pma1123 submitted a new DSM Profile :

PMA1123's Talon


Read more about this vehicle here...

It seems completely silly; building one of these cars to go destroy in the winter.

But around 2010 our local "studless ice tire" winter rally class was becoming pretty popular and I was assembling this Talon as a street car/Ice racer.

This event is an autocross on a frozen lake. There were really only 2 winters where the weather/lake ice thickness behaved well enough to enter the car during this tenure of operation. And of course it was FUN; just infrequent having safe ice.

But when you have a 'winter DSM' that is fun to drive/registered/insured and the lakes aren't frozen; you take it out on the streets. (in the salt)

And when you have a 'summer DSM' at the same time and the snow melts, you really don't spend you summer working on the 'winter DSM' that has summer wheels, rusted dragging brakes and 15 other compounding problems.

In February 2015 I pulled the Talon into the garage and shut it off, parked it in the corner with intentions of fixing all these problems.

It got put on jack stands, taken apart, ignored, interior filled with parts, nearly sold.....and then 8 years later banished to the back yard in 22/23 when I tore down the old garage and built a new one.



It has been quietly sitting in the corner of the new garage for a couple years.

The passenger front tire leaks air so it requires continual refilling every few weeks.
I'm about sick and tired of doing that.



Welcome to the rebuild thread.

Despite popular belief, sitting in the garage is hard on things. These are not coffee tables.


Drained the fuel.

More on that to follow.










There was a time I decided to spray the underhood/underbody stuff with Fluid Film out of a bulk spray gun, and I have all this grease/grime coated rust flakes constantly raining down. With the engine out, I'm looking forward to putting the car up on jackstands and using my favorite degreaser (S-100) and the power washer to knock off all the grease, spider webs and rust flakes.

It'll make laying underneath so much better!!

I'll be back to talk about engine disassembly and fuel tank stuff next.

Less exciting update than the fuel and engine stuff I just mentioned, but a good place holder.

Last night I was laying under the car with the power washer till after dark.
Everything underhood and underneath is a lot cleaner and I was able to push the car back in the garage.
The driveway was absolutely full of crunchy crusty stuff this morning as I walked out to go to work.

Added a picture of cleaning the transmission with S100 degreaser mixed 50/50 with water.
Sprayed it on, let it sit 5 mins, hosed it off.
At some point I'll use this as the ultrasonic solution and show how amazing it works.

The pan of bad gasoline has been sitting outside evaporating off and there is 1/4" deep slurry at the bottom of the pan now.
So if you need to get rid of some, it seems to go away pretty quickly this way.

I now have several avenues to go down between cleaning/blasting rusty parts, fuel tank, motor mounts, engine teardown, restoring fasteners, brakes, suspension, tires, etc.

Till next time!