Well, it happened again..... I finally was able to locate a car worthy of some time and effort to restore/build into the Cavalier I have been wanting for years.
1990 Z24, auto trans, that has 110,000 miles on it. Paint code L9346 which is bright blue. I was able to buy it from the original owners. They drove it until 1997 then stored it in a barn for the last 19 years.
Funny thing is that I found it 70 miles from my house and I have been looking for a car all over the country. Super glad to find one close to home and one that didnt require me driving across the country to find.
I went and picked it up yesterday. The body is a 9 out of 10 for condition. Great paint, only three small dents and almost no scratches to be seen. Very minimal rust on the bottom of the passenger door and some light rust on the undercarriage but clean everywhere else. Mechanically it is rough, engine wont run, brake lines have been chewed through, tires rotten, etc......
Short term plan is to strip and install my 3400, 5-speed, suspension, brakes, and interior. Long term is a turbo 3400/3500 build.
I will keep this thread updated as the long teardown and rebuilding process begins. Check the BST forum for a parts thread soon as I will be unloading a ton of phase one and phase two parts.
Great find. It looks Fantastic. The gages look like new, no sun fading of the red marks at all. Is that the clear plastic peel off protective film still on the wiper switch?
Yup, Im excited for the trunklid.... love the clean look.
Got the car out the other day to wash it, paint still looks good, although it will need some good detailing to get rid of all the swirls, etc.... only a few chips and scratches to fix though.
Few updates. Got the engine and transmission out of the car, been awhile since I pulled the 3.1 with an automatic transmission attached. Took a bit longer than I had expected... now going to strip the engine and bring in the aluminum for scrap. May make a table and clock out of some of the engine parts.
Starting mocking up some new gauge locations in the phase two dash as I have the pad off while I de-rust and paint the dash frame. I am going to have a need for a few more gauges than I had in the 92'Z and want it to look as stock as possible for the placement.
Stripped the engine bay, wire wheeled any parts where there was a sign of corrosion. After that I will degrease, acid etch, spray rust encapsulator, then topcoat with a two-part paint.
Also tore out half of the interior. Found mice had shacked up in the HVAC vents while it was stored for 19 years..... no surprise there!
The mouse nest reminds me of an old Grand Prix I had many years ago. It sat for a while and mice got in it. I didn't know it though. I got it back on the road and during it's first test drive a mouse came out of the defroster vent. It ran across the dash a couple times, jumped up onto the steering wheel and went back and forth on it, then jumped out the drivers side window! I saw the poor thing rolling on the road in the side mirror. I only went a mile or so up the road and turned around. When I got back to the spot where the mouse bailed out, I looked for it. I didn't see it laying in the road anywhere. So, either a bird got it that quickly or it lived and ran off. I wasn't going very fast when it jumped, so it may have lived. I'd like to think it did and found a new home to live in peace somewhere. True story.
Oh yeah, I meant to ask you how you got the dash pad off of the Phase II dash core?
Are you going to put it back on or do something else? If you are going to put it back on, please do a 'How To' on that :wink:
That is crazy what that mouse did on your shake down drive!
The dash pad on the phase two dash was partially off after sitting in my basement for 6 years, so I just used a few plastic pry bars to work it the rest of the way off. I've got some great 3M automotive contact adhesive that I will use to get it back on when I am done with the gauge fiber glassing.
Had a bit more time to work on the car over the past week. Got the engine bay prepped. Internal frame coating sprayed inside of the unibody rails and in the radiator supports. Re-seam sealed where necessary and applied the top coat to the engine bay.
Next focus is on the interior. Need to fully strip out what remains of the old interior, repair any corrosion that I may find, paint and sound deaden before the wiring phase begins.
Tore out the rest of the HVAC components and all of the firewall mat and carpet/underlayment.
Found two more huge mouse nests behind the rear quarter panel interior panels.
Also a bit more corrosion than I expected. Had to spend a couple hours with the wire wheel and acid etch to prep the floorpan and firewall for paint.
I hope to get the rust encapsulator down tomorrow after everything dries. Then I have some butyl-based mass damping material and some closed cell foam to apply to the entire interior before I begin re-assembly.
I wonder if you should have top coated the rust encapsulator with a regular primer while its still in its re-coat window? If its like any of the other MCU products its gona be a bitch to scuff later on to prime and paint over.
I wonder if you should have top coated the rust encapsulator with a regular primer while its still in its re-coat window? If its like any of the other MCU products its gona be a bitch to scuff later on to prime and paint over.
For sure! They recommend to apply the topcoat within 3 days, if you topcoat later, you should scuff up the paint first for better adhesion. If I didnt have time to topcoat right away, laying down primer would have been a great idea to allow me to topcoat when I have more time.
What was the condition of the wiring underneath everything? How do you plan on routing everything when you put it all back in? I've stripped an interior before and there were enough broken clips and ripped out wiring I didn't see that I don't ever want to do that again.
The harness was in pretty decent shape. Although, i am using the engine and dash harness out of my old 1992 z24. The only portion of the harness that im keeping from the 1990 is the rear chassis harness.
Man I haven't been on this site forever. Still wish there was a better option for it on an iPhone.
Anyways you are one hell of a busy beaver. Everything looks great so far. Does anyone notice he's doing this in a one car garage?!! Major props on that one.
What's your overall outcome want to be with this?
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