Photobucket has been misbehaving all morning but I finally got access to some pictures!
This is pretty much how it was when I got it minus the big bumper and the american racing wheels. I then redid all the bushings and ball joints, put new Bilstien HD's and Neuspeed springs all the way around, added Autotech front and rear swaybars and a Neuspeed strut brace.
Somewhere down the line it started looking like this
Now it looks like a flea market threw up all over my garage floor!
The body is at my other house right now so I will post pictures of the sad little thing when I get home. Mind you, it has been sitting for a year and it had since been rattle canned black
Here is one of the goodies I found last weekend at the junk yard. I found some Eurosport headers on an 8v! I have heard a lot of mixed emotions about running headers on a diesel, but since they were $25 dollars instead of $400, I figured I would clean them up and give it a shot. I was just looking for a dual downpipe!
cut off the old flex pipe and wire wheeled them clean
also picked up a new flex pipe. The rest of the exhaust was already done on the car but it still had the toilet bowl collector. I can't remember if it is 2 inch piping or 2 1/4 but it is just straight pipe with a dynomax turbo muffler.
I also found a non ac model there so I got the alternator pulley for my A/C delete.
I got a head start cleaning and priming some parts. I want to keep the whole engine bay black so that it looks more clean cut.
I wire wheeled the block a bit before I sent it to the machine shop, but now it is REALLY clean! I still have to paint this beast.
Reusing the pistons and rods with new rings and bearings. This is uncharted territory for me! As terrified as I might be, I am anxious and excited to finally put together the bottom end of a motor. This is where I am going to need a lot of advice and that bentley! I haven't even tried to put rings onto a piston before! I am still not 100% sure if I need to replace the main bolts crank bolt or rod bolts. I debated on ordering a bunch of ARP hardware, but since this isn't some crazy boosted build, I figured it was not needed. Would it also be correct that I am NOT to use loctite on any of these bolts?
Furthermore, I had ordered a 0.71 5th gear syncro set off of ebay a while back with the intent of putting it into my ACN transmission that was with the car. Unfortunately, when I pulled off the 5th gear housing I found that someone had WELDED the gear onto the pinion shaft! The day that my 5th gear "disappeared" was the day that the weld spun free. Everything was FUBAR.
I then found this FF tranny on ebay for $125 shipped. I am not sure if it is any good yet but I figure it is worth a shot!
Well as you can see, I still have plenty of painting and parts cleaning to do until my bentley gets here. Back to the dirty drawing board!