Here are some things that I have learned about my Roadmaster that might help you…
Dual Filter / “T” Intake
This is one of the most frequent “how to” questions that I get.
So my friends…
Here is the info you need to do THIS to your RAISS Ram Air Intake.
First, you need a RAISS intake: impalaperformance.com
Next, you need to buy a Short Ram Intake Kit for a 1997-2000 Corvette.
(These are for sale on eBay all the time.)
There are TWO different kinds of these kits out there.
I bought BOTH and tried them first hand.
For discussions sake, lets call these two kits the “cheap” kit and the “expensive” kit.
Lets discuss the “cheap” kit first.
It’s easily identified by the hole in the front of the T-Pipe.
This one costs about $30.00 to $50.00. The “T” pipe is narrow on this kit. The aluminum is thinner too. I was not impressed with the quality, or lack thereof with this entire kit.
The filters are JUNK. The hardware is barely adequate. My biggest problem with this kit is the hole in front of the “T” pipe for the IAT (intake air temp) Sensor.
I was going to use a plug, or have it tig welded, or find some way to fill that hole, but then, I decided to try the other kit out there…
The “expensive” kit.
It’s easily identified by the little metal tube welded on the back side of the “T” pipe.
This kit sells for about $160.00 – $190.00. The “T” pipe is wider, longer, and heavier. The hardware is actually good. The filters are usually name brand. My kit came with K&N filters and the K&N filter cleaning / oiling kit. There is a tube on the backside of the “T” pipe for the IAT. I ground down the IAT Sensor until it just fit inside the tube. Then I added a few “O” rings. The IAT sensor fits nice and snug with an airtight seal.
I did a few other things too…
1) Pre-Filters from outerwears.com
If you currently run a RAISS intake, you already know what a good bug and leaf catcher these intake boxes are. The Outerwears pre-filters keep the filters VERY clean. They can be made in MANY colors. Also, you can have a water repellant fabric used, as I did.
Finally, there is no loss in airflow with these pre-filters.
Check out their site.
You might recognize a familiar engine bay in their customer photos!
2) I upgraded all of the connector hoses to red silicone. I used a 3.5″ silicone connector from the MAF to the T Pipe, and 4″ x 3.5″ reducer from TB to MAF.
3) All clamps were replaced with T-Bolt clamps. These are much stronger clamps than the standard hose clamp type clamps that come in these kits.
4) I had my T-Pipe ceramic coated. Not necessary, but now I don’t have to polish it, and the finish matches my headers. Ceramic coating is really a nice looking finish.
5) IAT Sensor wire harness extension. Now that you are relocating the IAT to the little metal tube, you will find that your IAT wiring harness it too short. I bought a replacement IAT plug / harness, cut off the old IAT plug, drilled a hole in the RAISS for the wiring to pass through, added a rubber grommet in the hole, and finished it off with black wire loom cover. Make sure that you don’t hard wire the new IAT harness in, because you need to unplug it whenever you remove your RAISS box.
I used Posi-Lock / Posi-Seal connectors:
Posi-Lock™ is a no-crimp connector system that will not pull apart and is 4 times stronger than a crimp connector. They are re-useable, resistant to high temperatures and chemicals, and no tools are required.
Good stuff! I have never had one fail. Ever.
AutoXray EZ-Scan 6000
Keeping any computer controlled car running is way easier with a scan tool. This is my new Autoxray EZ-Scan 6000. It scans OBD1 and OBD2 vehicles, which means it’ll scan every car I own. Foreign and Domestic. Our cat Tyler likes this scan tool too! She just checked it out and posed for the picture. A scan tool can read trouble codes (check engine light),
re-set trouble codes, and read live data. I had a problem with my RM in the past: The car was sometimes bogging. The problem was erratic. Two mechanics and one transmission shop could not find out what was wrong. I went to an autoparts store and had it scanned, over and over, with the same results showing a TPS (throttle position sensor) error. I bought a new TPS, and set it to factory specs, and it would run fine, and then it would start bogging again. So, I bought a OBD1 scan tool, and with my wife in the car holding the scanner to the live data page showing TPS volts, I went around the engine bay and wiggled wires. It turned out that the TPS plug on my wiring harness was bad. An easy fix, once I knew what the problem was. I sold that scan tool, since I currently own only one OBD1 car (The RMS), and four OBD2 vehicles. Places like Autozone will scan your car for free, but they are starting to refuse to scan the older OBD1 cars…
OBD1 = cars made from 1995 back. (For GM, it’s back to 1982.)
OBD2 = 1996 to present.
The vendor was giving away a EZ-Charge Battery Conductance Tester with the scan tool.
Replacing belt-line trim adhesive
The gray (or black on wagons) beltline trim comes loose on these cars.
Also, as the car ages, the trim shows adhesive and dirt around this trim. The right way to correct this problem is to remove the rubber trim,
and reattach it with 3M Molding Tape. Here is a photo of my drivers door and fender. See how the rubber trim on the stainless trim shows
dirt and old adhesive? (look at trim under the Gran Sport emblem)
What you have to do is pull off the rubber trim piece. Do it slowly, and when it’s warm where you are working on this. A hair dryer helps. It’s a lot easier when the trim is warm. Then is the fun part of removing all the old foam tape and adhesive tape. I found that 3M Adhesive & Wax Remover followed by Goo Gone works best. You need to remove ALL the old adhesive. It can take a while to do this, so be patient. If you notice in the pictures below, there is still a tiny bit of adhesive that I thought I had removed. I had to clean the stainless trim one more time with 3M Adhesive & Wax Remover.
Once clean, you can add your 3M Molding Tape. Here I used 1/2″ tape, and applied two strips.
The next step is to remove the tape backing, and reapply the rubber trim piece to the stainless trim.
Here are the final results:
Much nicer and cleaner than before.
Also, the trim pieces won’t fall off now that they have new 3M tape. If you have a 92-94 Sedan, like I do, you have real stainless steel trim. It can be buffed and polished. Scratches can be buffed right out. My car had a spot about the size of a fifty cent piece on the driver’s rear corner trim. The previous owner apparently rubbed something, and I thought that I’d have to replace that piece of stainless trim with a new one. Not so. It buffed right out, and looks as good as new.
I used this:
You could use your polish of choice, but my point is that you can
easily polish out imperfections in your 1992-1994 Roadmaster stainless trim. If your RM is 1995-1996, you have “vacuum metallized plated”
plastic trim. It is not as durable. It can show pits and imperfections
that can’t be buffed out. I have some used front bumper chrome parts that I bought, and there are gravel pits throughout these parts.
Deleting the beltline trim:
A lot of 1995-1996 guys remove their beltline trim and just go without. On the 95-96 cars, the chrome trim is taped on. The earlier cars like mine have metal tabs that hold the trim on. Guys with the early cars that want to remove the chrome beltline trim have to grind these mounts off. The late model guys have it easy: they just pull the trim off. IMHO, I have never seen a RM (with stock bumpers) with the beltline trim removed that looks right. I understand the need to modify the RM, and make it look different, but IMHO the cars with the trim removed look just like “cars missing their trim”. Unless the RM gets totally new or massively modified front and rear bumpers to remove all the chrome trim there, and remove all evidence that there ever was trim there, it just looks unfinished and wrong to me. The lines on the car need the trim, at least if the car has stock bumpers. Just my .02
“Spiderman” restores the pinstripes on the trunk.
I got overzealous when I was buffing out some light scratches in the clear coat… and I buffed the pinstripes too much. They were too thin in some areas on the trunk. Not anymore!
He “eyeballed” the stripe colors, mixed the paint, and re-did both stripes by hand. The color match is exact. The stripes look absolutely “as new”.
Thanks Spiderman!!!
How’s your chrome trim look on the top of the front and rear bumpers?
That’s the thin 3/8″ wide flexible plastic “chrome” trim that yellows, peels, separates, and generally starts looking really bad.
My car’s rear bumper trim had yellowed, cracked, and the clear outer layer was seperating from the chrome layer underneath. It did not look good. I had been using toothpicks and epoxy glue to “re-glue” the top layer to the bottom layer. Very time consuming, and it didn’t work very well.
Here is how they look today:
The ends of this molding, near the license plate, are where the yellowing,
and seperating usually starts. I found a product by Trim Brite called “Wheel Well Molding”. It is 3/8″ and almost exactly the same shape as the original. Not exact, but so close, nobody will be able to tell. 3M adhesive tape is pre-installed on this molding. It looks absolutely stock.
The stock trim is shaped like an airplane wing, almost a teardrop shape with a flat side. This stuff is a half round. It is exactly the same width, and height. Here is the package I bought. The best part is the price: $14.99 for eighteen feet. That is more than you will ever need, as this is only used on the top of the front and rear bumpers.
(Trim Brite Products part number: T3605C Chrome. 3/8″ x 18′ Wheel Well Molding Round Chrome).
How’s your leather?
My car is in excellent condition. However, she was parked in a car port
for her first nine years. My car’s rear faced the evening sun. For nine long years. Her leather on the top of the back seat felt dry. I used Auto Amore products to restore the leather, and I also use the regular cleaner/conditioner. The leather still looks, feels, and smells new!
This is great stuff!
The products are:
1) Auto Amore – cleaner
2) Auto Leather La Vita – conditioner
Here is the
LINK to the manufacturer’s site.
Windshield & rear window trim faded?
The windshield trim on any car takes lots of abuse. Mine was starting to turn a gray instead of black. I used Forever Black on the windshield and rear window trim.
Now they look brand new!
Factory Gray Interior?
If you have a Roadmaster, Caprice, or Impala SS with the factory gray interior, you can touch up your vinyl with Duplicolor Vinyl and Fabric Spray. (Some people call this stuff “Dye”. It’s more like a paint with a flex agent in it). I have used Duplicolor, and more expensive products from SEM and Eastwood Company. The Duplicolor that you can buy at
any autoparts store works just great, and the Medium Gray color is
an exact match for our cars. I still use SEM products for the prep though. Sand Free and Vinyl Prep are mandatory products in my opinion. Sand Free is for hard plastic / vinyl texture surfaces, and Vinyl Prep is for vinyl surfaces. They promote adhesion on vinyl and plastic surfaces.
Proper preparation is everything!
Fixing Trunk Leaks
I thought it might be a good idea to post on how to fix trunk leaks
and body leaks that lead to trunk leaks. Just after buying my ’94 RM sedan in August of ’03, I noticed that items in my trunk were getting wet after rain, washes, etc. I thought it was my rear window gasket, or the trunk gasket. I had my son spray a hose on the car, while I was in the trunk with a flash light. (Not easy for someone with clostrophobia!) I was sure it was the trunk gasket or rear window seal….It was not either of these…
I went to a glass shop, and they did a free cabin pressure check and diagnosis.
They found that the body seams were leaking on the roof, on the passenger side. The leak was under one of the little plastic mouldings
that cover the body seam, from the top of the back door, to the top of the back window. They suggested that I go to a body shop. The body shop wanted to pull the plastic mouldings off, re-seal the roof at both joints, and put new mouldings back on, and paint them. Oh yeah, they wanted a lot of $$$$ too. I was not prepared to pay hundreds of dollars (800-900) to fix this. So,I went to Autozone, and got flowable silicone glue. NOT regular silicone , but FLOWABLE silicone .
It’s thin and it flows into body seams.
Permatex “Flowable Silicone WINDSHIELD & GLASS SEALER” part no. 65AR
I made sure that the seams were clean and dry. These seams are under the plastic caps that are on the roof, from the back of the rear door jam to the top of the rear window. DO NOT REMOVE THESE CAPS!
THEY BREAK EASILY! THEY ARE EXPENSIVE & YOU’LL HAVE TO PAINT THEM! I park in a garage, so I cleaned out the seams really well with Dawn detergent and water. I let the car dry, with an electric heater inside the car, with all windows cracked about 1/4″. (Make sure heater can’t touch anything and burn/ruin it.) Once I was sure it was dry,
I used “Permatex Flowable Silicone Windshield & Glass Sealer”.
To allow it to flow, and to keep the mess to a minimum, I used good quality masking tape (the blue kind), & taped around the outside of the seams. This allowed me to sort of “fill up” the seam areas, and keep the silicone off the surrounding paint. (See photos below. Make a “dam” out of the masking tape for the flowable silicone, so the silicone goes into the seams, stays off the paint, and stops your leak.) Also, this allows you to seal the seams while leaving the fragile body seam caps in place.
After about an hour, I wiped off the excess silicone & removed the tape.
I let the car sit overnight with the heater on to speed up the curing process, and get moisture out.
Guess what? No more leak. Cost: under five bucks! It took me two weeks to find this leak. Also, it took another week or so to get the trunk dry, with a portable heater in it, while parked in my garage at night. I had a bungee cord hold the trunk lid almost closed, with about a 1″ gap each night. (it rains a lot in Oregon).
Some other areas that can leak, and look like a trunk leak:
Rear window. Rear quarter windows.
I don’t know if the trunk gasket can really be a big cause of trunk leaks.
There would have to be a lot of rust through to get a hole in the trunk lid channel. The metal in the channel is high enough that the gasket shouldn’t make a difference in a leak caused by just sitting.
Now, if the gasket isn’t seating properly, I can see that it might leak
when the car is moving.
Now, go fix that leak!!!
Flush / Flat Hood Ornament
This is one of the first mods I ever did on my Roadmaster.
I liked the hood ornaments on the Caprice LTZ’s. They are flat.
The Caprice guys use this hood ornament to get rid of the stock stand-up style hood ornament. I like the looks of a flush mount hood ornament,
and it’s less of a invitation for people to want to steal the hood ornament. I bought a late 80′s / early 90′s Buick Century grille ornament. The nice thing about using a grille ornament is that it matches the hood contours. A flat emblem won’t work, because the hood has a slight peak to it. I know. I tried several different options before I found this emblem. I even tried Buick Tri-Shield center caps. Nothing worked.
Until I found this:
See how it covers the hood ornament hole completely, and matches the hood’s peaked contours exactly?!?!
I cut off the mounting pegs with a grinder and attached it with 3M foam trim adhesive tape.
Carefully cut off the excess foam tape, and when it’s attached, use a plastic putty knife to carefully tuck in any exposed tape. If you take your time, you won’t be able to see any tape, and the emblem will be secure.
Gran Sport Grille Emblem & Aftermarket Grille
I bought an aftermarket grille on eBay. The aftermarket Roadmaster
Sedan Grilles are inexpensive, plentiful, and they don’t have the word BUICK on them. I like that feature. It cleans up the front a lot. Going with my Gran Sport theme, I bought a NOS 1980′s-1990′s Buick Regal Gran Sport grille emblem.
They match the GS trunk emblem from the late 80′s GS Regal that I use on my Dash.
Trunk Safety Release
When I was looking for my trunk leak, I had to climb into my trunk,
and have my son shut the trunk while I was in there searching for the
leak with a flashlight. I am a bit claustraphobic. I did not like that experience. Current model Buicks (and other GM cars) have trunk safety release handles built in to the trunk release, on the INSIDE. If you get locked inside your trunk, you have a handle to use to open the trunklid.
The handle glows in the dark! Think car-jacking, or little kids playing in the trunk. It’s a good idea, that doesn’t cost very much. You can probably get one from a junk yard for a few dollars. They will retro-fit on our cars. Your safety and your children’s safety is worth at least a few dollars.
Here is mine installed:
Here is the stock trunk release:
Fuel Gauge Calibration
Most of you already know that the B-Body fuel gauges are not very accurate. On our first road trip, we almost ran out of gas, as our fuel gauge showed almost a quarter of a tank, and the engine started sputtering as we left a steep driveway from our hotel. Thanks to Bradley Salemie, there is an easy, inexpensive & permanent fix for this. His kit sells for $15.00 shipped, and he offers group discounts (4 or more). I installed his kit with the excellent instructions, and now my fuel gauge needle does not go waaaaaay past the full mark, and it’s accurate.
(He also makes and sells 02 simulators and stuff for F-Bodies.)
VATS Key(s) decoding.
Decoding a VATS key is very simple, but it requires that you know how to use an ohm meter. Any multimeter will have an ohm meter and any Radio Shack, Electronic or Hardware Store can sell you one.
All VATS keys have a resistor embedded in the key blade with metal prongs protruding out of each side of the key blade. In order to read the resistance of the resistor in the key blade, place one lead of the ohm meter on one metal prong, and the other lead on the other metal prong, opposite, on the other side of the key blade. With the leads in there proper position a resistance value can be read from the ohm meter.
Once you get your reading, match the resistance value given by your ohm meter to the resistance value, in the right column, in the chart below. The value from your ohm meter will probably not match, exactly, the resistance value in the chart below, but choose the value closest to the value on your ohm meter. The corresponding code number is the identification number of your VATS key.
WHAT IS VATS?
Vats stands for Vehicle Anti Theft System. Lots of people refer to this type of key, as a “Computer Chip key”. This key or “Chip” has nothing to do with a computer, nor is it a chip. The black chip on the blade of the key is actually a resistor. GM first started using the Vats key in 1986 on the Corvettes, then some of the Cadillac’s, etc. GM uses 15 different resistors in their vats keys. Just looking at the keys you can’t tell the difference.
How does the Vats System work?
Each vats key has it’s own unique cuts on the key to operate the lock. But the cuts alone will not allow the car to crank. This is called a mechanical key. Each car has a Vats module (Brain) under the dash that communicates to the starter, fuel pump, and the ignition lock. Each vats module is randomly given a # (value) from the manufacturer. When the proper mechanical keys, with the proper vats chip (resistor value) turns the ignition lock, the vats module reads the chip on the key. If it is the correct chip, the vats module will tell the starter and the fuel pump to operate. If the wrong chip is read, the vats module will tell starter and the fuel pump to shut down.
How to determine the Value of your key?
By chance you may know what vats key you now have. Most people do not. There are basically two ways to determine what vats key you have. Remember, there are 15 different possibilities. First, your key can be “read” in a vats tester. Most locksmiths have these readers, and don’t charge anything to tell you. There is a way for you to read the key value yourself. If you have a Volt Meter you can test the OHMS (The Value) of the chip yourself. Just set your Voltmeter to check to 20 K OHMS Take each lead and place it on each side of the “chip” on your key. A number will appear. Take that number on your voltmeter and apply it to the OHMS chart below. Keep in mind that it may not be exact. Just pick the closest value to your reading. I do realize that some of you don’t even know what a Volt Meter is, not to mention having one. So there is a great alternative for you. Just take your key to a Radio Shack, or your local Auto Mechanic. Ask them to do as I described above.
CODE……………RESISTOR VALUE IN OHMS
1———— 0.402 (acceptable range .386-.438)
2———— 0.523 (acceptable range .502-.564)
3———— 0.681 (acceptable range .650-.728)
4————-0.887 (acceptable range .850-.942)
5————-1.130 (acceptable range 1.085-1.195)
6————-1.470 (acceptable range 1.411-1.549)
7————-1.870 (acceptable range 1.795-1.965)
8————-2.370 (acceptable range 2.275-2.485)
9————-3.010 (acceptable range 2.890-3.150)
10————3.740 (acceptable range 3.590-3.910)
11————4.750 (acceptable range 4.560-4.960)
12————6.040 (acceptable range 5.798-6.302)
13————7.500 (acceptable range 7.200-7.820)
14————9.530 (acceptable range 9.149-9.931)
15————11.801 (acceptable range 11.320-12.290)
THIS CHART IS FOR ANY GM PRODUCT VATS KEY.
