2012 Chevrolet Caprice PPV

[Wes Harden]

The cabin air filter is an often overlooked aspect of routine maintenance, and this car was no exception. I vacuumed several years' worth of pine needles, mud, and dead organic material out of it.
Surprisingly, the drain hole wasn't clogged!
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It was installed backwards, though I'm not sure how much of a difference that really makes.
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My wipers would stop pointed about 20° up from horizontal, then would go down to 0° before cycling up to 70° and returning to 20, which was annoying. PO said he tried to run the wipers when they were frozen to the windshield one time, which told me it probably just jumped around the splined shaft a smidgen.

I disassembled the plastic cowl cover, wiper arms, and motor assembly, cleaned and lubricated the pivots, and readjusted the wipers to the correct 0° home position, then tightened everything back together.

Works like new now.

This is a during pic, no before or after I'm afraid. Not a difficult job, just a little time consuming.
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Last project for today is to figure out why my left blinkers and left brake light don't work. It's not the bulbs or the housing. I'm just not getting voltage to the plugs.

I suspect a damage wire somewhere.
Fun fact: PPVs have a trunk-mounted battery with optional dual batteries. Mine still has the wiring hooked up for the dual battery just flopping around inside the quarter panel, so I disconnected it for safety.
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Remnants of the car's original purpose can be found throughout the car. Here is where the trunk lights would have been mounted.
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And here is an example of the leftover police accessory wiring that the upfitters hastily snipped out. I bet they got a little wild with the side cutters and nicked one of my left brake/turn wires. Over time, somehow it failed. Just a theory. PO said they worked for him at one time, then just stopped working.

Ugh
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No closer to figuring out the wiring issue, but hey, at least my stinky ghetto exhaust sounds halfway decent.

Some of the more modern vehicles use the pcm to ground the individual lamp functions. If there was say a bad bulb the computer would sense that change in and shut down that function. When the bulb is replaced a scan tool is used to tell the computer to turn it on. While our security had impalas, they got the cheap rental car agency bastardized 2017's (2014 body with 2017 drivetrain v6 fwd) Not sure if yours has this feature or not.

 

[regal403]

Not sure on the PPV but my van has separate fuses for each directional. The body control module has 4 different fuses where we used to only have one. Its madness. They also are not next to each other in the fuse block on the van, just random locations. Check every fuse you can find.

Ding ding ding! You're the winner.

It was literally the first fuse I checked once I located the correct fuse block behind the driver's side kick panel.


The Body Control Module has 7 different fuses, but the owners manual doesn't say which one does what. I'd read on the Newcaprice.com forums thay the BCM controls a whole bunch of stuff and people with similar symptoms to me were advised to check them.
Thing is, nobody ever posts a follow up saying what the solution was, so I was going off several year old unanswered threads for guidance.

Thanks for the tip! Now my left blinkers and brake light work just like the right side, as Holden intended.

 

[JoshHefnerX]

I've got a G8 and the factory mufflers on them were tested and found to pull less than 5hp off the engine - not really worth the effort (for the PO)

What is worth the effort in these is getting headers/cats rearranged if they're anything like the G8 setup. The manifold drops down directly into the cat at an odd angle and necks down to 1.75". Swapping out to some headers is a huge improvement.

The torque converters also hold the car back on 0-60. A 1 sec drop is available there. Assuming they're the same parts as the G8.

 

[Chevy305]

My '12 5th gen Camaro had these large boxy mufflers right behind the rear bumper and from the outside they look like they must be restrictive. But cutaways show they are a straight through design with a perforated tube and stainless wool packing and a small herzolm chamber. They aren't restrictive hardly at all and do a good job eliminating drone.
Of course I was an idiot and threw them in the trash in the first 500 miles that I had on the car... I was surprised that it didn't make a big difference replacing them with resonated tips. But later once I did headers and high flows it really opened up the exhaust but it did drone pretty bad. My plan was to put the stock mufflers back on it but I sold the car before doing so. I still have the mufflers kicking around as I'd like to use them for a project one day. They would be worthwhile looking into for your application.

 

[JoshHefnerX]

The drone on these can be somewhat mitigated with a J-pipe (aka hemholtz resonator). There's a few installs out there. It's basically length tuned for the frequency like the port on a sub bow.

 

[regal403]

I did some routine maintenance this weekend. Oil and filter.

I need to get a bigger drain pan for this car. It takes 7.5 quarts to fill up.


The positive jump start connector under the hood was missing its protective cover, so I got one from a part out on a bookface Caprice group page.


Popped right on


And snapped shut. Much better.


The intake is a Vararam unit for a Pontiac G8/GXP/Holden and is apparently one of the least restrictive ones available.


The headers are JBA ceramic coated units with 1 7/8" primaries


I got it detailed as an early Christmas present. He did a pretty good job.











There was an increasing pulsing from the front brakes and at times constant squealing from the front left side. On jack stands, the drivers front wheel was very difficult to rotate. Passenger side was easy to rotate, so I got a pair of rotors, pads, and slide bolts.

It came apart eventually after many positive words of encouragement. Even though I'd ordered everything ahead of time from Rock Auto, I still had to go to the parts store twice for odds and ends.

They work though.

 

[regal403]

I also fiddled with the exhaust. The smell coming into the cabin made me suspect a leak somewhere, but I couldn't really hear one. So I crawled underneath to see what's going on.

The headers are bolted to 3" adapters that step down to 2.5" pipes. They run straight back into a small 2 into 2 muffler/resonator and then behind the axle are the pair of TOTALFLOW chambered muffs.

The wire hangers were poorly and crookedly welded at the wrong angle, so I heated and bent them into a better position.








Then the welds were about to fail, so I had to figure out how to get these hung before bedtime.


Long story short, I didn't get any pictures and I got the exhaust hung more securely and straightly. It still smells like exhaust when sitting in slow or stopped traffic.

Sure cleans up nice though.

 

[JoshHefnerX]

When the vararam goes in, the rad gets tilted back a bit and leans against an a/c line if I'm remembering. On the driver side. Double check yours as they have rubbed through. Most of us have put some extra rubber in there as ins.

 

[regal403]

When the vararam goes in, the rad gets tilted back a bit and leans against an a/c line if I'm remembering. On the driver side. Double check yours as they have rubbed through. Most of us have put some extra rubber in there as ins.

I'll take a look. I noticed it had been rubbing on the hood in a little spot

 

[JoshHefnerX]

I've not had mine rub the hood, make sure it's seated down on the bottom properly.

 

[regal403]

I replaced the battery today. It's a massive beast in the trunk, like the BMWs I've owned in the past.

This old sucker was still doing pretty well, but was starting to act a little sluggish in the recent cold snap we had. It was almost 8 years old!

Certainly got its 6 year performance and then some.


I got this unit from Costco because not only does it have a 36 month warranty, it was the cheapest one they had.

Plus it has the go handle.

 

[Truckman4life]

Handles on batteries is the only way to go.

 

[regal403]

You can take the douchebag out of the Jeep, but you can't take the Jeep out of the douchebag.
Or something like that

 

[Truckman4life]

You can take the douchebag out of the Jeep, but you can't take the Jeep out of the douchebag.
Or something like that
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Is it stuck?

 

[regal403]

Is it stuck?

This old pig didn't even flinch

 

[Chevy305]

Cops do way worse than that lol

 

[Cucv_M1008]

Wongs in Vancouver is a good tuner in the pdx area. I had Andy at lsx Specialties in Medford do tunes on both my rigs though.

 

[regal403]

A popular and straightforward mod is a manual electronic shift box, which mine has.
Unfortunately the previous owner never bolted it down and the T-tap connector on the ground wire would intermittently wiggle around and it would stop working. Also he inexplicably installed it quite close to the plug, with a uselessly short wire.


I'm pretty handy when it comes to installing janky crimp connectors myself, so I fixed it up some.

Also I couldn't find my electrical tape.


There was a black steel sheet metal cover in the trunk that was mounted on the center "console" at one time, so I decided to clean it up, install it, and mount the shift box to that.

The red wire was the perfect length, the blue one had a foot and a half of unneeded extra length, and the black one was 3" long, or about 9" too short.


I was all out of black wire and didn't want to extend the black wire with extraneous blue wire I cut out, when I remembered I had deleted a cop strobe light pigtail in the garage.


I snipped out a length of black and extended the ground with some butt connectors. Good enough for the girls I go with.

Then I sunk some sheet metal screws and put on a spare chunk of split loom to make it look a little cleaner.
Black is down, red is up. Power turns it on and off.


Turned out pretty good for a little Saturday afternoon project.

 

[82355]

Now install a B&M ratchet shifter, and make the shifter smack the buttons!

Martin

 

[JoshHefnerX]

Shifter in my G8 had the up/down taps from the factory, wonder if anyone has swapped one in.