This is the Build Thread for 99 GST mechanical restoration

1999 Eclipse GST black on black. Car has sat for at least 5 years but has a lot of good parts on it

Current issues affect everything. Clutch pedal needs adjustment and feels like to weights 60lbs. Fuel pump has issues when warm, and car smokes at idle most likely needing valve stem seals. Missing all A/C components and lines

I’m not sure what my plans are for the car, I bought it cheap for what it is, but it does need a lot of work. The 5zigen FR7 wheels with stretched tires look amazing. Car has a fresh paint job as well

Dude that car is GORGEOUS! Nice find

Here’s a few more, the front lip is removed from putting it on the trailer.

Car is a looker but the rims scrape on the inner barrels, the coilovers aren’t set correctly, and the car smokes like a diesel when warm

Car wash. Besides looking good and having a great interior it’s a terrible car. The trans or the cables are messed up and grind in first.

It may be a few weeks before I tear it down in my garage. I need to pull the cams and do the valve stem seals and possibly find a new trans a rebuild my own

It has DSMLink and has intake air temp sensor and the other sensor plugged into a MAF adapter, but their is no GM MAP sensor plugged into it.

I unplugged the adapter and plugged back in the MAF sensor but their car still has an erratic idle and acts like a blown ECU. I have a black box ECU that I will be swapping back in

Ah, you beat me to it. I saw this on marketplace, glad it went to a good owner. Side note, I do believe 20 years ago I sold you a maroon 2g front bumper.

DarkKnight86 said:

Ah, you beat me to it. I saw this on marketplace, glad it went to a good owner. Side note, I do believe 20 years ago I sold you a maroon 2g front bumper.

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I don’t think I’ve ever bought a maroon bumper, silver and white I for sure did though

Yeah it was on marketplace for a bit, he did not disclose a lot of the issues in person or in his ad or when messaging. He never told me the engine smokes, that the transmission pops out of first gear, that the suspension and exhaust scrape on everything etc. I did get a good price but I was very upset with the seller for misrepresenting what the car was.

I have done quite a bit of work to the car, the fresh paint job was covered in orange peel and runs, spent about 3 days wet sanding with 2000 and 3000 grit and then polishing with m205 to get a perfect reflection in the paint

The gauge cluster was super dim at night, when I looked closer it had overlays on top of the gauges. Kinda sad about it, I thought it was a silver faced cluster in the late 99 “final edition” cars. Behold the silver glow faces were on top of factory silver gauges. Added in led lights and the cluster looks 1000 times better now

The engine bay was missing quite a few pieces for my level of detail in a build, for me the little stuff is what makes a car complete. The trunk area was missing the cargo tray and rear floor and trunk carpet. For some reason the low tier junkyard had a 95 tsi awd in its lot inventory and showed to be complete. They couldn’t find it in the yard and I was adamant about finding it. Had to stand on a truck to find it in the processing yard even though it’s been there a few weeks. It’s for sure the first time I’ve ever been first to take apart a complete vehicle but I got everything I needed. Coolant reservoir with bracket, boost solenoid, fuel vapor solenoid, cargo cover, rear trunk plastics and cargo divider. Also desperately needed to try new shift cables to see if it solves the popping out of gear issue in first and sloppy shifts. I also took the radiator and both fans, my car has an aluminum rad and aftermarket fans and I prefer the oem look and radiator

Kinda sad, car was complete but some one gave up on it back in 2004 and sold it to this scrap yard in 2025

I am super excited about the build now because it will be a 100% car. No funny quirks or asterisks under the hood now that I have all of the little factory details. Yes it’s a weird quirk but it makes a difference to me and makes a build feel like an actual complete car and not an assembly of parts on a shell

chrysler kid said:

I have done quite a bit of work to the car, the fresh paint job was covered in orange peel and runs, spent about 3 days wet sanding with 2000 and 3000 grit and then polishing with m205 to get a perfect reflection in the paint

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Looks like youre getting good results..just curious as to supplies you used. I need to paint my hood and roof when it warms up here.. Single stage or Base/Clear? HVLP/LVLP?

chrysler kid said:

I don’t think I’ve ever bought a maroon bumper, silver and white I for sure did though

Yeah it was on marketplace for a bit, he did not disclose a lot of the issues in person or in his ad or when messaging. He never told me the engine smokes, that the transmission pops out of first gear, that the suspension and exhaust scrape on everything etc. I did get a good price but I was very upset with the seller for misrepresenting what the car was.

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Hmm... I think I might got you mixed up with someone else. I do remember your SN from the dfwdsm/ dallasimports.net days. It sucks people aren't up front when it comes to selling a car or a motor.

SixBolt_16G said:

Looks like youre getting good results..just curious as to supplies you used. I need to paint my hood and roof when it warms up here.. Single stage or Base/Clear? HVLP/LVLP?

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To be more specific, I did not paint the car, the car received a paint job years ago, then a lot of modifications. I’m assuming it’s not a single stage paint because of all the clear coat that came off when wet sanding

Got ya, I misread that ... paint correction

That paint correction looks really good. I need to learn how to do that eventually.

That paint looks absolutely amazing! Nice work.

jesse12345 said:

That paint correction looks really good. I need to learn how to do that eventually.

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You’ll need to have a decent buffer, I recommend trying your skills on old body parts. My first try I would use an old spoiler off of my Camaro, or an old hood, to see how I could do.

My first buffer was a rotary buffer from harbor freight for like $60. It works but a rotary buffer can be messy and sling a lot of product, and can burn or damage the paint if you don’t have the right amount of product to lubricate the pad.

My second buffer is also from harbor freight and is a dual action ( DA) buffer which I believe was $90. It really doesn’t have a great rotation pattern like a professional $200+ buffer which means sometimes I have to take longer working certain parts of the paint.

To be a little more specific, on a factory paint job I would not wet sand the surface prior to polishing the paint. If your factory paint has a lot of spider webs in the surface I would just use a buffer with a paint polish (my preferred polish is meguiars M205 which you can buy at any auto parts store).

The only reason I wet sanded the paint is because it was never done. After a quality paint job the car has a “cut and buff” to the paint. A cheap painter will charge extra for this

DarkKnight86 said:

Hmm... I think I might got you mixed up with someone else. I do remember your SN from the dfwdsm/ dallasimports.net days. It sucks people aren't up front when it comes to selling a car or a motor.

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Yep I’m for sure the same guy from the message boards. Forums use to be the only proper way to buy things back in the day

Honestly don’t blame him, this car was covered in cob webs and dust and the old battery was completely dead. Looking back I would say he would only drive it to move it out of his garage in the past 5 years so it’s plausible he didn’t know or remember most of the issues with the motor

Re did shifter bushings, then replaced shifter cables. The 95 cables did make a change positively in shifter response and the car is more predictable. First gear seems to be more of a clutch problem, the fluid in the reservoir looks like motor oil. Like 80% of the time it will go into first gear and stay in first gear, the other times it will immediately pop out of first when you engage the clutch. If you pump the pedal, or coast in neutral to the stop sign, then push the clutch and put it in first it’s completely fine.

The car is roadworthy now, speedometer is fixed and the car has adequate road manners to be trusted, however the water pump pulley has a wobble and the pump is throwing out replace me vibes. I have a timing belt kit and water pump sitting on my shelf that are next on the list for the car

Here are some pictures of the car on black 18s from the white eclipse

Beautiful car, nice work

Good lord... You may have just changed my mind on black cars. This car looks amazing!

Transmission still wasn’t happy, the fluid looked like pencil shavings, even after changing the fluid twice the first gear synchro was shot, found a transmission on marketplace and the seller delivered to dfw from Tulsa for an extra hundred

Old fluid



Cleaned up the trans and painted and cleared with some aluminum vht engine paint



I know the topic came up recently about trans swap, but I absolutely had to remove the spindles to get the cv axles completely out of the transmission

The car has some radiator support damage you can see in this pic





I need some help identifying this clutch, can’t seem to find anything similar online. It does have a brand new light weight flywheel that is super shiny, not even break in miles on it yet






Installed the aluminum radiator and some red hose kit





I need to pull the axles again because the axle seals are leaking, but now it shifts great. Also installed the front lip

chrysler kid said:

I know the topic came up recently about trans swap, but I absolutely had to remove the spindles to get the cv axles completely out of the transmission

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I loosen upper ball joint nuts and pull outer tie rods out the knuckle to let them “hang” which gave me enough to get the axles out and back in.

Trans and car look great

Yeah I did that, and unhooked the tie rod ends and on both sides no matter what I did the axles would not come completely out, same thing with the spindle side, I just could not get enough compression in the axles to get them free

To get them out next time for the axle seals I’m just going to unbolt them from the chassis and undo the upper and unbolt the caliper.

Not sure if the all wheel drive axles have more compression or what but they lacked about an inch on either side to get them fully out of the transmission or fully out of the spindle