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For as long as my wife & I have owned the GP the brakes have always been a ? (question mark), I have never liked the way they responded when applied, the fronts have always done more than what they were designed to do & the rears have always just *gone along for the ride*. In the past I have had the booster recalibrated to try & make it more effective, I've had the master apart to get a good look inside it to see just what the engineers at Delco Moraine were thinking of when they came up with this design. For those of you who drive a pre 94 car with no ABS you probably are suffering with the same issues that my car has been crippled with. I am in the process of a 4 corner upgrade for the brakes, all corners will get near 12" rotors, the fronts will keep the dual piston caliper as it is a decent piece, the rears are getting a set of late model Ford Explorer/Flex/Taurus large 1.9" dia piston calipers that will be mounted to a custom support that I am designing to fit the rear knuckles. The front rotors are donated by Ford (late model Fusion front rotors), the rear rotors are courtesy of a 2005 Pontiac Montana 2wd drive vehicle (shallow hat). These custom items have been sitting on my workbench for some time now waiting for me to get started on this job. The nice thing about the Ford rear calipers is that the GM rear parking brake cables are a near match for the mechanical parking brake lever on the calipers. But for now I wanted to get at the damned booster, I have upgraded the old small booster for the booster that GM installed on all of the post 93 cars. It is a significantly larger booster in both diameter and depth. The old booster is 9" in dia whereas the newer version is 12". To get this into the engine bay was no small feat, it's not just a case of out with the old & in with the new, aside the air intake assembly coming out if one's car is fitted with the LQ1 engine the intake plenum has to come off, the exhaust crossover comes out, the drivers side shock tower has to be cleared of all the items attached to it, the fuel lines disconnected & swung out of the way & the master cylinder is removed on it's own. Before the larger booster can fit in the suction side a/c piping has to be changed, the old design will accommodate the smaller booster but not the larger piece. One has to order the 94+ suction pipe as it's shape is reconfigured to allow clearance along the bottom for the large booster. I did this, ordered from Rockauto, but there's more to it than that, seeing as I kept the a/c receiver dryer that is in the car I had to cut off the end of the pipe & swap the fittings & a trip to a friend's welding shop allowed me to tig the end of the pipe back on because the receiver dryer was altered for the 94 year & the fitting thread pitch changed. Once that was out of the way the pipe went back into the car, & I then could go about drawing a vacuum for the a/c system to test for leaks. Next on the menu was the reconfiguring of the heater core inlet side piping. I had to cut the pipe in several places to *extend* it to reshape the pipe to get around the new booster. After getting what I needed I brazed the assembly back together again. This involved the booster going o n/coming off multiple times to get the angles I was looking for for clearance sake. The pipe at the engine end actually is now approx 3/4" higher, I had to reconfig the small bracket & braze it back on at the corner & cut the upper section off to clear the cowl seal. With that all of the *heavy* construction is out of the way, painted what was needed to be painted & started reassembling things, the a/c line is in.... the booster can go in also, With the booster in place the pedal is reconnected to the pushrod under the dash. From here it was just a matter of putting everything back into where it lives, fill the coolant again, run the engine to bleed it, pull the wheels to bleed the brakes & test the new booster for what should be a pleasant surprise. This was not a cut&dry install, the booster cam-lock gave me fits, I had to in small amounts bend the tabs on the back of the booster multiple times to get them to align with the firewall cam-lock (I spent about 5 hrs adjusting-test fit-adjust - test fit etc before it freely went into place). But in the end it was all worth the effort, the difference in the pedal force needed to be applied is like night & day, the old booster would force you to push & push to get the calipers to respond, and then one could not get the calipers to *instant bite*. The new booster is a whole different story, the pedal effort is so light you could stop the car using your hand on the pedal. The car now comes to a near instant stop, the calipers react sooner & harder on the rotors, they never did this before. To say I'm pleased is an understatement.......,

That looks like the under hood light wire. What color are the two wires?

I took them off with the bumper support. There are 2 nuts on each side that bolt into the fenders. And then 4 bolts onto the frame for the support I believe. I want to say you need to remove the headlights, both set of turn signals as wel to get the bolts. If I get a chance I’ll take a picture of the service manual for you.

I have 1995 Cutlass Convertible for sale. It has 189,000 miles on it and ran fine before I stopped driving it in March of 2018. It’s been started a few times since then but not driven. Got another car and kinda lost interest. I will put a battery in and get it started. I know it needs a power steering hose and even though it has new calipers, pads and rotors in a rear and new pads in the front, the ABS light is on. Also has a new a/c system, including compressor. The top goes up and down with no issues but the canvas part below the rear window has a small hole in it. Driver seat has rips and tears and there is small rust spot on passenger side near the back wheel. Here are a couple of pics..more to follow. Offering here first because I know someone here will take care of it like it needs to be. After 2 weeks on here, it will go on Craigslist and after that.. I hate to say it, but??????Asking $1000 but negotiable. I live in the South Jersey area.

What you're describing is precisely the reason why I avoided the pre 94 boosters. There is/was just too much chance for a hit-or-miss situation. The Cardone reman piece I purchased from Rockauto also would have been a headache to send back seeing as it had to come across the border.

I have a weak booster that's a reman on one of my cars currently I need to swap out. This thing has piss-poor assist right out of the box. The weak booster I was replacing honestly might have had a little more assist to it...

To the 3 people that are waiting (patiently) for shipping quotes, will get them out this Saturday (sooner I hope), Work and kids has my time monopolized pretty good.

Own 2009 Impala LT, 9th Gen.

Well, when the situation gets to the point where ones tolerance of the issue wears thin ones determination takes over. The wife won't drive the car (her tag line has become..*sell it*), I don't enjoy being behind the wheel, when on the road a more than average amount of space is has to be maintained from the vehicle in front of you. All the fun goes out the window just because the vehicle won't slow down in an appropriate manner. But you don't blame the entire vehicle because one single part isn't functioning properly. Hopefully now she will have a renewed confidence in the car once again. *yep ...that's the relay cover you sent to me*

Pretty sure that shithouse came from Advance.

No, I have other plans for the front knuckle assembly, I am keeping my older knuckles ,it will involve cutting/removing the welds that hold the caliper support to the the knuckle, then I have to reconfigure the caliper support by shearing off the end, fabbing a section from some high strength alloy to be welded into the support at the cut points, then the support will be re-welded back onto the knuckle so as to place the caliper in the proper location for the 12" rotor. (essentially doing what GM did when they installed the 11 1/4" rotors in place of the 10 1/2"..of course their support was a ready made stamped piece that fits the application)

Interesting, for ages I've just assumed it was a drop in replacement. I, personally found Schurkey's article informative and just put in a reman original booster in my car as I had no other choice since I have a manual transmission and need the smaller booster to clear the clutch master. I seem to remember some time back some guys putting 2g boosters on first gens, they are deeper but not much wider. Regardless, good work and good information.

Thread is new as of yesterday, so everything at this point is still available, except 2 TGP CD Players.

Not a dome light. Its a under hood light, the light is attached to a 20 foot-ish cord, to allow you to take the light to the rear of the truck to change a tire or something. The dial is a reel, and it allows you to reel in the cord when your done with it.

Another TGP/Grand Prix CD player. Unknown working condition (I have 3, one did work when pulled). 35.00 Tentatively Sold

TGP/Grand Prix CD player. Unknown working condition (I have 3, one did work when pulled) 35.00 Tentatively Sold

Iirc, the Quad4 and the LX5 (3.5L V6) also have one or more lifting points. When I did the Quad4 head gasket and bearings, I had to remove the head. So, the lifting points also had to come off. :-P Btw, some times, the lifting brackets(if separate) may have been removed and not put back on. I did that on my Mustang, since the bracket was a PITA, and often in the way. For many older V8 Mustangs, it's rare to see the factory engine hoist brackets still on the engine. :)

Don't know about the 3.4, but the 3.1 has lifting points which work decently well with the chains on the Harbour Freight support bar. This is the setup I used to change the oil pan gasket.

Low option car, surprised it even has cruise control and power trunk release.

Hey there, and welcome. If there is no AU0 on the RPO sticker, there is probably no factory keyless entry. On the second gen cars, the RKE box is normally located to the right of the instrument cluster (GP) or behind it (Regal). The car is probably prewired for it, so you may see a loose harness back there. I'd guess you could probably just go find an 01-03 GP (2001 changed the keyless entry fobs) with RKE and install the module if you're prewired.

Don't "wrap" a chain "around" anything. Find bolts that are at least 1/2"(10mm), and connect a chain to those bolts. You may need longer bolts. That's what Home Depot is for. You want to connect to the block or the tranny. If the engine has support braces, those are good places to connect to. Note: Do not connect a chain to the intake or the timing cover. The stress and chain could crack/damage either of those. I've attached pictures from when I did the head gasket, and the crank and rod bearings, on my '94 Achieva DOHC Quad4. You can see that I used muffler clamps over the bolts, to make things easy. The engine had ~190K miles on it at that point. So, I decided to replace the crank and rod bearings at the same time. The bearing replacement, and having to drop the oil pan, is the reason I needed to use the engine support bar. Note: For just a head gasket change on a Quad4, an engine support bar is not needed. If I was dropping the sub-frame, then I would have used a chain. Make sure that the engine brace can not tilt or fall. The top picture shows how I used a scissor jack to re-position the engine, when I was reinstalling an engine mount. The bottom picture shows how the engine support brace fit over a bolt on the strut tower. That kept the brace from moving. Good Luck!

So a few minutes after I made my second post, I tried to put the mirror back on the anchor button and the button promptly came off the windshield! I went back to O'Reilly, where I had gotten the adhesive kit and the guy behind the counter was very nice about it and gave me another kit at no charge. I went through the whole process again, cleaned everything off and re-attached the anchor button. Even though the instructions only call for 30 minutes curing time, I'm letting it cure a full 24 hours before I try to put the mirror back on. I've done at least 10 mirrors like this and I've never had so much trouble one mirror on. I was reading online that Ultra Grey silicone can be successfully used for this purpose. Prep the windshield and anchor button as you would for a regular adhesive kit, then put a dot of Ultra Grey on the anchor button, mash it onto the windshield and hold it in place for a couple of minutes, then tape the button down with painter's tape for about 24 hours before hanging the mirror on it. If this second attempt with the adhesive kit fails, the third time with Ultra Grey may be the charm.

Looks like the plug for the air intake thingy. I often forget to plug that back in.

Welcome to the forum

Just thought I'd introduce myself. I'm partial to A-Bodies, particularly coupes. I own two 1988 Ciera coupes but I recently picked up a 1989 Regal coupe. I hope this forum will be as useful to me as the A-Body forum is. Thanks for having me.

Your going to have to remove the trim panel and see if it's come out of it's track or the bolts that hold the track to the motor have fallen of.

Whats up Sigurd, your www.A-Body.net moderator here! If I didnt know any better, I would say your cheating on us!!! How dare you LOL. Just messing man. I sold my W-Body some years ago.... Come to think of it, I also sold my A-Body some years ago.

Those will work. How low do you want it? If you want to not sacrifice ride completely, Vogtland also makes springs that are compatible. The issue with the 04-08 GPs is the lack of a decent strut to pair with them, IMO. If you really want to spend money and have a great deal of customization, BC Coilovers are also available.

I've been thinking the same thing. I hate to scrap an STE but yeah, it's pretty rotted so I don't think I could restore it financially and I already have my unicorn. Gotta think about it.

Welcome!

Buy a service manual specific to your vehicle. I usually get mine from eBay, used, at advantageous price.

Welcome to the show, ladies

Almost certain a 1989 3800 will have a steel cam gear. I think the nylon gears were phased out by the time the 3800 received a balance shaft(1988). As for the clatter: Does it sound like it's from the top of the engine or bottom on that side? If you're in the US(not sure from your username) and have a Harbor Freight nearby, pick up a cheap mechanic's stethoscope. That will help you pinpoint the noise to a specific area.

I agree. Mine on the STE is broken but I have two good replacement ones. One of them is an NOS piece.

Here's an old picture that I have lying around. I'll do some higher quality ones once I get the car back. Still quite a lot to do with it, I've been stockpiling parts for some time now. I still need to find the passenger side rearview mirror glass. I found a NOS driver side complete assembly because mine is completely shot but can't seem to find just the glass for the right side.

Long time no see everyone! Been a member for many years, but the time has come to pass the torch onto someone else. For sale is my 3500 swapped 96 Grand Prix coupe, currently listed at $4495 with all goodies/accessories included. Details are in the long ad, but it has all of the mods you would expect. Some particular notes for this group - it includes the Digital Horsepower tuning kit, a laptop setup for it (if desired), double roller timing chain setup, several WOT Tech pieces including cam and TB, and the 96 Drivers Information Console waiting to be installed. I just don't have the time to enjoy this sleeper any longer! She is located in the St. Louis metro area in Illinois. https://tinyurl.com/sleepergp Happy to answer any questions. Not willing to part out accessories unless a buyer comes forward that does not want/need some of the included accessories.

Hi folks, I joined this forum at the suggestion of a guy on another forum regarding a '96 Grand Prix SE (150k miles) that I'm trying to fix up. I bought this car for peanuts knowing it had a bad head gasket (or worse.) With a cold engine and radiator cap removed, coolant shoots out of the radiator whenever the starter is engaged or engine running. There's evidence of coolant boilover out of the coolant expansion tank, plus coolant in two or more cylinders (wet plugs). Also have coolant in oil (not a huge amount, but enough to tell it's there). Idiot previous owner wired up the radiator fan to run all the time instead of fixing what was probably a simple intake gasket, and proceeded to overheat the piss out of it. I'm pretty confident it's head gasket and not just the intake gasket. Oddly a compression test gives me 170 PSI on all cylinders. Pretty major power steering leak and a small section of rotting brake line that needs replaced round out the list of problems with this car. Shouldn't be all that difficult to make a good runner out of this, I've done head gaskets and fairly major repairs on other vehicles. I will probably make another post inquiring about options for repair-- I'd really like to consider an engine swap. This is purely a project car, can take my time and do it right. But for now, just wanted to introduce myself and add a couple pics of the car. Have always loved this body style GP, didn't give it a second thought when I saw this for sale, I had to have it!

Actually, I have all the part #'s! Cutlass Supreme 88-94 FE3 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 88-89 FE1 = 26044830 (same as above) 89.5-91 FE1 = 26046146 (AC #36-9025) 92-96 FE1 = 26046144 (AC #36-9024) 95 3.4X FE3 = 26042018 95-96 3.1M NV7 (variable assist) 26047206 (AC #36-9042) 96 3.4X FE3 = 26047207 (AC #36-9043) 97 3.4X, 3.1M = 26055468 (AC #36-9062) 97 3.1M NV7 (variable assist) 26055475 (AC #36-9163) Lumina (didn't get as detailed on Lumina) 90-94 Z34, F41 = AC #36-9021 90-94 FE1 14" tires = 26046146 (AC #36-9025) 95-96 F41 = AC# 36-9023 95-96 FE1 = AC #36-9024 97 L82, LQ1 = 26055468 (AC #36-9062) 98-99 FE1 = 26055468 (AC #36-9062) 98 F41 = 26069922 (AC #36-9205) 99 F41 = 26069922 (AC #36-9205) Grand Prix 88 FE3 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 88 FE1 = 26024892 89 FE3 1st design = 26044829 (AC #36-9020) TGP, and others 89 FE3 2nd design = 26046139 (AC #36-9021) 89 FE1 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 90 FE1 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 90 FE3 = 26021781 1st design 90 FE3 = 26044830 2nd design (AC #36-9023) 90 FE3 = 26044829 (AC #36-9020) TGP??? 91 FE3 = 26044830, FE3 STE (AC #36-9023) 91 FE3 coupe = 26046139 (AC #36-9021) 91 FE1 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 91 FE3 3.1T = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 91 FE3 3.4X = 26046139 (AC #36-9021) 92 3.1T FE3 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 92-93 3.4X 26046139 (AC #36-9021) 92-93 FE1, FE3, 3.1T = AC #36-9023 94-96 3.1M, FE3 = 26044830 (AC #36-9023) 94-95 3.4X = 26046139 (AC #36-9021) 94 FE1 = 26046144 (AC #36-9024) 95 3.4X, FE3 = 26042018 95-96 FE1 = 26046144 (AC #36-9024) 95 3.4X, FE3, NV7 (variable assist) = 26047207 (AC #36-9043) 96 FE1 = 26046144 (AC #36-9024) 96 3.4X FE3 26047207 (AC #36-9043) I didn't get any rack part #'s for Regal, but I assume it wouldn't be likely to have a quick ratio rack. It looks like the better rack available for Cutlass Supreme FE3 is the same as the base model FE1 rack used in Grand Prix. It's pretty simple until 94+ when GM used many different racks for different engines and different years. I focused more detail on GP racks, because they obviously have the more performance-oriented rack selection. I know the TGP has a very quick ratio rack (36-9020) but I wonder how it compares to 36-9021. Also I wonder if any of the newer variable assist racks are quick ratio or not.

1988 International PICK-n-PULL Vancouver Vancouver, Washington 98662