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.
A few showing the heinous rust holes.
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
Measuring
Welded
Assembled
Cut 1 1/2" from the ends off of a bent set of arms from my wrecked car.
Then welded them onto another set of arms, and boxed the arms all up.
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.
Here's the arm all bolted up.
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.
Here's the stock shocks compared to the pro-comp ones.
Once the suspension was done I had a bit of a fender gap that needed filling.
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.
Here's what it looked like when I got it home.
A few showing the heinous rust holes.
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
Measuring
Welded
Assembled
Cut 1 1/2" from the ends off of a bent set of arms from my wrecked car.
Then welded them onto another set of arms, and boxed the arms all up.
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.
Here's the arm all bolted up.
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.
Here's the stock shocks compared to the pro-comp ones.
Once the suspension was done I had a bit of a fender gap that needed filling.
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.