ChrisWhewell

Greetings ya'all, I'm trying to find the OEM number for the catalytic convertor stock from a 90 Reatta. The best guess I can come up with is 25100635. I had two Reattas and went with aftermarket convertors, but kept the OEM ones in the barn a long time. I want to get rid of them and recall hearing the large GM ones can contain substantial rhodium values. I'd like to sell them to a scrapper, but not get ripped off too much !

Thanks guys. I checked Ronnie's site a few months back and he'd done a great write-up. However, he made no mention of removing the muffler as being necessary. Can someone verify that the muffler doesn't need to be dropped too, when replacing the fuel pump ? 2Seater, thanks, from your post it seems the muffler can be left alone Thanks for the safety reminder, I always reiterate to a son of mine also, about safety. Even when we go in a building I tell him determine where the exits are. We use four jack stands but always add backups, like keep the floor jack in place too, and sometimes tree stumps for that "just in case" scenario. Thanks too Barney for the sway bar tip.

Hi Ya'll I just saw a video of a kid who cut out the floor in the rear passenger area of a Ford to access the fuel pump. So, I'm pondering getting out the cutter and doing same on my 90 Reatta trunk floor. Question I have is, on the pump cradle thing with the L-shaped bracket that holds the pump, are the fuel lines permanently affixed to that assembly? i.e., are the fuel supply and return lines to the pump detachable from the L-bracket assembly thingy or are they thermowelded or otherwise inseparably attached ? Thanks in advance ! ps I saw where some of the the replacement sending units are steel lines all the way, but am wondering about the connection on the stock setup. I looked online, was unable to find any images.

You're probably right. I should have changed the fuel filter years ago, but I failed to do so. So, since I have the new fuel filter anyway, I could pull the old one off and maybe blow a little compressed air, but, maybe that would blow the sock off, haha. Funny, I disconnected the fuel line from the fuel rail and tried suction , to suck out the gas but had a bear of a time, and it was not productive. Perhaps the fuel filter is so clogged up that the pump could'nt pump against it. Or else, it could be the fact that the pump is 34 years old might have something to do with it :)

Thanks. Maybe I'll force some xylene in a reverse direction from the hood bay into the fuel line w/hope of spinning the impeller in a reverse direction and the solvent would dissolve any thin film of boogers inhibiting impeller spinning due to olefinic polymerisation.

Hi, I dn't want to post a "for sale" in the wrong place, but I could't find any "for sale" section on the Reatta column. it appears my fuel pump went bogie and I realize that the windshield might bring a good price to a needy person, then after that, the brake sensor wires, speedo console, wheels, seats, LN3 eng., trans, visors, cat, wiring harness, 4 new tires w/zero miles unmounted, headlamp assemblies hardware all perfect, et cet yada yada. I also have a couple antenna's which Barney rebuilt, one out in the shed, never used, and a spare set of center hubs. Everything is good except fuel pump and the car's only got 60k on the clock. red, 1990. Apologies if I posted in the wrong place but can't find any link or reference.

Hi, thanks. My limited understanding is that the under-hood grey wire which terminates with a green connector just hanging there is itself in effective electrical contact with the motor of the fuel pump. I re-measured the ohms and got 38 ohms in a second sampling, which I'm inclined to attribute to contact resistance given the apparent discolouration likely stemming from oxidation from the thing just hanging there for decades In some modes of failure I might expect an open, or infinite reading, and another mode wherein possibly a short circuit in the motor winding or elsewhere would yield a zero ohms reading. But to get 38 ohms is odd, but yet still shines a glimmer of hope that it may be a dirty connection somewhere. With 38 ohms at 12V that only permits c.a. 1/3 ampere of current to flow, which is clearly not sufficient given the fact that the fuse is a 15A fuse, suggesting normal operating current is around maybe enough for the pump to dissipate approx 25Watts, so, a couple amps. Temptation arises to jolt it with 60 VDC just for S&Giggles, since I"m sensing it might be time to part this one out as I've found other matters to spend what little time I have left on ! If the grey wire dangling with green connector is not in effective electrical contact with the power input to the pump, I'd sure like to learn of a convenient access point, thanks for your reply !

Haha, lucky me ! I let the 90 sit a couple years and when I went to start it, no dice. Spraying ether into the intake made it fire up momentarily however, which is nice. But, applying +12V to the green connector by the brake booster results in.... nothing. No sound from fuel pump. Fuse #8 is fine and the relay is good. So I s'pose it's time to pull the tank, ugn. One last question.... does anyone know where the ground wire for the in-tank fuel pump runs ? I'd like to check if it's grounded b/c maybe that's the problem and if it turns out to be a simple ground connexion fix, I'll buy myself a bottle of beer !!! Thanks a lot, hope y'all are doing well. EDIT: I checked the resistance btw. the green connector(gray wire) and chassis ground, it showed 70 ohms.

Well, a different perspective I have maybe, I see 6500 as a great bargain for a good running car (if your inspection shows no major issues), in this economy that's a sweet price, and as Barney E. wrote, these cars go 200k mi. easily. good luck, a new motor is usually never bad !

Let me add it could be a poisoned or otherwise iinoperative NOx catalyst in the converter. I replaced mine with an aftermarket one about 7 yrs ago, b/c the exhaust seemed smelly when I went WOT on the hwy. I think I only paid about $80 back in '16 for it, but kept the old one. I wonder the value of the metals, in the 1990 Reatta convertor. I bet there's rhodium in it.

Anybody know the approx. original sticker price for that car ? cheers to all,

True !! I had that more than twice. Some graphite spray is nice, although they probably have a newer lube for that by now.

Maybe the data going to the engine is b/c a sensor or system is telling the pcm that the ambient air temp is very cold, and it is running in fast idle cam mode. Although, 1600 revs is a bit high maybe for that interpretation. Vac leaks always 1st suspect. Maybe consider to spray a little water mist around engine when its running and if vac leak, then it should cause a change in revs when misted. Does the transmission have a vacuum modulator ? maybe a hose is cracked

Probably not but if you are electrically inclined, you might consider to crawl under there and jump the solenoid terminals, and see if the starter engages and cranks the engine over. If so, that rules out the starter motor... i believe....

hunh. ya learn something new almost every day, like today I learned that Evinrude was building Two-cycle V8's for several years but quit in '95.

"However Captain, sensors also indicate that Suzuki sold a LOT of 2-cycle cars for a long time in the Orient, and those cars had MPG ratings in the high 50's." 2-cycles make great sense. In an LN3, some cooling mods might be needed. Certainly somebody on U-tube did a 2-cycle conversion of some 4 cyc. auto engine.... I'll check after dinner wait wait, this just in !!!

Maybe someone said it, but the electrical connections on our cars was.. "special". A reverse-grounded car presents "negative" consequences, some outside the usual experience. When mine wouldn't start once, I went through every connection I could find, disassembled it and sanded everything and put some conductive electrical goo chemistry on them all junctions. It worked, but I never learned where the problem was, instead all my connections were sweet so it is good piece of mind. There's probably some procedure in some manual for trouble-shooting the no-start situ

I know what to do now, to increase engine output about 65%. Convert the LN3 to be a two-cycle engine, to get one power stroke per rev. I guess just a cam swap and an ignition coils re-wiring. Or maybe it has a "spark waste" system on it, I forget but if so, put that wasted spark to good use !! Hahahaha, a two-cycle Reatta with a beautiful "scrubber" or converter or whatever so it puts out clean air, and voila, instant 38 MPG !! Easy weekend project, but it would take me months. Hahaha,

Wow, thanks, I agree on all that. I bought a son, I think it was an '88 olds cutlass with the ... I think 4.3L (?) dual-overhead cam, 4-valve per cyl. hemi design, that many folk hated but we loved ! The thing was that the motor was so powerful, that none of the transaxles available would be reliable, some political in-fighting btw Olds and Chevy at GM IIRC. So at the last minute the olds folk retarded the camshaft events to a puny 210 HP or something like that when the motor was capable of like 300 ft lbs and could revvv like a muther. IMO, one of the best engines ever built. Well, we re-advanced the timing events from internet info, but not back to full factory orig. spec, instead somewhere in the middle. I told the son, just don't punch it from a stop, instead, feather your way to WOT. He drove that car for 3 years, it was a hell of a lot faster than stock. So yeah, its all in the foot. Impact forces are baaaad !

Hey Barney how you been doing ? I was just out 3405 and almost stopped by except for a time crunch. I've been doing a lot of remodeling, wood floors, staircase, put in a new panel, tile, etc. Wow, a 350 in a Corvair sounds like the ticket, for the Le Mans race !! What kind of quarter miles did those things run ? I had a Lotus Europa "twin-cam special" model for a few years, only 98 Cu In. but twin overhead cams. I like the balance of the mid-engine design, ya can actually "feel" it by the seat of the pants. I'd reckon especially with something as heavy as a 350 for those little bodies it could do wonders towards lowering the center of gravity and having most of it in the mid of the vehicle. I bet if ya go fast enough in like, a 650 HP fiberglass Corvair, ya'd need to put lead weights up under the front bonnet, hahahha. If you get a chance, please invite your neighbor to phone me, I may be interested in that fiero 756-7567 same area code as yaa'll. One of my sons and I were just discussing a Fiero with a 3800 SC'd series II. I put four new good tires on the '99 Riviera, this is the third one of that generation Riv. I've owned and it only had 41 k mi. on it when I got her in '18 !! What bites is that it was a Cali. car, and the PWR train control module is setup for ditzy valley girls. The other Rivs of same vintage shifted waayyy differently. But finding folks having smarts in this area is becoming more challenging ...

Thanks everyone for all the replies, very very helpful. Since machining the crank would be involved, its a definite NO hahaha because if doing a crank, one might as well select a different block and other goodies !! It was tempting though, if all that was necessary was intake manifold and throw that cheap Gen I sup'charger on. I've seen a few now and then where the work has already been done, just have to be lucky and catch someone selling one already so equipped and at palatable cost. Thanks again

Hey yaa'll, quick question.... for my 90 can I just get a blower manifold and this baby here: https://forums.aaca.org/forum/11-buick-reatta/ , and put them parts in my '90....? Or, was that a huge hassle and not worth the effort ? I hope you write back and tell me to forget about it, haha, too much going on already. I seem to recall the little blower in the link above was a lesser and non-preferred one anyway, but maybe my memory isn't right since its been a while. I moved out to Burnet Tex about 3 years ago, the Reatta is just sitting, I keep it on hand as a second car in case of failure in the other one. What sucked was the plastic in my cabin, just seemed to be becoming so brittle. Like on the door threshold, one day a barely applied a little force to it and it cracked. Same with many interior parts moulded from that same grade of polymer the thresholds are, like seatbelt parts, glovebox door and a couple others I forget. Maybe its an ABS, it just has the look of a styrene copolymer, lol. Other than that, have been remodeling an old two-story cottage, the whole nine-yards. Any repair or remodel you can imagine, I've done it and I would seek counselling over this habit (haha), except I have to finish up on the staircase renewal this week ! I'm thinking the best way for extra power in the LN3 is to use the funny gas, but I'd keep it waayyy conservative. Even a little burst of power short time duration can be a good thing ! Or even a life saver....

Picture it having shiny chrome wire-spoked rims....

In my '90 model..... what's a good windshield worth ? About $1500 , IF you can find one ? Then, the headlamp switch itself, a couple hundred. Rims ? The engine ? I mean.... there's about $2500 in parts, easily. As the "dollar" is kicked down its path to hyperinflation, the day may come when even a beater is worth $10k, because $10k is only worth what $5k used to be worth. Scrap iron was a penny a pound when they made the '90, today scrap iron is eight cents per pound. That means my Reatta is worth eight times its original scrap value, in terms of devalued Federal Reserve's "notes". Spend it while you can, while it still has buying power !

To the OP.... Great Save !! I don't personally care for the overall look, but my sentiments are irrelevant ! Thanks for providing "food for thought"... I love pioneering thoughts like this !!