My '95 Riviera

Haha bummer...yeah mine sorta did the same thing but it didn't bother me. I bet you were thinking 'what the heck kind of mileage is this thing getting??'

As for painting, I don't have the equipment right now to do the whole thing, or I'd do my whole car. I'm just repairing the spots on the trunk, roof, and by the gas cap and blending in the color and clear coat. It's gonna take a while...Maybe we can work on yours someday though! And now that I know my car will, you know, run, we should get together and get pics of our cars!

o im def down to get them together. im just waiting to get my SES light off, and get a job to put money into it lol.
when the gas gauge was freakin out like that...i freaked out too. i smelled around to see if the gas was leaking..looked like i was gettin 6-8mpg's.

Well, so far so good today with how the Riviera is running and whatnot. I got a lot of little things done, mostly cleaning. Enjoy!

My car was the first to be worked on in our newly paved garage! (well, one of the garages anyway...)


Painted the lower body plastic black - the gray was clashing and it looked awful from fading anyway...



The interior and trunk are now spotless except for blemishes in the plastic (ashtray door, console latch, etc.)





Painted the exhaust...looks better than rust anyway


My Lesabre T-type in the background (my grandma's house)


Random shot of the day...



I plan on getting the paint on the car started Sunday night. Gonna be a lot of work but I'm just doing temporary stuff. Maybe a full paint job next year - no telling what's to come of that.

Lots of little things still on the list to do, and she goes on a trip tomorrow! First road trip!

Looks pretty good man... you went to town on that bad boy!!!

Z-type wrote:

Well, so far so good today with how the Riviera is running and whatnot. I got a lot of little things done, mostly cleaning. Enjoy!
Lots of little things still on the list to do, and she goes on a trip tomorrow! First road trip!

Good Luck on the trip and enjoy the car and don't worry....
I know that is easier said than done sometimes, but try.

nice

thats a mans job! great work!

Thanks guys for the compliments! I'm working to get it to a nice looking daily driver that will put shame to most others on the road .

Just got back from my 150 mile round-trip road trip. Went off ALMOST without a hitch. At one point while sitting at a light, my car began to shake a little and I got an SES light. I started moving and the shaking never came back, even when stopped. The SES light comes and goes now. Looks like I'll have to find someone to tell me what the deal is. Anyone local want to help me out? Payment is lunch on me! Haha...no seriously - I don't want any more problems...any help is great.

Otherwise, the car drove fantastically and with a trunk AND back seat FULL to the brim of stuff to move my girlfriend into her apartment, it still pulled like a beast! I'm more and more impressed with this car every time I drive it.

1) Did it start to shake and studder during deceleration or only after you came to a stop?
2) What is your normal idle RPM, when it isn't acting up?
3) Does the SES light clear itself after driving a while at a steady speed then come back on after coming to a stop or during deceleration?

deekster_caddy wrote:

That paint looks a lot like mine. They all seem to have done the same thing. I just repainted my trunk lid in an auto body class I'm taking, it looks a billion times better. Still need to do the roof though, same crap up there.

i could explain why but i ont want to thread jack

Rick - the SES light is very random. It will only seem to come on when stopped but it seems to stay on after that. As far as the shuddering, it only happens when sitting and idling in any gear. Revving the engine or accelerating makes it go away and the engine feels great. I know my supercharger coupler is bad but I don't think that has anything to do with it. I don't know when I'm going to get a hold of a scanner to see what the SES code is either. But I'll list the symptoms again just to reorganize:

-Engine shudders while idling SOMETIMES - very rarely
-Sometimes this makes the SES light come on
-The SES light only comes on when idling (in any gear)
-Light does not go away under acceleration but the shuddering does

I just dont want another problem that leaves me stranded on the highway again. I'm sure the SES and shuddering are connected in some way, but again, I don't know when I'm going to be able to check out to see what code it is.

The reason I asked the questions i did was to see if it was possibly an EGR valve sticking.
It still could be, but I would be very hesitant to say it absolutely is with 100% accuracy.
It would be best to confirm with a code reader before you start replacing parts.

robotennis61 wrote:

thats a mans job! great work!

wire harness. i wonder if ur wire harness is stripped somewhere.. that can cause a spuddering..and a intermittent SES light. def needs scanned..

PS..autozone and advance auto parts cant scant the 95 riv. OBD 1.5

Ah ok...those two make sense. Who CAN scan the OBD 1.5? And silly me, I thought the '95 was OBD 1.

nope...95 is a combo of 1 codes and the obd 2 connector. i had to have a garage do it.

hopefully ur cuzin has one...or there will be a nice diagnostic charge. or just have whoever did the repairs last do it.

Thanks Scott - I hope my cousin can do it too seeing as cars from a huge range of years come in daily. I just hope he'll be willing to do it for free....I can't afford ANYTHING right now.

Oh and an update. I painted the bad spots on my car today and I'll be posting pictures of the progress tomorrow (maybe tonight if I feel like it - the car beat me up today).

Paint!

Like I mentioned, I got the paint done that I wanted to get done. Took me a looooooooong time but the results at the end made it worth it.

Problem spots being worked on




After a lot of anger, sweat, some Mt. Dew, and sitting down, paint was applied. Out of some miracle from the heavens, the color is about almost exact!


Wet sanding...


Some results after buffing...damn car reflection making me look fat...


The last of the sanding and buffing...


The end result!



The last pictures are terrible because it's night time, but I'll be getting much better ones tomorrow after it's waxed and whatnot. I still have some work to do on the front bumper but it'll take me all of 5 minutes. Hope you like it! Those faded spots were bothering the hell out of me...

Oh and palermocorey90, I don't mind you mentioning why the paint does what it does - I am actually interested. I heard it was a combination of being old, the sun, and bad clear coat from the 90's? I heard somewhere that government regulations accidentally lead to bad batches of clear coat from all companies.

I'm not COrey, so COrey chime in if I'm off base here... but the gist of why the paint does what it does is that EU and US regulations leading to lower VOC content in paint led to *many* batches of paint from many manufacturers that, although they passed the lifetime tests of the manufacturers did not weather well in some locales. Think of it this way - you can simulate, but not duplicate, the natural effects of heat, cold, UV, weather, industrial pollution and acid rain in a lab. Combinations of those conditions have effects that the earlier low-VOC formuations flat out did not anticipate. Also the amount and type of paint care administered by the car owner has an impact on gloss and longevity. One can, for instance, clean the paint too much and with successive cleanings make the paint film so thin that the aging and weathering accelerates dramatically.

Albertj

Very nice work with the wet sanding! Looks great.

You should give the paint more time to cure before you wax it though.

excellent work!!!!

Thanks Albert, that's what I was thinking exactly. I read that somewhere a while back and it makes sense. I think this one was due to too much care as the wear spots are very symmetrical and evenly distributed.

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Yeah I busted my butt to make my daily driver a little more classy...I'm happy I took the time. It still has its spots that need some work but you wouldn't see them if I didn't point them out. And yes, thanks Deekster - I was tired and wasn't thinking straight. I am going to wait a while. I think this particular paint takes a week to cure ALL the way, while being sandable and buff ready after 3 hours.

Next is to refurbish the chrome on the tail lights and grille, and finish the interior pieces I need to do. After that, the coupler needs done and my SES light scanned.

I'd like to know how you refurbish the taillight chrome. Mine is all stained from water runoff from the trunk too.

deekster_caddy wrote:

I'd like to know how you refurbish the taillight chrome. Mine is all stained from water runoff from the trunk too.

Me too. I asked the question not long ago if anybody had successfully removed the plastic chrome from the taillight assembly to send it out for re-chrome. I was told it can't be done without a high possibility of breaking it while trying.
I would like to restore all the misc chrome pieces eventually, but especially the taillight and license plate area.