods is a bad thing. For cars that is.
I've seen motors blown that way.
Go easy on the old girl.

[RJolly87]

We had one, looked like this:

No idea where it went to though.

I agree on the car sitting for a long time. My Regal took about 40k miles in its first 15 years of service, and I am still cleaning up the mess.

[BonnSSEi_Lass]

Again guys, thanks for the advice. Most recently i purchased an 03 SSEi from a fellow for just a couple hundred bucks. Was hoping the issue he had with a loud knock was either the sc coupling or harmonic balancer. Now that i have the sc belt off, the knock is VERY loud. Im afraid the motor is trash but hoping to salvage it if i can. Im tryoming to post pics of my rides and a vid here to give yall a listen of how it is. Any clue on what it could be? just don't of visual inspection I could not see any cracking or disruption in the rubber between the two pulleys on the dampener comma nor does the supercharger pulley have any kind of swap or play in it no matter what direction you turn or pull on the pulley. So I guess any suggestions would be great period and I'm still learning how to navigate the site so I will put my requests in the proper places and future posts.

[J Wikoff]

I used to work for Ross. His company bought mine some years back and I met him when he came to see it. Ran into him again in the cafeteria when I was working temporarily at the PS headquarters. His collection of memorabilia, artifacts and such in the hallways of that place is pretty interesting.

When my harmonic balancer failed, there was a crack in the rubber all the way around at the outer hub. It really just looked like surface degredation, hiding the fact that it went clear through. The giveaway was that I could grab either belt and move it about an inch, making the rest of the pulleys rotate some.

The LIM gaskets aren't as essentially guaranteed to fail like Series 2, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace them.

[BonnSSEi_Lass]

J Wikoff...
Sorry for it being a bit before i coild read and try to get back to yall on this thread.
Anyway, love the story bout your encounters with Ross. What kind of attitude did he give off? if I recall correctly he wasn't all that big of a guy, so i tend kind of picture in as having that little man syndrome. Id like to experience his presence yo see how he carries himself.

Always love hearing about meetings like that. Ive been slowly working towards a masters in psychology and one of the most interesting topics i keep coming back to in fiscussions is how random it appears when you just happen upon a person you may have had silome connection with in the past; but its really quite predictable when where and how you could meet any one person like that. But a discussion for another time and place perhaps.

Right now i find myself in the middle of a 'heads-up rebuild' that started simply as a SC coupler repair, but ended up going so much deeper once i realized i needed to remove the entire unit to even drain the stinkiest fluid i think ive ever come across. Seriously, id rather bathe in burnt tranny fluid before catching a whiff of that againlol..

So after i saw what all came off for that i just kept going. Then while waiting on the gasket set, i figured she was looking dirty in the engine bay so some degreaser, elbow greese and some hightemp paint later im back on track to having everything off the top of the block and cleaned.

Was wondering, from this point right here; everything from heads up off the motor, what some ideas for improvements yall may have since i this far into the motor an all. Still i cannot figure out how to download a pic or two. Will figure it out when i get more time here in a bit. Tonight looks like a cold beer till you cant push on anymore kind of night...

[00Beast]

How to post pics: http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... 46080.html

Might be a good time to post some new pics in that section (Your Ride), and maybe start it as a "build" thread instead of working out of the New Member's section.

[CMNTMXR57]

S/C fluid stinks period. There may be nothing wrong.

[00Beast]

It's made of animal fats apparently. Why they spec'd that fluid, God only knows...