My L67 swap from LesabreT.com

Thanks Robo. Everything does check out from what I've been able to see. Just out of curiosity, I stuck my Riviera's old axle in there (dont know why i still have it, but I'm glad I do) and I had the same problem. I don't know what's going on. Nothing has changed since I pulled the Riv's axle out a few months ago.

On top of that, when I was test fitting axles, I had a spare '89 Lesabre t-type axle I tried on it. It went in with some persuasion, and came out with some force, just like it should. The lock ring was identical on that axle as is the one I'm using now, from my T-type. Identical part. I shined a flashlight down the differential and there's nothing in there but a little bit of fluid.


Hmmmmm *scratches head*...

Comin' abit late to this thread but it is pretty cool. I envy you guys. I have Dad that is willing to help but not the space. But it sure looks like you guys have a great relationship which I can relate too. Not sure about the axle issue but it very interesting to see the progress. KIU!

Thanks BMD . I understand the space problem. Of course, I DO have a garage, but a lot of work and arrangements went into making that garage fully available lol. As you can see in my Car Day '11 thread, we have a car problem lol.

I have a few ideas on the axle. I'll be reporting back in a few days. I'm getting real irritated with stupid issues like this lol. I'm also waiting for struts and strut mounts to arrive before I bolt everything back in.

I'm not an impatient person by any means, but I really thought I'd be wiring by now and driving the car by the end of October. Thats ok though...what's more important is I do it right. As you can see by the amounts of new parts i got, I'm trying not to skimp.

Well we're all excited to see this on the road soon! Gotta be patient

Another update! Some background first. There was a bit more discussion on Lesabret.com than there was here. I ended up having an issue where the new hubs I had to get to fit the new axles wouldn't fit in my spindles. There's where we pick up here:


From LesabreT.com:

This next post/update brings the project one HUGE HUGE HUGE step to being done. But first, some pictures to go with the last page's worth of debate on parts fitting where and doing what.


Using a super-special handy caliper thing, I found just how big of a difference there was between the new hub and '88 spindle. What you see is just under 1/16". I ground/bored both spindles out with an aluminum oxide bit I attached to an electric drill. I don't recommend it lol. Worked though.


Driver's side bolted up.


As you can see, I got past the axle issue with the passenger side. I ended up using the lock ring from the original axle and tapped it in. Fit fine and it's nice and snug.


In the process of moving the lift around, I smashed the wheel into the oil filter. Luckily nothing's broken besides the filter.


Glamour shot!


I don't know how many of you guys have poked your head in the rear manifold area, but there's a heat shield there you can see to protect the steering rack. It's supposed to have two little 'wings' in it like the one on the right, but since this rear manifold is slightly different, it hits it. I just bent down the one side and all is well. I also had to get a Bonneville SSEi steering pressure hose because of the location and fittings of the old hose.


Ran the line for the boost gauge through the firewall by the driver's side harness connection. The hole I used is actually a bolt hole for the bracket that holds the wiring onto the firewall. Won't affect anything though, as far as anything moving or whatever.


Fuel lines are ready and waiting for the new engine. I essentially hacked off the old ones and put the lines I had leftover from the Riviera into the rubber tubing parts of the Lesabre's fuel lines and double clamped the hell out of them.


Me and dad got the assembly back onto our repaired rolling frame. (I'll mention now that it didn't live long enough to see the end of the process today lol...it couldn't take the weight and collapsed in the same corner as it did originally).


One of the cooler shots of the day...the car on the way down upon it's new heart and soul.


On the way down...


Cool shot...I get camera happy sometimes.


That thing looks like it BELONGS there. Very satisfied.

The work it ended up taking to get installed today wore me out, so tomorrow will be the day to put everything back together. All the little bit and pieces, maybe put the front end back on. I have new struts and mounts ready to install...I just have to remove the old ones and those big spindle bolts are killing me. They won't budge. I still need to get a new aux transmission cooler, fuel pump, and some brakes!

This. Is. Awesome.

Haha thanks Deek. That was a great compliment.

Great write up so far. Nice to see your Riv's heart transplanted into a good home! Can't wait to see more progress.

Thanks Dave...I'm glad I could continue to use my L67 in some other form. I LOVED LOVED LOVED my Riviera and I miss it.

Speaking of progress, I worked on the car 9 hours today (might as well do something with a day off!) and got almost everything 'important' buttoned up. The only thing I didn't finish was the exhaust. It will bolt up fine, but there's an issue where the rear manifold is a bit rusty where the joint is between the manifold and exhaust flange. it's rusty enough that I can't fit the exhaust tubing all the way overtop of the manifold flange area. So I'm leaving that be until I do the fuel pump.

I took out the old struts and ran them over to my friend who is going to swap my old springs onto my new struts and mounts. Picking them up tomorrow and installing them again probably Sunday - my next available free time. I'll torque down the axle nuts as well and let the car rest on its own shoes again. I also made use of the engine block heater that was an option on my Riviera. It's kind of hidden but I have the plug end for it accessible behind the passenger side horn in the engine bay. Did a bunch of other little things, but for now, here's what I did today.

I really hope you all don't mind so many pictures. I love cameras and how they can help document this kind of thing.


Got the EVAP system all hooked up. This is how I had the LN3's setup, but this one is a bit different. I had to use the canister from my Riviera because the solenoid is in a different location on this engine than the LN3. The main different is I had to run another EVAP line out of the canister and to the top rear of the engine where the solenoid is. I ended up using the Riviera's original evap hard lines in much the same way I did the gas lines.


New Radiator and AC Delco hoses.


Installed! I love the look of aluminum rad's.


A few pages back or so I mentioned I obtained '97+ L67 ignition coils as they have a higher spark output than my '95 L67 coils did. You can identify these by the 'blue' bottom, as opposed to the yellow OR orange that '92-'96 NA or supercharged engines have. Of course, I painted them to match the engine and put small numbered decals on top to make them look 'stock'   .


Glamour shot!


Second Glamour shot!



I'm gonna miss the ol girl, the trusty LN3. It will go to good use I'm sure, should the Reatta or '89 Lesabre break down.

Fantastic work, you and your dad should be proud. I am really envious!!!

Can't wait to hear how it runs! Awesome project!

Looks great! So jealous of the new radiator.

sweet!

Love those glamour shots !!! Very nice work.

Thanks guys! It's comments like that that keep me going! And as you know, my dad has been helping me here and there, but this last round my Gram has been helping me . She helped me get the front end back together and handed me tools. She always goes to the junk yard with me too...it's pretty cool, and kinda funny . On that note, another update from Lesabret.com:



Hello all...another update before wiring begins and I become a hermit in my garage.


Here's where the transmission cooler ended up. Good spot, no hard line bends.


The flexible lines are run through big holes/areas in the unibody frame by the front cradle mount. As you can see in this picture, there's a lot of lines going on now lol.


New struts and brakes!


I had to remove the sway bar links to adjust the A-arm properly to install the new struts. Of course, they broke, so I got some nice new ones.


Car resting on the ground, front bumper back on - all thanks to my Gram for handing me tools!


Ugh...I didn't realize how dirty the car had gotten.


This makes me want to do the headlights from the new Camaro...


Lights and grille back in.


You can see the trans cooler through the grille if you look close enough. That's what I was going for - supreme airflow without 'showing off'. That's why I opted out of the polished aluminum version of my cooler .


I fitted in my new fenderwell intake. A few pages back, I showed my old one. Again, the throttle body is about 1/2" wider on the L67 so I needed a new length of tubing. This is an INTENSE racing kit - I have the same kit on my SSEi.


I found this on the glovebox from my Riviera while searching for some bolts, and decided to install it. I already installed a power trunk release about 4 years ago. This isn't really necessary to add, but now if I want to turn off my trunk release, I can. The switch is well hidden.


She's getting there...



Not going to be a WHOLE lot of pictures for a while, but definitely updates. I started sorting out the wiring harness from the Riviera today, and it's not as bad as I thought. I labeled almost everything I needed before I took the Riviera apart, so now it's just a matter of separating out the stuff I don't need.

That being said, I'm actually really excited about making a 'new' wiring harness out of the Riviera stuff. Just have to get past the logistics of making the engine run lol. I also decided to get the car running/idling so that I know I have power to the fuel pump. Then I'll put the Walbro 255 in and call the project a success. Going to be a few weeks before that I'm sure!

I also had an issue with the shifter cable. I pops onto the transmission just fine, but the bracket that holds the cable in place on the trans was keeping the cable from extending all the way, so essentially, I couldn't manually shift into 1st gear. It was off just ever so slightly - about 3mm. So on the cable bracket, I ovaled out the holes to adjust for the length the cable was restricted. Worked perfectly. But now I have to take a look at the shifter itself - the 'distance' to shift between Reverse and Neutral is very short, and it's not the transmission. Hmmm.


I wish I had some vacation time...


Thanks for looking everyone! If anyone has any suggestions or ideas along the way, please feel free to let me know!

Thats all so cool. its like a frakin superhero car

The intake setup is very cool! no pun intended.

That thing should fly!!!

This could be my favorite thread on the board. I love some of the mid-80s cars. My mother had an '86 Buick Century convertible with the S1 3800 - it was the first FWD SFI motor and that thing could MOVE! I once got pulled over when I had that stupid wide 5-85 speedo with the needle down by the odometer...

You bet it's gonna fly and be a superhero car. Any name suggestions?

Lol, Greg. Very true though. Thanks!

And thanks Derek! It's cool to see people like yourself that have put together pretty fast cars appreciate what I'm doing! An '86 Convert?? I don't think I've ever seen one. Very cool! And even though those things only had 150 horses, they sure could move. Those cars were light!

Speaking of odometers, it reminds me of our '87 Regal with the 455 in it. It had the 5-85 speedo as well and we got one of the aftermarket 5-140 speedometers to make the whole thing seem a little more worthwhile .

OK small update. I had to help a friend replace his radiator in his '91 S10, so after he left I did some work with the wiring. Had too much going on to do what I wanted, but progress was made:

This:

About 95% of the loom/electrical tape has been removed, exposing the paths of every sensor and connector from the Riviera. My plan next is to remove modules and things I know I dont need. I think that ABS system takes up close to 1/5th of the wiring. Not kidding. Headlight stuff can be removed, etc.


And here's the rusty-as-hell manifold flange thing. What it's called escapes me. This is why the exhaust won't fit all the way onto the manifold. I was going to grind it down and slip it over....


...BUT, as I was reading through my manual I discovered that the flange thing is actually a sleeve! So I popped the old one off my LN3. Once I remove the exhaust to do the fuel pump, I plan to throw it onto the Riviera manifold and we should be in business. That was a huge load off my mind.

I ran my 90 Riv with that same flange gone,rotted away,dam was it loud,and the flames at night!!!I'm not kidding running home made race fuel,she be burning flames out that hole!!LOL. Just make sure its tight or it will leak.

Haha...that's kinda cool. Good to know I'm not the only one with this problem.



Got some Riviera manuals in the mail yesterday so I set to work tonight on marking all the pages I need. I started picking apart some of the circuits and ran into a few interesting problems. For instance:

Cruise control. On the Lesabre the cruise is set my the turn signal stalk and sent to a Cruise Module that sends all the info from the turn signal lever and PCM to the cruise servo. Cool. On the Riviera, however, all the wires are the same, but there's no Cruise Module. It's all controlled in the SAME WAY but inside the Riv's PCM itself. So the issue is not that it's hard to hook the cruise up, but I can't figure out a way to make the cruise indicator in the gauges work. This is an issue mainly because the gauges from the Riv are all solid-state. Interesting, probably simple. Might need to 'create' a hybrid cruise system in some way using the Lesabre's old module.

Oil Pressure gauge: The Riv had none, just an indicator light. The Lesabre, being a T-type, has a oil pressure sender, and not a switch. I'm not positive, but I don't think a pressure 'switch' will make the gauge work correctly, if at all. Will have to look into this further to see what I have to do to make it work. SSEi pressure sender and add extra wires for the gauge perhaps? That would be simple, but I would have to find the correct connector for the sender and splice it in - difficult on an installed engine. Anybody have any experience or advice on this?

PASSKEY II:



Most other things seem pretty straightforward, just tedious.

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still working hard at the wiring. After slaving away over my manuals for the past week a few hours each day after work, I have everything pretty much buttoned up....on paper

So theoretically, I have a working system. Tomorrow, since im off (after what seemed like a ridiculously slow week) I will be spending the day pulling out the rest of the un-needed wiring and labeling connections I need to make.

Just like the mechanical swap, this is going much faster than expected.

Z-type wrote:

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still working hard at the wiring. After slaving away over my manuals for the past week a few hours each day after work, I have everything pretty much buttoned up....on paper

So theoretically, I have a working system. Tomorrow, since im off (after what seemed like a ridiculously slow week) I will be spending the day pulling out the rest of the un-needed wiring and labeling connections I need to make.

Just like the mechanical swap, this is going much faster than expected.

What did you do about the cruise? I have some ideas.

Albertj