New to TOA

[Hasty]

Hello!

I live in St. Cloud, MN. I am new to TOA, but not to Toronados.

I have owned a 1969, 1970, 1978 and 1991 Toronado.
I have owned a 1981 and 1992 Riviera.
I have owned a 1981 Eldorado.
I have owned a 1997 and 1998 Aurora.

Currently, I have only the 1970 Toronado GT which I recently aquired.

[toro68]

Which car did you like beter, the 1981 Riv or the Auroras?

[toro_mike]

Welcome Hasty! You have a great E-Body history! We look forward to your contributions!

[Hasty]

Which car did you like beter, the 1981 Riv or the Auroras?

I loved (and miss) my '81 Riviera. I sold it about 6 years ago because it needed much more work to be a dependable driver than I could put into it. It was my primary vehicle at the time, had been my daily driver off and on for 10 years.

It needed a complete front end (suspension and steering), tires, and a lot of electrical work.

The headlight switch started on fire roughly every 6 months. It was a non-Twilight Sentinal car, but the switch still cost $40 new every time. I worked with the wiring, and never did find why it was an issue. I had almost no trouble with that after I took one of the switches apart and rewired the lighting circuits. I realized that pulling the knob out on the dash was actually closing three rather large circuits (headlights, parking lights, dash lights if I remember right). I split the circuits up, ran them through three seperate 30 amp relays (radio shack) and put a light-duty plastic toggle switch in the hole on the dash where the knob used to be. I also put a little orange LED next to the switch, so I would remember to shut off the lights again. (the pulled out knob was a great visual reminder back then).


I had similar issues with the climate control switch starting on fire. It was not digital climate control, and the fan (Hi - med - med - low) would astart to smoke. I replaced that about every year, and eventually ended up replacing that with a heavy duty toggle switch (bypassed the resistors for med and low speed). I still had melted wiring a lot.

The opera lights on the roof pillars would burn out often, I cleaned out all of the local junkyards, as these didn;t have a replacable bulb.

I loved that car, though. It would always start and run. It had the Olds 307, ran smooth, but sometimes had to drive home with no lights and no heater fan.

It would go through a lot of snow, too. One year, I actually drove it down into a ditch to pick up a guy that had gotten his 4x4 pickup stuck. The snow was only about 6 inches deep, and the tall skinny tires under that fairly big cast iron engine without a lot of horsepower went through anything. One year, it was parked in an open lot at college, and over the weekend, snow drifted in around it, up past the hood. I shoveled enough to get the door open, let it warm up for a few minutes, and drove it out. The bus driver had stayed and waited because he figured he would have to give me a ride.