Fox W.

Great job. I once tried to clear-coat my tail lens.. I failed.. and I used harsh chemicals to try to remove my failure.. it did the same as to your lenses.. it chemically dissolved it somewhat, causing bad clouding. I was told explicitly (by someone who sold 'restored' tail light assemblies) that it would be impossible to fix. Well, the person sent me the assembly.. it came looking decent.. though it was rusty on the bolts, and some of the plastic retainers around the bolts broke in shipping.. and the best part was, the restored poly looked worse than my had before.. it was a very scratchy polishing job. In the end I had a body shop rotary-polish mine and..wow, it looks like new, and better than the 'restored' lens I received. So there ya go.. You can polish anything to perfection if you have the tools, skills and there is still enough material remaining.

" I believe the car was only junked because of a Teves brake issue and I am sure an uniformed mechanic just quoted a complete unit rather then just the ball or switch. " - Daves89 That is a sad affair.

" did try out amber 194's recently, and changed them back to incandescent long lifes. The LED 194's simply had too much hot-spotting due to their focus pattern and lack of dispersion. I didn't like the way it looked at all. Maybe lamps from a different supplier would be better, I did not try the Sylvania units that Fox posted about up thread, but some bulk pack bulbs I bought off eBay. " - Kdirk Hi, I know what you mean and totally agree. This is why I gave these particular LED 194s a try, because they have a frosted enclosure/lens that really diffuses the light. They were pretty clearly going for trying to make an LED that acts like a traditional light. I think that is key with all LEDs, avoid clear enclosures. For instance, in my basement I recently replaced all of my fluorescent fixture bulbs (4ft and 8ft) with LED bulbs (you by-pass the ballast) and they are available with either clear housings or frosted.. The difference is seeing intense discrete lights which some like because it is..different and currently showy... I guess.. (see all newer cars with eye-liner dots) or seeing diffuse light, which is far easier to look at.

Hi, I only changed the direction-illuminating bulb with LED, not the flashing turn signal bulb. My logic was that since it flashes, heat is less an issue than the one that stays on steady while turn signal is active.

To anyone interested: Remove assembly, this is done by a few bolts you can reach under the car, it attaches by metal bracket retainers. Disconnect each bulb (Just turn each one to unlock and pull them out the back) Gently remove assembly, pull your fender slightly upward if needed, avoid scraping lower plastic filler panel with assembly screws. Remove two top torqx screws and metal straps Remove lower torqx screws (These are threading in to metal inserts that may have come loose from the plastic and may just spin/pull out. These are the same points where these assemblies tend to crack.) Remove exterior metal trim. Apply a heat gun to the entire perimeter of the front assembly in order to soften the factory liquid gasket media. When it is hot enough you will be able to pull the front lens away without much force. Be gentle. You should now have what looks like my picture. You can now clean and polish everything. Outside of outer lens: Depending on how bad it is, start with either 400 or 800 grit while using a random-orbital sander with water. Wet sand thoroughly. > Move up to 800, > 1500, > 2000. Switch to a random orbital or rotary polishing device. Use a heavy duty rubbing compound paste or a heavy plastic polish at this point. > Move to a fine plastic polish. > Finish with a protective resin polish, such as 'Autoglym Super Resin Polish.' Doing the above by hand would be pretty tasking if you really want to remove all pits. Clean everything inside, optionally use something like a resin fine polish for those too. Optionally glue or plastic weld any cracks. While everything is apart, this is a great time to tape off the chrome trim on the outer metal piece, and repaint the black top sections which peel over time. Reassemble by once again heating up the factory seal, and add more gasket as needed. The factory seal is pretty much exactly this stuff: 'Permatex 34311 The Right Stuff Grey Gasket Maker' also on Amazon. Pair with 'Permatex 800368 The Right Stuff Caulking Gun' Optional: Replace amber bulbs with 'SYLVANIA 194 T10 W5W Amber LED Bulb' seen on Amazon. (Pricy, but brighter and last.. also won't blacken.) Optional: If you don't mind a colder color, you can replace the turn signal and/or the bulb that lights you turn path with 'OPT7 880 CREE LED DRL Fog Light Bulbs - 5000K' also on Amazon. Personally it is too cold a color for me, but they don't offer these in anything warmer than I found with LED. It will be much brighter than factory. The good part is that it is also much less heat, so it won't damage the inner reflective plastic (chrome plating) so much as the incandescent ones had. Thanks. In some of the below pictures, it shows both of my turn signals. The driver-side is polished with LEDs. The passenger-side is unpolished with factory bulbs. The difference in regards to lumens is subtle as you see. The color match is good. The turn signal picture shows factory turn-signal but with LED directional light.

Thanks, guess I'm ok then. I didn't want to use anything attached to the control arms or engine cradle for the jack stands because I am removing those.

I understand, but the top picture does seem to match, and these spots seem to be made for it all the same.. Does anyone know the spots I am speaking of? Thanks.

The 'Front Strut Rod Bushing more details on - https://www.carid.com/cart.php' is just the bushings for the 'brake reaction rod' , same as Moog K6484 ; Pictures attached show location, parts #35 to #39 on diagram. Sorry if any of this is redundant info.

Right that is the page from the shop manual I mentioned. In the top image it appears to be where I am using, on the sides.. but then their depictions showing under the car do not match any point I am using.

It's not quite the pinch welds, it's more outer at the rocker panel, but it seems to be a reinforced section with an opening for it in the side lower black plastic trim.. It looked like this was its purpose, and I am just trying to ask if anyone knows if that is correct or not. Thanks.

A little concern, as I realized after I did this that it isn't the spot the shop manual says to use.. yet it seems to be just fine and without the metal giving.. Let me know please if I've done wrong. Also in second and third picture, it shows where I had used my floor jack at the center-front of the engine-cradle. This is where the shop manual says you can lift the whole front at once.. However this part has slightly bent in at places... ? Thanks.

As usual, what Kdirk said. What I highly suggest is using a 7" display where the tape deck is: I have a PC driving this with Centrafuse as the UI. I also have a reverse-camera (License plate frame style) that the LCD controller automatically switches to for an input when I put the car in reverse. This is by far the most ideal and lease resistive option. I am all for reverse engineering, but the results would still have fell short so a secondary display was best regardless.. In the least so that you can always have the cars integrated functions + your additions up at once. The freedom of a PC makes it trivial to add a multitude of additions, and often wireless, such as steering buttons, that can be custom labeled and bound to any function. My factory head-unit is never used at this point unless I want to use FM/AM, which I never do anymore... and so you have full control of the volume via software measures. You can use Windows, build your own UI on any platform, use Linux, or a Raspberry Pi, whatever you like.. A standard LCD was freeing.. messing with proprietary is fun for the challenge, but seeing as it would likely reduce reliability by adding cruft/complexity, I'd rather leave it as we cannot deny it's rock-solid as is.. Not something I can say for modern embedded systems.. even our dishwasher has to be rebooted sometimes. They knew how to write software back then.

I agree with you and I was only pointing at the injectors as one of the variables since it was new. My thought was more on intake-wall/plenum 'wetting' which will drip some after, as they don't spray a stream as much as they mist, and for some intakes a steam can actually be better. The MPG calculation is mostly what I wanted to mention here, it's just a thing to be aware of when changing to these. I wish I could get a certain answer somewhere.. The guys at injectorconnection say I am wrong. The onboard calculations say these injectors work miracles for MPG, while paper says no. Yeah new O2 sensor was the last thing I did before calling it done, last one was kileld in the process. Cat converter also killed. It is going in to closed loop normally and I've been monitoring the O2 cross counts and voltage.. It all seems to be fairly normal, hits in to the rich range a bit more than other people (.9v) but only for instantaneous moments, it is changing very quickly as it should from there to as low as .13v. After running it for a few days I'm no longer sure there is a real problem, the exhaust smells pretty normal now. Is there a break-in period for these things? I think the OEM cat somehow was a bit more effective before it was up to 600f, this one smells pretty raw till then. Anyway I'm just going to get my smog check and we'll see it. Last time with the suspected bad cat it almost didn't pass, where normally it passes with flying colors. The only other symptom is it seems slightly down on power, I had hoped a new cat would help that, but it didn't at all. Thanks Ronnie.

I used this Bosch gen3s when I was troubleshooting a problem (seen here) and I've found despite what the guys at fuelinjectorconnection assure, me, the MPG is no longer accurate. The MPG I would think is calculated by the BCM based on a statically defined pulse width time = x volume value, and the ECM lets the BCM know in real time how often and at what duration (pulse width) these injectors are on for. That is my guess.. and if I'm right I'd say these injectors putting out more fuel for an equal pulse-width compared to the stock ones, which throws off the averages since the BCM would equate that shorter pulse-width to a lower volume than stock, even though the actual volume is the same. My MPG average drastically went up, the real-time and long-term average are both roughtly 7 or 8MPG higher always than what they used to be. I do not think the injectors are actually just that much more efficient. Based on actual consumption the MPG didn't improve. Also I'm dealing with an issue where my exhaust smells strongly of unburned fuel since the above issue I linked and these new injectors.. I thought my converter having gone bad from what happened (Intake valve on a cyl was stuck closed for awhile, dumping extra fuel from the plenum in to other cylinders) but I've changed that now and it didn't fix it. So I have to investigate what else.. If I must I'll go back to stock injectors and see. Padgett Mentioned it could run rich before closed loop, though I get this odor even after closed loop. Thanks.

Yeah it isn't seemed to make any difference. Sadly the new converter I've put on hasn't either, I have an issue where the exhaust smells strongly of unburnt fuel and the car runs and drives almost normally but is just a bit down on power. Need to start pulling data and see how things look. Thanks.

But like I said reversing the wires on any of the 3 coils wouldn't even be a misconfiguration because as I read it each coil is always firing both wires at the same time, and one is a wasted spark (the wasted one is on the exhaust-stroke.) So having 1 / 4 backwards shouldn't make any difference at all. The only time it would be bad is if wires were swapped between coils. Someone confirm?

"The distributorless ignition system on the 3800 V6 is a waste spark system with three ignition coils. Each pair of cylinders shares a common ignition coil. Cylinders that are opposite one another in the engine's firing order are paired so their spark plugs share the same coil. This reduces the total number of coils needed. When each coil discharges its high voltage output, it fires two spark plugs simultaneously: one when cylinder is on its compression stroke, and the other when the cylinder is on its exhaust stroke." So it sounds like it shouldn't have mattered.

Actually doesn't each coil fire both of its leads at the same time, and therefore wiring order within each coil doesn't matter? I'm sure someone can enlighten me. Thanks.

Oh you are right. This is a totally different issue of course but you know the car has never quite had the power it had before and it also has smelled a bit rich and foul. Now I'm kinda paranoid as to what harm I may have caused, this car doesn't get a lot of use but it has indeed been used about 3000 miles with those reversed! People say they do pretty well when swapped but this well? I had the car as fast as 110mph several times, and took it on a 12-hour round-trip with great gas-mileage. The lack of power has been so subtle I thought it was my imagination most of the time. Can it really feel that normal? It has also been perfectly smooth.. People say they idle fine swapped but everyone seems to agree that under load they won't run that good. Feedback appreciated. The odd part is that I think someone else mentioned before that those were backwards and I didn't address it for some reason because I thought I had some reason such as knowing that just the label was wrong but wiring correct or that I had some other weird circumstance that made it ok.. I cannot recall anymore.. But nope I looked at the ICM and sure enough #1 was going to cyl 4.

I would expect nothing less from KDirk, he is incredibly technical and precise from what I have always gathered. Really great job you two. If I hadn't already replaced both of mine with the later vinyl replacements GM made, I would be eagerly wishing a set myself.

I obviously can't let others hear my car in a meaningful way without one hearing it in person but I personally think the sound is just sublime. I will make at least a video sometime if people are interested, showing some of what I have installed, but the list is: Speakers: Rears: Focal Polyglass 165 CVX 6.5-Inch Fronts: Focal Polyglass 130 VR 5-1/4" component speaker system Sub: Focal IBus 20 Amp: MRP-F300 - Alpine 4-Channel 300 Watt V-Power Series Amplifier (Nothing special, but for my purposes majority of money goes in to speakers.) Inputs: ASUS Xonar U7 USB 7.1-Channel USB Sound Card (24-bit high end DAC) AudioControl EQL Trunk Mount Equalizer and Pre-Amplifier Thinkpad laptop 7" touch screen Centrafuse UI People are very opinionated about this kind of stuff so I'll keep it simple and say that I'm not big in to the car-audio thing, and I did zero-research from other forums that focus on this area.. My goals were purely to have very crisp high quality sound that was like having live music almost, and by some miracle I managed something like that, and that is what my passengers even say without me mentioning it. The main reason are the Focal speakers, just fantastic sound. The sub was perfect for me to fill-in some missing bass but not meant for any competitions. It also let me cut the other four off with a high-pass to keep it clean, and the EQ/pre-amp lets me get a clean and very adjustable signal to the amp. The high quality DAC with 24-bit and some flac files are very realized with the speakers, it starts to really matter what your audio source is when your speakers will let you hear everything so well. Anyway that's what I did. Thanks.

I was just reading through this thread today and I had to post this to again convey my greatest appreciation to you all here. The energy and help in this thread is rarely seen on other sites, what an amazing bunch we have here. Also not sure if I ever said but I have to mention Ronnie for impressively first realizing exactly what the test results likely pointed to regarding a bad intake value, nicely done. Corvanti, 2seater, Machiner 55 and others were also dead-on with their thinking about what the likely problem was. And many more lead me and tipped me how to do each step correctly, huge help. For me it was all new, and a fun discovery to work inch by inch to the problem, I learned a lot and enjoyed it, and I hope it will help others too someday. Thank you.

Thanks. I'm mostly looking for a location for a low profile sub I have. The trunk is my best option right now, but this sub is subtle and the trunk is well insulated from the cabin, and so it buffers it quite a bit. Since I found it sounded better with the trunk hatch door open to the cabin, I wanted to test how it would sound if it could fit under the fiberglass storage deck. Oh well.

Thanks you all, this was exactly the info I needed. I now won't bother trying to put any audio equipment under there.