1991 Galant VR-4 676-2000

[bonecollector]

bonecollector submitted a new DSM Profile :

1991 Galant VR-4 676-2000


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[92AWDHX40]

Looking forward to this build

 

[bonecollector]

Thanks, I'll be keeping it Stock, so it should be a simple project. Feels good to have saved this car from potential automobile predators.

 

[bonecollector]

bonecollector updated 1991 Galant VR-4 676-2000


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[bonecollector]

Man i've really been neglecting this build thread...
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The good news is that i haven't been neglecting good ol' 676/2000!

So I'm about to drop 3 years of hard work and progress on y'all at once.
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Unfortunately i wasn't able to keep the car "stock", like i wanted to, I was hoping to clean it up replace the rings and just drive it.
After digging into it, this car was beyond trashed/ neglected and basically left for dead.

below is the first photo i took of the car/ engine bay. ​

The Tear Down​

After getting it home, the inspection started, I noticed that one of the oil cooler lines looked like it ruptured and i could tell the car was still being driven and just filled with nasty Arizona TAP water, eventually the piston pins started to seized to the piston and that is probably what killed it, they went fully locked up but they're hard to move.



Then it sat, it sat for 5 years maybe more? with tap water in the block and a full tank of gas.
rust grew in the block and fuel tank, corrosion ate away the aluminum parts.

the good news is that the oil system was surprisingly still good, the crank and bearings were in good shape and the oil pump had no wear.
I ended up replacing the bearings, which you'll eventually read more about below.

Onto the Interior
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The interior was absolutely filthy, the dash was cracked and the car had been smoked in.
I deep cleaned the entire inside of the car, shampooed all the fabrics and sprayed them with scotchgard, ran an ozone machine the inside for two full days.

I was extremely lucky and was able to find a galant dash in good condition with no cracks at a local salvage yard, some of the edges were peeling so i went through and re-glued any loose seams back together.

Found the perfect paint for the gauge needles

Rust-Oleum Gloss apple red spray paint bonded really well, and made the faded out buckle buttons look better than new.

Below is the before and after door restoration
I completely disassembled and removed everything in all of the doors, pressure washed them clean.
re-greased all the moving parts it with white lithium grease, polished all the rods that operate the locks and handels, buffed out the water spots that were visible in the windows.

installed all new vapor barrier from home depot
I used 8 mil vapor barrier
1/8" 3M vhb double sided tape adhere it.

apparently i am out of photo space in this message.
So. This will have to be continued later on
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[bonecollector]

continuing onward​

One of my goals with this build is to not alter the car in an unreasonable fashion, one of them being cutting the factory speaker plugs.

The adaptor plates that came with the polk audios were your basic universal adaptor plate and fit like shit, so i came up with a clever idea to "recycle" the blowen factory speaker baskets and kill two issues with one solution by using the baskets as my "adaptor plate" and soldering the input leads that go to the component crossovers directly to the braided wires that once went the voice coil. making it (literally) "plug and play" solution.

Don't worry the plug used below came off a random DSM in the junkyard, i used it as a jig to hold the terminals straight.

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Moving onto the suspension and steering​

One of the major goals with my Vr4 was to idolize Mitsubishi's rally heritage and it capable or off roading and jumping.
I went with HotBits DT2 coilovers because at the time they were the only company to offer rally spec coilovers.

I still need to route the rear brake lines correctly and find a mounting solution, this will be resolved before i drive the car.

Added some fender supports as well
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Yeah... in case you didn't notice i also rubber undercoated the entire underbody, this is a 100% rust free car and i want to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Unfortunately the Factory ABS system didn't make the cut.​

I had initially planned on keeping the system, but i was also unsure if it even worked, plus it was heavy, outdated tech that many of the vr4 owners that have driven with it weren't impressed with.
I really did not want to run the aftermarket braided line kit the vendors sell, just because it looks tacky and I'm going for OE appearance here.

Fortunately I was lucky enough to find a full set of OEM hard lines from a FWD non-ABS Galant in the salvage yard, so i paired those with a brand new OEM proportioning valve from the non-abs 1G GSX and added some trick red stainless steel braided lines.
The brake master cylinder was also replaced with the brand new OEM unit.

(early stages, engine bay teaser below.​

signing off for tonight, To be continued....

 

[ThunderChild]

Nice work, very clean resto-mod job