Minivan Madness

[bigmoparjeff]

The Buick looks pretty good in the pic, it's a 5.7 LT1 isn't it?

That's exactly what I said when I looked at the Craigslist add.

What you can't see in the photo are the multiple rust holes in the roof and the rust around the windshield and rear side windows. The car spent much of it's life on Key Biscayne near Miami, and the salt air caused rust in areas that these cars usually don't rust. There's also a bunch of surface rust brewing under the paint on the roof. I suspect the car was in a hail storm at one point in time. It looks like they replaced the hood and slapped a load of plastic on the roof. The other hidden rust is inside the cooling system. It's an absolute mess, nothing but rusty mud. One of my father's previous cars, a 1995 Cadillac Fleetwood, caught on fire back in '06 with only around 70K miles on the clock. I may just pull the engine and trans out of that and stick it in the Buick instead of messing with a block that's full of rusty sludge. They both have the 5.7 LT1, though I'll have to swap a bunch of parts because the '95 is OBD I and the '96 is OBD II, and they changed a whole bunch of things when they made the switch.

Jeff

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Nice thorough work Jeff.
I have had 2 different years of those and really liked them. For as many as were made they sure completely disappeared from the roads.

Thanks!

Yes, you don't see many 1996-2000 Chrysler vans driving around these days in the areas that salt. When I'm out west I do see a bit more, but not lots. Around here there are still plenty of 2001 to 2007's on the road, but it probably won't be long before they start to disappear too.

Jeff

 

[bigmoparjeff]

A little more debugging and fine tuning.

On a trip down to my friend's house the other day the check engine light came on and the electric fans stopped working. Of course it was one of the warmest and most humid days we have had yet this year and I wasn't able to run the A/C without the fans operating. Not too surprising, I had a code for the fan circuit. I had already installed a brand new, genuine Chrysler fan relay, so I tried plugging in the original relay and the problem didn't go away. Wiggled the wiring to the relay and the fans came on. Closer inspection of the connector revealed that the second pin from the left was installed upside down when the harness was made. Flipped the pin over and all is well again.

Also has a fuel smell getting into the van. Found a mud wasp nest inside the vacuum line from the engine to the purge solenoid. The vapor canister was saturated with fuel since it couldn't purge and it was pushing a lot of fumes out of the canister vent.

One down side to the nice rear interior panels that I got at the junkyard was that someone broke off both storage compartment doors. I bought some cheap hinges and melted them onto the covers. I could have done a cleaner job if I did it when the panels were off, but it came out ok.

Jeff

 

[bigmoparjeff]

I'm way behind on Minivan Madness updates, though there hasn't been a whole lot to report.

The van was my ride to Carlisle this year, though I didn't make the trip without problems. I got stuck in a traffic jam on I-476, and while sitting in traffic on came the check engine light while the temp gauge climbed up to the top. No electric fans again. After making my way to the shoulder, I took out my tool kit and removed the left headlamp for access to the fan relay. Jiggled the connector and on came the fans. So much for the upside down pin theory. Luckily, the fans worked fine for the rest of the trip.

Weather was mild for the show this year, so I slept in the van at night.

A genuine Chrysler fan connector goes for around $45. Photo on Rock Auto for this one looked just like the Mopar photo.. and it turned out to be the genuine article, for a much more reasonable $14.

Fixed again? Hopefully this time has it.

The plastic holding the mounting studs on my Chinese headlamp disintegrated when I took it out, which was very disappointing, since they had the best low beam pattern of any lights I've ever had. I tried epoxy, but it didn't work.

Ebay to the rescue again. Got a set of Mopar lamps for less than 100 bucks.

The cold weather has brought some squeaks and rattles, along with the power door locks engaging over certain types of bumps. I think the problem is in the driver door latch. That's next on the to-do list. Otherwise, things have been pretty good over about 2000 miles of driving so far.

Jeff