techboy

Been a couple of a months since my last post. Took the car out for a fall drive today and swung by a local covered bridge for some photos.

Last ever 4 U Drew show in Doylestown PA, took home a trophy. 😃

When I was doing the rear suspension I didn't put the rear trunk back together b/c I figured now would also be a good time to get that rear strut bar installed. The strut bar is straight forward to install. The part that has made me nervous about this whole strut bar thing is cutting the factory side carpets. I needs to look clean and intentional, not butched. So, I've been thinking about this for a while. I decided to go with a 2 3/8" hole saw. If you do this, cut the carpets BEFORE you install the strut bar ... ask me how I know. Now for that rough cut edge ... I grabbed some vacuum hose and slit it down the middle. Gotta buy some more matching vacuum hose, but this is how it looks for now. Pleased with how this came out.

A local July 4th show is coming up in my area, so I'd like to try get some of this suspension work I've been planning on done. Been collecting parts here for a bit. You already saw the front housings I picked up and had powdercoated. I bought a set of Mookeeh rears and some KYB's for the front housings. For today, I'm just work on the rears b/c they're simple. Up front I'd like to also replace the hub bearings, which is going to make the job a bit bigger. Here's a shot of what's on there now. Don't know how long these have been on the car, they are definitely not original b/c this car should have adjustable SHP's, and these are just standard starquest suspension. Time to get these things apart. I picked up some old Eibach's years ago that I've had sitting around, time to put these back into rotation. Back on the car. Rear definitely sits a bit lower now. Definitely better than the wheel gap from before. And to top it all off ... made it to the July 4th show.

I'm going off the top of my head, but if I remember correctly, one of the bolts on the wiper motor mounting plate should have a ground strap wire attached to it. Is it possible that's missing? It's late at night now, but I can check my car tomorrow and take a photo.

I used to use whatever, but then I read on here somewhere years ago that the Castrol High Mileage still has zinc in it as an ingredient - which I guess is good for older car engines. Not sure if that's still true or not. So, I've been using the Castrol ever since a member here shared that. My Starion is the only car I own I use it in. All my other cars and daily drivers I just use whatever oil is on sale at the time. Like Scott said, I change my oil beginning of spring every year no matter the mileage, so think as you change it regularly you're gonna be OK. Scott mentioned the oil pressure - I HIGHLY recommend installing an aftermarket gauge somewhere if you don't have one. Very early on after I restored my car I started getting weird oil pressure readings and ended ripping my car back apart to find a pretty shot oil pump. I was able to replace it and save my freshly built motor from being completely trashed.

And while I'm in here doing electrical things, I'm going swap out the cigarette lighter for a 12V auxiliary port. I just bought one like this at Autozone, it's pretty much the same wiring, so it's an easy swap if you decide you want to do this. Removed the cig lighter. At least I can charge a phone now.

Today I'm knocking out a quick little mod a read about on the site here. I'm going to wire the 2ndary fan to run hot all time, and still let the ECI control the Primary. This should help out a bit with under the hood temperatures. It's pretty easy to do. I made a wire about 2 feet long with a spade on one end and a ring connector on the other. Now we're just hook the ring connector to the negative of the battery. Now, under the car, we're going to disconnect the connector on the thermosensor (drivers side) and plug it instead into our new wire. Key on forward, and you can see the fan is already running. Nice.

Met up with Kev back in June at Carlisle Ford Nationals and he hooked me up with some back a-pillars. It doesn't show in pictures too much, but these tan ones are pretty dirty. The original tan headliner in this car got crushed when the tree fell on the roof, so I have a black headliner now (not sure I'll ever find a non-sunroof tan headliner). These black a-pillars are gonna look so much better against the black headliner, even with the tan leather interior.

Another summer mini-project. I installed this short shifter when I put the car back together. However, the position of it is a bit uncomfortable when driving, so we're gonna fix that today. Started by removing it and taking it COMPELTELY apart. Next up ... gonna torch this thing till it turns red and bend it. Now we just put this back together. That seems like it's gonna be much better.

I've got a long list of little summer mini-projects I want to get to this year. First up ... for some reason the rear lock on my hatch does not work. I decided to take it apart and send it to a locksmith. Unfortunately, he said it was frozen and not fixable. So, I tracked down another rear hatch mechanism from a junkyard and had a key made for it. I just have a separate key for the trunk now. Not a big deal IMO. Decided while I was having these trunk keys I would have an OEM key cut for the car as well. I scored one of these a while back and was waiting until the car was fully restored and running to have it cut. Love how this came out.

At some point in here in the very near future, I'd like to redo all the suspension, another thing I skipped over when I did the restoration. So, I swung by StarQuestResuce's place this June and picked up a spare set of front strut housings to send out for powder so I didn't have to deal with any downtime. Again, not sure when I'm gonna get around to this project, but just trying to have things ready to go when I get to it.

Picked up some other things over the winter months that I'm really excited about. Things that just make the car more "correct". Tracked down a set of Starion Floor mats. Had to pay up for these, but happy to have them. And, thanks to a tip from another member on here, I was able to snap an 88 Starion owners manual off eBay.

It's been a few weeks and everything is back. Time to reinstall. (I picked up an old TEP rear strut bar over the winter that also got powder, that'll wait to be installed till another day though) Here's a closer up of the powder. New sway bar links and sway bar bushings. I started with the rear. Then I moved on to the front. Looks super good, can't wait to feel how much of an improvement this will make with handling. 30 year old components were toast, this was long overdue. Here's where we sit with just a few more weeks till the weather turns.

It's dead of winter (Feb) here in PA, but I'm already starting to think about car show season. Next up, it's time to clean up the front and rear bars and replace all the worn out links that skipped over during the resto. Got the car up in the air to remove the old stuff. These links are toast. Rear sway bar out. Then I put the front up and repeated the process. I'm gonna get this all dropped off for powder now and hopefully get this on the road for this spring and summer.