Showcar Build RS to GS Restoration Build

[jesse12345]

Beautiful car man. If you ever sell those stock seats I'll definitely buy them.

 

[Widgmaster]

Did that car just come off the showroom floor... Beautiful ride brother.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

I was afraid this cucumber might be a dill and I would find myself in a pickle. But the shop sent me an update today, and it seems that the engine is super clean inside, which is a relief and very exciting to hear!

I can't wait to see it when it's all put back together!

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Waiting for a new exhaust manifold to arrive (mine was cracked). I am also going to replace the steering rack bellows since mine are in rough shape. Other than that, I think this round of maintenance is pretty much done.

It's cool to see the engine bay without an engine in it, and I'm pretty happy with how clean everything looks with roughly 97k miles on the car.

 

[Widgmaster]

With a fresh coat of paint on the engine, your ride will look like it just rolled off the assembly line.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Your firewall lining is in amazing shape. Usually on these cars it is peeling or has been removed.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Your firewall lining is in amazing shape. Usually on these cars it is peeling or has been removed.

Yeah, I was excited to see it intact! I got really lucky with this car. The firewall lining is like new and the hood liner is in great shape too. There's certainly a lot of work to be done, but the really rare parts seem to be intact and in great shape.

The trade-off though is that a lot of the foam and rubber pieces aren't in the best shape from spending nearly two decades in the hot, dry Arizona air. I'm working on it though.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Almost done!

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

I picked up my Eclipse from the mechanic this evening and went for a drive. It was amazing, and well worth the wait. I didn't feel like it was going to stall, and it seemed very smooth. If I'm not mistaken, the car turned a few heads too.

In short I had a ton of work done to it, and almost all of it was in the engine bay, with the most important repair being the head gasket. It's been leaking oil since I brought it home, and it turns out the gasket was the culprit.

I am surprised by this, because I thought, with the car being a 1999 model, that it would not have this problem, and that it would have an MLS head gasket. It did not.

It does now. I used a Mahle Engine Seal Kit to reseal the engine. No more oil leaks at the moment.

Along with the seal kit, I replaced the valve springs and keepers and most of the cooling system with new or refurbished parts. I also replaced the radiator, hoses, clamps and fan motor, the exhaust manifold, spark plugs, all of the belts, the timing components, all of the motor mounts and cushions, the transmission and fuel filters, inner tie-rod ends and steering rack bellows.

I now have confidence when driving the car, and it is a joy to drive.

The engine needs more attention though. There is a piston slap that I'd like to circle back at some point and fix, but for now it doesn't seem to be a pressing concern. I feel like it's time to close the hood on this part of the project (pun intended).

I really want to focus on the exterior and interior now, but I also need to do some work to the suspension at some point. Everything is still pretty tight, but the struts and pretty much all of the rubber parts are worn out, and will definitely need to be addressed in the future.

I guess we'll see what next year brings because the maintenance completely blew up my budget for this year.

It was well worth it though. It's time to hit the road.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Last night was Cruise Night in Fort Gratiot, MI. I took the Eclipse out with my family and it was an awesome, perfect; beautiful night. It was a dream come true and I can't wait to do it again.

There are two things that concern me though.

I could feel the transmission shifting in the stop-and-go traffic more than I feel like I should have. It felt a little rough. Maybe I'm just being too sensitive to it, but I saw there were metal shavings the filter when I had it changed it out, so I'm going to be keeping an eye on that.

The only other thing that concerns me is how uncomfortable the seats are. Lol. We were only out for a few hours last night, but my back still hurts.

Still, these are minor things. That drive was almost magical.

I think this last round of maintenance finally pushed the car over the tipping point to where it is no longer a .

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

I took some time to detail the engine bay today. The 420A is a good looking engine IMO.

I discovered a transmission fluid leak though, so it's going back into the shop soon.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Turns out the fluid leak was due to a bad transmission output shaft seal. A new Mopar seal went in today, and now the car finally seems to be leak free!

In other news, my passenger side interior mirror trim cover broke today... Oh well what can you do?

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Those things are always breaking

 

[Dericsh]

Just caught up on your build from the beginning. Love the enthusiasm and attention to detail. Keep up the good work!

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Just caught up on your build from the beginning. Love the enthusiasm and attention to detail. Keep up the good work!

Thanks man, I appreciate that.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Those things are always breaking

Haha, yeah. Its just motivation to upgrade to power mirrors sooner rather than later.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

The power mirror covers are equally as brittle but you touch them a lot less. I ended up just removing my covers and running without them. I'll keep an eye out at the junkyards for a decent set if you'd like. Ebay probably wants a fortune for them.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

The power mirror covers are equally as brittle but you touch them a lot less. I ended up just removing my covers and running without them. I'll keep an eye out at the junkyards for a decent set if you'd like. Ebay probably wants a fortune for them.

I appreciate that! I am good for now though, I purchased a new old stock set a little while back. I'm hoping those will last a few years at least.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

I spoke too soon about the fluid leaks being resolved. Despite it being new, the oil drain plug that came with my aftermarket oil pan was leaking, so I replaced it with an OEM one. So far so good.

I still have a small transmission fluid leak though. The culprit seems to be one of the remanufactured axles that I had installed a few years ago. I am planning to replace both axles with a new OEM set, which should fix the problem. I will probably do this in the Spring.

I think I might overhaul the suspension when I do the axles. I don't like the "popping" sound coming out of the front end when I turn the wheel, and the ride quality feels like it's degrading. The struts are starting to leak, and the ball joints are ready to be retired. It's time.

I'm actually excited about this because tearing apart the suspension creates a great opportunity to upgrade to GS sway bars. I found a set a while back out of Arizona that look to be in really great shape. I can't wait to start making improvements to the car again.

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

It's tarp time again.

I lay tarps down in my garage to keep the undercarriage of my Eclipse as dry as I can.

I read where the temperature shifts in the Fall can cause the pavement to sweat in an uninsulated garage. Unfortunately I don't have the funds to insulate my garage and seal the floor at the moment, so I use tarps as an economical alternative.

I usually pull them up in the summer, clean the floor, and then lay them back out in the Fall... and as much as I don't want to admit it, winter is rapidly approaching.

It may only be early September but the nights are getting colder and the leaves are already starting to change.

 

[Widgmaster]

Brilliant Idea...

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Not a whole lot happening with the car at the moment. It's in storage with 97,105 miles on it, so I added 232 miles to it this year, and 490 miles overall. This means I drove it nearly as much this year as I had the two previous years combined. Not going to lie, that felt really good.

As with the past three winters, I'm biding my time and collecting parts for another round of maintenance... which is all I really have planned for 2023.

I will say though, part hunting has become my hobby. It hasn't always been easy, but it has been a lot of fun.

Here is a look back at the maintenance from this past spring:

A bad head gasket with < 100k miles...

I had the shop replace the valve stem seals, springs, and keepers. No regrets there.

I didn't replace the valves or anything, I just thought this was a cool picture.

The block before it was cleaned up. I didn't have the money for it this year, but someday I want to revisit this to see if I can eliminate the annoying piston slap this engine has.

That would be a good excuse to pull the engine again and respray the bay (and the rest of the car) Northstar White... I've been thinking a lot about that lately.

 

[vanilla gorilla]

Great job on the car. Very thorough

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Piston slap with less than 100k miles? The only reasons I could figure that are if the car was ran low on oil or if the blown headgasket allowed enough coolant to severly dilute the oil. I once re-used OEM pistons and wrist pins with 180k miles on them and they had no issues. Definitely not recommending that, but yours should have lasted longer. Anyway, nice work so far and I'm looking out for next year!

 

[Bland-Biscuit]

Thanks @vanilla gorilla. I appreciate the comment

Thanks @BLACK'98DSM. Yeah I am not really sure what caused it. If I was a betting man though, I would put money on it having been run while it was low on oil. The bad head gasket caused oil to leak out of the head, and I feel like the previous owner was not passionate about maintenance.

On one hand its disappointing, but on the other hand, I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it. This has been an awesome learning experience. And besides that, the car is so clean, it really would have been a shame not to save it.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the block yet. I don't know if it makes more sense to bore it out and sleeve it, or just use larger pistons. Or maybe it's better to just try to find another block?

That is awesome about those pistons man. I am not opposed to using a solid set of used OEM myself, but I don't think I'll be reusing these particular pistons though. I don't trust them.

I'm definitely open to suggestions on all of this. Right now it looks like I have plenty of time to think about it, but, as they say, time flies when you are having fun... and I'm having a blast