goalie6263
10+ Year Contributor
- 78
- 1
- Sep 2, 2010
-
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin
Background: Hey everyone, I decided to start a little journal of my journey so far with my Talon. I picked up this 1993 Talon TSI AWD in the summer of 2014. I bought the car for $1000.00 not running due to, what I was told was, bent valves from skipped timing. While this was true, it turned into a much bigger headache than initially intended. Follow along with me as I dump way too much money into this and attempt to get this car running and driving beautifully for a stock talon on a Poor College budget.
Beginning:
This is the car as I got it in the beginning. The plan was to find a hood and headlights for the car and tear the head off and take it to the machine shop to get the bent valves fixed. I ordered up some parts including ARP Head studs, gaskets, ect.
Here is the car with the head off:
Around July, I got the head back from the machine shop. They replaced 4 bent valves and decked it and cleaned everything up and got it ready to go.
After getting everything almost all together, a friend that was helping doing the timing belt noticed the balance shaft felt funky. After reading around, it seemed obvious that the balance shaft bearing was spun, so now I had to make the decision on if I wanted to delete the shafts with the motor in the car, or pull it out and do it over the winter.
ENGINE
I decided I wasn’t going to mess with the car in my driveway, so I took over the garage and pulled the motor out. This is when I was starting to realize that this car wasn’t quite in as good of shape as I thought.
Taking the motor out:
I ended up having to remove the knuckles and everything to get enough room. The whole front suspension was horribly grimy and just nasty.
After messing with getting everything out, I made a parts list of what I needed to replace chassis wise. That includes: Ball joints, axles, struts, tie rod ends, brake pads and rotors, driveshaft bushings, rear calipers because they were seized up and once I got them apart, they were all rusty in the piston bore and I didn’t want to mess with it. I also needed front knuckles because I couldn’t get one of the axles out of the knuckle. I tried everything..pb blaster with the axle tool and impact, BFH, little garage press I have, BIG heavy duty press at my work, and of course heat. Nothing worked so I ended up getting a pair of pretty good used knuckles cheap.
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ENGINE INSPECTION/TEARDOWN
Now that I had the engine out, I began the inspecting. I took the oil pan off and found a nice surprise. The front rear balance shaft bearing was completely spun out and chewed up and broke in half. At this point I decided I needed to inspect further, so I brought the motor into my basement and put it on the stand and set up shop.
I got the pistons and crank out and measured everything.
Even though I measured everything, it wasn’t good news.
The bearings were toast and there were spots on the crank where I could catch my nail. There was also scoring in cylinder 2 where I could catch my nail. This is where I took a breath and decided this car was going to be rebuilt and restored and the amount of money I would probably have to spend probably would be stupid for what the car is. Off to the machine shop it went.
…
MARCH 16 2015: A lot of time has passed between then, winter came and I didn’t do much at all with the car except wait for the machine shop to get the motor back to me. I was busy with school and life, but I finally got the block and everything back. It ended up needing to be bored 020 over and the crank needed to be ground. This is a stock rebuild unfortunately, budget wouldn’t allow for upgrades.
I got to the part of installing piston rings, and one of the compression rings decided to snap as I hardly expanded it. That put me on a multiple week journey ordering rings and getting the wrong ones and finally finding the correct NPR rings. I continued with the process of putting everything back together checking clearances,gaps, specs, ect.
April 29, 2015:
This is the day that I actually sit here writing everything. I got the pistons and crank installed and carried the motor back up to the garage a few weeks ago. I got the front case, tensioners, pulleys, water pump, oil filter housing, ect all bolted up to the motor along with the oil pan. I also got the rear calipers and all of the parts I mentioned earlier at my house and piled up waiting for me to have time to do it all. This week/last week I cleaned a few brackets and painted them and started cleaning the rest of the little crap. Everything in or near the engine bay was just absolutely caked with grease and oil and dirt. It looked like the axles exploded because the sub frame and transmission was just covered in grease, almost like someone went to the store and bought a can of it and just slapped it all over the place for fun.
As I stand there looking at this mess of an engine bay, I decided I was going to drop the sub frame to clean everything. I got all the nuts and bolts out easily except one. The last bolt would not budge. I soaked it in pb and left it overnight and went to the store and bought a 17mm impact socket that would work better than the socket I was currently using. After nailing it with my giant impact, it began to turn ever so slowly, and eventually came out. I disconnected the steering and it came right out.
I was planning on sticking the sub frame in my dad’s truck and taking it to the self-wash so I could power wash it today, but that plan didn’t work. I ended up sitting on a stool and scrubbing my transmission with a brush and a couple bottles of purple power (that stuff works wonders, I keep a gallon of it around). After a couple hours, I got the transmission looking pretty decent after hosing it off.
Before Picture (if you can tell how bad it was, it was BAD)
After Picture – Still a little dirty but I slaved long enough and looked like a cow with all the grease splatter over my face and arms.
The next step is to clean the sub frame..I ended up ordering front sway bar, control arm, and sub frame bushings because, like everything on the car, they were rotted and needed replacing.
That is it for now, but I will update as I get things rolling here with school almost ending. The upcoming plans are: Bushing replacement for Friday, order axles, install motor, trans, tcase, driveshaft, and anything else that needs installing. I will also be getting some wheels from a buddy since mine are bent (hah of course right?) along with tires because guess what, those are bad as well! Feel free to pm me any questions or suggestions. Thanks!
Beginning:
This is the car as I got it in the beginning. The plan was to find a hood and headlights for the car and tear the head off and take it to the machine shop to get the bent valves fixed. I ordered up some parts including ARP Head studs, gaskets, ect.
Here is the car with the head off:
Around July, I got the head back from the machine shop. They replaced 4 bent valves and decked it and cleaned everything up and got it ready to go.
After getting everything almost all together, a friend that was helping doing the timing belt noticed the balance shaft felt funky. After reading around, it seemed obvious that the balance shaft bearing was spun, so now I had to make the decision on if I wanted to delete the shafts with the motor in the car, or pull it out and do it over the winter.
ENGINE
I decided I wasn’t going to mess with the car in my driveway, so I took over the garage and pulled the motor out. This is when I was starting to realize that this car wasn’t quite in as good of shape as I thought.
Taking the motor out:
I ended up having to remove the knuckles and everything to get enough room. The whole front suspension was horribly grimy and just nasty.
After messing with getting everything out, I made a parts list of what I needed to replace chassis wise. That includes: Ball joints, axles, struts, tie rod ends, brake pads and rotors, driveshaft bushings, rear calipers because they were seized up and once I got them apart, they were all rusty in the piston bore and I didn’t want to mess with it. I also needed front knuckles because I couldn’t get one of the axles out of the knuckle. I tried everything..pb blaster with the axle tool and impact, BFH, little garage press I have, BIG heavy duty press at my work, and of course heat. Nothing worked so I ended up getting a pair of pretty good used knuckles cheap.
ENGINE INSPECTION/TEARDOWN
Now that I had the engine out, I began the inspecting. I took the oil pan off and found a nice surprise. The front rear balance shaft bearing was completely spun out and chewed up and broke in half. At this point I decided I needed to inspect further, so I brought the motor into my basement and put it on the stand and set up shop.
I got the pistons and crank out and measured everything.
Even though I measured everything, it wasn’t good news.
The bearings were toast and there were spots on the crank where I could catch my nail. There was also scoring in cylinder 2 where I could catch my nail. This is where I took a breath and decided this car was going to be rebuilt and restored and the amount of money I would probably have to spend probably would be stupid for what the car is. Off to the machine shop it went.
…
MARCH 16 2015: A lot of time has passed between then, winter came and I didn’t do much at all with the car except wait for the machine shop to get the motor back to me. I was busy with school and life, but I finally got the block and everything back. It ended up needing to be bored 020 over and the crank needed to be ground. This is a stock rebuild unfortunately, budget wouldn’t allow for upgrades.
I got to the part of installing piston rings, and one of the compression rings decided to snap as I hardly expanded it. That put me on a multiple week journey ordering rings and getting the wrong ones and finally finding the correct NPR rings. I continued with the process of putting everything back together checking clearances,gaps, specs, ect.
April 29, 2015:
This is the day that I actually sit here writing everything. I got the pistons and crank installed and carried the motor back up to the garage a few weeks ago. I got the front case, tensioners, pulleys, water pump, oil filter housing, ect all bolted up to the motor along with the oil pan. I also got the rear calipers and all of the parts I mentioned earlier at my house and piled up waiting for me to have time to do it all. This week/last week I cleaned a few brackets and painted them and started cleaning the rest of the little crap. Everything in or near the engine bay was just absolutely caked with grease and oil and dirt. It looked like the axles exploded because the sub frame and transmission was just covered in grease, almost like someone went to the store and bought a can of it and just slapped it all over the place for fun.
As I stand there looking at this mess of an engine bay, I decided I was going to drop the sub frame to clean everything. I got all the nuts and bolts out easily except one. The last bolt would not budge. I soaked it in pb and left it overnight and went to the store and bought a 17mm impact socket that would work better than the socket I was currently using. After nailing it with my giant impact, it began to turn ever so slowly, and eventually came out. I disconnected the steering and it came right out.
I was planning on sticking the sub frame in my dad’s truck and taking it to the self-wash so I could power wash it today, but that plan didn’t work. I ended up sitting on a stool and scrubbing my transmission with a brush and a couple bottles of purple power (that stuff works wonders, I keep a gallon of it around). After a couple hours, I got the transmission looking pretty decent after hosing it off.
Before Picture (if you can tell how bad it was, it was BAD)
After Picture – Still a little dirty but I slaved long enough and looked like a cow with all the grease splatter over my face and arms.
The next step is to clean the sub frame..I ended up ordering front sway bar, control arm, and sub frame bushings because, like everything on the car, they were rotted and needed replacing.
That is it for now, but I will update as I get things rolling here with school almost ending. The upcoming plans are: Bushing replacement for Friday, order axles, install motor, trans, tcase, driveshaft, and anything else that needs installing. I will also be getting some wheels from a buddy since mine are bent (hah of course right?) along with tires because guess what, those are bad as well! Feel free to pm me any questions or suggestions. Thanks!