kampman's 245 turbo revival and restothread

I'm so glad that my cars didn't have the biodegradable harnesses. I'm also glad to see that another OG turbo car is getting the restoration it deserves!

Thanks dude, I hope to do it justice! Your blue wagon is looking great.

Spent a little time on the car yesterday. I installed the new injectors and replaced the injector seals. The big donut seals for the injectors were probably fine but the seals on the holders weren't in great shape. 3 of the 4 were either broken or broke when I pulled the holders. I took the intake manifold gasket off and cleaned the mating surfaces. I also pulled the fuel filter, surprisingly the fuel inside wasn't too gross. Finally I inspected the plugs - 3 of them were sooty like the photo and 1 was spotless, none of them were very worn though. Seems like this car got a tuneup right before the fire.

I took last week off work so I knocked out a few things. Got new tires for the Virgos since the existing ones were lost causes. I went with 195/65R15s since the roads around here aren't the greatest and I'd rather not bend any of the wheels. Since the wheels were off I looked at the brakes on all 4 corners. I'm going to replace the front calipers and the pads, rotors, and hoses - the hoses have 1982 date codes so I think they're ready to retire. The front calipers are in good shape aside from the piston dust seals so I think I'm going to hold on to them and attempt a rebuild for next time. I also took a peek under the strut boots and it looks like the car still has the original Decarbons, dunno if they're still any good but I guess we'll see.

And who should call but the wheel shop? I got Yokohama Avid Ascend GTs from Tire Rack, they get good reviews and they had a $50 rebate going so hopefully they'll do well for the sort of things I expect to do with this car (highway cruising, C&C, etc.) The shop road force balanced them and they didn't come back with much weight on them so seems like the wheels are at least reasonably straight.

Got the car back on its wheels, glad I went with the 195/65R15 tires. The wheel gap looks huge in the pics for some reason but in person they fill the wheel wells nicely without being balloons. I have orders coming from FCP and IPD to fill in what I need for the brake system so I'll probably tackle that next.

Really digging this car- nice work so far!

Haven’t updated in a while, sorry. My job got absolutely insane this year and between that, the pandemic, and the political circus in the US I just haven’t had much motivation to make progress on this. I’ve also basically quit driving except for a trip to Costco every other week or so, so I just haven’t needed another car.

Since my last update I mostly redid the brakes (still need to replace lines and calipers on the rear) and I bought a replacement fuel tank. I’m waiting for a big package from Skandix that has all the parts I need to install the tank. I also got a Simons sport exhaust since the one on the car is almost completely rusted out after the downpipe. Hopefully once I have the tank back in the car I’ll have motivation to start working my way forward and finish the rest of the fuel system. I’m setting a soft goal for myself to have the car running by Easter.

Looking great!!!

Made some progress on the fuel system - it finally warmed up enough to spend some time in the garage so I dropped the fuel pump tray, reinstalled the tank, and mocked up the new pump and accumulator. Someone put a Walbro in at some point so hey, bonus Walbro for my parts shelf. My package from Skandix showed up, which is great, but my Simons exhaust got banged up a smidge in shipping. A couple of the joints need to be made round again before I try to install it. Sucks but it's easier to fix it than try to exchange it. I was expecting a catless system but someone had other ideas...

Still thrilled that this car is so clean underneath, everything came apart really easily and I didn't break anything. It's so nice compared to the Ohio cars I've worked on. Snapped a pic of the area over the gas tank for example - looks like someone was practicing their MIG welding at the factory?

Following, gonna turbo my 88, but love the original Turbo's, had a grey wagon back in the 90's,

Finally bought a battery and did a compression test today. I sprayed some fogging oil in the cylinders beforehand because of how long the car had been sitting - considering it hasn’t been run for a few years a totally dry test seemed unadvisable. I got 100-120-100-120, was hoping for more consistency than that but it might just be because of the oil.

I still have this car and I just got laid off from my job so I'm going to have a lot more time to spend on it. The pandemic really put a dent in my progress and I had some trouble getting the title in my name but that's all straightened out now. Just gotta remember which bolts go where...