BJ

No not that kind of bj the kind with nipples er eh.Ok balljoints that are pressed into a control arm.
I have had a tough time with the control arms and BJs.The front arms needed new bushing and Napa in their wisdom gave me this bushing here on the right when I asked for the front control arm bushing.


Now I asked for the bushing for the front control arm they neglected to point out they differentiate between the left and right bushing by front and rear?So I asked for the front bushing they gave the front front control arm bushing.WHich of course doesnt fit.

Hence back to napa for this bushing here on the left.(Sigh)


Back to BJs anyway these joints are pressed into the rear suffice to say if you are not pressing them bring a VERY large and HEAVY hammer.Really though one good hit with a 4lb sledge and they pop out.

The front BJs were riveted in(sigh),hence the need for grinding and drilling and more drilling till finally you that aforementioned hammer and give a good slap.

This BJ here on the upper left is just like the rear except no lock nut was supplied or castle nut,why am I not surprised by that one.

The front has nuts and bolts supplied with it to replace the rivets that I drilled out.

JUNK!

Today I took the old 3800 down to the metal recycler,Scrapped!Really nothing good about it the crank and rods were beat and the head castings are a bad year(Prone to cracking with high lift springs at the very least.).Also the Valve springs were out of spec so lose lose situation on to a new motor.Not all bad I can't believe what they are paying for old cats I received 26 dollars for 320lbs of scrap iron and 100 dollars for one rusty catalytic converter(see pic)!

Pulled!

Finally pulled out the old L67 tonight.Used a 4x4 and few friends(Thats what friends are for !)I'll have to get a lift for the new motor but in the meantime I needed to clean up the bay and get this hunk of iron to the recycler.

Brakes,GM bodies and motor mounts.

Well after getting the starter and all bolt on accessories off Im ready to pull the engine just the motor mounts and transmission bolts left.
The GM bodies are interesting having done some research into the C and H front wheel drive platforms.The C introduced in the Electra in 85 was used for all Park avenues till 2005,the very similar H body introduced a year later in 86 is still in use with the Buick Lucerne.My conundrum was if rear disc conversion is possible.As the older C and H cars like my 96 PA and the Bonnevilles up to 96 for the PA and 00' for the Bonnys have drum brakes.Now don't get me wrong drum brakes can work pretty well I had a 63 Buick with 12" drums all the way around and it had stopping power.It did suffer from fade and contamination issues common to all drums though .Id love to switch to disc brakes but Im not sure it's worth it for me powder coated drums might be the ticket.For what it's worth it's possible to convert to disc on the older PAs but this would involve switching out the whole rear assembly including the crossmember or some fab work with a torch take your pick.These picks show the rear suspensions of a 96 PA and a 99 PA.Basically GM installed an updated suspension on the 99 based on a new rear crossmember.Hence the swap of the whole assembly ,according to Haynes these crossmembers unbolt so ..on paper it sounds like you can swap them hmm.More research needed I believe ..

Double Brr

Way too cold today to work outside I think we had a high of 18 and I had no toe warmers left so..

My final solution is to get an L32(04+ 3800 supercharged) complete.Too much involved parting a motor together.I can take the L32 and pull the intake and install the intake from the L67 and the brackets.Nothing original from what I have read others have done the same and it's the easy way out.I can plop the L32 in heads and all and then bolt on what I need.

Lapping valves,installing Ls6 springs,300 dollar cams and buying 150 dollar head gaskets can be fun,however it can get expensive.The L32 from the factory makes 260hp with a new exhaust,modded airbox and a tune I cant see 300hp being unreachable ,it will be low cost and reliable .

Old Heads

These are the old heads I pulled today.Messy messy so were the exhaust manifolds you can see one on the floor in the pic to the left.Conundrums conundrums ..Well according to what I have read on forums these heads are crap I guess GM didn't make the earlier 96-98 heads to well and they are prone to crack.So my plan now is to locate a low mile L26(NA 3800 with powder coated rods)and find a pair of L67 heads that are casting 4781 I believe but I will have to double check.

This is the fuel line to the fuel rail,not a bad idea but hardly a quick connect .Took three flathead screwdrivers to get it off and an extra set of hands .This cold weather is a pain today we had a high of 22 lol.Thankfully toewarmers were onhand for today.I got the intake manifold,supercharger,fuel rail,hoses,tensioners,brackets,etc.What's left is the rear exhaust manifold,the heads,the ac and the block.Since I am not installing the new motor just yet I will probably just pull the old block by hand with chain and 2x6,it's really not that big or heavy without the extras ,few strong backs will be needed though hehe.This way I can fix the aforementioned firewall problem.

Night Work

Progress is slow at night when you have to turn exhaust manifold bolts with a wrench 1/2 turn at a time.Although I did ok today I removed the front exhaust manifold,fans,coil packs ,crossover pipe,egr and few misc things.I am removing everything off the block as I need the heads up the block will be scrapped as that's where the damage is(Bad connecting rod bearings,possible bad rod and crank etc).The block on these 3800 motors is pretty small though.It looks small enough to just pull it right out by hand lol.Actually about 15 years ago me and two buddies dropped a 350 into 78 Camaro with chains and a 2x4.We just put it on our shoulders and walked it over and plopped it in hehe.(Ah to be that young again.)

Brrrr

No fun working on a car in snow storm...well maybe a little.Still not half as much done as I'd like all I removed so far is the strut brace,sparkplug wires,alternator,throttlebody,few panels and wires.Tomorrow I need to drain the coolant and get the intake and heads off hopefully.And I have come to the conclusion that my array of small(And I mean small say five or six millimeter.)sockets is pitifully inadequate for this job.

Front end

I did purchase some parts off ebay for the front end.I bought these rotors and these Bearings for about 100 total.I read some decent reviews of the street heat rotors and the ebay seller(detroitaxle) of the bearings has great feedback for the products he is selling.I do intend to get new axles from this seller as his feedback for these is also very good and the price is excellent.I recently helped my neighbor redo his front-end on his Ranger 4wd(You think FWD is complicated lol) with an ebay kit including the control arms with new balljoints and tierods.I am going to purchase one similar to that for the PA.

The rear supension

I redid some the rear before the motor problems.I thought i would post my experience.I bought some Gabriel Ultra air struts(g56906) I purchased from Rock Auto on discount(100 shipped for the pair).Installing them was not bad except the lower bolts were seriously frozen(In the end it was good I own a 5lb sledge hehe).I also bought the NAPA NCP 2651307 sway bar repair kit for 15 bills after installing both the car did ride much much better in the rear I can't say anything bad about the Gabriels struts.

651307

I thought I would start a blog of my experiences rebuilding my 96 from the ground up if anybody is interested.I plan to replace the motor ,rebuild the 4t60e,fix any bugaboos and freshen up the body.The why of it is simple ..why not.My wife and I love the body and GMs are the cheapest cars to get parts for.

As some of my previous posts on the http://www.buickforums.com stated I bought the car a few months ago with the intention of driving it.With 117k on it I paid 1300 for it and drove it away,while getting the AC fixed, a leak in the manifold gasket was found.After all this was fixed 100 miles later the motor spun a bearing and toasted the crank.After a lot of thought my choice is toss 3k down the toilet or rebuild this PA to run for another 117k without troubles.Another reason is I am in similar position with our Impala still have debt and at 101k it needs some breathing on.I thought I might as well become as knowledgeable on GM FWD cars as I can be.

I have benn asking and reading on the forums like buickforums and gmforums about the best way to replace the damaged L67.The conclusion is it's more cost effective to buy a L26(non supercharged 3800) from a late model Buick for ie. than get a rebuilt.I have seen very low mile l26 for next to nothing so in effect for 300-500 I get 10-15k factory short block(I will reuse the l67 heads).

My biggest challenge right now though is how to redo the firewall.I had posted on buickforums that the plastic cover had crumbled into nothing from the heat.I have no intention of buying another for the privilege of having that one do the same for 100 dolalrs or so.So one thing PA owners of the C body(fwd) can look for here is a custom firewall as I will DIY my own.If you look at the pic of the straight shot of the engine you can see the foam behind the alternator where the plastic was.