Well I ended up garaging bonne for some serious suspension work, and I grabbed up a pretty nice 95 olds 88 this weekend.
The olds is slick compared to the bonne feature wise, as it has all digital dash, and all the funky meters for just about everything. Sorry if I seem all pumped up by this, but I have never owned a car that had it before. My question is this, the gauge for fuel economy is talking about I am getting 13 to 16 mpg. This car was granny driven, and well maintained (oil changes, new brakes etc) I was kind of thinking I had better change the 02 sensor, but I have to contact the prior owner to see if that had ever been done before. I want to change out the fuel filter as well, but I am trying to hold out for some decent weather. Nothing beats working on a drippy, dirty, snow encrusted car in a warm garage.
I just figured I would post this here, and see what people said about it. ( i think this area is olds friendly) if not I am sorry and it can be moved or deleted.
Have a good day folks

I'm thinking it may be time for a Seafoam treatment. You can try the method outlined on this board, or try a method outline on AirCare Repair: The Emissions Repair Advisor. (1997 #4).
See the following link: http://repairnet.aircare.ca/document...dfs/1997-4.pdf

I've had better results using the method from Repairnet.

If the car was granny driven all the time, you need to be careful. I have heard stories about such cars, that when they are shown higher rpms, like to blow rings. Take it easy, and start working up to it. Once you are not afraid of redline, then seafoam treatment, then full tune up. My car was this way when I first got it. But after changing air and fuel filters, seafoam treatment, and a set of spark plugs later, I had a whole new car. Even now, after running top tier gas for quite some time, this car is ready to take anything I throw at it with little or no fuss.

We I found out that I needed some quality time with my manual, and some time to use common sense. At the time of my last post, I had only driven the car for maybe an hour, and was not familiar with all the options. So more or less it was reading 11.X liters per 100 kms. I switched the HUD to MPH and its getting 21mpg average. So that panic is over now (Duh).
It wasn't granny driven as in half the speed limit all the time etc, but it defiantly wasn't hard driven ever. It was my grandmothers car. She bought it new in 95, and it has just a little over 171,000 kms on it ( a little over 100,000 miles if I'm not mistaken). She gave it to my dad when they got a new car, and my dad hates cars, and since its the exact same setup as the bonne, he gave it to me.
Its a very vice car, in pretty good condition too, but it sure lacks the comfort of the bonne'* big bucket seats. This is a column shift with the split bench, the bonne was a floor shift with buckets.
As far as I can tell the car isn't leaking anything (PS area looks a little dark though). Going to have to look closer when I get the chance.
I have a few questions though. Is there an easy way to tell if the intake has been replaced ever? The car has the red anti freeze in it still. I think I remember seeing a write up sort of debunking the dex antifreeze intake failure thing, but I just figured I would ask you guys what you would do about it. I do know you cannot swap it for green antifreeze though. Well not without a little more effort than a drain and fill anyways.
I am very paranoid about the intake gaskets, but I'm not sure I'm paranoid enough to rip it apart on the off chance. That'* most likely the only way to tell, but it would be a shame as it seems to be perfect atm. I am one of the ***** that blew up a perfectly good engine not understanding the instructions I was given since I was a total car newb. It was only noticed as a problem after it hydro locked. Long story short, I put one of the piston arms (or whatever they are technically called) right into my oil gallery. Put a big hole in the block, and idled the 5 blocks home accompanied by beautiful xylophone music played by my motor . lol
So I learned a very valuable lesson there, so now the bonne has a 3.8 from a 99 Buick something or other with only about 80,000 kms on it at the moment. Some shocks and struts, a little surface rust repair below the doors, and a quick dent pull cause of a chick at work and her elite backing up skills. After that my bonne will be in pretty decent shape. Plus I got to spend quite a bit of time with my dad. Since we always more or less ignored one another my whole life, it kind of turned into a blessing in disguise. It was sort of like falling down 3000 stairs and landing on a winning lottery ticket lol. Not all good, but at the same time, not to damn bad at all .
I guess I could take a second here to thank the people who helped out when I 1st posted here, and put up with all my retarded newbie bull crap. The took the time to answer every one of them, no matter how silly they were, and I was always put on the right track. This place rocks bigtime. The staff is second to none, and always friendly and helpful. GM should be paying you guys!!

Thanks to the staff and members I have met so on here so far for everything!

I was reading a third party investigation on Dex, and it brought out that Dexcool in itself is not the cause of the issue, but when it gets contaminated (with air usually), it turns acidic, and that is what causes all of the troubles.

To switch over to green you will need to drain then fill with water, bring up to temp then drain again. Do this several times. You can not have any DEX in the system. This includes the over flow and heater core. If you don't get it all the DEX will react with the green and sludge up.

The question is should I change the anti freeze, or possibly just leave it as it is?
My uncle has a scope to see into little places. If a guy took off the MAF, would it be possible to check for a damaged intake gasket with the scope? I really want to get a rough idea of its condition, but I don't want to rip apart the engine to do it. It would be fine if I did and it was screwed up, but if I did and it wasn't screwed up, I'd be terribly angry. lol

Most would likely recommend changing out the coolant now. Then from here on out, you can drive knowing that there is a chance the gaskets could go at any time. You would just watch the coolant level like a hawk, and if it starts dropping without explanation, then it is likely time to make a move. Major engine damage occurs when the failure is not observed and corrected right away, but if caught in time, corrected, and oil change straight after, it usually doesn't bother the engine too much.

Nice,
I have to fly to BC this weekend, and I will be quite busy for a few weeks, and don't have time to play wanna be mechanic right now. I like these cars, but I'm very paranoid about the fact I have no idea when/if the intake was done. I assume it wasn't since it still has red anti freeze in it, but it is possible it was changed and refilled with red.
I have the manual and all the receipts for work done. I even have the bill of sale . $35,000 in 1995. I will glance through those and see if anything looks like it had intake work done. If I cant see anything like that, I will have to phone my granny >.

Yeah, the "Flash Dash" is pretty cool. I had one in my '91 Cutlass Supreme. It felt like I was driving the Starship Enterprise. I like the interior of the Olds 88'* of that era. I had two LSS'*, a '94 and a '97. The styling is somewhat conservative, not nearly as exciting as the Bonneville, but they were very well thought out from an ergonomic standpoint. The sun visors with their little plastic extensions were a nice touch. One of these days, I'm gonna find a set of those to put on my Bonne. I especially liked my '97 LSS with the Aurora-styled seats and center console. Those seats rival the Bonneville'* for comfort.