bwarren

We pulled into town today. We have friends to visit and want to tour the area. My wife and son traveled in the Polo (coupe) and I floated along in the 55 Special. Left from Vermont and stuck to the back roads and made frequent stops. Boy we have a beautiful country! See everyone soon. Brian

Another Reatta on the front cover of a publication. Sorry, I'm a proud father that couldn't resist mentioning. I'm to blame for the 91' wheels on his 88. His wheels are toast. May take a couple minutes to load. http://www.vtauto.org/wheeltracks/wtsep2015.pdf

Thanks for all the comments. He's been busy this weekend introducing the spectators to the Reatta. One highlight of the event is a parade through the countryside and village of Stowe. This year there were 700+ cars in the parade. The parade is nearly world famous in this neck of the woods and draws several thousand onlookers. Lots of waves and picture taking. My wife and son were following my 55' Buick Special and at the parade pace with windows unrolled, many of the comments made about the Reatta as it passed was "that car must have cut into the parade" (cars must be at least 25 years old to enter the Stowe show). The Reatta community still has a lot of work to do, bringing the Reatta into the limelight. As each car approaches the viewing stand in the center of town, the car is stopped and an announcer introduces the owner, where they are from and the make and model of their car. Even with a car guy at the mic and the information printed in front of him, the car was introduced as a Riviera. My wife was yelling the correct pronunciation in his direction and after a couple more attempts he still could not get it. My wife had one foot out the door before they started pushing her along for the next car. Yeah, we have a lot of work to do. Thanks again for the comments. Back to the show today for judging and trying to fix more puzzled looks on faces. Brian,

This interview was done at 06:00 Friday morning at the 57th annual Stowe Classic and Antique show put on by the Vermont Auto Enthusiast in Stowe Vermont. It's one of the more prominent shows in our region. He bought this car in April for $600.00. It had been severely neglected, but I think we finally got it looking presentable. Please excuse the use of 91 wheels, his wheels are in bad shape. Anyway, at only turning 13 last month and being a bit nervous, I think he did a great job even though everything didn't come out exactly the way he wanted. The comment the news room commentator makes at the end of the clip is great. Jason video starts after the short advertisement. Brian, News clip http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/5268600 Stowe car show http://www.vtauto.org/stowe_show.php

Sorry, was not looking to open a can of worms. Bogus or not, as stated in my post, I have used them and they work. Lesson learned. In the future I will keep what I know and what I have learned to myself. A tutorial on how to R/R is dead. No offence taken Ronnie.

I recently purchased 2 of these (had a minimum quantity required at the time) and they work great in place of our original modules. They do not have as many electrical contacts as the original, but 3 of the original contacts were never used. I paid $30.00 each a couple of weeks ago. They are now $12.00 + 4.39 shipping. This is the cheapest way I know of to get a “NEW” (rebuilt) module. I am working on a how to repair/replace the module (w/pictures), but will need a little more time to finish. The parts come from Asia and shipping takes a couple of weeks. Not sure if all year Reatta have the same module. This worked for a 1991. This is the link to the site Aliexpress.com : Buy STK6994J STK6994 FOR SANYO ZIP from Reliable STK6994J suppliers on Hong Kong Worthy Electronics Co .,Ltd

Just wanted to let everyone know the car made it home safe and sound. Drove the 200 miles with 0 issues. The car drives great and I’m really looking forward to my next drive. Wish I would have bought one of these a long time ago. Thanks for everyone’s advice.<O:p</O:p

Thanks for all the words of advice. I’ll have a chase vehicle and my AAA dues are current. I’ll post back later once I get it home. Brian<O:p</O:p

Hi,<O:p</O:p Having 2 Reatta’, I frequent the Reatta discussion group most of the time. However, I will shortly take ownership of my first old car. I am buying a 55 Special; 2 door coupe, small V8, auto trans. This car is nearly 100% original with 27,347 miles on it. At one time it had sat for 25 years (in storage) and the more recent owner drove only occasionally for the last 3 years. The car drives well and is mechanically sound. When I pick up the car, I plan on driving it about 250 miles to my home. Other than the obvious inspection of weeping break lines, hoses, belts, tires, and such, are there any other obvious cautions I need to consider before stating my long drive? Do you recommend I add any carb cleaner since the trip will likely include a couple of fill ups? Should I consider adding anything to the oil (marvel mystery oil) the last few miles? Once its home I plan on going through all the vitals and fluid changes. I will also be looking for a service manual. What type of oil is recommended for this car? Thanks in advance for all your advice, Brian

Barney, I have sent pay/pal payment for 2 sets. Thanks for your help.

We'll be bringing both Reatta (making it a family event) and we will be at the game on the 4th as well. It's a bummer how work is getting in the way of preparation time. I hate it when that happens.

Kevin,<O:p</O:p Having done some of the leg work on the 90/91 IPC failure problems, I’d love to see your list of replacement components. As reported on the forum awhile back, I had purchased a vender repaired IPC and identified the replaced components (with cross references) with the exception of the large diode. <O:p</O:p I’ve never seen the innards of an actual Reatta’ CTR (both my Reatta are 91), but in the mid 90’s I spent 3 years repairing computer monitors every day. One of our customer’s was a vendor contracted to service all of the Vermont State Liquor stores cash registers. They used an IBM cash register that had a small CRT similar to what I believe the Reatta has. On a recent discussion, it was mentioned the Reatta system may have been IBM based? 90% of the problems on these displays were dried out electrolytic capacitor related. A very quick and profitable repair. I am by no means interested in hanging my shingle out for monitor repair as I have been there done that, but as with the IPCs’, I am willing to provide help to others that may have questions or need help. Thanks for the continued support on these items Kevin.<O:p</O:p

Thanks Ronnie, it's all good

Thank you for your efforts Barney...

I once tried some chains on the front of my GrandAm. They fit fine but vehicle vibration was horrendous. At 25 mph I thought the car was going to shake apart. I see the use of chains on FWD cars as a last resort, dire emergency, not for everyday winter driving.

Great job Reattafan1! Your hard work is paying off.<O:p</O:p <O:p</O:p Vincent, this is how the storage bins compare. The recipe works well, thanks Martel. These are a couple of pictures that compare the non-faded rear compartments to the dyed back area. At the time I took the after picture, the carpet nap was not all going the same way thus giving the blotchy look. In reality it looks completely natural. Although not perfect, the finished product is a far cry better than what you start with.

Looks like a decent color match and repair was made on the driver’s door arm rest. Mine may be needing something like that soon. Nice paint for being original. Sharp car!

The first Reatta I ever saw was in Waterville, Me., in 1988. I was stopped at a red light of a busy intersection. As most of the cross traffic had past, from out of nowhere came a flash of white streaking through the intersection (likely on a yellow light). At the time I had no idea what kind of car I was seeing. As it passed through the intersection it almost seemed like time had stopped. There was no sound, the car seemed to be in slow motion and almost floating through the intersection (the road crowned a bit and gave the car a little lift). The experience was almost spiritual. I found out a short time later, the car belonged to a class mate that had just finished law school and was up from Massachusetts visiting family. I doubt he still has his. It was several more years before I saw another one on the road. It took me 12 more years before I would get mine. I now have 2.<O:p</O:p

Caution, flexing those ribbon cables too many times will cause the wires to brake where they connect to the board. <O:p</O:p As mentioned in a pivious post. A suitable replacement for C23 is a (Metal-Foil capacitor 630V .047mf). Q6 + Q7 cross to (MJE 182). Need to verify if CR1 is shorted. We do not yet have a reliable cross to CR1.<O:p</O:p

Display repair update, I completely struck out trying to find replacement components for my dead instrument cluster. I finally bought a repaired unit online. I took my new replacement unit apart so I could identify what work had been done. It looked like all the pins for the main connection were touched up. A couple of the boards are connected by ribbon cables (if these ribbon cables are flexed to many times, the wire brakes), the solder connections for these cables were also touched up. I believe these solder connection affect the error/00 fault problems. <O:p</O:p <O:p</O:p The seller indicates that modifications are also made to improve the unit. I believe this includes replacing 3 of the components that my original display had failed for. The components replaced were C25 (Metal-Foil capacitor 630V .047mf, $1.62</SPAN>) original value (400V .047mf). Q6 + Q7 (MJE 182 JB913) original value (R920 266-1). Q6 + Q7 were the Motorola transistors that I could not find a cross for. We now know the cross is MJE 182 ($0.69)</SPAN>. I believe these 3 components are replaced for dead or intermittent ( temperature related) on/off displays. My original dead unit also had CR1 shorted. CR1 was not replaced in the replacement unit. <O:p</O:p <O:p</O:p Brian

Careful; over tightening can cause brakeage.

I bought “The Absorber” more then 20 years ago and it still works as well now as the first day I used it.

Mc, the 761-1 diode does not resemble any traditional zener that I have seen. Working from experience, it must be a power or schottky rectifier. Unless the designers went totally against all traditional standards of design, the 266-1 has to be some form of transistor and not a diode. As time permits, I plan on contacting the Motorola phone number for more info. I have no real clue on the 349-1 transistors. Unfortunately, transistors come in as many flavors and spec as......... OK I can't think of a good analogy right now, but there are likely several hundred (thousand).

The repair has not been made yet. Still trying to source parts. Caps should not be a problem. I sent an email to Motorola and got this reply, "Thanks for reaching out to Motorola. I’ve reviewed your e-mail and I’m ready to help. We advise you to call the Symbol Product Department number at 866-416-8545 for proper assistance. Rest assured that we will take care everything for you." I thought the diode would be easy too, but I'm striking out with that one as well. Life is busy right now and this is on the back burner at the moment. I believe if I used the parts from my working unit, the bad one would work, but am not certain of the longevity of the repair. If my attempt was not thorough enough, I might end up with 2 dead units. Not ready to take that jump yet.

This is what I have so far. Bad display has no illumination at all. Not the 00 ERROR symptom. Side by side comparisons with a bad display and a good display. Probing circuit until an abnormality is found and removing the questionable components from each unit and testing out of circuit. Continued to fallow traces and removing those components displaying a measured difference until all circuit probing is equal between the 2 units. All defective and questionable parts were found on the middle PCB. CR1 (diode) shorted. I suspect this may have been the component that caused the cascading affect. Next C1 and C2 are questionable. My capacitor tester is not of great quality, but tends to be accurate when values are spot on. Q4, Q5 questionable. Q6, Q7 were visibly damages by heat. I suspect there was some smoke involved as the circuit board itself has some thermal damage. C23 sits next to Q6/Q7, was visibly swollen and makes a physical connection to Q6/Q7. Its value is way off. Obviously having the proper equipment would be beneficial. My only tool is a substandard DVM that has the ability to test transistors and capacitors. I have tried to label the components and indicate the makings. As we have surmised, tracing the numbers is proving to be difficult.