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The good thing is that the 7th generation Rivieras had many mechanical parts that will fit on our Reattas. They made a few more Rivieras than Reattas.

Anthony please hang around I think we need you. I am a plug and play guy with a lot of known good replacement parts. I just swap in parts starting with what parts are common to fail and go from there. My service manuals are hardly used...

There is much more information on how the bypass and EST circuits work, and how code E042 is determined in section C4 of the manual under the heading Electronic Spark Timing. What is failed to mention in these two pages is that the ICM's job is to ground the EST circuit until the ECM tells it to stop (after RPM reaches 400). Your test revealed that the ICM is grounding the EST circuit properly, however when you commanded it to stop doing that (by energizing the bypass circuit with a test light), the ICM kept grounding the circuit. It should have released the ground and allowed the ECM to send the EST pulses on that circuit (423). Since you've already checked for continuity on 424 and replaced the connector, the only remaining option is a faulty ICM

The top plastic trim panel has to come off before you can get to the two sheet metal screws to tighten the panel back down back down.

If you look at Reatta Facebook groups you can see a lot of the threads are about someone parting out a Reatta. I guess the reason for that is parts are getting so expensive for a Reatta, both new and used, that people don't want to spend the money to fix them. What does that tell us? Are Reattas parts, and paying a mechanic to keep them up, getting so expensive that the threshold where a Reatta should be parted our versus trying to fix them up getting lower? Or does it mean that less people are interested in them and figure there is more money to be made parting out an old beater than trying to sell them? The way it's going the only people who are going to own a decent Reatta are people that can afford to pay big money for a low mileage Reatta to admire, brag about, and drive occasionally. The days of buying a Reatta as a cheap car seems to be over. Yeah, you can still buy a higher mileage Reatta at a good price, but after you spend the money on parts and labor to get it in good condition, your cheap driver isn't going to be so cheap. Especially if you have to pay a mechanic to do the work. My advice to Reatta owners who plan to keep them, is buy up all the parts that you can afford right now that are on Facebook and hang on to them because the price of those parts is going to get much more expensive and harder to find as the number of Reattas dwindles because of people parting them out.

Agreed, Ronnie. I have started to amass replacement parts that are hard to find. Though I have not yet procured a front windshield, I have been thinking about having windshield film installed as a precaution. I am good on struts (front and rear new spares) are on the shelf. Caliper rebuild kits. I am wondering if the various bushings could be 3D printed, or machined from a solid block of the appropriate material. The sensitivity of the electronics also causes worry. Regardless, the certainty is parts will be more scarce, and more expensive.

Here is an analogy to this topic. Just like a human being, the Reatta's lifetime will eventually cease to exist. That is, just as a human being will need medical help during its lifetime, the Reatta needs repair. Some people pass away, and others live another day. Along the way there are ebbs and flows with respect to the frequency of events, but assuredly they increase with the passage of time. So, in the case of the Reatta, at 30+ years of age it has rounded 3rd base heading home. Along the way many Reattas have disappeared and were designated as donors so others may live on. This is an inverse relationship........fewer Reattas on the road but more Reatta spare parts. Coupled with part availability from other GM models, perhaps spare part purchases should be closely scrutinized as there will always be aging Reattas entering junk yards or being parted out. The future cost of these spare parts is another discussion as predatory pricing becomes an issue rather than supply vs demand.