A little Spring time update. The seat bolster panel I plastic welded held up for about 6 months until a real cold day a month ago when I sat in the seat and heard the panel crack at the repair joint.
But the good news is that after a year of hunting I was finally able to find a drive's side plastic seat bolster panel. It turns out that the panel for the optional seats with the lumbar support is a very rare piece. I found one on ebay last week that was from a 99 Trans Am. And it was only $19. The only down side was that it was grey, not black. I was able to dye it black using the SEM Landau Black vinyl dye. Great stuff and matched perfectly! Got it installed and now that is one less part to hunt for.
I spent today with the boy, outside working on the T/A. We put the car on jackstands and flushed the brake system. The old brake fluid was green - very weird. I mean green like the old Kendell Motor Oil green! We used an entire gallon of fresh DOT3 brake fluid to flush the system until it came out clear. Afterwards I went back and reviewed the inch-thick, volume of original dealer work orders on the car from the original owner. It looks like she had the Pontiac dealer do that BG Brake Flush at least three times in 61,000 miles, the last one at 55,000 miles. I don't know what was in that flush stuff but I have never seen green brake fluid before. By the amount of fluid discoloration, it looks like they never actually flushed the existing fluid out - just added some snake oil to it.
The dealer sold her a bill of goods every two months for 13 years. It's unbelievable how much she was over-charged for over-maintenance - over $10,000 in maintenance invoices during that time - in addition to the three extended warranties she had purchased for the car - good til 2016! Every 1,500 miles or 60 days she had the $39 oil and filter change, the $189 fuel injection system flush done, the $69 power steering flush done, the $169 6,000 mile service done (which is just an overpriced inspection with no replacement of parts), the $39 tire balance and rotation, (after she paid for free lifetime balancing and rotation in 2001), and the $99 brake flush plus $39 for the BG snake oil liquid.
Whenever she had a legitimate warranty complaint - like the driver's door speaker not working, they would note that they could not "duplicate the problem"...and then would go and do the maintenance-palooza on the car and she would get hit with a $300 bill on what should have been a zero deductible warranty visit. I found seven invoices over 13 years requesting the speaker to be replaced under warranty, before the speaker was actually replaced.
It just gets me so angry that the dealer did this to her (even though the car was the beneficiary of the over attention).
OK, I am done venting for the moment.
I did order a new set of ACDelco spark plugs and original equipment 748CC Delco plug wires for the car. So that will be our next project. (You'd have thought that the dealer would have done a tune up on the car with all those visits but I guess since changing spark plugs on an LS1 equipped F-body actually takes a bunch of time, labor, and busted knuckles, that they took the low road and just did fluids). Stay tuned!
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