The TSTE rebuild topic (56k get cable)

[GP1138]

Pretty freakin' sweet man! I plan on doing that to my Z when we get our house. I'm impressed.

[GOT2B GM]

Must be nice to finally start enjoying the car instead of working on it.

[Addicted To Boost]

Awesome Glad all that work paid off!

[slick]

black inserts with polished face/lip. i think that's how the RPE GPs were (cept not black).

 

Yes, you are correct.

 

 

 

Oh, and finally!!! I bet your a happy person.

[no1kicker]

Great news. I can't wait to see this thing in person soon. I had always wondered what it would look like with black crosslaces. When do I get a ride?

[White93z34]

always awesome seeing a project come together, words cannot describe how happy i was to drive my z with the 284 installed, all the stupid little things will probably consume you for a few weeks now.

 

EDIT: please find something better looking then the cutlass supreme "dildo of power" shifter.

[GP1138]

EDIT: please find something better looking then the cutlass supreme "dildo of power" shifter.

 

LOL

[GutlessSupreme]

thanks a lot guys, and damn right i'm a happy person

 

Great news. I can't wait to see this thing in person soon. I had always wondered what it would look like with black crosslaces. When do I get a ride?

 

i know you hate the crosslaces lol. as soon as i get all the buggers work out and this thing's legal, i'll be heading up there to give you a ride. 295's a good place to stretch it's legs.

 

EDIT: please find something better looking then the cutlass supreme "dildo of power" shifter.

 

LOL! i rather like that shifter

[Euro]

that is awesome!!!!! Glad to see it finally back on the road!

[TurboSedan]

awesome Tony! car is lookin good

[1RIDE2RULEthemALL]

cutlass supreme "dildo of power" shifter.

 

lmfao pwnt.

[gp90se]

Congrats man, job well done.

 

My GP has been back on the road for a couple months, tons of little issues here and there, but we'll have to meet up sometime.

 

 

[GutlessSupreme]

So I hadn't done anything on it in a couple weeks, but me and my buddy made some time last night to bring it into the garage he works at to get some stuff fixed.

 

He replaced the rear brake line that popped and it looks good. The lines were MINT, EXCEPT the 10" across the center of the car near the rear subframe. EVERYTHING there is rusted bad. We also got my 94'+ rear brakes swapped. kinda.

 

driver's side went off without a hitch, I did it at home while I was waiting for him. passenger side, he had to cut the old one off with a torch. it was about that time we figured out that NAPA had given me 1 front rotor and 1 rear rotor. I only had to limp it home about two miles, so we threw the old rotor on there with the new caliper. not the brightest idea, but I'm fairly sure everything's fine and I needed to make sure the caliper didn't over extend (i.e. if no rotor was there).

 

while he was cutting and torching and having fun, I was trying to figure out the new e-brake cables. also, around this time, I noticed that only one of the reman calipers had the e-brake cable bracket on them. PISSED. cores are long gone, gave them to NAPA two weeks ago. anyway. I think I finally kinda ran the cables right, but I couldn't figure out how the new ones were supposed to connect to the equalizer. It was getting late and I was getting tired/pissed off so I just zip tied everything up and safely out of the way for another day.

 

rewind back to my house, before i left. the battery was dead. I knew this. no problem, I'll just jump it when pete gets here. we hook up his car to give my ABS pump some joose to bleed the rear caliper I'd already done (I'd sealed off the line on the other side). we trying jump it, it's just cranking and halfass starting for a little while. Eventually it starts but he had to keep the throttle down a little to keep it running. hmm. possibly needs idle relearn, plus I'd put in my new O2 sensor since the last time I started it (don't know if that would've affected it). Eventually it's running good on it's own. Suddenly, it shuts off, no warning. I try cranking it - battery's completely dead. It took a while for it to charge up again so I could get it started. I figure, fine, battery's toast. It was the one from the TGP anyway, it's been mostly sitting/getting run down to nothing/jumped consistently for like 4-5 years. fair enough. I bring the STE's battery with us so I could swap it in the shop.

 

Whenever I came to a stop the lights dimmed (when the brake lights went on). I knew it was gone. I limped it around the corner to the shop, keeping the RPMs up and making sure I didn't stall it (overall I haven't had much stick experience). I make it all the way to the garage and I stalled it trying to pull into the bay. damnit. I try starting it again but the dash lights hardly come on. whatever, we'll push it in and jump it later before I go.

 

it takes a minute but we get it started before we leave, and I proceed to limp it home. Passed two cops on the way, right near the shop. Thank god it was two, because if they weren't chit-chatting they probably would've come checked me out.

1-The Cutlass plates were on it, I have no current registration for the GP

2-I have not yet insured the GP because I wasn't even sure it was going to run.

3-My state inspection sticker expired January 2005.

4-I didn't even have the Cutlass registration papers with me to prove they were my plates.

 

Problems?

My exhaust leaks BADLY and is quite loud.

I had a large piece of household electrical wiring running across my hood to hold it shut, through the vent holes and around each diagonal bar. I took out the latch retainer to paint it and have not reinstalled it yet. kind of obvious and weird sight. good thing it was dark.

 

PS- we never swapped in the other battery.

 

So anyway, made it by the cops, slowly. Quick, lowly populated side street run. No problems (good sign, this is the street I killed the TGP on). Now, my neighborhood has recently become a pain in the ass to get to. It's off a rather heavily traveled route that is the main travel road for our bottom corner of the state. My neighborhood is off a side street on the northbound side. Previously, there was a crossover section in the median, where, if approaching from the southbound side, we could use to cross over to our street. Recently, they blocked this off, and placed cables/guardrails through the entire length of the median. We now have to go a little further south on Rt 1, take an exit for another route, 138 east, then immediately get back on the next exit to get on Rt 1 north. these exits are on sharp corners, and it's very difficult to see what's coming up ahead of you.

 

My car does just FINE, until I reach the Rt 1 northbound exit. about halfway up the hill, it konks out and dies again. fuck fuck fuck. I turn the key and I have nothing. thank god my friend followed me home, and the fact that only my neighborhood uses this exit, pretty much. we pull off the side as much as we can. We first think we have no jumper cables. DOH. I call my stepdad: "I need you now. bring the jumper cables." Callback: "can't find them, sure you don't have them?" My friend put them in his backseat and forgot about them. DOH. So we try to jump my car. cables are about a foot too short, since he's parked behind me. He has to nudge out into the lane next to me so they reach. I give it a second. clickclickclickclick. starter's not getting anything. We fiddle with the connection, lights get a little brighter, but if I try to start everything goes dead. can't get the fucking thing started, i'm on the side of a bad off ramp at midnight, and the car might as well be hot, considering the amount of proof-of-ownership/liability documentation I had on me. hopefully nobody reports a DMV and the cops show. Eventually, stepdad and mom show up anyway and we keep trying, but no start. Oh, remember how I still have no ebrake? Well, at midnight, when you're tired/wicked stressed out, it makes sense to not press the brake pedal, as those lights seem to draw a lot of power. you have to press the clutch to start the car. but it's in gear, it's not going to roll anywhere, I shouldn't need the brakes. Yea, except when you press the clutch in, dumbfuck. So i rolled into the passenger door of my friends lebaron vert. not hard, I have a scuff on the bumper, but I took a few flakes of his paint off. fuck me. i'm dumb.

 

so moving on, I remember the other battery, and thankfully had some wrenches with me. we remove the diagonal brace over the battery and swap the other one, and make sure the cables are tightened down good. STILL NOTHING! neither one is charging WTF!! after about 5 minutes of cussing, a AAA flatbed spots us from Rt 1 North above, and pulls over. this right here is the only break I get all night. If we had to call AAA it probably would've taken like 2 hours to get there. It turns out my friend knows the guy (they park at the garage lot all the time in between calls). This guy was probably as dumb as a brick but he was the nicest guy ever. he wasn't even on duty at the time, but he pulled over and gave shitbox a ride home. I made sure I tipped him good. ordeal over. no cops, only 1 car came up the ramp while we were there, and no wrecks. sweet. Good thing my valance is already destroyed, because it sure as hell wouldn't have survived unloading the car off the flatbed.

 

So there you have it. long night, no working ebrakes, wrong rotor, car won't start, exhaust got crushed by the lift cause it hung down too much (we had to help the clamps over when we were pulling it in. no big deal though, just a test pipe that's coming out anyway), and the inside of the wheel was wet on the passenger side, where we replaced the other caliper in the garage. great, another thing to look into. If I have time tomorrow, I'm going to swap the Cutlass battery in and see if that'll jump and start it. Otherwise, I don't know what else it could be besides bad cables. I guess it could be a loose ground. I didn't have any problems like that the first few times I took the car out around my neighborhood. humm.

 

oh. and of course my PM3 pump ran nonstop. yay.

[GOT2B GM]

sounds like fun! dont get too overwhelmed, just tackle one problem at a time.

[GutlessSupreme]

It has brakes! I think rear's still on jack stands. I had the calipers on the wrong side and one of the old rotors on one side because NAPA gave me a vented rotor for something (part number was 1 digit off), so now the calipers are good and rotors are good and hopefully it's well bled. E-brake is still non-functional unfortunetly.. pedal needs to be removed and regreased, I have no bracket on the pass. caliper for the cable, no equalizer, and I'm still trying to figure out how to secure the 94+ rear cables to the body (using '90 front cable and pedal).

 

I also don't know if my battery issue is solved. I bought a charger and have been keeping it charged/trickling over the past few days, I don't know if it's damaged though. Haven't tried starting it, it's 11pm and it's way too loud. My driver's side muffler has a baseball-sized rust hole on the top of it my vapor canister lines are also nearly completely disintegrated... blah. I went to replace my filler neck but I can't get the damn clamp off the tank because it's tilted funny. I guess it'll wait til the new tank (whenever that is) and new rear control arms/body mount.

 

at least the brakes don't leak anymore. and the PM3 works a little better, somehow. It only runs for ~60 seconds from depressurized state, but it stll runs for 10 seconds after every pedal press. has to be the accumulator. (I hope, better not be the housing cracking )

 

edit: so I'm just standing in the garage with the laptop with the car "on"... and the PM3 motor randomly kicks in for 5 seconds. been about 1/2 since I've touched it. hmm.

[GutlessSupreme]

So I just got two 2 year old Flowmaster series 40s in near perfect shape that I spied on craigslist, complete with the Reactive wide-oval tips I've been looking at for a while...

 

for 40 bucks 8-) even better - the guy I bought them from had taken them off his MINT condition '92 red Z34. He also had a very hot 350 Nova parked next to it in the garage. no pics but I reffered him to this place so hopefully he'll post up at some point.

[GOT2B GM]

cool, are those the tips like what Jeff had on his TGP last year?

[GutlessSupreme]

I don't remember, prolly. I'll try and get some pics tomorrow though.

[GutlessSupreme]

Pics of the flowmaster 40s w/ reactive tips:

 

 

 

And some new pics of the car: (only the driver's door and rear end have had their complete wash/clay/cleaner/polish/wax treatment, and the front fender last got hit with 1000 grit wetsanding. hood's got a long ways to go.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

hopefully by next week, it'll be registered , the exhaust will be on, the entire car will be clean as hell (besides the hood anyway), and my w-body.com outline and McLaren decals will be on should look much better by then.. (then I'll just need a new front valance...)

 

Cutlass has been down for the count since about mid-May, when I swapped the strut towers (96+) onto the GP. It needs hubs before it's going anywhere, and it's not insured anymore. When I get some hubs it's going up for sale. I've been driving the slow as hell B2500 in the background since then.

[Euro]

That's awesome man. That car's lookin soo good.

[pwmin]

i am sooooo jealous

[GOT2B GM]

Looking nice!!

[per0781]

where in RI are you?

[GutlessSupreme]

thanks guys

 

per - North Kingstown

[no1kicker]

Looking good. Can't wait to see it in person soon.