Techboy's 88 Starion SHP Save ....

[techboy]

While I'm back home getting this engine bay buttoned up, it's time to send the SHP wheels out and get them freshened up.  The car came with 2 SHP's on the front when I bought it, but I had to track down 2 rears.  I managed to track a set down, but all 4 need to be refinished.

You can see the bend in the lip on this front wheel.

Time to drop them off at a local wheel refinish shop.  This particular shop actually machines a fraction of an inch off for a new factory finish.  I'm choosing black over the OEM gunmetal for the insets.  I have a friend from the board here, Project87, who also used this shop and had his wheels inset with black and I feel in love the first time I saw it, so I'm stealing the inspiration.  They said it would only be a week or 2 till they'd be done. 

This is a shot of Project87's wheels from a recent show.

Got all 4 in the truck. 

 

 

[techboy]

Here we go ... moment I've been waiting for.  Picked up the wheels today.

Let's pull the bags!!

Needless to say, I'm pleased with the outcome.  They did a great job.

[techboy]

Working on getting more things installed in the engine bay.

Got the new battery tray in place.

Made up my own union block for the battery connector.  This car was missing the OEM connector.  Mad it out of some laser cut plexiglas, a bolt and a nylon lock nut.

Got the resurfaced exhaust manifold installed.

Got the alternator installed, along with an AC delete bracket.

Picked up a power steering pump rebuild kit from Gates and rebuilt the pump (I'm thinking I'll do a separate write-up on how to rebuild one of these someday).

After the rebuild, got the pump installed on the car.

 

 

[techboy]

I could have just slapped the starter back on the car, but I wanted to take some time and disassemble it and clean it up a bit and hit it with some fresh paint.

Got it installed in the car.

[techboy]

Picked up Direzza DZ102's from Tirerack for the fronts.  Haven't decided what I'm doing on the rears yet.

[techboy]

I had picked up this short shifter a while back from a member on here.  Not exactly sure what brand it is, but ... it's been sitting on my shelf waiting to be used, I figured this would be a good time to get it bolted up.

[techboy]

The next big I wanted to tackle was setting everything up for aftermarket gauges.  First was the oil pressure.  I removed the allen NPT fitting in the side of the block just above the oil pump.

I replaced that with a 1/8" BSPT.

Use the NPT fitting that came with gauge and threaded it in along with the oil pressure line.

Fed everything threw the firewall, and after a lot of cutting splicing and soldering not shown here, got everything wired up and fed into the back of the gauges. (which, as you can see are mounted just above the radio)

Connected a battery real quick, just test everything and made sure we had power running where it needed to be.  Easier to fix now than later.  Happy to report - we have LIGHT!

This is a bad pic, and I'm sure I'll have a better one to post later, but the gauge pod is of my own design - drawn in CAD and cut on a laser cutter.  I considered other aftermarket gauge pods, but most place the gauges at the bottom UNDER the radio down by the shifter.  I didn't want them that low - I wanted them to be a bit more eye-level.

EDIT: Here's that pic I knew I had somewhere of how the gauges and short shifter came out.

[techboy]

While I had the battery out I decided it would also be a good time to make sure the fuel pump and pick-up and that is in working order.  This car has been sitting for unknown amount of time, so if there's issues I'd rather find out now then when I'm trying to start the car for the first time.

First, I pulled an old jug out of the trash and put the fuel feed line in the engine bay in there.

It's a little hard to see what's going here, but I took my jumper cables from the battery and then took banana clips w/ spades on the end and connected them to the fuel wiring harness in the trunk.

By simply connecting to the positive of the battery you can energize the fuel pump and guess what ... we've got FUEL!

I'm very happy with this outcome.

[techboy]

I've read some horror stories on here about people rebuilding engines and then having dirty oil coolers that just push junk back into a fresh build.  So I wanted to take some time and clean this out.  I flushed out the inside with some kerosene and now I'm going to wash the cooling fins with some simple green so it does the best cooling job it can.

Cleaned up the banjo bolts and got some new crush washers from Dad.  

Connected things up at the oil cooler first.

Then back up top.

Mounted the IC back up while I was at too.

And here's a pulled-back shot just to give you a sense of where we're at.  Really starting to look like a car again.

[TexasQuest]

Amazing work!

[860QuestTuner]

Looking good, the attention to detail stellar 

[techboy]

Did some searching on here and was able to track down the part numbers for the SS clutch line mod.  Ordered everything up from Summit and ready to install.

Painted up the slave cylinder.

Here's the old OEM line laid out next to the new SS line.

Attached to the slave via the banjo fitting.

And here it is installed under the car at the transmission.

 

[techboy]

I also decided to purchase some new injector clips and not even mess with the old stock ones.

Here's the old stockers in the engine bay.

New ones, I believe I ordered these from DAD.  Cut, soldered, shrink tubed, and wrapped in green and black electrical tape so I can keep track of primary and secondary injectors.

I also installed the intercooler piping today and got the BOV mounted up.  I'm using a 1G BOV with a fresh Mitsu gasket.

 

[techboy]

At this point in the restoration  the engine bay is pretty much together other than a few minor things.  We're getting very close to being done.  It's now time to focus on some the exterior body pieces that still need to go back on the car.

Gonna start with the rear bumper today.

Here she is.  Gonna clean it a little bit and hit it up with some black oil-based Rustoleum.

When I disassembled this before paint, some of the 10mm were so rusted that they snapped when trying to back them out, so I had a few spots to drill out and re-tap.

I didn't show the fresh paint, but I'm sure you can imagine in your head.  Now we need to mount the freshly painted bumper cover back on.

Here it is out of the bag.

Wish I would have documented these steps in a bit more detail, but basically I reinstalled the bumper cover to the metal bumper and then bolted it back onto the car down through the trunk and up from the bottom.

 

[techboy]

I jumped on this set of rear Starion taillights a long time from MotoCAM knowing I was going to need them someday for this restoration.  They were advertised as MINT, and I've never opened them b/c I didn't want anything to happen to them.

So here they are finally unraveled.

Taillights are pretty easy to reinstall.  There's a bunch of 10mm nuts on the backside the thread onto the existing studs.  Just make sure if you have removed the center garnish you put the back on first before you install the lights.

Back of the car looking complete!!

 

[techboy]

Did some other little things quick today too...

Put the filler surround back on.  I previously had this powdercoated black.

And then I put the gas door back on.

I really like the smooth shaved look on the gas door I've seen some guys do.  I may pick up another door someday and have it redone so there's no lock.

I also reinstalled the door handles.  Doing this is always a pain.  Other posts have covered how to remove and reinstall them, so I won't here, but it takes some patience. I  documented in a separate post how turned my "standard" door latches into "TURBO" door latches.

 

[nc_beagle]

This is looking great. I'm sure you'll get bored when it's done and you don't have a project, so I'm happy to let you restore mine! 😄

[techboy]

13 hours ago, nc_beagle said:

This is looking great. I'm sure you'll get bored when it's done and you don't have a project, so I'm happy to let you restore mine! 😄

Lol ... it is done!  Been done for 6 years 😄 And yes, I got bored so my son and I are working a VR4 now.  But I will continue to rebuild this thread for future readers.

[nc_beagle]

9 hours ago, techboy said:

Lol ... it is done!  Been done for 6 years 😄 And yes, I got bored so my son and I are working a VR4 now.  But I will continue to rebuild this thread for future readers.

Oh, that's right. I forgot you're putting the lost threads back together. That's really appreciated as I start down the restoration road. 

[techboy]

I've been storing most of the interior parts inside car, so it's time clean some things out and start getting the interior of this car back together.

Started by simply snapping the door cards back into place.

There's a couple of large screws that hold them on along with the handles and then you can snap the upper section into place.

I didn't take any pics, but I also got the center counsel back in it's proper place.  It's starting to look like much more like a car inside even with just that little bit done.

Directed my attention to the rear of the car next.  Got the rear side bolsters back in place. 

Once the left and right sides were in, I was able to bolt the rear seat in place.

 

[techboy]

The pressure is on now.  It's the end of July and the car show I run and head up is the 2nd week in August, and I'm really hoping to unveil this car for the first time at that show.  I didn't want this to turn into the way they script all those car restoration TV shows - but everything takes longer despite best laid plans.

Today will be a bit step though, I'm heading to a local speed shop to have the wheels mounted and balanced.  Got everything loaded up in my pickup.

And here they are all mounted up.

I was super anxious to see what this car looks like with the the restored wheels on it, so I went ahead and mounted them all up the minute I got home.  Here's what we got:

No clue if this car will actually run yet, but it's gonna look sweet!! 😁

[techboy]

Now it's time to get the front of the car back together.  I decided in the end to NOT use the original front bumper support that came off this car, but to pick up another one.  Can't remember who I got it from on the board anymore, but it was in super nice condition.

It's also time to pull out some of these freshly painted pieces that have been wrapped up since I brought car home.

First thing I did was throw a soft blanket down on the ground and very carefully work the bumper support into the front bumper cover.

Now it's time to mount the valance.  I didn't exactly mount this the "factory" way.  After the nightmare of rusted 10mm it was to get this apart, I decided I didn't ever want to deal with that again.  So I drilled a series of holes every 8 inches or so and looped zip ties through.  I utilized the factory hardware where I could on the left and right sides, but everything in the middle is zip tied together on the inside so you can't see it.  I've ever need to remove the lower valance I can just cut the ties and it'll drop off. ( I should have documented what I did a bit better and showed some pics).

So here we are at the front of the car.

Had a little help from my wife lifting this into place carefully.

Starting to bolt everything up from underneath.

 

 

[techboy]

With the bumper back in place I was able to get the fog light installed.  I have the frames powdercoated in black way back when I started this.

Left side.

Both sides.

So that's where I'm at.

 

[techboy]

So, before I bolt the front grill back in place, I wanted to do a little bit of custom work.  I stumbled across this photo that someone posted a while back by accident and it made me stop my scrolling instantly.  I love the look of relocating the rear Starion trunk badge up front.  Now I just have to figure out how to do it.

So if anyone wants to recreate this look, here's how I went about it. It's hard to see, but I started by measuring and marking out where I needed to cut the grill.

I very carefully cut the plastic out with a dremel with a blade installed.

Then I cut out a piece of cardboard and mocked up how the badge would look.

You need to some way to "mount", so I needed a flat surface behind the badge. So I got some model clay and packed the empty area with the clay.

It looks something like this...

I let that dry overnight.

In the morning, I popped it out.  Now I have a profile shape I can measure.

I drew the shape in CAD and they cut out some plastic with a laser to test fit. Came out perfect.

Then I 3D printed a "filler" that length of my opening I cut.

Looks pretty good.

And better yet, it fits!!

Now that I know I fits I printed out a black one.

I drilled two holes in the grill to line up with the holes I located in my 3D printed part.

Some glue, screws and clamping and now we let it dry.

Super excited to see how this is going to come out.

 

[tux]

Now where did you find the badge