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I think it?s Time for a Wagon 1988 740 Turbo

Oops. BTDT with my original 242. Was the other end, tho. Took a curve a little too quickly and car died. This happened right after the wiring harness had been replaced by a shop. So, I firstly thought there was an issue with the work. Popped the hood, and, sure enough, coil wire was about an inch from the tower of the coil.
 
Oops. BTDT with my original 242. Was the other end, tho. Took a curve a little too quickly and car died. This happened right after the wiring harness had been replaced by a shop. So, I firstly thought there was an issue with the work. Popped the hood, and, sure enough, coil wire was about an inch from the tower of the coil.

Yeah exactly, I had done so much work on it recently I figured the radio suppression relay got some power steering fluid on it or some connection at the fuse panel was loose from the heater core job...
 
It seems like everything is going well with this build. I can't wait to see how this project will turn out.

Thanks Alex!

I got the cup holder armrest, strut tower brace and new carpet installed in the last week. Loving all three upgrades!





So in order to restore my faith in the car I took it to go pick up our cat from the vet last night. It was 80 miles roundtrip. The car did great and our cat is okay after they pulled a handful of Easter ribbon out of his stomach. It was a pretty drive.



Since I still wasn’t happy with the amount of movement from the shifter and I had a clunk in reverse I wanted to tear into the u-joints and driveshaft carrier and bearing. Holy crap! The carrier has totally failed:




New 3 3/16 ujoints and 1.75in diameter carrier are
On their way from IPD. Hoping to get it all back together to join the SLORolling crew for a drive this weekend.
 
Oh man that was a pain. The carrier bearing support was totally shot. The u-joints were in good shape so I didn’t touch them.

My driveshaft is a little different than all the other ones I have seen so I couldn’t just knock the carrier off and pull the bearing. Over the course of a few days I cut it off later by layer.


Installed the new ones in the car last night and it cured a few clunks and more of the shifter movement so I am happy.
 
Deferred maintenance log day 279:

I pulled the throttle body off for a clean and new gasket. It was pretty yucky and the gasket was super fried.



I couldn’t drive tonight but it sounded nice when I fired it up. More to come when my parts from Roy and Adam arrive this week
 
Fitted the new PCV elbow. Now 100% split free!

I also bought all new clips for the cowl weatherstripping so
I could refit that bit of rubber on the firewall.

Finally I pulled the hatch trim panel expecting to install IPDs metal reinforcement kit. I was surprised to find that was already fitted and all I had to do was replace the four plastic clips at the top of the panel since they had all broken. Don’t slam your rear hatches people!!! Can’t wait to take the car out and see what a rattle free rear end sounds like.

Next up has to be pulling the seats and carpet for cleaning. After that I wont be able to put off doing the heater core any longer...


I know this is from last year, but where did you source the 1369279 cowl seal clips? I can't find them anywhere...
 
I bought the last 9 that ipd had in stock. I can?t find them anywhere now.

LOL - I searched online & found some old Hondas & Mitsu's that used a similar design. Ordered some of those & see how it goes in 2 months when they arrive :D

The wagon looks great & nice details/upgrades you are adding along the way.
 
Not much to report, just been driving it a lot on the weekends. I replaced the airbox to turbo hose since I noticed the old one was completely rigid. There was a lot of oil in it and the turbo had some shaft play.

The car also developed a clunk from the passenger side front end. One of the ball joint bolts had loosened itself. I corrected that but that didn’t do the trick. Then I suspected the sway bar endlinks. I completely retorqued those bolts to no effect. Finally this evening I noticed that the collar that holds the strut in the housing was very loose. Bingo!! Got it tightened down and no more clunk.
 
I was just thinking to myself how nice it was that the car didn’t really leak and stain the driveway. I hosted a drive with SloRolling on Saturday. On Friday night I went out to wash the car and noticed a ton of what turned out to be transmission fluid under the car. One of the o-rings that seals the trans cooler lines to the pan was leaking badly. I went to oriellys and got a pack of orings. Miraculously that did the trick and the car performed admirably all day on the drive. It was about 200 miles on backroads around Santa Barbara county.
 
Great thread! A lot of good work you've done. I just picked up an '88 740 turbo wagon last week and I'm looking to do a lot of the same things, so thanks for the documentation! By the way if your heated seats still aren't working, I was flipping through an online version of the owners manual and found this:

"Electronically-heated seats: The front seats are electrically heated and thermostatically controlled. Automatic engagement begins at 50?F (+10?C) and ends at 95?F (+35?C). Use the console-mounted switches to deactivate the heating, if desired." Not sure if it gets cold enough where you are for them to ever activate!
 
Great thread! A lot of good work you've done. I just picked up an '88 740 turbo wagon last week and I'm looking to do a lot of the same things, so thanks for the documentation! By the way if your heated seats still aren't working, I was flipping through an online version of the owners manual and found this:

"Electronically-heated seats: The front seats are electrically heated and thermostatically controlled. Automatic engagement begins at 50?F (+10?C) and ends at 95?F (+35?C). Use the console-mounted switches to deactivate the heating, if desired." Not sure if it gets cold enough where you are for them to ever activate!

Thanks and good luck on your project!

I dug into the seats and the elements are broken in multiple places from age and mileage. I was tempted to replace them but then my priorities changed.

Watch this space for a rebuilt 13c swap and trans service as soon as my ipd shipment arrives
 
No photos of the transmission service, it was messy and a general PITA. Seems to seep less fluid but I haven’t driven it that much since I replaced the “filter” and pan gasket.

I started the turbo replacement yesterday. The removal actually went very well. No broken studs or anything like that. The turbo was replaced by the po approximately 150k ago. When I went to move the banjo bolts for the coolant lines to the new 13c I realized I made a mistake. The car has a 12b on it and the bolts are different, the oil return line might be different and the 13c won’t bolt to the exhaust manifold because it is designed for a 90+ with studs. Will start a wanted thread for all those goodies and hopefully someone will bail me out lol. PCH checked the local yard for me but they didn’t have any 90+ turbo cars available.

Here are a few photos showing how thrashed the exhaust manifold gaskets were as well as what look to be horrible cracks in the exhaust housing. Definitely glad I’m going the work but wish I did a little more googling before jumping in since the car was running okay prior to disassembly





 
Thanks to Roy I am back in business. I bought new lines and banjo bolts from him and he got them shipped out super quickly. The oil feed for the 12b was the same so that simplified things. The oil returns are definitely different:



Out with the old:



In with the new!




All back together


I didn’t have a chance to drive it yet but the idle is fantastic now. I think between the exhaust manifold gaskets being thrashed and the cracks in the exhaust housing this was very worth the time. Can’t wait to drive it!
 
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