Always had foreign until now and its a love hate relationship thus far...

Alright well I have been browsing these threads and I am not finding anything pertaining to my exact issues.
I Have owned since winter a 95 Riv SC I picked up off a 90 year old man he bought new. 125,000mi currently.
I have a to do do list-

All struts are bad- No maintenance record for em and the car is skippy on laps in the road or curves with laps. I just dont know if its worth the money to buy the air-ride struts. Opinions on that would be great

SC-Prior owner dumped $700 in the SC at a dealership in january 2011 so I am sure all is well there however I want it it to open up earlier somehow...Any direction to that thread would be great if there is one.

This damn OBD I with a OBD II adapter is pissing me off. DUMBEST IDEA GM EVER HAD! I bought a key to throw codes and apparently its not how you do it. Check engine is intermittent, I am sure its the typical downstream O2 sensor but I am sure there is more to it.

ABS light stays on, Traction control stays on (I want this fixed asap) and dont know where if any relays

Wipers will go slow and medium but on fast they just stop where they are at and dont move...

Cooling fan does not Not turn on however I replaced all 3 bulky $25 relays on the firewall and the fans still dont kick on and I have checked all fuses, even the ones by the bumper and those relays as well.. However when i directly put 12volts on the fan they work so I am having a hard time figuring out why they arent kicking on....Whats the kicker on this issue? (need direction on this badly)

I know I have alot of issues but this car is solid interior and exterior and drive-train _ all new looking/sounding

I have put alot of this off due to the fact that my Motorcycle was all I cared about this summer, Rarely drove the car.

Low coolant light stays on but I know how to cure that problem. Prolly stuck as I see its a common issue.

I replaced the vacuum lines as i noticed the boots were not great and If it anything like my Porsche I know that if one vacuum ls bad they are all outta whack...lol

Just ordered a tear down manual. I dont really find em that helful other than codes. It seems they skip alot of stuff in them...

Any direction on any one item could get me going in the right direction here would be Grand.

What I have done...
I have put a Cold air intake with dual ram air funnels.
180 Stant Stat
New vacuum lines
Strut supports in front and rear, Pointless since they need to be replaced but i got the parts cheap, used.
New Serp Belt
Stinger Alternator

Some comments, hopefully helpful.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

Alright well I have been browsing these threads and I am not finding anything pertaining to my exact issues.
I Have owned since winter a 95 Riv SC I picked up off a 90 year old man he bought new. 125,000mi currently.

For people in that age bracket 'regular maintenance' often means frequent oil changes. And there's stuff that needs to be done that is not on the factory maintenance schedule.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

I have a to do do list-

All struts are bad- No maintenance record for em and the car is skippy on laps in the road or curves with laps. I just dont know if its worth the money to buy the air-ride struts. Opinions on that would be great

If you had looked on say Rockauto.com you would see that replacement air ride struts are inexpensive. There are threads on this site dealing with replacing them,helpful instructions but it's a simple job and replacing those air shocks is no harder/different than replacing regular shocks, except the ~30 seconds you need to connect the air lines. . Consider getting a pair or Monroe MA-822 struts, or a replacement pair of OE (Delco) struts from a discount GM site [monsterpartsonline.com] or rockauto. MA-822 are less than $70.- the pair usually... and they mount to the OE air lines. if you are limber enough it's conceivable you can replace them in your driveway without even jacking the car up. Be sure to get replacement speednuts for the bottom shackles from an auto parts or hardware store.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

SC-Prior owner dumped $700 in the SC at a dealership in january 2011 so I am sure all is well there however I want it it to open up earlier somehow...Any direction to that thread would be great if there is one.

If I were you I'd postpone working on making it "open up earlier" until I had caught up on the other maintenance and fixed the other problems.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

This damn OBD I with a OBD II adapter is pissing me off. DUMBEST IDEA GM EVER HAD! I bought a key to throw codes and apparently its not how you do it. Check engine is intermittent, I am sure its the typical downstream O2 sensor but I am sure there is more to it.

There are some scanners that work with the OBD 1.5 interface to read/reset the codes. If you search for OBD 1.5 or "scanner 95 Riviera" or some such, you'll find it. Maybe someone else reading this post will give you a better pointer. As for the intermittent CEL, I would just get the scanner and read the codes. You want to be able to read the stored codes. You'd prefer a scanner that will read live streaming data in addition to the stored codes.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

ABS light stays on, Traction control stays on (I want this fixed asap) and dont know where if any relays

ABS light on most likely means you have a failed wheel sensor or broken wire to one or more sensors. Check the wiring to the wheel sensors, and the connectors. The wheel sensors are integral to the hubs. A dealer ABS scanner will tell you which of the hubs is not reading. I *think* with the 95 you can use the Tech I or the Tech II but you'll have to ask around.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

Wipers will go slow and medium but on fast they just stop where they are at and dont move...

The switch is in the column and may need to be cleaned or replaced.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

Cooling fan does not Not turn on however I replaced all 3 bulky $25 relays on the firewall and the fans still dont kick on and I have checked all fuses, even the ones by the bumper and those relays as well.. However when i directly put 12volts on the fan they work so I am having a hard time figuring out why they arent kicking on....Whats the kicker on this issue? (need direction on this badly)

No way to tell without being there. For instance, the auxiliary cooling fan should turn on if the A/C is on. If your A/C isn't working, that's an issue. Next - did you test the cooling fan thermostat?

RiverUPnGO wrote:

I know I have alot of issues but this car is solid interior and exterior and drive-train _ all new looking/sounding

I have put alot of this off due to the fact that my Motorcycle was all I cared about this summer, Rarely drove the car.

Low coolant light stays on but I know how to cure that problem. Prolly stuck as I see its a common issue.

IIRC the coolant sensor is optical. Maybe need to chemical flush the cooling system. pull the sensor and replace the o-rings, then re-fit it. IIRC replacement sensors are not too much $$ and odds are a junkyard sensor would be good.

RiverUPnGO wrote:

I replaced the vacuum lines as i noticed the boots were not great and If it anything like my Porsche I know that if one vacuum ls bad they are all outta whack...lol

Just ordered a tear down manual. I dont really find em that helful other than codes. It seems they skip alot of stuff in them...

Whose teardown manual?

RiverUPnGO wrote:

Any direction on any one item could get me going in the right direction here would be Grand.

What I have done...
I have put a Cold air intake with dual ram air funnels.
180 Stant Stat
New vacuum lines
Strut supports in front and rear, Pointless since they need to be replaced but i got the parts cheap, used.
New Serp Belt
Stinger Alternator

Looking forward to your status report as you make these repairs.

Thanks for the info, I eyeballed those Monroes a few gays ago. They were so cheap i didnt think they were the air-ride one just the regular gas charged. I was expecting to pay near 200 a piece like the ones were for my Father-in Laws Cadillac.

As for the wipers I will pull the column tomorrow. Seems easy enough usually.

Do the traction and ABS intertwine together as a light? Because I know that the traction control runs on brakes and if the ABS has an issue somewhere I assume the ABS will fail and visa-verse

I might sound stupid here but what the hell is a cooling fan thermostat? An where is that?
I haven't thought about testing it with the A/C being on because it needs to be charged so I just don't use it. Im prolly gonna check that right now after this post...

As for the manual I got a Haynes
.
At least my strut dilemma is over, I am ordering them Tonight and Prolly have them On by next Sunday. So tired of the Horrible traction. It is ruining my tires and bought some really nice Yokos for it not knowing how bad shape the struts were in. But I have only put 2000 miles on since spring so it cant be that bad for the tires I am hoping.

As for the SC mods I found that thread, I must have overlooked it as it was right in my face, I'm not too worried about it the car is faster than my Porsche in 1/2 mile run unless my buddy just cant drive a 5speed....lol. I am just curious I about the stock potential but I will tackle that near end of the month.

Welcome, Brady. Looks like you have some troubleshooting to do, but it shouldn't be that expensive or difficult to fix the problems you listed, especially if you are one to do it yourself. A few words of advice: to prevent this welcome thread from balooning into a giant, multi-topic log book of your car's problems, you may find it easier to use the search feature at the top to locate existing topics. Almost every issue you are experiencing has already been covered in great detail in our tech forums. Feel free to post your questions or progress in the forums. Best of luck with your new Riviera!

...and you **really** could us a factory manual, there is no Haynes that I know of for the '95 and later Riv. There is a Haynes for the '79 to '85 and another for the '86 to '93. If you found a Haynes for the '95-99 I'd like the ISBN (on/near title page and by back cover bar code).

...as for the other items, as AA mentioned it's easier to use the site's Search function, you might really want to see it especially for the cooling fan and steering column teardown stuff.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

...and you **really** could us a factory manual, there is no Haynes that I know of for the '95 and later Riv. There is a Haynes for the '79 to '85 and another for the '86 to '93. If you found a Haynes for the '95-99 I'd like the ISBN (on/near title page and by back cover bar code).
Albertj

My bad it was Chiltons. Id put the link but apparently I AM NOT ALLOWED TO PUT A LINK FOR 7 DAYS WTF...

RiverUPnGO wrote:

albertj wrote:

...and you **really** could us a factory manual, there is no Haynes that I know of for the '95 and later Riv. There is a Haynes for the '79 to '85 and another for the '86 to '93. If you found a Haynes for the '95-99 I'd like the ISBN (on/near title page and by back cover bar code).
Albertj

My bad it was Chiltons. Id put the link but apparently I AM NOT ALLOWED TO PUT A LINK FOR 7 DAYS WTF...

Don' t worry about the link thing, I don't really need a link to the Chilton and there's reasons to limit links that you'll appreciate once you've been a member of this site for a while. I suspect that the Chilton 1993 - 97 auto repair manual lacks some of the detail you will need for the troubleshooting you have to do. That manual is more like a checklist for journeyman mechanics and assumes the kind of tacit knowledge you'd pick up in trade school -- it's way better than nothing and will be helpful but for good reasons it's just missing stuff. Put it to you this way - if you ever wondered why pro mechanics from time to time are challenged repairing cars, just look up the corresponding repair in this manual...

If you check ebay the factory manuals come up cheap from time to time, less than $30 the set. Also depending on where you live, some public libraries have an "alldata" subscription, which tends to be better (more detail) than Chilton. You might want to check your local/regional public library. Thing I don't like about the recent Chilton print and online manuals is they seem less complete than they used to be. Haynes are watered down lately too but not as much as Chilton. Granted If I was them publishing manuals I might not add the details back, it is probably not worth the (part real, part perceived) headache.

The front struts are a little tougher to do than the rear shocks. As usual on the front there will be more fasteners rusted frozen, and as well the strut bolts are splined so you have to be real careful what you're holding versus what you're turning. Undo the nuts but don't turn the bolts...

Let us know how it goes.

Albertj