Fortunately for me, this is a GM Car. It's fortunate, not because I'm a GM fanboy (I'm not - I'm actually a MOPAR man), but because 1000's of these very cars were sold (a total of just under 10,000 total of the 3 years of production). And the more cars that were sold, the more 'spares' they're likely to keep on a shelf in a warehouse.
But somewhere inside of GM Corporate Offices, there's a calculation that tells a parts buyer to purchase "X" amount of replacement parts for this car. First let's start out with a "bad" fact: There were only about 10,000 of these Olds 98 Touring Sedans ever built, between 1991 and 1993. That's an awful small run of cars for which to make "custom parts." But, aside from the decor, the paint, badging and interior, they're not really custom: Parts needed to transform this big car into a handler, were pulled from parts bins of the H-Body cars, like the Pontiac Bonneville, Olds (88) LSS and Buick Park Avenue Ultra.
As a Purchasing Professional, I can tell the reader that you don't want to buy too many replacement parts. They'll sit on a shelf for years collecting dust and going unused, until someone in a warehouse says "why do we have these parts lying around here, collecting dust and taking up space?" That person will tell his supervisor, who tells a manager, who wait call someone to see how many sales they've had in that parts' history, who will call asset accounting to get a costumer year to store the part, and eventually they'll call the inventory control team and a materials manager to ask if they can dispose of this item as scrap.
So how do we find these parts? What we really need is a Hollander Parts Interchange Book (or computer program), that every serious junk yard in the US has in their possession. If you know somebody at a salvage yard, maybe they'll let you look at their book (or even buy last year's book). I haven't hunted down special car parts in years, so all of my connections are long gone. Time for Plan "B."
So how do we find these parts? What we really need is a Hollander Parts Interchange Book (or computer program), that every serious junk yard in the US has in their possession. If you know somebody at a salvage yard, maybe they'll let you look at their book (or even buy last year's book). I haven't hunted down special car parts in years, so all of my connections are long gone. Time for Plan "B."
The Internet is a wonderful tool to find old items. There is an online database called GM Parts direct (powered by Flow Automotive - a family of dealerships in the Winston-Salem, NC area that I found after the fact), but I started looking on E-bay, in the used parts section. Why? To see if any of the H-Body car parts, such as suspension parts would also fit my long wheel base 1996 C-Body. GM, selling cars in a mature market (where nearly every family in the US has a car or could purchase one) needs to economize by using components on as many car lines as possible. As the front-wheel drive C-body and H-body cars are similar. As it turns out, the H-Body Front and Rear Anti-Sway Bats will fit the GEZROKET. Now let's go to theRock Auto's New Parts Catalog. Although the 1991-1993 Olds Touring Sedan looks very similar (identical?), let's see if the suspension parts will interchange. I had to do numerous look ups here to see if the FE1 struts from my 1996 Olds 98 (Regency Elite package) will fit the standard 1991 Olds Regency. They are "exchangeable" with that car. From that we can assume (with a reasonable amount of confidence) that the Strut from the 1991 Touring Sedan will bolt in on the 1996 Olds 98 Regency Elite. After that it was easy to find all of the Struts and Springs brand new in Rock Auto's data base.
Now it was time to speak with my mechanic, Jeff. Would he replace the front and rear suspension pieces with new pieces. Jeff's only caveat was that the front struts were to come as an assembly, so we wouldn't be searching for all of the small parts, nor having to compress the springs to mount them on the struts, a major safety issue, as a compressed spring contains a large amount of energy, that when released suddenly (e.g. the spring compressor suddenly and unexpectedly releases the spring-something I've witnessed and fortunately no one got hurt!-that could injure, maim or kill a nearby person).
Then it was time to go back to Rock Auto's database again, looking for the Front Strut with mounted springs. As KYB (the strut manufacturer) did not publish the front spring rates, I ended up calling one of their engineers, asking if their replacement front spring rate wa the same (or how much difference was there from the FE3 front springs). The engineer didn't give a definitive answer, telling me that the spring rates on the replacement KYB strut package were a "trade secret," but he told me that he thought that I would like them for my application.
So I had Jeff install all 4 struts. Jeff recommended not using the self leveling feature of the compressor with the rear struts due to age, but instead to just use an air shock line and manually set the pressure in them, which I did. then I drove the GEZROKET up to Lacy's Alignment, where an old school mate of mine, Rocky, works, to get a 4 wheel alignment.
So I drove the car home and negotiated the horrible interchange between I-77 N and I-85 N in Charlotte. I say horrible, as contractors have constructed from I-77's toll lanes project from the Brookshire Freeway to above Lake Norman and in the process have built a new interchange from the toll lanes on I-77 that includes to I-85 North) . The road surface is no longer smooth (frankly the road is beaten up), and there is a nasty kink in the curve instead of a constant radius. How did the big 98 do? It handled the roughness and broken asphalt very well, rather than feeling that the car was out of control. It also was not too harsh, keeping the luxury of a smooth long wheelbase ride.
But the big challenge was the off-ramp between I-85 N and I-485 Outer (North Carolina "Metropolitan Loop Freeways" use Inner -Clockwise, and Outer - Anti-Clockwise). The off-ramp is a Turbine style, allowing higher speeds than a clove leaf. The ramp makes a curve that changes your heading 45 degrees or so toward the east has a straight away and then a sharper turn, another 45 degrees toward the Southeast. While the normal speed limit is 45MPH, I'd made through at least 60 MPH before the spring and strut change, but the car felt disconnected and I was fighting it. Now with the new struts and springs, I can easily take the off ramp at 68 MPH without any drama. The Trip back, West to South First turns 45 degrees toward the North East,and then thins 135 degrees left to the Southwest, before turning another 45 degrees to the south and then back 45 degrees to the Southwest (allowing I 485 Outer and Inner off ramps from 485 to directly connect with the on ramp to I-85 South. The best I used to be able to take the ramp was at 54 MPH and once again, the car was feeling "squirelly." Now, 58 - 62 are easy and fully under control. The final test was giving my 89 year old Daddy a ride through the (crumbling) streets of Charlotte: Would he still approve of the ride? The answer was a resounding yes. Although the ride is stiffer, it is not rough. The still reasonably tall sidewalls on the P215-65/R-15Michelin Defender Tires to give a decent ride, good traction (not Good-Year Eagle level traction, but then again, the tires last about 80K miles, in which time, you'd have replaced 2 sets of the Eagles!) and the longer wheelbase keeps the car from porpoising as it goes over concrete joints.
I haven't upgraded the front or rear anti-sway bars, nor the bushings or end links for the bars. That will come in the future, giving me even greater turn-in response, but there is only so much you can do with a big car. Mission accomplished.
