Need advice on restoring 92 SSE!
 

I have a 92 Pontiac Bonneville that I bought about 8 years ago. It's a supercharged SSE. Anyways, a few years ago, I started having problems with it. The dash wasn't working right. The gauges would flicker on and off and dash lights would blink. Drove me nuts! A wheel speed sensor went out and finally, a tranny pump went out and it wasn't shifting right. I have three other vehicles to drive, so I just took it out to my dad's place. He lives out in the country. I didn't figure I would leave it there for long, but it wound up being two years! Ouch! I had no idea what two years of sitting in a field could do to a car. There were spiders everywhere. Nothing a bug bomb can't handle. The interior is in rough shape. Mold was growing and the leather on the front seats has some cracks! It smells pretty rough too. It's going to need new seat covers, carpet and a headliner. I can fix all of these things myself, I just don't know where to get them! Anybody have any idea?

The only damage I can see in the engine is a heater hose that looks like it's been chewed a bit. The car has about 150,000 miles on it. Is it even worth trying to fix up or should I think about parting it out? The body is in great shape and the paint looks good. I'm not sure how much it will cost me to fix the tranny either. If it's a pump, I can handle that. What would you do? Thanks! Matt

Wow. You're looking at $1600 or so for the tranny, and easily another grand in the interior... By the time you get tires and new fluids that's at least another $500... So... $3000 into a fifteen year old car?

Or... you could part it out... Tail lights go for about $100.. Headlights... Rims.. Cluster... PCM.. Maybe sell the engine to a 20yo guy in Texas who wants to stick one in a very small car...

i've been looking into some of those parts. Carpet is about $200, seats you can get on ebay for decent price, or from someone on here that is parting a car and headliner you can get from a junkyard or here decently. There is a junkyard in Rochester, NY that has a 92 Park Ave Ultra Transmission they will pull and sell for $400 with 166k on it. I also have a 93 SSE SC parts car with 177k on it, red with grey interior that I will be parting out. I will be removing some of the parts for my other car, but will be replacing it with the parts off of my car. If interested in parts, let me know. From what I am told though, the tranny in my car might not work unless you got the engine as well.

Yes, my motor is supercharged. Couldn't I just replace the pump that's in the tranny? I understand that it's about a $200 part. I could fix the headliner myself for about $30. I can clean up the leather and the carpet really well. I'll just have a few tears. What could I do to clean up the carpet? I plan to pull all of these things out of the car. Thanks for any more advice! If this looks like it is going to run more than $1,000 or so, I'll definately be parting it out. I plan to tear into it this weekend and see what it needs. I've noticed that I could just buy another 92 SSE for around $2,500 to $3,000. If I could find a good one that just needs a motor, I'd be all over it! Thanks! Matt

If you plan on cleaning everything, and you don't need more than just the pump and some lines, I would say it could be done for about $1000, maybe $1500 at most. If you end up like me (bought a car needing a motor for cheap and found more that needed fixing later) then it might cost a little more. So far, not including purchase price of the car, or aftermarket add ons, I haveright around $1500 in my car, which includes a "new" motor, fender, bumper cover, and a complete parts car. There isn't a whole lot of labor in there, so that would be a representative figure if you were to do the work yourself. Since you probably won't need the parts car, or body panels, that figure would be halved.

As for cleaning, The leather I am unsure of. I guess it depends on how bad it is. Carpet I would remove and steam clean if you can get access to one. That should help remove the smell and other junk. Otherwise, Randman1 has told me he got a new carpet for about $200 that was premolded. That might be an easier alternative.

Another thing to consider is what you plan to do with the car and what things can wait to be done. If you plan on driving it, work on those aspects first. Replacing the seats if they can be cleaned enough could wait til it fit into the budget.
If you end up parting it, and the car is white(RPO 16u) and the bumper cover is in Good condition, I got dibs.

I would say it depends on how much work and how perfect you want the car. You can clean all the carpets and things unless they are destroyed. The cluster...talk to me we should be able to figure something out if it's just the three gauges to the right.

Look in techinfo, there's tons of good low cost fixes.