Leaderboard

I’m the new owner of a 1990 Olds Cutlass Supreme sedan. Nothing too fancy here. It sat for fifteen years in what appeared to be somewhat adversarial conditions. It was located in the bayous of Cut Off, Louisiana, and it’s currently staying under the carport of my childhood home in Mississippi. It’s a 3.1L/4T60 car. It’s got crank windows and manual seats but power windows and locks. It’s got the base model digital cluster, cruise control, A/C, and the more basic radio option, however with a tape deck. So far, I’ve only been able to change the oil and filter, battery, and flush the cooling system (although I’m concerned that it didn’t do much good). Trying to crank it over yielded no results, and I don’t hear any fuel pump activity in the tank. A shot of starting fluid in the throttle body yielded a quick popping off. I bought a new pump, filter, and strainer sock I’m scared that the whole sender will be a chunk of rust, and it won’t read the level properly or at all which leads me to what doesn’t work electronically... I’ll post those issues in the appropriate section. Here are the photos from the night I went to look at it two weeks ago today. My profile picture is a more recent picture after a two hour struggle at the car wash.

On my 92, it's in front of the rear left tire on the under body. Look up underneath at the driver's side passenger door on a sedan. You will see it if it's the same as mine. I held the threaded rod with a 5 mm wrench, and then turned the adjusting nut with another wrench.

It may have been another car but I remember breaking my torx socket the first time I did the pads and falling back to my small pipe wrench to take them out.

Changed the front rotors and pads on my 92 Cutlass Supreme a few weeks ago. Changed just the pads on the back. The rear factory solid rotors looked fine to me. Turn your wheels all the way to the right or left when removing the caliper brackets on the front. Makes it easier to get a good shot at the caliper bracket bolts. It does take a T-60. I did not have one, so I had to buy a GearWrench 1/2 drive T-60 from Advance Auto. It was not an impact T-60. Nobody had an impact T-60 in stock locally. The front caliper bracket bolts are on there good 148 ft. lbs.. I soaked them with Liquid Wrench, and then used a 600 ft lbs reverse torque impact, and they would not move. Got out my big breaker bar, and all but one came with some good grunts. That last one was a bear, but I finally got it out. My boots for the front calipers were still in good shape no tears. I did have a new set to install that I bought from RockAuto cheap. Basically, all you do is use a flat head screw driver, and pry the metal part of the boot that seats up against the boot bore away from the boot bore. Clean it all up, and then install the new one. I did not do it because my boots were good, but that's the way I was going to do it. Next time it needs new front pads I will change the boots. The parking brake cable adjustment is on the left rear side on my 92. If you loosen the adjuster nut,(move it towards the hood) both rear caliper parking brake cables will be a piece of cake to take off and put back. Adjust the nut as far it will go towards the front. Spray some penetrating spray on the parking brake cable threaded shaft before turning the nut because they can get dirty and rusty. Your rear parking brake cables on the 96 might be different than my 92, so disregard if that's the case.

My 99 Lumina was a NON ABS car... My friend is Parts Manager at the Local Chevy dealer and nobody there could believe that there were ANY NON ABS Luminas made in that year... As far as anyone knew if it was ABS it would say it on the brake pedal... Of course mine didn't... EVERYONE at the dealer came out and looked!!! The surest way I know of checking is to look at the front wheels/brakes... if there are wires going to the sensor at the wheel bearings,,, it's ABS... Luck,, Tom B... I still HATE ABS!!!

If you have a propane torch on hand it may be needed, if they are seized more often than not they need to be heated up right at the bracket flange surface where the threads are. The *bolt* is a two-piece item, there is the main torx head bolt & the tapered portion is actually a sleeve that is supposed to be free of the bolt. Do not reverse the direction of fluid flow, when doing the pad installation back off the bleeder screws & push the caliper pistons back in forcing out the old fluid out the bleeder. This Especially important if the car has ABS brakes. Take a close look at the rubber boots at all four corners, purchase a set of new boots for good measure (the car IS 20 years old). Also closely check the flex hoses for their condition, same course of action as the boots. The parking brake plays an important part of keeping the rears adjusted properly, inspect the park system for problems. Me not knowing where the car has lived it's life get under the rear suspension & try to get a look up over the rear spring to see what condition the right rear brake line is in, if the car has seen salt that is where that brake line will rot, it is obscured from view by the spring.

Good ideas here. On the tank, I’m hoping it might not be horrible because it was bone dry, and the bottom looks okay so I’m just worried about the clumpy rust on the inside or rotten pump baffling. Excellent price on that, I’ll have to follow up. Are the injectors that sensitive? I’ve not dealt with injection more complex than TBI so that’s interesting but not so shocking. The paint is meh. The roof has some moderate surface rust spots but nothing penetrative or even compromising, really. The interior is almost perfect, the pictures don’t do it justice. I’ll grab some more pics when I’m back working on it in a couple weeks. The only issue there is a curling up of the dash pad by the defrost vent, but I’ve seen others with this so I’m assuming it’s a common issue.

The tank can be cleaned up with some thinner and some rocks but honestly I'd replace it too because it's only like $60 and you're already planning to drop it. KIT0508 is $130.79 on Rockauto and is a complete tank, sender, and pump. Oddly enough it's cheaper to buy the in-tank unit and fuel tank separately..... very odd. Also the fuel filter should be changed, the fuel lines should be blown out with air and maybe even trickle some solvent down them, the fuel rail should be flushed, and the injectors should be replaced with a set from the wrecking yard. The finish on that car needs a lot of work, but it doesn't appear to have any rust so it's in great shape by my standards, and the interior isn't horrible. That's an amazing find! I wonder if it's pre-wired for power windows? It may be possible to convert it over and there's a wealth of knowledge here.

Alldata didn't even show drums as an option on the Cutlass for 1996. After I convert my GS to second gen spindles I'll probably never touch my cube tool again.