Looking back at 200,000 miles in the Grand National

1/29/02

The odometer exceeded it's mechanical limits for the second time as I was coming home from work today. This caused me to reflect on my turbo Buick odyssey thus far.

I bought it in 1990 just before its 3rd birthday and it had some 20,000 miles. It replaced my GS400 as my daily driver. Since then, it's been quite a trip!

Its first jaunt down a dragstrip was at Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ. Ran 14.10-14.20s and went on to win a couple bracket racing trophies there. Driving technique improvements and a torque converter clutch switch had it in the 13's.
For a couple months, it was a Dominos delivery vehicle where I learned the hard way about the Powermaster pressure switch recall.
The paint on the firewall still bares the scars.
I hauled the car with me when I moved to Memphis in 1991, where it was promptly stolen a couple weeks later. Thankfully, it was recovered unharmed (ex. column) from where it was left running near the Mississippi River.
Ironically, one of the new projects awaiting me, the new TCI engineer, was a 200-4R product line. The GN became a guinea pig. The case now has heli-coils in every valve body bolt hole and the crossmember mount holes too.
I wanted good parking at the Memphis NMCA event in 1993 so I entered my GN in the show. Got a 3rd place plaque.
I brought my first born son home from the hospital in 1996 in the GN. Had I not learned my lesson from the first theft, the morons who again broke my column in the hospital parking garage would have ruined that moment. :mad: I had it rigged really good.
One day, on my way to work, I was run off the road and plowed through a mailbox like Burt Reynolds passing on the shoulder in Smokey and the Bandit. Poor hood didn't like that.
Drove to South Carolina for my sister's wedding. All duded up in the tux with a full compliment of passengers, I was again forced off the road by some dolt. I sailed through a section of woods and skipped back onto the road. Miraculously, a hanging air dam on one side was the only damage.
The car finally got its long-overdue paint job last year. Its debut happened to be on a perfect Saturday morning and I headed out for a local car show. While traversing a windy back road just five miles from home I saw something strange in my rear-view mirror, out of the corner of my eye. A dead tree fell across the road, missing the GN by mere feet! :eek: Oh yeah...got 3rd place again; edged out by a new Viper and a low-mile TTA. :p [/list]

It's seen all manner of weather, been down dirt roads, pulled another car from a ditch, brought home groceries, hauled transmissions in the trunk. It's gone to the junkyard for parts, been down various dragstrips, gone to the GSCA Nats in Bowling Green nine times & earned many fast driving awards, er...uh, tickets.

It's blown three head gaskets, flattened one cam, spun a rod bearing and broke an upper (aftermarket) ball joint.

Some things I've replaced: driver side seat cover (1), windshield (1), MAF (1), O2 sensors (4), coil (3), ignition module (3), crank sensor (3), IAC (1), serpentine belt (2), brake accumulator (1), fusible link (1), starter (1), alternator (1), power antenna mast cable (1), spark plugs (countless), brake pads (many), tires (who's counting anyway). :D

Some things that are still original: u-joints, Powermaster, A/C system, rear end, drums, rotors, wheel bearings, interior (less dr. seat cover)

Well, it's about time to be thinking about changing the gear oil and posi additive in the diff. again. I like to do that once every hunerd thou. ;)

Next stop...quarter million miles.