What Did You Do to Your A-Body Today?

[Carlton]

That new gasket sure is vibrant!

Yea too bad I'll never see it once it's installed It has a nice quality feel to it and fit perfectly, so far never been disappointed with felpro stuff.

In the meantime, some light reading material came in...



Compare to the older books I had:



Keep in mind that the FSM covers one year only, others cover all years and all divisions... I always buy these factory manuals for my cars now, they are priceless for engine control stuff and wiring. Only paid $10 for it off ebay (and $40 for shipping it to europe...)

[Century7667]

Yea too bad I'll never see it once it's installed It has a nice quality feel to it and fit perfectly, so far never been disappointed with felpro stuff.

In the meantime, some light reading material came in...



Compare to the older books I had:



Keep in mind that the FSM covers one year only, others cover all years and all divisions... I always buy these factory manuals for my cars now, they are priceless for engine control stuff and wiring. Only paid $10 for it off ebay (and $40 for shipping it to europe...)

The '95 and the '96 FSMs are even thicker, but they combine the Ciera with the Century.

Ken T.

[lemons bob]

the FSM was probably the best purchase made for my Ciera.

[Century7667]

There are some things you just can't do w/o the FSM. Troubleshooting the electronics for instance.

Ken T.

[CamoDeafie]

indeed! I have the two 1983 Oldsmobile Chassis Service and Electronic troubleshooting manuals, they are BIG! one is dedicated for the ciera, the other is for A,J and X platforms (chassis manual)

[Century7667]

I've had FSM for every care I've ever owned. Worth every penny. When I bought my newest vehicle (2001 S-10), they were just beginning to publish them on CD ROM.. but I sticked with paper.

[Carlton]

Today-

-Installed intake manifold
-Cleaned and re-installed heater core, new hoses etc
-Changed all o-rings on AC lines
-Installed new compressor
-Vacuumed system down
-Remembered I forgot to reinstall the orifice tube so back up a few steps
-Changed plug wires
-Swapped over pulley on PS pump and reinstalled it

If vacuum in the ac system holds overnight I'm bolting the fuel rail etc back on and I should have it running sunday afternoon.

[mechanizeddeath]

Were there that many differences between the Ciera and Century that they had their own manuals? I mean aside from screw locations in the dash and a few other cosmetic areas, I can't imagine they are much different!

[CamoDeafie]

eh not really; just very likely the locations of relays and other items might have varied between the model lines; I know my 1983 Olds manual says nothing of the 3.8L v6 even though for 1983 Buick Century T Type had that option between 1983 and 1985 before the SFI engine came around. and back to topic; brought Maxine home she sounds like a motorboat hmm....lol

[mechanizeddeath]

It wasn't today but a few days ago, my car seriously confused my friend's roommate. Another girl in the house has a light blue Century, and she saw my car (which is red and obviously a Ciera) and thought that the Century owning girl was home. I know our cars look similar but come on! Totally different colors! lol

[Century7667]

Were there that many differences between the Ciera and Century that they had their own manuals? I mean aside from screw locations in the dash and a few other cosmetic areas, I can't imagine they are much different!

For 1995 and for 1996 they had the same FSM.

Ken T.

[Century7667]

Today-

-Installed intake manifold
-Cleaned and re-installed heater core, new hoses etc
-Changed all o-rings on AC lines
-Installed new compressor
-Vacuumed system down
-Remembered I forgot to reinstall the orifice tube so back up a few steps
-Changed plug wires
-Swapped over pulley on PS pump and reinstalled it

If vacuum in the ac system holds overnight I'm bolting the fuel rail etc back on and I should have it running sunday afternoon.

You've been really busy! How many miles/Km are on it?

Ken T.

[Carlton]

135.000. I usually end up working on 3 things at the same time, just easier to pull it in to the garage for a few weeks and do it all at once. And I get distracted and fall in to the "might as well" trap a lot.

Anyway:
-Vacuum held perfectly overnight so I'm calling the ac leak-free, not charged it yet though.
-Changed the fuel injector o-rings and reinstalled fuel rail
-Cleaned throttle body, IAC spindle
-Bolted it all back together
-Car finally runs again! Drove it around the block, switched it off, didn't want to start again! Starter solenoid not clicking at all, no dimming lights etc. However, it started right up after about 20 minutes like nothing ever happened, so it's probably something electrical. Will have a closer look later.

Pic of the throttle body: I took the mesh screen out to make it easier to clean. Hadn't realized the MAF sits in it's own little passage which is probably quite sensitive to getting gummed up considering how narrow it gets. Cleaned it out with carb cleaner as best I could (90 degree bend in there you can't really get to)

[kamali]

found a 90 cutty here with only 40K miles on it ... and in really good shape , seated there about 2 years ... everything working well except transmission ... reverse not working i don't know what to do with trans

what u think? i think easiest way is replacing the transmission with new one ...

[SilentWing]

Hey guys, long time no post. Whelp, I've (hopefully) got a job lined up... so my Ciera decided it was the perfect time for the gas tank and sending unit to simultaneously start leaking. We figured that since we're replacing both of those, might as well replace the pump (170k miles on the original). So, after siphoning out the full tank of gas we had just put in it the day before, (thanks to the help of the pressure test port on the rail and GM's handy dandy connection to give power to the pump it was relatively painless) we got the tank down in about an hour. Two days after waiting for parts it went back in in about an hour and a half. Pretty sure the pump was getting weak since it seems to pull harder now, but that's about all we've done in a while due to a lack of time and super busy past few months.