New here, Hello everybody.

I have two 1997 Rivs, both in pearl white. Mileage is around 145,000 on both.
Riv1 was from a good friend, found Riv2 on Facebook.
I am a semi-retired heavy-equipment Mechanic.
I hope to keep these cars running for a long time.
Thanks for the opportunity to share
Edward.

Welcome! You've got about 600,000 miles worth of Riviera ahead of you!

Hello Edward.
Welcome.

Welcome dude. Please post often, this place is dead.

I have to say that I miss what this place was like when it was hopping.

Yeah, I feel like most owners have moved on. To be honest I don't know who owns these things anymore, it would be interesting to find out how many are still registered.

I haven't seen another one on the road in 4-5 years, and I live in a place where they were popular.  

I met a guy a few years ago who had 3.  He was a retired millionaire who collected cars, but didn't know much about cars.  He picked them up at estate sales for the low low.  He sold the only supercharged car he had to a young guy, that one is probably gone.  I don't know what happened to the NA cars.  Last time I saw them, they were in a big air conditioned garage.  They were a bit rough, I think one had Pontiac rims on it.  They weren't as nice as yours, for sure.  I'd guess the owner has since sold them to make room for more 57 Chevys, and they're gone.  

I'd guess most of the remaining 8th gens are either the daily drivers of poor people, and on their very last legs; or they're nice examples sitting in the garages of lower level collectors.  Logically, the trashed cars can't go much longer, which means all that will be left will be the nicer collector cars.  They'll never be big money cars.  While the electronics and plastics hold out, they're very nice cruisers.  It's not cheap or easy to bring an older car up to the standard of the 8th gen Riviera.

ADDvanced wrote:

Yeah, I feel like most owners have moved on.  To be honest I don't know who owns these things anymore, it would be interesting to find out how many are still registered.

An easy way to assess that would be to look at the Facebook pages for the car. Group is "Buick Riviera 1995-1999" and is private,but they're pretty easy about granting membership. Looking at the present and older posts will give you a very good idea of the current crop of Gen 8 owners.

Albertj

Jack the R wrote:

I have to say that I miss what this place was like when it was hopping.  

I agree Jack, I have had my Riv for over 10 years. I joined here right away, and it was very active, I believe I actually missed the biggest years. Glad to see a couple old timers hanging in there!
There is still a lot of info stored here & guys like Albert chiming in to help frequently, kudos Albert for your all your contributions, I don't know how you do it.
Jbird

In Russia we have small community of owners, may be 10 or 15 total.
This place is a gold mine, too bad most of the pictures gone (F%U photobucket).
It is becoming harder and harder to maintain our Rivs in proper order, but not impossible (yet).
Mine is daily driver, after 7 years I still enjoy it.

yeah the Photobucket fiasco really messed up a lot of content, "a picture is worth a thousand words"!!

Jbird

Thanks for the warm welcome.
I'm getting some bugs sorted on Riv2.
The other day it cut out twice, pulled the code, 336.
This did not feel like a crank sensor issue, it cut clean, no shaking, surging, and such.
I felt some heat at the fuel pump relay, swapped it for the air suspension relay, and gave it a good long drive, problem did not resurface.
Al for now. Edward

When my crank sensor went, the car did not shake or surge. It just died.

If your crank sensor is going, it could be weeks or months before the motor cuts out again.

Mine died in the parking lot at work.
Drove in fine, wouldn't start at the end of the day.
Only symptom was it cranked a little longer than usual that morning.
I thought it was odd, but didn't really think much of it.
First & only time it was towed, thank you AAA.

Jbird

Best to do preventative maintenance at this point, rather than rely on 30 year old electronics.

I also can't start mine, but as soon as I put new battery in, starts as new. With the new battery in, once I went to my mechanic we checked the car and and all the codes but we couldn't find anything wrong. Now I have to jump it each time I have start the engine .
Funny but.......!!!!

Riv2 cut out and died again today, I was able to restart after about 5 seconds of cranking.
New CPS is on order.

stan wrote:

I also can't start mine, but as soon as I put new battery in, starts as new. With the new battery in,  once I went to my mechanic we checked the car and and all the codes but we couldn't find anything wrong. Now I have to jump it each time I have start the engine .
Funny but.......!!!!

be sure to ceck wiring at the big firewall connector and at the igniition module for teeny break of wire inside the insulation. Years ago that was a 'thing.'

albertj wrote:

stan wrote:

I also can't start mine, but as soon as I put new battery in, starts as new. With the new battery in,  once I went to my mechanic we checked the car and and all the codes but we couldn't find anything wrong. Now I have to jump it each time I have start the engine .
Funny but.......!!!!

be sure to ceck wiring at the big firewall connector and at the igniition module for teeny break of wire inside the insulation.  Years ago that was a 'thing.'

.....albertj do we know of havin` the same problem in Park Ave / Century ?
Thanx.

It has been a week since I replaced the Crank Position sensor. I believe I was successful.
No long cranks while starting, no more 'flameouts' while driving.

It was not an easy repair.
I had the new sensor installed and gave the starter a whirl before reinstalling the belts, and I got nothing, it just cranked and cranked.
I went back and re-checked all my connections, but still no glory.
This got serious, I pulled out my trusty General Motors H-platform Technical Manual (2 volumes, 14 pounds, maybe 1500 pages), and started reading.
For those of you who have not used one of these, the manual was written by an engineer, for an engineer to use, so it was a bit tough.
I found out that most of the brains of the car exist in the Ignition Control Module, if this is not working, nothing works.
Long story short, I believe the ground circuit at the ICM was faulty, I cleaned up the mounting points, and grounded the harness connector to a bolt on the intake manifold, and it worked.
About 20 hours of reading, testing, and reworking occurred over a two-day period to get there.
I found the diagnostic at
https://easyautodiagnostics.com/gm/3800/ignition-module-and-crank-sensor-test?start=2
very helpful.
Lets see if this stays together.

Two Rivs, no waiting wrote:

Riv2 cut out and died again today, I was able to restart after about 5 seconds of cranking.
New CPS is on order.

My 1997 at about 107,000 miles started out by dying but would re-start. Then it took longer to re-start. Then, it stopped altogether. No check engine light, no codes. It was the fuel pump.

Fuel pressure gauge was the first test when this problem first started.
Goes up and down as it should with varying engine vacuum. Still had good pressure when the engine crapped out.
In my case, I was getting the 0336 code.
Since the repair this has been driven on a daily basis , short trips, long trips, no problems, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one, but it looks like it will behave.

Two Rivs, no waiting wrote:

Fuel pressure gauge was the first test when this problem first started.
Goes up and down as it should with varying engine vacuum. Still had good pressure when the engine crapped out.
In my case, I was getting the 0336 code.
Since the repair this has been driven on a daily basis , short trips, long trips, no problems, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one, but it looks like it will behave.

Hi Edward,

Welcome aboard the forum. Great to have a new set of learned eyes and ears on these cars.

I note your mention about the shop manuals. Written by engineers for engineers. The most user unfriendly manuals I have had the displeasure of perusing.

Used to enjoy reading sections of my ‘63 Riviera and Skylark manuals. My ‘97 books are a last resort!

Cheers and enjoy
Rodney

albertj wrote:

Be sure to check wiring at the big firewall connector and at the ignition module for teeny break of wire inside the insulation.  Years ago that was a 'thing.'

As depressingly annoying as it can be, Albert makes a good point.  About 5 years ago I saved a friend from himself...  He was convinced that the weird "octopus" injection system on his Vortec V8 Suburban was the cause of his no-start problems.   He was literally going to buy an expensive aftermarket injection system - oh, THAT would be an expensive PITA!
After maybe TEN minutes I used my brain and my NOSE to figure out the problem:  a primary ignition wire that had been pinched at the factory, and had finally separated INside the wire's insulating jacket.  1 new harness from a wrecking yard and the problem was fixed for 10 bucks...