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After selling my '88 Black to 2 seater's son I was without a winter car. My original thought was just to drive the Red until January [it has "Collector" plates which are 11 month plates and cannot be used in January] and then park it as we winter in Texas staring in February. I could have waited a year as so far our winter has been very mild and we leave the 10 of January for an extended vacation to Asia to celebrate our upcoming 45th wedding anniversary. But I digress. I cannot drive the Red in the winter. It has been my all time favorite car and I refuse to chance driving it in snow/winter/salt especially with the liquid deicer they now spray on the roads. So the search was on. My mom owned a 2001 Supercharged Buick Regal. I drove it a couple of times and liked the ride. She no longer has the car, so I started looking for one and just picked up a 1999 Regal, red in color, light gray interior with a sun roof. There is no rust on the car which has 98,000 miles. I believe it was used a a summer car for the owners who wintered in a warmer state. It does not have the supercharger which is fine by me as I don't like the price difference on the gas price because of the miles I still drive in my business. I bought it in Detroit and drove it back to Wisconsin. That's about 500 miles and I got a good feel for the car. It is pretty comfortable, has good power, but does not have some of the creature comforts I expected. Has dual heat, but not heated seats. Cabin storage for "things" is not as much as I expected. However I bought the car for winter driving and it will fit the bill nicely.

I personally think this forum is indispensible for the Reatta community. Although not possible to know, I would venture to guess that the number of views per day or per month is quite high. Ronnie, your effort is most appreciated.

I just happened to see this today 😄 "This is not parallel parking, Christine; this is magic!" Cagney and Lacey, season 7, episode 20. May 2, 1988

My 1990 Reatta with 87K miles needed new struts all around. The job seemed more complex than simply changing shocks on my 1950's classics. But thanks to the guides here on ROJ, I'm proud to say I did it successfully. Some shops gave breathtaking labor quotes, more than my budget is comfy with. So I read through the guides here on ROJ, took my time, with an excellent outcome. All 4 original struts on my Reatta were totally shot. They weren't leaking, but they weren't absorbing road shocks. The pistons just dropped into the bores. I assume every Reatta that still has the original 30+ year old struts either needs or will need new struts. I bought the previously unobtanium rears from ECRP, and Monroe front and new mounts from Rock. ECRP says Monroe will not do any more runs or our 71966 rears, so suffer the ECRP price and get 'em while you can. After following the guides on this site and finishing the strut job, I'm very impressed with the newly refreshed ride, and proud that I was able to do the job myself. I have an appointment at an alignment shop this week, mandatory after changing front struts. Here are some tips from replacing the front struts I will share. This $13 tool from Amazon made it easy to deal with the nut on top of the front strut mounts. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKZXJ881?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I ordered front strut dust cover bellows from 2 vendors that claimed their bellows were correct for Reatta, but the "bump stops" didn't fit. I modified the bump stop on the KYB bellows, and it functions perfectly to hold the bellows in position, while fitting into the upper spring seat plate. The supplied bump stop was too tall, interfering with the strut mount, and the inside diameter of the bump stop was too small to fit on the strut piston. My Dremel tool solved both problems. Description of 13 photos: 1. original strut - note the broken bellows. When the strut was unbolted from the strut mount, the rod sank into the bore...totally shot, but not leaking fluid 2. New KYB bellows inside diameter at gripping lip at top is larger than original. Can't use the original GM orange dust cover retainer/bump stop which requires smaller diameter sealing lip on the bellows 3. New KYB bellows with original orange GM dust cover retainer/bump stop, and the new bump stop included with KYB bellows. I cut the KYB bellows at top and bottom, and reamed out the inner diameter to match the GM original 4. New KYB bellows with original orange GM dust cover retainer/bump stop, and the new bump stop included with KYB bellows. I cut the KYB bellows at top and bottom, and reamed out the inner diameter to match the GM original 5. KYB bump stop with crown cut off, inserted into upper spring seat plate. Crown must be cut off so that strut mount fits correctly on top of spring seat plate 6. lower side of spring seat plate with KYB bump stop installed, cut shorter 7. KYB bellows pushed onto modified KYB bump stop, with a smear of JB Weld to permanently attach the bellows to the new bump stop 8. New front strut and strut mount with spring compressor 9. 24mm strut nut tool from Amazon 10. Strut nut tool with 50mm torx bit for original strut, and 10mm hex for the new strut 11. This inexpensive tool is much better than clamping the polished chrome rod with vice grips to keep it from turning 12. New strut assembly ready to install 13. New strut installed

After owning the GT for over month, I gave it it's first bath today. I waited until I got all the mechanical things done so I could do a really good wash job to get all the finger prints off from working on the car. It cleaned up really good but it really needs to be waxed to get it to shine like it should. I noticed a few tiny rock chips in the paint here and there as I washed it but nothing unexpected. I finally got some touchup paint that matches to take care of them. It was hard to find Crystal White touchup paint for some reason. After the touchups, the next step will be using a clay bar to make the paint as slick as a baby's bottom. Then a good coat of wax to bring out the shine. I don't think I will have to buff it like I did the Reatta to get it to shine. Clay bar and wax is what I did to the Mercedes and it turned out great.

I have noticed my engine making a rattling noise lately and getting louder. I thought it was the timing chain rapping against something. I pulled the serpentine belt off and started jiggling all the pulleys. Lo and behold the water pump had lots of movement and rattled when moved around. Funny thing was, I had changed this pump before, roughly 10 years and 10k miles ago, It was a ACDelco unit. Also, it was not seeping out the weep hole. Installed another supposed Delco unit, rattling noise is gone. I guess I should be glad it lasted 10 years, even with the little miles put on it.

After driving the Regal for about 3 weeks and a bit over 1000 miles I have had to do some "fine tuning". Started with an Idle Air Control, Then on to a Mass Air Flow sensor. Then yesterday I stopped in at Gibson's a local You Pick yard to get a back up battery. [This was after lunch with 2 Seater] Came out to the car and it wouldn't start. It would grind but not start. So I first checked fuel pressure, that was good. Then said to myself " Either Ignition Module or Crank Sensor". The obvious easy answer was to start with the ignition module. I know I was at Gibson's but I had a back up in the car [always carry extra parts and tools]. Had it swapped out in about 15 minutes. Hit the key and it started. I decided that I needed to do a tune up and checked my inventory of Reatta replacement parts. The Regal is a Series 2 so I knew the Delco upgrade I had done on the Reatta would give me pretty much what I needed. I checked online for spark plug wire length and plug number and checked what I had in inventory. Sure enough I had a wire set that was close in lengths and the correct number plugs [#14]. Called up Kendall [my mechanic friend] and invited myself over for a tune up party. Plugs and wires and clean up the plate under the ignition module. About an hour later the old original plug wires [in poor shape] and the old plugs [badly worn] were out and the new ones were in. Drive home was much better as the acceleration was noticeably improved.

Today is my 67th Birthday. 15 years ago I bought the Red as a birthday present to myself. We've been through a lot of parts together and a repaint and I still wouldn't give it up. My plan is to drive it 2 more weeks and then park it until spring. My license plate is an 11 month plate meaning I can't legally drive it in January. That's okay as my wife an I are taking a 3 week vacation to Viet Nam so most of January we''ll be gone anyway. Then February off to Texas for the balance of the winter so I really don't need a second car for me. Maybe next year I'll get a second car as I really don't want the Red to be a winter car. Besides I spent a bit of time replacing light bulbs [cornering lamp, license plate bulb, and one of the high up brake lights], the leak on the Master Cylinder and finally different ABS sensor leads on the front. Baumgharts [My car repair center] did both lower ball joints, both axle shafts and then a tire rotation and alignment. Car runs really good now and is real joy to drive...

Lit

Not a posed photo. My two boys were over this morning and parked side by side so I pulled mine up so the nose was visible in the photo. Left to right, 88, 89 and 90. The 88 & 89 came through Daves89.

So I was driving down Midway Road in Menasha [for the benefit of 2seater] when a guy pulled up next to me and gave me a "thumbs up" on my Reatta. I wave d back and shortly pulled into a vacant store's parking lot to do some paperwork. As I was sitting there the guy circled back and said that he wasn't stalking me but wanted to let me know that his grandfather had a Reatta years back and he always liked them. I asked him if it was a 1990 or newer one and he wasn't sure so I showed him some of the features of the touch screen. He was really impressed, so hope I made another friend today...

The forum has been overwhelmed with an attack by spammers trying to register for an account, mostly from Russia. For that reason I have temporarily disabled new forum registrations. I'm hoping that the spammers will go away soon and new forum registrations can be restored. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

After two failures of brand-new AC Delco HR6 Compressors, I did some research and found that there is a known manufacturing defect, or "decision" as it might be put. For whatever reason, GM removed the dowel pin from the body of the compressor. Some speculate that it was done to make it easier to assemble at the factory. There is just one problem with this. When the unit is installed on the car, tightening the bolts without using shims to make the mounting surface fit perfectly flush with the compressor results in the compressor housing twisting and coming apart at the seams in the middle of the housing, and complete loss of refrigerant in short order. There are improved aftermarket versions of the compressor available that have dowel pins wisely reinstalled where they belong to keep the compressor body intact. Note that these compressors use PAG 46 rather than the PAG 150 of the original design. I hope this helps someone else who may be experiencing this problem, or prevents it from happening entirely.

My search for a new toy is over... for now anyway. 🙂 I picked up this '99 Mustang GT today. I think I'm going to like it but the stock wheels have got to go.

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.

When you want to use a generic automotive floor jack, but don't want to mangle your Reatta's sheet metal...

Good idea. I recently purchased a rubber pad for my floor jack that has notches molded into it that might serve the same purpose. I can't jack up my Mustang using the pinch welds because the pinch weld area has fiberglass ground effect parts attached to it. The main reason I bought the rubber pad is because the K member (cradle) where you jack up the front of a Mustang is slightly angled making it easy for a floor jack to slide off if you don't use a rubber pad to provide some grip. Using the jack metal to metal is dangerous and using just a block of wood isn't recommended on the front of a Mustang like mine. The rubber gives the jack a better grip on the K member, and the the pad has a lip on the bottom to keep it from slipping off the jack. For only $8 on Amazon the rubber pad is a good addition to any floor jack.

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.

Decided to try and get some better braking performance on my Reatta. The brakes always felt kinda spongy and like the pads were sliding on the rotors. I have been changing the brake fluid every 2-3 years, but it never made much difference in the 11 some years that I have owned it. Last weekend I changed front calipers and rotors using Delco parts, and some Bosch QuietCast semi-metallic pads. The brakes are way better now. Brakes start grabbing much better without the slipping feel, and I think I must have got more air out because they engage with slight pedal pressure. I think the calipers I took out were originals. They were not leaking at all, but maybe just old and stiff after 35 years. I still have to do the rear pads, calipers, and rotors when time permits. Now that its getting warmer here in Nebraska, it should be soon.

I've always loved the Reattas since first seeing one. I have a '72 Centurion convertible and a '12 Mazda MX-5 PRHT. I was distracted one day on Hemmings listings and my wife looked over my shoulder when I stopped on this Reatta; a 1990 with 34k miles in California. She perked up and said, "I want that car. I want my very own convertible." How could I be a good husband and refuse my awesome wife's request? So, it's now in our garage. I didn't see an "Introductions" thread, so I just put this one out there. Even with only 34k miles... as a nearly 35 year old car, it does need a little work, so I'm hoping to be in the right place. Last week I pulled out the original air filter and replaced the original spark plugs. (Apologies on the signature... my first attempt didn't take... I'll work more on that tomorrow.)

Thinking maybe some of you will be interested in seeing a chart of how active ROJ forum members were last year. The monthly count includes posts, and reactions to posts. Probably 20-25 percent of them were mine.

Just now leaving Saigon for a 3 day stay in Bangkok, then home. Saw a lot in Vietnam. Saw Hanoi Hilton but all the American cells were tore down. They talked mostly about the French occupation and little about our soldiers incarceration There were propaganda pictures of happy soldiers getting physicals, playing volleyball and basketball. Saigon we saw the tunnels the North Vietnam soldiers used and the various traps they used to injure US soldiers. Was very interesting, and gave me a new appreciation for those that came and served. Also saw the killing fields of Penhm Pehm. Walked away thinking how can people be so cruel to each other..

You can buy a kit to rebuild the headlight motors. The kit includes bushings, that tend to crumble over time, as well as new crankarms. The crankarms are made of a soft material that tends to wear out in the hole that fits on the shaft. The new crankarms are made of steel and will last the life of the car. I was thinking about rebuilding the headlight motors as preventive maintenance. If they have already been rebuilt you can check that off the list Thanks to Barney Eaton for the photos.

This isn't Reatta specific, but it may be a useful addition just to have handy when needed. The short backstory is I was looking for a way to connect my satellite radio subscription to my older cars I use in the winter. As it turns out a reasonably priced radio channel transmitter works flawlessly in several vehicles when blue toothed to my phone via the Sirius app. Maybe old news, but then again, I am old too. It simply plugs into the 12v lighter type socket and has a small display screen as well as a USB A connection. Once paired, it connects to my phone immediately when powered up. It doesn't create satellite radio, it is all per cell coverage, but it works surprisingly well and can be moved from vehicle to vehicle with no setup or physical changes. I found it handy travelling with a friend that has a large collection of music on his phone too. This is the one I have but there are many choices available. Amazon.com: Nulaxy Wireless in-Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter Radio Adapter Car Kit W 1.44 Inch Display Supports TF/SD Card and USB Car Charger for All Smartphones Audio Players-KM18 : Electronics

I haven't posted that many photos of my Reatta, but was going Through some old photos and found these. The day I bought her in Louisville KY. October 12 2019: Stopped off at this Advanced Auto to buy a new radiator cap, the first of many repairs. She's sitting next to my park avenue ultra which I have since sold :'( With the top down just after a wash The Rock Auto Magnet photo submission Brand new kicks! Trip to Brevard NC for anniversary with the wife. Washing "daddy's fast car" Big Stack O' Rock Auto Magnets

Today turned 327,000 miles. 1000 miles in 10 days...

Forgive the less that perfect photos, but there's only so much even the best phone can provide. My girlfriend found me a universal LED kit for models, which I used to add lighting to the front lights, rear lights, and interior light. I am by NO means a model builder, this was a very simple (and totally reversible) modification that I think added a lot of pop to an already cool collectible.

Here’s my ‘89 and i can wink at people since one light doesn’t go up or down. 👍 I still need to do a ton of work as you can tell from a few things in the pictures.

I'm NOT recommending anyone try this but... I thought someone might want to hear about it. My daughter's Camry had cloudy headlight lens. The lens was bad enough that I thought about replacing the headlight assemblies. I saw on the internet that you could spray the plastic headlight lens with "OFF - Deep Woods" bug spray and it would make them look good as new. With her lens being so bad, what did I have to lose by trying it? After covering up the painted surfaces I sprayed the headlight lens generously with the Off bug spray and immediately wiped it off with a handful of paper towels. No scrubbing with the paper towels. Just a swipe to remove the excess Off and let it dry. A yellow residue was on the paper towel when I wiped the spray off. To my amazement the cloudy lens now looks like new. I don't know how it works or how long it will last, but after two days it still looks great.

It really wasn't until I put my known good ignition module on that I thought it was something to do with the wiring. Before I was swapping first coils and then the ignition module and old coils and finally a known good module/coil set up that I knew something else was wrong. First test was just disconnect the harness and reattach it and it would fire. Next time wiggle the wires at the ignition module without removing the connector and it would fire. I then took a close look at the harness and saw it was only a 3' harness with 5 connectors. Went to the Buick dealer and one left in the country at $200.00. Went to Rock Auto and a Dorman was $85.00. Amazon was $110.00 for the same Dorman. The Dorman was a nice replacement, looked to be of good quality. Only connector that gave me trouble was the crank sensor. It started going on so hard that I had Kendall make the connection as I didn't want to damage the pins on the crank sensor causing more work. Only things I had to remove to get at everything was the engine shroud, serpentine belt, and water pump pully. Front to back time about 45 minutes. Gotta love the 3.8!

Like most things, it sometimes makes no sense. People are repairing, or at least trying to repair, Reatta's that should be parted out and others are just the opposite. Seemingly decent cars that deserve some TLC are being scavenged and discarded. Definitely well under $1k for a running parts car, much less than that for a lawn ornament, unless of course it has exactly the stuff you need. Mixing and matching colors, inside and out, or model years with incompatible content really limits the usefulness.

Me and my wife had a discussion about this earlier this evening before I saw your post. She felt the same way as you. She said if nobody on the forum isn't complaining and I enjoy posting about my Mustang I should continue to do so. I've decide I'm going to keep posting about my Mustang. I've checked with the forum moderator and he says its OK. 🙂

That's a good idea, however what I do is drive the car I have with a weak battery over to the local you pick yard and go in and look at batteries on the shelf. I pick one out, set it on the counter and ask the guy to hold it while I bring in the core battery [ the one that is in the car]. I bring it in, and only get charged for the battery and no core. The selling price is $30.00 and this is an 800 amp battery about a year old.

Love the data. ECRP (and Rock Auto) started to offer new struts in late June. There was so much activity around an alternate solution, then poof! New struts available. Once the next 'unobtainium' part needs to be replaced, activity will go up again. For me, nothing to fix since 'Frank' has been sleeping since November.

I got the starter changed and it started without hesitation after sitting for two weeks in -30 / -10 degree weather. Pretty cool. I had to drop the vented plastic panel to reach the bolts for the positive and negative connections and the short bolt on the starter. The job wasn’t too bad, I only needed a few different sockets, and two socket extensions to reach the two bolts holding in the starter. They were pretty locked in place though. I ended up putting my biggest socket on the 18 inch extension and putting it over the handle of my ratchet to make an on the spot breaker bar. The only other thing that gave me trouble was reaching the 10mm bolt on the dust cover more toward the front of the car. The bolt holds down the cover and a little wire clamp. The wire guard housed inside the clamp is right in front of the bolt and hard to move. In total, in the snow, it took two hours to get the old starter out, a cup of hot chocolate, two old ladies asking me what I was doing outside, and about fifteen minutes to put the new one in and get everything back together.

2 seater tells me all the time that I am the guy that learns first the quirks the Reatta develops because of the miles I have on the Red [329,xxx of today]. Well today I learned another new thing. The plastic Teves reservoir is held in place with rubber grommets on two points on the top of the Master Cylinder. These grommets are also seals to keep the brake fluid from leaking onto the MC and then onto the ground. I went to Kendalls with my back up Teves MC and we compared the replacement units grommets to the original one on the car. The replacement unit grommets were soft and pliable, the original unit grommets were hard and cracked. So we swapped the grommets, saving me swapping out the entire Teves unit. Later this week I will be going to Gibson's the local You Pick yard for more grommets. One pair to make my back up complete again and another pair for "just in case".

Alot of blood sweat and tears went into making this car beautiful and road worthy again. Thanx for everyones help! SOLD to a car collector in Australia for $7500. Next project is full restoration of a 450SL with 40k original miles.

I got back from Gibson's after getting those grommets. There were 5-6 Reattas and a couple of Rivs with the Teves brake system. I only got one set of grommets as I just couldn't see taking apart a Teves unit [and then probably ruining it] just for some rubber grommets. So I went to the local Buick dealer and tried to order these grommets. As you might guess they are discontinued, however there is one GM repair kit left in the country that includes the grommets so I bought it. I'll just add it to my other parts that I may never need, but if I do, I'll be all set.

Update: So equipped with a better soldering gun I re-did that splice as well as most of the others both under the passenger and driver's seats. There were a couple I left alone because they looked fine. The ones under the passenger seat were very bad. A couple fell apart taking the tape off. Now for the bad news, fuse #2 still blows :P. The work was not for naught though as it did clear up another issue that I assumed was related to the body fuse issue, but apparently was not. That said, I'm going to cut that splice 311 back apart and troubleshoot from there. It was one of my first splices and I'm not real happy with the soldering job on it so I was kind of wanting to re-do it anyway. My technique got much better 3 or so splices in and from there I was real happy with them. One lesson learned though. The wiring was pretty well tarnished. Even stripping the insulation back the wire underneath was black in most cases. One of my biggest struggles was getting the wire clean enough to take the solder. A little research online, I found a guy that works on boats (highly corrosive environment) that used muriatic acid to clean contacts. I tried it and it worked fantastic. My procedure was to dip just the tip of the stripped wire into a can with a small amount of the acid and let sit for 5 or so seconds. The wire comes out almost perfectly clean. Then dip into water with baking soda to neutralize any remaining acid, wipe dry with a paper towel and then wipe down with rubbing alcohol for a final clean. That saved my fingers from a lot of rubbing with sand paper, which is what I tried first and concluded "there has to be an easier way." Thank you Chemistry. EDIT: Here is the youtube video I found https://youtu.be/mMF5bhbucro?si=ip5vALkUCoUKHBRC For those interested muriatic acid is Hydrochloric acid (HCl) and can be bought at home depot as a strong concrete etcher/cleaner. It is nasty stuff so you want to follow all the precautions on the bottle for sure. Baking soda works well as a neutralizing agent. HCl does not react with copper, but reacts strongly with copper oxide. It will cause copper to corrode faster because as it reacts with the copper oxide it continuously exposes fresh copper to oxidation, so it is important to get it all off the copper after the cleaning is done.

The Goose mobile in her natural habitat.

Thanks guys. On another front I knew my front brakes needed to be done so this morning was front pads and rotors. After that I also swapped out the oil level sending sensor. When I pulled the old one out the plastic float was off only the rod remained. Put in the new one [different design at the head] and now no warning. Enough for today for this old guy crawling around on the floor...

Update: Jim sent me the harnesses I needed. Spliced them in over the weekend... She fired up and ran!! I am very excited to get that car driving soon.

Was getting a low oil level warning on the Red which usually means time to change the oil which I did. But still getting the warning so I think it's time to change the sensor. Second time in 322,xxx miles...

Turn the HVAC Blower on high, close the doors and windows. Using a soapy water solution spray it around the windshield, windows doors and rear window. Look for bubbles blowing out of the car. I have a smoke machine and I wave the smoke around the areas looking for a disturbance in the smoke. Jim

I found this nce chart in the Parts book and thought it may save someone many hours of trying to find the information.

I came across this service bulletin and thought it has some important information. Reatta Engine Miss Tech Service Bulletin 93-35-6D.pdf

The instrument cluster lens on my '90 Reatta has a lower left crack and a few other scuffs. A google search miraculously turned NOS lenses at a very fair price. The seller has 10 NOS lenses at $35 each plus shipping. I ordered one and it's perfect. The seller packed it nicely and arrived 3 days later. He still has 8 of these NOS lenses as I type this, maybe not for long. I've been a car collector (mostly '50's American beasts) for 4 decades, and I know a bargain on NOS parts, and these lenses qualify. I'm new to the Reatta world, so maybe these IPC lenses aren't as desirable to others as they are to me. If you need one, don't hesitate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/275858080052

To reassure everyone of my intentions for ROJ... thought I'd let you all know that I've paid for another 12 months of hosting for ROJ, and paid another 6 month subscription fee (paid biannually) for the forum software so we're good to go for another year.