Leaderboard

I recently purchased a 1992 Buick Regal Limited 3800 with a scant 79,000 original miles from a local scrapyard. It has a few small dings, but no rust whatsoever. I'm used to old Audis, so this is WAY out of my wheelhouse haha. What are the common problem areas? Can it be lowered without sacrificing the ride quality too much? Pics of it on my Facebook page https://m.facebook.com/eric.mongeur/albums/10156539869041793/

That alloy cover in the middle of the valley is the Oil Distribution Cover. Within that assembly is a passage & check valve that opens & closes under different pressure situations. It's purpose is to (when engine running/open) supply a route for oil pressure to the heads, when engine off/closed it prevents the engine oil in the heads from draining back down into the block/oilpan. There is a gasket beneath it.

Welcome, glad you found us! In all honesty, there isn't much to go wrong on that car. The L27 will run forever and ever, usually in spite of itself. The 4T60E transmission is hit or miss, but generally okay as long as it isn't relentlessly abused. So, reliability-wise, you don't have much to worry about. Lowering is an issue because of the rear monoleaf. At one point, Intrax and a Canadian firm called Birchmount made rear lowering leafs. They've both been out of production for quite a while now. Your only hope would be to find someone selling a used/NOS one. As far as ride quality goes, I've never ridden in a lowered first gen that was anything remotely considered "comfortable". YMMV.

Here's the link to the timing belt change I did on 11 January, 2020.

I'm guessing I'm behind the times, but I'm just now finding the cool wheel visualizers available online these days. Not sure how long this has been around, but when I bought my wheels for my vert back in 2010, no site had the ability to visualize wheels on your car with a pic you uploaded. I'm exploring what wheels might look nice on the coupe, and I uploaded one of the vert to play too. Gold rims kinda look nice on the vert. https://www.customwheelsnc.com/wheel-visualizer https://www.autoaddictions.com/wheel-visualizer/ The one thing that's readily apparent is that I'm really struggling with not wanting to lower my coupe like I did the vert...it just sits really high. The angle of the car for the pic has to be from the front quarter, car level, with the steering wheel turned one complete turn...then the wheels can be sized to your pic. You'll notice the coupe pic is flipped because it has to be taken from the passengers side. It's really slick. Once you get the sizing right, it's just a matter of clicking on wheels you're interested in and they appear on your pic. Here's some I was looking at.

Moved! Thanks!

The best way imo to lower is to do coilovers but it’s probably also the most expensive. But yeah, regular maintenance and it’ll run forever. If you want to be somewhat trailer park I’ve heard a few people have had decent luck with cutting one coil off the front, but unless you have a saggy rear (which most likely you do) it’ll be hard to get it level. Welcome!

I finally got around to checking this thread out. Thank you for making this video! We don't get all that much technical information anymore. Are you okay with me moving this to the FAQs?

That technology really seems to be coming along! Those pictures look great