1995 GS-T

[jmattern1]

jmattern1 submitted a new DSM Profile :

1995 2G GS-T


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[jmattern1]

Some initial pictures of the car after it had been towed to the yard in which it would become an ornament


It was a little rough, lots of clear missing, dry rotted tires, a little exterior rust, and decently filthy engine bay.
At least the interior was saved by limo tint and dash mat!

You can see my daily in the background, a 2003 Jetta GLI 24V with 155k miles and perpetual mysterious CEL... So I also wanted to get this thing running well enough that it could be a backup in a pinch.

 

[jmattern1]

I was still in school at this point so I didn't have much time to work on it, but once summer break hit I had 2 or 3 days a week to dedicate to the cause. Finally after it was rolled onto the driveway and up on jack stands I could start working, but before anything major I poured a cap of mystery oil down into each cylinder and went for a hand crank.

Happily, not seized!

From there I checked up on the fuel tank as I figured there may be some problems... and there most definitely was. The gas left in the tank was a deep shade of brown with a bright orange crust on top. So new fuel tank and pump were ordered. Here's what the old one looked like when it came out of the tank, all that rust was knocked off of it.

 

[jmattern1]

While things were being shipped I put some time into cleaning things up: buffed the headlights, went through the engine bay with a bunch of rags, brushes, and soapy water, and wiped the algae (maybe moss? Possibly barnacles) off the exterior.

 

[jmattern1]

Once the tank and pump arrived those went in without too much struggle (thanks to eclipse08's guide), and once some fuel and a new battery went in I got a little ahead of myself and thought I'd try for a start.
Well spoiler alert, start it did not. After some thought I realized that there was still a bunch of old fuel in the line, so I disconnected the line at the fuel rail and had my Dad cycle the fuel pump as I aimed the old fuel into a large tacohell cup out of desperation. After a bit of doing that, still no start.

The next day I turned to the plugs: pulled them, inspected, and applied dialectic grease to the boot contacts and made sure all the springs were centered. For kicks I went for another start once everything was back together, and the thing started right up!!! That was a huge relief, the car apparently ran fine before it got parked, but I had no idea what those years of sitting may have done to it.

 

[jmattern1]

Now that I knew the car could at least idle, I ordered some tires and clutch master/slave cylinder to get the pedal working again (it was sticking to the floor).

Budget isn't very big so I tried some budget tires with good reviews to get me rolling, Nankang NS-20 (which are now replaced by the NS-25). For the time this car will be used to cruise around town, not on the strip or track, so they'll do everything I need.

That also meant I could get all 4 wheels matching again, so in preparation I wet sanded the wheels to get most of the dingy surface rust off. They still look pretty bad, but it was an improvement .

I forgot where I saw/read this but I used the cap from a spray can, a spray straw, and the plastic plug that came with the slave cylinder to bench bleed it outside the car. Once those were in and the wheels were mounted, I set it down and it went right into gear and moved! WOO!

 

[jmattern1]

Naturally I got ahead of myself again and took it for a short drive down a back road the next day, and naturally I got tempted into giving it some throttle. It built about 5psi, at which point it had a massive stutter and almost shut off. I found that this a sign of either spark blowout or a massive boost leak. As it turns out the sketchiest intake fitting had formed a crack... Like I said, jumped the gun and should have replaced this before doing anything silly.


So the bumper came off, and the fittings started getting replaced.

At the same time I also wanted to at least try to halt the rust on the hatch if possible, so I rough sanded and broke loose rust of the spots, soaked them with evaporust for a few hours, sprayed them with rust fix, and covered with black epoxy (forgot to take pics of that, don't worry, not missing out on much...)


Per my Dad's interesting recommendation, I also put a couple coats of heavy duty floor wax on the hood, which actually came out quite well!

 

[jmattern1]

This car came with A/C that wasn't functioning in a few places, and while it will be missed here in Florida I decided I'd rather just clean up the engine bay and save the money/headache, so the under hood components were removed. This led to the emission components being removed as well, most of the vacuum tubes running to the IM were sketchy looking anyway. I went with an eBay EGR blockoff plate which was surprisingly nice for 10 dollars.

The only 2-2 3/8" adapter I could find came in red, while everything else is blue. Oh well...
*also I did remove that carbon canister, just took the pic mid deletion

The AEM front rotors are a bit trashed, and since this isn't a race car in any form I'll be removing the caliper relocation bracket to go back to stock size.

That's the point where this car is going to sit for a bit though, I just got a set of RC 660s, and will order a wideband, Walbro 190, and DSMlink in time.