I have been close with my niece all her life and she is a great kid. I looked at the bullet hole as something quite different… As a teenager of driving age I remember going to a buddies house and us shooting his. So for her graduation, her mother was going to help her buy her a car. Would love to have you here as well. That is where I stepped in as the uncle. As I ponder this car I look it over… it has its share of underside rust pickling not uncommon for an Ohio car of this Era to have and the complete lack of any exhaust system a straight pipe. This naturally brought up the question of how he acquired the car… He did not go into full details, but what I could gather it was owned by a student of his and he had worked on it before… including replacing the 5th gear on the transmission, which was a known problem for this car Later as I would tell this story about the bullet hole I was surprised at the amount of people who found this very disturbing….
I proceeded to remove the timing components, waterpump and Oil pump. She had never really had a car of her own due to her being a poor college student. I asked him numerous questions about the car and a little about him … He stated he worked as an automotive shop class instructor and had worked for a Major Toyota Dealership in Columbus for 20 years. After that I removed the intake manifold and fuel rail. Replaced Radiator and condenser and fixed the Air conditioning Replaced tires they were mismatched A pic of the car. Replaced the brakes Put in entire new exhaust system. I'll even buy the beverages! She is currently a camp counselor in Colorado and does not need a car for the summer, so I have until August 15th to complete the work.
Which is north of Mount Vernon, Ohio in the middle of nowhere…. I have: Rebuilt the engine. Here is front with air cleaner assembly and evap container removed. She wanted a car that got good gas mileage, was small and believe it or not, a manual transmission. When I heard back from the machine shop, they said everything looked good. So I flipped the engine over and removed the oil pan. The bearings did not show much wear and the rings looked good.
Stay tuned for lots more pics and story of the rebuild and bringing this car back to life. My Hard drive crashed, fortunately I had most photos stored on my phone. A few months ago, my Niece graduated from the University of Cincinnatti, and we were all very proud of her. All total around 4 hours work for me to drop this on the ground. I could order a standard re-build kit. A trip to the junkyard for another knuckle and a new bearing and seals. No damage done, no need for oversized pistons or bearings.
So I will be dropping some coin on this car. . Clearly the head was bad, and I did not know how long it had been driven in this condition. In the end, I ended up having to re-do the drivers side. Here is a picture of the engine turned upside down. So I will make this easy for myself and just work on the engine out of the car. Now After I removed the head, I was at an impasse.
I want her to have a safe, reliable car that will last for years. Also went to pick and pull and picked up new metal support bracket to replace the one which had been slightly bent. Since she is going to live in Colorado, I wanted her to have something with All Wheel Drive and would be sure-footed during inclimate weather. I decided I was going to tear it down and inspect the bearings and the pistons. Inspecting the pistons showed the were slightly washed on the sides, but overall in good condition. And, since this is a 4 X 4, the only way to replace the clutch was to drop the engine out the bottom. I drove up and the Seller met me after I rang his doorbell.
Serious bearing damage could have been done due to coolant in the oil. He hands the title over to me with the exchange of the remaining cash… A clean title and a car that needs a lot of work…. They cleaned and honed the block, polished the crank and measured and balanced the pistons. Like it was a murder scene or something…. Here is the damage to the radiator and condenser.
Then I removed around 10 rusted 10mm 6 X 1. It appears someone hit something head on and pushed the bumper back into the condenser, which in turn pushed the condenser into direct contact with the radiator. Note I have removed the condenser and radiator already. Put in a box for storage had many boxes getting filled up Before I even removed the head, I ordered a rebuilt head from Cylinder Heads international. Got shipped the wrong head. There is no doubt that I will put some money into this car. Replace the wheel bearings and a steering knuckle.
Stripped down to bare block Removed the engine twice. Namely the frustration was that the head location combined with a rear plenum provided little access to remove the head… Couple this with miniscule access to the timing cover and I could sense the frustration as well. Also pulled a new bumper. The steering knuckle was bent. I noticed when I removed the radiator and condenser, they were both damaged.