Project Car 1985 900T - jskrebs - Pennsylvania, USA

[jskrebs]

This one will take a while as I have limited free time.

As a Kid I always thought this was the car Darth Vader would drive.
"Luke, I am your father, and this is my ride"

Bought it for $600 a while ago. Has 298K and is in surprisingly good shape.

I have a pile of receipts that show the engine was rebuild @ 266K and bored 1 over with all new internal parts. The transmission and Turbo were also rebuilt and the car ran and pulled like crazy when I got it.

The Catch - Serious blow by! Very oil coated on the drivers side of the engine bay. Peva assisted in the diagnosis
Pulled the motor and sent it to the motor shop. He pulled the head which looks fine, the head gasket looks fine leaving the rings as the prime suspect. Also determined that the APC valve was in operative as the wires were shorted out as are many of the wires on the harness, it's and 85! Waiting on further dis assembly as the dude is seriously busy and the chassis is not ready yet anyway.

While the motor is out I stripped the suspension and the entire engine bay. Cleaned it and have started to repair the rust around the lower control arm joints which is not a bad as many I have seen. once that is complete I'll start to re install the various components and motor.

I also plan on a T5 upgrade as part of the project since the EFI harness is almost totally shot. I can't believe it ran at all.

Figured the first pic should be the car stripped down. The tear down is pretty boring.

I also got side tracked with getting a 900 on the road for my son.

[peva]

"I have a pile of receipts that show the engine was rebuild @ 266K and bored 1 over with all new internal parts."

How many miles since this rebuild JS. Keep us posted on what you find with bores and pistons with pics if poss. My money is on the compression rings. Good luck. Paul

[jskrebs]

Motor has about 30k miles since rebuild. The head and bores look to be in really good condition.
The motor ran great, but spewed about a quart of oil per 1000 miles into the engine bay.
My short to do list includes:
Completing the welding around the suspension area, and re-bushing/building control arms

[mt.aero]

Nice project. Love cars that you can remove the rad. support.

You may already be doing this, but I would replace every gasket/o-ring you can while the motor is out. On my wifes '89, basically every single one was bad. I was trying to track down where an oil leak was coming from, only to find out it was leaking from just about everywhere.

[peva]

Motor has about 30k miles since rebuild. The head and bores look to be in really good condition.
The motor ran great, but spewed about a quart of oil per 1000 miles into the engine bay.
My short to do list includes:
Completing the welding around the suspension area, and re-bushing/building control arms

You say the bores look good. If my hunch is correct you may get away with just new rings. It's too late now 'cause the engine's out, but you can often identify the offending cylinder by pulling an injector connector so it doesn't squirt on that cylinder then driving it. Yes it will drive and doesn't spew oil nearly as much. Let's hope you never have to try this in the future. Another giveaway for a failed ring is bite marks out of the piston head edge where it's squashed the pieces.

[Burnsside42]

Looks/Sounds like a great project - I too am a sucker for the 85/86 900 Turbo's and SPG's

Don't forget the POR-15! Put it on everything before you paint anything - it will seal that metal up really well against corrosion!

Take lots of pictures and keep us posted. Good luck!

[jskrebs]

If my hunch is correct you may get away with just new ring

Hoping so. May hone the cylinders and clean the block a little since it will be apart.

Take lots of pictures and keep us posted. Good luck!

Will do, would love to have this to Carlisle this May, but that's kind of optimistic. Will bring the other 900 or the 9000

[jskrebs]

Got the passenger side suspension area welding done today. Welded both sides of all the pieces, welding inside the tower is a PITA.
Now to clean it all up and hit it with POR 15 then Paint.

Thinking I may get the Skandix patch panels for the drivers side.

Also have a sort of a arm bushing refurbishment line set up.

[jskrebs]

Attempting to pick up the pace a bit. Want to measure this project in months rather than the earth revolving around the sun.

Got both suspension tunnels welded up. On one side i used sheet steel, on the other the rust was worse and I bought the SKANDIX patch panels as they have the contours of the bottom pressed in saving a lot of hammering and swearing.

I have come to the conclusion as I approach age 50 that laying on the ground welding a car on jack stands sucks. This will be my last go round with a car in this rough a shape. To bad they did not make them out of Stainless.

Next steps include:

• POR and Chassis Black all welded and rusted areas in and around the engine bay.
• Re-installation of the steering rack - Considering a manual rack if I can find one want to drop the PS pump
• Re-bushing and POR treatment for the control arms
• Re-install suspension
• Reboot the halfshafts

[Shazam]

Nice work. I know what you mean about taking more time than you'd like. I'm afraid I have to put off my floor pans in my 96 another summer. But that means I can make all the floor parts I need (I bought a great drawing set from Jack Ashcraft) in the mean time, coat them in some 7-11 so they won't rust and then install next summer.

So the parts from SKANDIX saved you quite a bit of work? Great! I'm guessing the second photo is their parts (looks like more welding). It's great that someone is making progress somewhere!