Oh Man! I Stepped It Up A Notch!!!

Bryce Frazier

Well-known Member
Getting away from dealing in tractors now..... Bought myself a 1993 Chevrolet Lumina..... :) (can you say "cherry ride"??)

Gal was asking $325 for it, I gave her $175, and hauled it home. Didn't have any idea what was wrong with it, and just wanted to get rid of it. I (to be honest) have kind of been looking for a car/truck for Casey. She is going to be 18 in a few months, and I plan on giving her a vehicle, in good condition, for her graduation/birthday present! (I am so smart huh?!?!)

Anyways. She put a brand new Alternator in it, and a battery. Then it "wouldn't start". I put a different battery in it today (hauled it home yesterday) it fired right up, but the charge/battery light was on. Checked the Alt. with a voltmeter, and it is reading, but too low for my dads standards. He thinks that it isn't putting out enough current to fully get things charging. (Alt is brand new 1 month ago from O'Rileys, and she gave me the receipt for it, so, they SHOULD replace it!)

Runs and drives great, goes through all the gears fine. The inside was REALLY dirty, but it only took an hour to get it cleaned up, and vacuumed out. Casey just found out about it a few minutes ago. She is stoked!!! Planning on having her out this weekend. She promised me that she would pay the costs I have into it (I didn't ask that of her, but fair for both of us I suppose). So, she will probably be out $300 for a nice little car. Not perfect or new by any means, but, cheap all the way around!! ;)

She will have a look at it this weekend, and drive it, and if she likes it, I will hold onto it until the spring, and if not, I will probably list it back online for $1000, and take $800 or so for it....

I'm so proud of myself..... :p
Lumina AD, Ya, Its still on CL..... :p
 
That's a big move, better wrap some gold around that finger pretty soon(so you can straighten up from being wrapped around it) as much you do for her.

As for the car, check the cables and connections then fuel pump.

My truck left me stuck at work on day(didn't start only click, even with jump), got home and pulled starter(thinking it was bad) the cable terminal broke off the starter end.
My pa was having problems with his van stopping then going again once(like listed in ad), that was less noticeable at higher speeds. Took it to the shop, no luck finding it. Then it didn't want to start, mech came out with tow truck and crawled under, no fuel pump noise. Got it fixed now its good to go.
 
(quoted from post at 20:01:58 02/02/16) Getting away from dealing in tractors now..... Bought myself a 1993 Chevrolet Lumina..... :) (can you say "cherry ride"??)

Gal was asking $325 for it, I gave her $175, and hauled it home. Didn't have any idea what was wrong with it, and just wanted to get rid of it. I (to be honest) have kind of been looking for a car/truck for Casey. She is going to be 18 in a few months, and I plan on giving her a vehicle, in good condition, for her graduation/birthday present! (I am so smart huh?!?!)

Anyways. She put a brand new Alternator in it, and a battery. Then it "wouldn't start". I put a different battery in it today (hauled it home yesterday) it fired right up, but the charge/battery light was on. Checked the Alt. with a voltmeter, and it is reading, but too low for my dads standards. He thinks that it isn't putting out enough current to fully get things charging. (Alt is brand new 1 month ago from O'Rileys, and she gave me the receipt for it, so, they SHOULD replace it!)

Runs and drives great, goes through all the gears fine. The inside was REALLY dirty, but it only took an hour to get it cleaned up, and vacuumed out. Casey just found out about it a few minutes ago. She is stoked!!! Planning on having her out this weekend. She promised me that she would pay the costs I have into it (I didn't ask that of her, but fair for both of us I suppose). So, she will probably be out $300 for a nice little car. Not perfect or new by any means, but, cheap all the way around!! ;)

She will have a look at it this weekend, and drive it, and if she likes it, I will hold onto it until the spring, and if not, I will probably list it back online for $1000, and take $800 or so for it....

I'm so proud of myself..... :p
Lumina AD, Ya, Its still on CL..... :p

Make sure you invest in some seat covers....at least for the back seat :)
 
Hi Bryce, I had a 92 olds cutlass supreme, basically the same car. Re alternator, the only brand that would last in hot weather was a Bosch. If it like the olds the alternator was very close to the firewall and in hot weather with AC and fans running the alternator would overheat and die. GM replaced 3 or 4 under warranty then when warranty expired and it failed again parts man recommend Bosch replacement. my daughter drove that car until 2008 and the rust became too bad.
Re rear brakes, if they are disk brakes, take them apart every year and clean and lube the sleeve that slides on the bolts otherwise the sleeve will seize to the bolts and one brake pad will drag on the disk and burn out.

Good luck with the car for your daughter. Hope it gives her good service.

Jimb
 
LOL!

My youngest son turned 16 in Dec. and got his license. Coincidentally, my wife's aunt had passed away a couple of months before, and we wound up with her RED '92 Lumina.

Poor kid got stuck with it for now!

NOT exactly a "chick magnet" but it gets him around.

His friends have named it "The Red Baron".
 
wow....

what can I say. you got it man. police were all over the place. fast!!! :p


ACTUALLY, I found the missing beauty cap! But that was a close guess!!! :)
 
Oh well, this might sound weird, but, Casey is actually 15 days OLDER than me!

She's my girlfriend, not my daughter! If she was my daughter though, I would be having to scare off a LOT of boys! ;)
 
First car is a first car, and, if the price is right, what more could you ask for! I bought my 1995 K1500 FLAWLESS for $3000, but, I had been working since I was 12, and had been saving for a nice truck since I was 13 or 14. Many many many kids these days don't start working until 17 or 18, and are "out on their own" at 18! Casey hasn't worked a day in her life except for babysitting, and I can tell already that she thinks she is just going to "get a job" and all will be well.

Things will be tight for her for the first few years, and, hopefully I can take a little load off of her by getting her into a good ish, semi reliable car!!! :p

"Red Baron" is priceless.... :)
 
I am a ford guy but, those old luminas are tough! In my younger days that was my buddys' bar car and it went through a lot and kept on tickin' lol. seriously for what you have in it that is a good buy.
 
My dad has a 1995 Corsica that he uses as his winter driver when the ElCamino is tucked away in the shop. That poor little thing has been put through it's paces!!! Clearcoat is coming off, he lost an inner fender well last month, little things.... But it is mechanically still doing really well!!!
 
Should be a good car. Put some miles on it before you turn it loose. You might get a product for cleaning the head light plastic lens. For some reason the plastic on the older cars clouds up. Stan
 
You're a good guy Bryce. I did just the opposite to my girl friend, sort of, I ruined the engine in her Corvair. I changed the oil for her and didn't know what I was doing. I didn't replace the gaskets, that of course leaked all the oil out and seized the motor. I did find her a replacement car, that she had to buy. She kept telling me "You killed Buttercup", the car was a creamy yellow color. She married me anyway.
 
Bryce, 43 years ago I was driving a baby blue 73 Monte Carlo to college. Met a girl in school that was saving up to buy herself a Monte Carlo. Couple of months after we started dating, I told her she could have my car if she would marry me. Next Tuesday will be our 42nd anniversary. I think we both got a good deal. Hope the car works out well for you.
Richard in NW SC
 
Hi Bryce, We bought a brand new Lumina in 1993. Put well over 200,000 miles on it. The only issue we had with ours and it was a common one was the brakes. It was recalled a few times for brake issues, I think I had to put rear calipers on it every year. They would freeze up clamped down and not release. They would start sticking and get hot and warp the rotors in a heartbeat. I got good a putting them on. Knew a guy at church that had a 93 and his was the same way. It also had a metal coolant line on the top of the engine somewhere that broke apart. We had just got pulled into our driveway in MO coming home from a trip to Indiana and the thing came apart and sprayed out all the coolant in the driveway. Got lucky on that one. The replacement for it was a flexible line. Seemed to be a very good engine.
 
Should see 14 volts on a volt meter. My neighbor had a charging problem and all the shops told her the charging voltage was ok with 12 volts.
I told her she needed a new alternator. Hal
 
Thats the plan exactly!

Is it a complete "gift"? No! She is getting a VERY good deal on something that will treat her well in the long run. I could easily afford to give it to her, totally, but that is not my point of view. I am a firm believer that if someone has to pay for something themselve, they will take much better care of it. I see it in her especially, because from not working she has VERY little money, so when she does buy something, she is very proud of it!

I think that if she has to pay $300 for a $1000 car, she will still consider it a gift, but that will be a stretch for the money part for her now, so, I think she will take good care of it as well....

It is a "plan" and as well all know, plan is a 4 letter word, but, worth a shot I do believe! ;)
 
You know, something about that place, EVERYTHING is just cheap, cheap, cheap.

In town, we have a Napa and an AutoHouse, out North of town (2 miles) is where the 3 big dealerships are, Ford, GMC, and my dads Chevy, literally, all next to eachother. It hasn't been very long since they opened up an AutoZone, AND an O'Rileys within a very short distance of the dealers (much closer than Napa and AH) Well, the Chevy dealer started buying parts from the two of them right off the bat, and almost immediately dropped O'Rileys, AutoZone still gets a little bit of business from them, but they are back to mainly Autohouse, and sometimes Napa... I thought that said a lot about O'Rileys?!?! :/
 
Thats exactly what we are seeing. Running around 11 - 12, and then spurting up to 13 once in awhile. It needs to be putting out 14, without any "spurting"!! :p
 
I have always had good service from them and good luck with most replacement parts....just not starters or alternators.
 
I am hoping that they will replace this one OK. I have the original purchase receipt, BUT, it was bought on an account by someone else, in WA, now I am at a different store in Idaho!! If they knew what was good for them they would replace it! :p
 
I have recently been hearing/reading a lot about "reman" alternators, starters, etc. From my understanding that if the item meets their supposed test, it is cleaned up, painted, and boxed, and there ya go. If it fails, go swap for another and do it again type thing. This is why I opted to rebuild my own starter recently so I knew what I had when it was done, and saved me a few bucks in the process. Even though a reman starter was $35 at Oreilly, I opted to order (imagine that, no stocking brushes or bushings any longer for a fairly common starter) the brushes and bushings, and replace for about $10. Some say that the reman at Oreilly make good cores to rebuild - and I tend to agree, but one might get lucky, and I would be tempted to open one up prior to going through the trouble of installing to save some headaches, as there is nothing more aggravating than having to keep replacing a tough to get at part due to poor workmanship or to save a buck at others expense.
 
about once a month rub door seals with vege oil. it will keep them from cracking and in winter will help with doors freezing closed. the snow will melt, then the water gets in the door seam and freezes back up. This will help. Also some of those 3.1 will get a valve tick after 75,k Just keep clean oil in it. Have never heard one get worse than a tick and most have over 200k now. This is from a fleet man for the state of MI. They bought bunches of them for years.
 
(quoted from post at 10:53:26 02/03/16) I am hoping that they will replace this one OK. I have the original purchase receipt, BUT, it was bought on an account by someone else, in WA, now I am at a different store in Idaho!! If they knew what was good for them they would replace it! :p
Check the belt.
Needs to be real tight, tight enough you can't turn it by hand.
 

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