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Dan's Excursion/Beater Wagon.

crandandall

Turbobricks Low Life
Joined
Feb 16, 2004
Location
Portland, Oregon
Picked up this 1989 245 a coulple years ago from Nick (6kyellowline). He needed to get rid of it before it got towed from his apartment complex. I offered to store it at my place for him, but he said that if I showed up with a 30 pack of bud light that I could have the car. Drove down to Davis with some tools and an alternator, installed the alternator and the car fired right up. I gave Nick his beer and drove home. The car wasn't in great shape by any means, the headligt bracket was broken, left rear brake caliper was siezed, and it had rust holes all over. I didn't really have a plan for what I was gonna do with it at the time, but I figured it was a good running b230 with LH 2.4 and an M47 tranny, if all else fails I could at least use the drive train. The car sat around for a little over 2 years and during that time I decided to make it my expedition vehicle/beater.


Here's what it looked like when I got it home.

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A few showing the heinous rust holes.

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First on the list was the suspension, I decided to use the stock front springs and slide the seats 2.5" up on the tubes. I had a set of Bilstein inserts, so I used those. The lower control arms are extended 1.5" For the rear I used Jeep cherokee front springs with some Pro-Comp shocks for the front of a lifted S-10. Got the springs for free from a coworker and the shocks were $35 from summit.


Spring seat separated from tube

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Measuring

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Welded

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Assembled

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Cut 1 1/2" from the ends off of a bent set of arms from my wrecked car.

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Then welded them onto another set of arms, and boxed the arms all up.

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Extending the arm 1.5" put the rear ball joint bolt directly under the sway bar link bracket on the arm, so I had to make these brackets to replace them.

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Here's the arm all bolted up.

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Here's what the rear suspension looks like with the pro-comp shocks. You can also see the cheesy side exit that I threw together after I cut the rear muffler off.

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Here's the stock shocks compared to the pro-comp ones.

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Once the suspension was done I had a bit of a fender gap that needed filling.

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I picked up some 235/75/15 Goodyear Wrangler Radials for $75 each. That required a bit of "massaging" of the sheetmetal with a 3lb sledge, sawzall, and porta power, but they eventually fit.

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exhaust through the hood. NOW!
plus gangster roof rack and light bar.
LOVE this car, so much win already!
 
The stereo consists of an Eclipse CD3200 head unit, Alpine MRP-M450 monoblock amp, Alpine MRP-F250 4-channel amp, CDT CL-61 6.5" components in the lower portion of the front doors, Eclipse 4" components under the stock grilles in the front doors, CDT CL-6 6.5" two ways in the rear doors, and an Eclipse 12" Sub. The CDT speakers are driven from the 4 channel amp, and the 4" speakers in the front doors are driven from the head unit. I used 1" spacer rings as mounting "pods" for the 6.5's, for the 4 inchers I had to make a 1/4" spacer from some plywood that sandwich between the speakers and the doors.

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I started building a rack from 3/4" EMT conduit (ala slammed145). The rack will serve double duty as a cargo/bike/snowboard/light rack. I have 4 Hella 550 driving lights that will mount up front (hence the slight kick up on the front). I plan on making attatchments so that I can use Yakima bars and accessories for bikes/snowboards. The overall dimensions are 94"L x 43"W x 5"D. Not quite finished yet, but it's coming along pretty well.

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So that's pretty much how it sits now. Definitely have some future plans for it, not in any particular order.


-G80 and 4.10's from Jered
-Quick and dirty +T
-Finish Rack, mount lights
-Mount auxillary battery, isolating relay and controller, and fuse/relay block for electrical accessories in spare tire well. (Have)
-Mount Hella 700FF's on front bumper. (Have)
-Build prerunner style front bumper/skidplate
-Build rear tube bumper/tire carrier/hitch
 
The turd lives!! I thought for sure that car had been crushed a long time ago. Good job breathing new life into it. Needs more speed dents.
 
From the one pic of it lifted, it looks like the back isn't as lifted as the front. Otherwise, I heartily approve.

The back does sit a bit lower than the front. I'm going to put some 1" pucks between the upper mounts and the frame rail to level it out. The jeep springs lifted the rear about 1.5". Also, the profile on the front fenders has changed quite a bit because I stretched them out almost 2" to cover the tires, so the fender gap is larger than it would be with unmodified fenders. The front track width is ~3" wider.
 
Seriously i would be slightly concerned with not having enough droop travel. But im sure if theres a problem Dan will solve it.
 
Sweet jesus what have I started.....

How is the up travel at 2.5"? Any bottoming up ?

Seriously i would be slightly concerned with not having enough droop travel. But im sure if theres a problem Dan will solve it.

I haven't actually put it through the ringer yet, but going down the road it seems to be ok. I'll probably end up extending the strut tubes if droop travel becomes an issue. I think i'm going to cut 1/2 coil from the front springs to level it a bit and help with the travel in the meantime.
 
Sounds like a good solution.

I forgot to mention that i like your stereo setup i need something like that in my DD. Is that what was in the blue wagon?
 
Sounds like a good solution.

I forgot to mention that i like your stereo setup i need something like that in my DD. Is that what was in the blue wagon?
 
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