fightingbee

Is the blower speed somewhat related to engine speed? If so, you may have an alt. that isn't totally fried but starts to get weak at idle. I had to replace the one in my Achieva for that reason this past fall. Volts were OK >1500 RPM but slowly fell while idling. One or a couple of the diodes had probably burnt up in it or started to "leak" AC current past them. Also, if it does end up needing an alt. and has the Delco-Remy unit now, i'd swap in the Denso version instead. IIRC they're interchangable and the Denso tends to last longer.

The fact that Lake Orion Assembly will go offline, leaving Fairfax to produce the LaX, all the Malibus, and AURAs for Penske may have a little to do with it as well.

More like in the bureaucracy that "new" GM still is it would take two years of committee meetings to arrange this, where our competition could knock that off before lunch. Like that was really that hard to make.

Adjusting the drum brakes by hand will often help braking feel a bit as well.

Mabye he also had to spray paint the tail of his in-laws cat once...

Then there are models like the VUE where it is offered, but they have probably built all of two of them so equipped becuase of the $2200 (IIRC) pricetag. The biggest cabin tech want I could think of was fixed in the Camaro. Finally an OEM non-navigation radio with XM has the full Channel/Artist/Title display all at once like my cheapie Delphi portable does.

Saturn actually did have a similar service manual recommendation using powdered dishwasher soap too. I almost forgot about that. Dawn liquid was the other one I have heard of being used beforeby DIYers. Excerpt from an S-Series service manual: If the engine has had a failure resulting in the contamination of the cooling system with lubricating oil, or a substance other than a recommended antifreeze has been added, the following procedure is recommended. The cooling system holds approximately two gallons of coolant. Prepare a mixture of Calgon® automatic dishwasher detergent or equivalent, and water at the ratio of two ounces (dry measure) to 3.8 liters (1 gal) of water. The vehicle has two drains: one located in the lower right hand side of the radiator and the other one located directly under the thermostat housing. Remove the coolant surge tank cap and drain the cooling system. Remove the engine thermostat to permit the Calgon® or equivalent and water mixture to circulate through the engine and the radiator. Fill the cooling system with the Calgon® or equivalent solution. Run the engine for 5 minutes. Drain the cooling system. Repeat Steps 4-6. Fill the cooling system with clean water. Let the engine run 5 minutes. Notice: If the cooling system has been contaminated by oil, replacement of the thermostat and water pump is required. (IMO just the t-stat would be enough) Drain the cooling system completely. Install the new engine thermostat. Refer to Engine Coolant Thermostat Replacement . Install the new water pump. Refer to Water Pump Replacement . Install the cylinder block drain plug. Tighten the cylinder block drain plugs to 35 N·m (26 lb ft). Close the radiator drain plug. Important: The vehicle must be level when filling with coolant. Fill the system to the FULL COLD range with coolant. Use a 50/50 solution of Dex-Cool™ antifreeze and clean water. Run the engine until the upper radiator hose is hot, then add additional coolant, if needed, to bring the level to the FULL COLD range. Install the coolant surge tank cap and check for leaks.

A coolant flush with a machine is probably the best way, but I have heard of effectively flushing oil filled cooling systems of SOHC Saturn S-series after a cracked head job y running it for a while with dishwashing soap and hot water, than flushing that out until clear. There was also the Prestone cooling flush that came as two powders in a can that was really heavy duty stuff, but none of the parts stores seem to carry the stuff anymore. It was popular for flushing Dexcool sludge from 4.3L V-6 S-10s/Blazers for quite a while.

Yeah, thanks for rubbing it in GM. At least Saturn sent a "We value you as a customer" form letter. As a shareholder they just pretend you never existed now.

Those tires had quite a few complaints of flat-spotting too. They went back to Firestones for '09.

IIRC they were Saturn, SAAB, Isuzu dealerships? Those dealers must really be screwed these days.

Just ask this guy... "If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

Here in FL, even some of the clearcoat cars will have the paint all burnt to **** in <5 yrs. without frequent waxing. Many people still don't wax their stuff though, even the plastic headlamps which look yellow and nasty on a lot of fairly new cars.

So after 30-ish years, the HW '55 Nomad finally has only two headlights.

Very Impressive. I've been using 3M's Perfect-It "showcar" wax for 5-6 yrs. now and really like it. Seems to leave the fewest swirl marks on my black VUE which has always had incredibly easy to scratch paint for some reason. I'd blame it on the additives used to make it stick to the plastic body panels but my '96 Saturn had very durable paint on it. Any compounding has been done with Imperial hand glaze or Perfect-it III compound used sparingly.

A chair like that really shows you're an Achieva at work.

Apparenty the one antenna connected TV I have hasn't heard that yet. :AH-HA_wink: It works fine with the same set-top VHF rabbit ear/UHF loop type ant. it's always had. The cheap rabbit ear only ant. like what came free with new sets in the past may not work well though, as it made a crappy antenna in the UHF range.

The current ant. should be OK, unless you live where the current reception is poor. Channels that were viewable but snowy with analog TV will likely either experience picture freezing or just a "No Signal" on digital. If you do have any reception problems, they may improve a bit once analog is shut off since TV stations brodcasting both are splitting their broadcast power limits right now. Once analog shuts down they will up the digital transmitter power. If you still have poor reception after that a larger and/or more UHF friendly antenna may be needed.

Most of my driver's ed time was spent in the ultra cool Corsica hatchback. Besides driving, I learned from driving on gravel roads that apparenty the package shelf in a regular Corsica's body is the only thing keeping it from having the body stiffness of a homemade convertible.

The dealer would would offer one of two things: 1. Order a remanufactured unit, sold by excahnge, from one of the GM authorized electronic service centers, just as is done when under warranty. 2. Pull your unit and send it to the ESC or a local electronics shop for repair. Either way is >$200 unless they have a local place that fixes them cheap. The bulbs in there can be found at Radio Shack and on a few online places that sell factory radio repairs/parts, but it's likely quite easy to break something just trying to get the faceplate apart.

Yeah, plus the picture and especially the sound from the craptacular $140 Wal-Mart CRT could probably still be put to shame by a 15-20 yr. Zenith or Sony CRT set in good shape.

Non-HD on an HDTV often looks just slightly out of focus IMO. Of course high quality CRT sets haven't been made for several years now anyway so when buying new an HDTV is really the only way to go.

I regret the same thing. I built quite a few only to later mess them up by taking parts or engines from sevral models to make somthing "custom". I have 3-4 left still built and a couple unbuilt I've bought in recent years but never got around to building. When I was a kid I lived only a couple hrs. away from the Ertl company in Dyersville, IA. which you could go on a tour of. I had the chance to see the AMT & MPC kits being molded, plated, etc. which was very cool. Sadly the model kits and also the famous diecast toy tractors once made there as well only come from China and Mexico these days.

My only Acer had an 8088 processor, CGA, and DOS 3.3. SNES totally kicked its ass.