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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.

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.

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..

Yes one of my horn buttons finally popped off/broke and I was facing removing my steering wheel and figuring out a better mouse trap. Don't know if I did, but check it out--I glued a pair standard foam earplugs, cutting a slot to fit along the plastic tabs, and glued the button back into place. Seems to be the exact depth, rebounds after making contact, and so far has stayed in place, even in the Los Angeles sun. I used Permatex clear RTV silicone adhesive. Too simple to be true?

Update: problem solved. It turns out that the blend door was sticking and with a bit of wiggling the arm back and forth, I was able to get it to the Max Cool position where it will stay for the summer. That How To Guide here was so helpful. Thanks again ROJ

Ship, I am a Blessed man, I still get up under the dash,, a bit of an issue getting back out and my eyes don't always see what I am looking for, and I turned 85 in Feb.

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.

Returning from my trip to Arkansas for the recent eclipse. Lucked out with perfect weather and clear skies. Attached are three photos, one is my poor cell phone photo held up to the eyepiece of my small telescope and the others are from a kind lady from Texas who shared pics from her nice camera and lens combo. Bet you can guess which might be which😜

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. 🙂

New adventure, I made my own version of the "Shelfence". Black walnut, works great, keeping small bits from sliding under the seats, and larger things within reach depending on which passenger wants to reach them. Storage bins still open without a problem, and the whole assembly is easily removed by lifting the back end and rotating upwards.

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.

Just today hit 333,200 miles on the Red of which almost exactly 220,000 were put on by me. Bought the Red in December of 2006 for my 50th birthday. Flew to Fort Lauderdale to get it. Bought it from a private party and drove it home. Took the rest of the fly in day and the next to get home. Had my first experience of sleeping in a Reatta with 16 way seats!

The servo was used on multiple GM cars in multiple years. take a walk through a you pick yard and look for a lower mileage Buick. Once you get it off suck on the big hose nipple. If it holds while you have vacuum on it, it probably is good.

I was able to purchase them at my local Lowes store. There is an assortment of them in drawers in the hardware section.

No, they are solid aluminum and can be buffed. The top layer is anodized and really should be stripped and then buffed. When you are finished you have bare aluminum. I took mine off and stripped them, then I took them to a fellow I know and he polished them, only the part that shows. To keep them shiny I polish them with a product the polisher recommends. It's called " White Diamond."

Look at that! Both a Mustang and a Reatta can coexist in the same garage!

I'd been having intermittent issues with rough idle, and rough running. I've cleaned the MAF sensor, I've cleaned the IAC, I've replaced the crank position sensor. No change. I was on the verge of replacing the ECM. But while I was under the car replacing the crank sensor, I noticed a foul viscous sticky goo on the frame, that seemed to have come from above. The slime was beige, with a greenish tint to it, really nasty looking, very sticky, and impervious to WD-40 and Goo-Gone. When I traced it uphill, it was leaking from the seam between the coil pack (Motorola) and the ignition module. I removed the coil pack, and sure enough, there was a crack on the bottom side with this gross slime oozing out. I had to clean a lot of slime off the wiring that connects the coil pack to the Ignition module. But replacing the obviously failing coil pack didn't change anything, which really surprised me. Inspired by Daves89 post about the ignition harness on his '99 Regal having been the problem, I thought I'd take a look at my Reatta's ignition harness. First step was unplugging the ignition harness from its socket on the ignition module, and that's when I discovered that the wiring harness connector and socket on the ignition module were both fouled with the slime that had leaked out of the old cracked coil. I tried electronic parts cleaner, but the slime was unimpressed. Lots of scraping and digging with tweezers and tiny screwdrivers got much of the goo off of the connector, but there was still plenty of sticky residue on everything. I was concerned that something as aggressive as carb cleaner might soften the wiring harness connector, but as it was useless anyway, unless I could get the slime off, I gave it a try. Carb cleaner did the trick. I wrapped a rag around the connector to keep the cleaner from removing paint or anything else important in the vicinity, and cleaned the socket on the ignition module the same way. Finally, I sprayed off all the goo that had embedded itself into the wiring bundle, hoping that carb cleaner doesn't soften wiring insulation either. After putting it all back together, she started right up and idled smoothly. A short test drive was similarly uneventful. As the problem has been somewhat intermittent, I'm hesitant to say I'm home clear, but it does look like the slime was actually the culprit.

Update: SOLVED! I was about to give up and return the Delco coil pack and ICM, but for fun I put the old Magnavox pack on and it wouldn’t work either! I did I did a little googling and came across this old post: https://forums.aaca.org/topic/332605-1990-reatta-occasionally-wont-start/ His problem was that the coil pack wasn’t grounded. I already thought of this, or so I thought. I double-checked and tightened the bolt where the ground wire goes from the engine to the frame. I had loosened it to get to the screws for the coil pack and I thought I had tightened it enough, but I hadn’t. Once I tightened the bolts for both the ground wire and the coil packs, both coil packs worked! It just wasn’t grounded “enough.” Of course I removed the Magnavox one and installed the Delco as has been recommended to me by many people. So the good news is that yes, a coil pack from a 3300 engine (in this case a Buick Century 1993) is the same part and will work. hopefully that opens up some junkyard options for people. Thanks for the helpful comments.

I generally follow whatever recommendations I see from GM, but this time it failed spectacularly. A service bulletin from the '90s said to upgrade the oil pan gasket to their new design from AC Delco which is supposed to be so good that you can even reuse it. The first thing I noticed was that it didn't fit very well. It was floppy, hung over the edge in places, and getting it to stay in place while installing it was like trying to make a fish sandwich while it's still alive. The instructions that come with it and in the bulletin say to torque the bolts to 10, then 16. This seemed to squeeze the gasket out, and deformed my new pan. It started leaking and progressively got worse, so I ordered a new gasket. This time I ordered the Fel-Pro PermaDry Plus. This gasket is a solid piece that doesn't flop around or squeeze out. It comes with 4 handy helpers called SnapUps that you screw into 4 bolt holes, and they hold the gasket and the pan in place in exactly the right spot, freeing up your hands to put the bolts in easily. Once you get a few bolts in, the SnapUps just unscrew and you can put the last 4 bolts in. Incidentally, I tried doing a search for "oil pan" on this site, so as to avoid make a duplicate thread, but the search doesn't seem to be working. It returned zero results, even though there is another thread on that very page about oil pan bolts.

or try www.car-part.com Very simple easy to use website. there's 4 of them within 200 miles of you for less then $200.00 with the lowest $70.00. You can drive over and pick it up along with the extra parts you also need.

We need some background on the charging problem. Was the battery not being charged the reason you installed the new alternator? Or did the problem start after you replaced the alternator? Any additional info you can give us would be helpful. Don't assume the alternator is good just because it is new.

I put new wheels on the driver side and left the old stock wheels on the passenger side, then pulled it outside and took a few photos for comparison. This sealed the deal for me. I will be swapping my tires onto the new wheels soon. I think I will be very happy with the wheels Gary gave me. Before I got my Mustang Gary said he would help me with parts if I bought one but I wasn't expecting this. I offered to pay but he refused take anything. He's a good guy.

I found the issue. To answer your question, it would idle fine with my foot on the brake and other foot lightly on the accelerator. I looked under the hood and way down by the ac drier, the link hose to the vacuum accumulator tank was rotted and broken. Changed it and now it runs fine. I will be going through all these hoses this weekend. The plastic one for the climate control appears to have been changed and is in good shape.

Just installed a compass mirror from an Olds. It has the map lights, auto dimming and compass. It was a direct plug and play. No harness adaption needed.

Doing it on a Ranger makes no sense but doing it on a Mustang that is supposedly a "high performance car" is just plain crazy. It's got a fiberglass hood and trunk lid, aluminum overhead cam heads, limited slip differential, dual exhaust from front to back and huge roll bars for handling. Then they install a fake oil pressure gauge? Whoever came up with that idea should have been fired.

I'm almost there myself. I still do it but my body is starting to say no. Working on the Mustang to get it into great condition has been harder on me than I expected. All I still have to do is change the oil in the differential and hopefully I will be done working on it for a while. I think it will be the last car I ever buy to work on myself.

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.

This issue was finally fixed by replacing the ECM. I tried two from rockauto at $125 each that were both bad. Got one on ebay for $25 and now the car runs like new again. No code 42 either so far 😀🤞

Rattle can facelift to repair the sins of the PO. Getting her ready for the 1st show of the season….

I like reading about other cars. Ronnie keep it going as it is. Jim

Yes, be careful. I have never had that piece off, so I don’t have any suggestions but I know I have issues with the screw heads not being flush and causing nicks in the blade😑 For the most part, I try not to use the wipers and apply regular coats of Rain X. It works for many situations but not all

What I did for my Reatta today: Started the thermostat replacement ordeal. An 11mm crow's foot on a 3/8" drive universal joint and extension, or a 1/4" drive 11mm socket with a 1/4" universal joint and extension are needed. It helps to unplug the vacuum hoses, being careful not to break the plastic manifold fitting (oops...). Parts needed: the thermostat, obviously, but also the following two Fel-Pro parts: Fel-Pro 35608 Engine Coolant Thermostat housing O-ring Fel-Pro 35126 Engine Coolant Thermostat Seal I found both on Amazon, neither of my local auto parts stores could source the seal. BTW, I don't understand why folks replace their OEM 195 degree thermostats with cooler units. The engines run more efficiently at higher temps, as long as they were designed to function that way. You are no more prone to overheating with a hot thermostat than you would be with a cooler thermostat, or even no thermostat at all. The ability of your car to avoid overheating is determined by the health of your radiator/fan/waterpump setup, along with the degree of corrosion buildup in the cooling passages. Let her run at design spec, those engineers had good reasons for doing it that way. As for the engineer who decided the thermostat housing retaining bolt needed to be nearly inaccessible with standard tools, that's a different story! May he/she be destined to have to access basic necessities on a regular basis with a similar level of frustration!

The IPC that was repaired by Cluster Fix did not work. The upper light portion would not turn on when pressing the TEST button. So, I ordered an IPC from Jim Finn. I unplugged the IPC from Cluster Fix and plugged in the one sent by Jim, and it worked like a charm.

If I were you, I would take Dave up on his off to sell you one. Eventually you will stumble across another one. For your Eldorado, I think that would be better than trying to use a modified strut.