Prubingst's 1995 Eclipse GS-T

[prubingst]

This is the Build Thread for Prubingst's 1995 Eclipse GS-T. Reply below.

 

[chrisman287]

Super clean!

 

[prubingst]

Thank you Chrisman287! I’ve had the car about 6 months and loving being back in a DSM and plan to hang onto this one for a while (fingers crossed). Really solid car overall and looking forward to documenting my progress over time on restoring and upgrading stuff over time

 

[prubingst]

Catching up on my thread here while on vacation. As I’m going to use this thread to document my progress posting some baseline pics from right when I bought the GST. First order of business was a deep clean (which I’m still doing). Being in the northeast and getting the car in the dead of winter it was a lots of panel by panel deep cleaning. Anyway, here’s my standing point which I’d consider very good.

 

[prubingst]

removed an after market “turbo” badge from the hatch lid and a Greddy sticker that was placed above the exhaust. Simple job with a heat gun followed up by a claying, compound and polish. You can see the outcome in the pics attached. You can’t really tell this from the listing pics but the paint has fading esp on the bumpers and side skirts, door caps. Etching, scratches, swirls - all stuff I’d expect from 28 year old paint. The clear coat is basically gone on the spoiler and door mirrors. Both will need to be repainted. Lastly the car must have been outside for a while. The paint felt like sand paper with dirt dust stuck on. It hadn’t see a wash in some time. But good news at least on the metal panels they cleaned right up and the shine was brought up relatively easy with some polishing.

 

[prubingst]

First wash!

 

[prubingst]

And our first passenger she loves “doing the turbo” hahah. I guess the Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree

 

[prubingst]

Now that the paint has been cleaned I can really see what I’m working with on the exterior. Some before/after polishing on the hood and current state of other panels

 

[prubingst]

Some early issues to address. Exterior wise there’s load of chips scuffs scratches. Those I’ll get to over time. The drivers door cap is cracked and will get sorted. Apparently 2ga door cars are different than 2gb be in shape and material and are prone to cracking. Found a 2gb door cap on eBay and will posted pics of the repainting process. I’ll repair my original door cap and get than back on the car, just don’t want the crack to get worse and lose a chunk of it down the road

Tires are 10 years old. Those got replaced with the OEM Yokohamas. Passenger axle needs to be replaced. Wheel center caps are yellowed and cracked.

Oh and there was a strange smell from the trunk. After inspecting the washing reservoir had mold in it. I’ve since knocked that out by flushing the whole system removing all the hoses and filler tubes. Everything deep cleaned with soap, bleach, and alcohol. Sure gone and I’m going to leave the washer system bare for now

 

[prubingst]

Prepping the 2gb drivers door cap for repaint. The first two pics are of the original 2ga piece. The rest are sanding with 400-2000grit, bondo, sand again, and primer

 

[prubingst]

And now for color - Saranno red and coat. About 6 coats of each. Last few are the finished product after 3000 grit wet sand, compound, polish

 

[prubingst]

Let the clear bake in my workshop inside where my boiler is that gets nice and hot. Then for mock up and getting the newly painted 2gb door cap on. Not too bad for a rattle can job

 

[prubingst]

This last pic is the finished 2gb door cap and the 2ga below in a bunch of pieces once it was removed. I’ve since tacked them together with super glue. Currently thinking I will reinforce the whole piece with fiberglass before I start the repainting process all over again. Probably save that for next spring. After competing this part of the project next up is deep clean on the interior. Oh and the reason I started on the interior next was to freshen it back as close to new as possible, and from going over the car I learned none of the electronics for the sound system and navigation were not working all super old but good alpine equipment. Something in that system was also draining my battery so if I didn’t run the car everyone two days it would be dead as a door mail. More on that later

 

[prubingst]

Back to catching up on the updates. I think I stated this earlier in thread but first goals are to clean the car inside and out as thoroughly as I can and address any immediate mechanical issues. After the first pass clean up on exterior and fixing the door car, I moved on to cleaning the interior. I removed nearly every panel to clean plus address the battery drain issue which was in fact the nav and left over parts of the sound system/wires. There was def some nasty coffee/soda spill on the carpet. The metal ring around cigarette lighter was chipped so repainted is semigloss black. You can see on the 50/50 shots of the leather what appears clean really is not. Next up is removing the drivers seat and cleaning the carpet underneath. Then then interior cleaning is done! Btw with work and little kids this work has taken me most of summer

 

[Capt Obvious]

This car is pretty much identical to my first DSM, lots of memories for me. Love your approach with the cleanup.

 

[chrysler kid]

my drivers side 2ga door cap had the strength of dried tooth picks. you almost need to use plastic welding techniques to piece it together. the more weight you add with fiberglass the more tension is going to be on the mounting tabs. so melting it back together with extra plastic strength is going to be better than extra mass with fiberglass

typical battery drain issues can be faulty door locks, so if you cant use the power locks to unlock and lock both doors you may have a misadjusted lock cylinder sensor in the door handle. you can try pulling the door lock fuse to see if they drain goes away

for the paint fade on the spoiler, I recently had good results with 800 grit emory cloth and 3 coats of clear coat. sand off the old clear, clean, then coat

 

[prubingst]

Thanks @Capt Obvious I hunted for this GST for more than a year and plan to hang onto it for a while so figured I'd deep clean first. my prior two DSMs i jumped right into mods and cleaned "good enough"...different goals back then haha. This car is going to be a driver, but I really want to get it as close to factory fresh looking as I can.

@chrysler kid great suggestion on the plastic weld. I'm going to look into that. have you done it before, and have any reco's on tools/materials? you are spot on about the strength of toothpicks haha i was surprised how brittle the door caps were on 2Ga's, no wonder there's so few around. Oh and my mounting tabs are toast. I've got them all in pieces in a ziplock for when i get started on this.

I've been thinking about sanding that remaining clear off the spoiler as a temp solution to see if i can just polish up the base coat for now and put a layer of sealant on. this car lives inside now so i'm not too worried about UV damage or fading. But when i was first going over that area with a one step polish and white polishing pad, it was cutting into the base so i decided to back off it for a while. I figure between the door mirrors and spoiler pieces that's enough of a project to justify the cost of painting materials.

 

[chrysler kid]

I have watched a few videos of it but never tried it, I converted my 96 to a 99 after ten years of being bone stock

Amazon.com

 

[prubingst]

finally found some time to make progress on. After cleaning today. I’ve been using a Bissel steamer vac so far and it’s, well, slow going. So I purchased a $15 “extractor” attachment for shop vac. It works well maybe slightly better but I think it has more to do with the power of the shop vac. Anyway. Some before and after a below. My process has been to use 2:1 dilution of Chemical Guys fabric clean sprayed generously on each section. Cleaning power comes from the drill with brush attachment. Then suck up all the gunk and grime. I tested in the footwell behind the drivers seat and the drivers floor mat. Cleaned up pretty well for a nearly 30 year old original floor mat

 

[prubingst]

So this past weekend I intended to finish up the carpet cleaning job by tackling the rest of the drivers side. And once I had the driver seat out I was reminded of all the wiring I left from the removal of the outdated navigation and sounds system. The installer back in the day did a very clean job, but man the amount of wires and tracing the taps… I was motivated and ended up pulling most of the interior. 3 hours later I had a rats nest of wires and the GST was a few pounds lighter haha. Only 2 wires left running towards the hatch where a sub box was then I’m done. Also removed and old Greddy turbo timer. It turns on but no idea if it actually functions. DM me if anyone wants it.

As a bonus for my effort it seems my exhaust gas temp gauge is now behaving more like I’d expect. Before the needle would jump all over the place at random

 

[chrysler kid]

did they really cut out the structural subframe of the car to add an amplifier to the sound system? wow

 

[prubingst]

eesh yea appears so. Another thing to address

 

[prubingst]

…and that’s a wrap on removal of all the aftermarket sound and nav system.

 

[prubingst]

This weekend was a washout and work has been crazy so I hadn’t had much of a chance to actually drive the GST much in the last week and really want to get some more miles in before salt hits the roads in a few months. I’m determined to keep this car in great shape and hopefully hang onto it for a long time. So I did a late night grocery run last night and took some night shots for fun.

You’ll notice in one shot of the gauges the EGT is pinned on 12. That was at a stop with the car running for maybe 10 mins just to get warm. I highly distrust the readings. no way it’s that hot. It jumps around a lot and generally while driving, and so funny stuff like bounce between 6-12 when my right hand turning signal is on. I believe the gauges are somewhat wired into the steering column wiring so something else to inspect/redo over time. I’ve had these same gauges in my two other DSMs and tapped the wires that run along the driver side floor. Never had this issue with previous EGTs. Could be a faulty probe on the exhaust manifold but seems more like a wiring issue based on the behavior.

 

[chrysler kid]

…and that’s a wrap on removal of all the aftermarket sound and nav system.

View attachment 745049

that looks like the wiring for the factory CD changer that goes in the trunk