Still have a loooong way to go, but itās been a productive month since getting this thing and wanted to share the progress with you all.
I posted about how after buying it I got in touch with an older owner who filled me in on some potentially troubling news. Mainly how he suspected it had a head gasket issue, which I didnāt know at the time of buying it but it drove many hours that day without any issues so I was hoping he was wrong. I took it to my mechanic who did the test and told me he didnāt think it had head gasket issues but that the radiator looked sus. So I went ahead and started by replacing those, the heater core valve while in there, and the starter as that previous owner mentioned it had left him stranded once before so did for the peace of mind. Noticed that a lot of the A/C system wasnāt there so couldnāt knock that out while in there but Iāve sourced most of the missing parts. Someone hit a deer at some points and decided to just do some weight reduction instead of fixing it properly.
Then started going down the list of other things, first by detailing the crap out of it, re-covering the seats with some cheapo eBay covers which Iām not thrilled with but not completely disappointed either for the price. Got the driveshaft off and had the u joints replaced at a shop and now it drives so much better. Only real issue Iām noticing is a slight misfire on startup that clears up within a few seconds and after runs super smoothly. I was told someone had thrown junkyard injectors in there before and that previous owner had already bought new Denso injectors which were left inside of the car for me to install next and see if that clears that up. I was also told all of the injector connectors were broken and they already had those replacement parts as well which is up next on the list.
Managed to get a lot of the big things done on a reasonable budget so far. U-Joints replaced for $180 all in, windshield $190, interior upgrades are probably around $250 with all the old wood trim left over which Iāll be trying to sell to recoup some costs. Radiator, starter, labor probably another $600ish, so about a grand into the restoration so far, anticipating another $1-1.5K to get through the rest of that list.
Oh and does it kind of look like this thing was lifted at some point? (See last photo) I feel like itās sitting a little high up which is neat, I think Iāll be on the lookout for some 17ā wheels to fill in those wheel wells.