Welcome to the list, Laurent. Interesting that I bought my 1990 Imperial
from a man in St. Laurent, Manitoba. :-)
Cruise control. With the car off but key in the run position, doors closed,
hood up and windows open, turn the cruse on and off a few times and see if
you can hear a relay clicking. If you do, that means the system has power.
With the cruise on, press the other buttons and you should hear at least one
other cause a relay to click. If you do, you should be able to assume that
your buttons are ok. Take the car out on the road and try to make the
cruise take hold while you try different steering wheel positions. The
connectors in the column can come loose and cause intermittent contact at
certain tilt positions. If it takes hold at any of these positions, remove
the bottom cover from the column (you'll need a T-15 Torx driver and not one
that has interchangable bits). You'll have to do visual inspection of the
wiring to see which connector is intermittent. While messing around in
there, be aware of the trip wire for the air bag. I suggest disconnecting
the power from the battery while working around the air bag. If the wiring
is not the problem, you can easily swap out the vacuum motor that is mounted
to the battery tray under the hood. These are easy to find at salvage
yards. Of course, check that it isnt just a simple vacuum leak.
Radio. This is the unit you want.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2465128188&category=38640
Not this one.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2465133447&category=38640
I don't know if you can swap the knobs etc but my guess would be yes. That
would not stop me from getting the CD.
Transmission. The problem with the transmissions in these cars is it
requires special fluid and Chrysler (in all their wisdom) didn't make that
clear to the dealers and customers when they started selling them. The
fluid is known as ATF+3. If I were you, having just bought a car that has
an unknown service record, I would change the transmission filter and fluid
asap. Chrysler does have a rubber transmission pan gasket you can use or
you can just use a good RTV sealant like the factory does. I've been told
that Chrysler distributes about the best RTV for this job. I've also read
that it is important that the RTV not come in contact with the ATF or
foaming and possibly tranny damage will result. I would also change the
engine oil and filter and put in a good quality name brand oil. IIRC, these
engines like 5W30 year round but check your Operator's Manual.
I know nothing about digital display...Tony?
Keyless Entry. I'm told that keyless entry is a snap to install. I have a
resource that can give you the wiring codes required for the job. I'd go
for it if I were you. I have a used command start that I plan to install in
my 90 Imperial.
Please do send pictures and a story about your car to my private address and
I'll see that they get on the site asap.
Brad Hogg
Winnipeg, Manitoba
http://www.nybclub.org/membercars/bradhogg/index.htm
1990 Chrysler Imperial 4-door Sedan (the KImperial)
1978 Chrysler Newport 4-door Hard Top (the Newporker)
1978 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham 4-door Hard Top
1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham 4-door Hard Top (the Irish lass)
1976 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham 4-door Hard Top (the Black Beast)
1968 Chrysler Newport Custom 4-door Sedan (Grand-Dad's car)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurent Daudelin" <laurentdaudelin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Imperial Club" <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 10:52 PM
Subject: IML: Imperial 1993 Questions...
Hi all!
First of all, I'm glad I found a bunch of guys like you and I'm really proud
to be the owner of an Imperial. I know most of you are a lot more dedicated
than me as you had or are in the process of doing major restoration
projects, while I just picked up an almost brand new car. However, I don't
have much experience in car (my best achievement was the replacement of an
alternator). But, hopefully, I will learn a lot and I'll be able to preserve
and save this nice Imperial for the next 50 years! I think I'm good at
fixing things as I've done quite a few things in electronic like completely
disassembling a laptop and putting it back together after repairing it, and
yes, it was working after the repair!
As such, I have a few questions for you guys. First, the cruise-control
doesn't work. I've replaced the fuse to no avail. Does anybody know what
could be wrong or what I should check?
I have the Infinity radio-cassette in the car. All the buttons and knobs
have this chrome appearance that I would like to keep. However, I'm really
missing my CD player. I've seen a few Infinity radio-CD player on eBay that
are real similar to mine. I've seen 2 models basically so far: one that has
a CD player replacing the cassette player and another one that has both the
CD player and the cassette player. This last one seems to be a little bigger
than the other one. So, I'm looking for pointers about which one would
nicely fit in my Imperial 93. However, they all have black controls and
knobs. I haven't seen any "chrome" one. Can the buttons and knobs be easily
switched over? Any thoughts?
I also read that the tranny on this car is very sensitive. The car has
85,000 miles. So, I gave a call to my Chrysler dealer to see how much would
be servicing the transmission. He asked me if the transmission has been
serviced in the past. I didn't know so he said that if the transmission has
never been serviced, he wouldn't touch it as it could make things worst. He
said that these transmissions had to be serviced every 25,000 to 30,000
miles. I was a little bit surprised since there was an item in the 1990's
maintenance that talked about having the transmission serviced after 80,000
miles. The seller tells me he got the car at 55,000 miles in 2001 from his
wife's grandfather in 2001. I was then able to find the dealer where most of
the maintenance has been done. However, there was no transmission service
and that dealer also suggested that I leave it alone. What do you guys
think?
Tonight, after coming back from DC, I noticed at some point that there seems
to be a stuck LED in the digital voltage gauge. There is a second needle (?)
that stays at the bottom of the gauge. Is this announcing more problems down
the road for the digital display?
Finally, I'd like to add a keyless entry system. Again, I've seen a few on
eBay but I was wondering what you guys would recommend. I don't really need
an alarm system (maybe to get a discount on my insurance premium), so what
could I get that would easily install? Some systems let you even open the
trunk from the remote, but I'm guessing they are more complex to install?
Thanks all! Sorry if that was a long post. Again, I'm really proud to be a
member of that fine club and I only hope I'll be able to contribute at some
point! I will soon have a few pictures of that fine Imperial!
-Laurent.
--
============================================================================
Laurent Daudelin AIM/iChat: LaurentDaudelin <http://nemesys.dyndns.org>
Logiciels Nemesys Software mailto:laurentdaudelin@xxxxxxxxxxx
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