1980 242 GT. A reasonable project.

Indeed it is, very nice to the eye, too bad about the oil consumption.

turbotankshane said:

Your car is incredibly well put together Tom, keep up the good work.

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Funkee said:

Indeed it is, very nice to the eye, too bad about the oil consumption.

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Thank you! I appreciate that, despite the problems I've had with it.


On that note, did another test trying to track down problems last night. It's a bit ridiculous how many tests I've done that have all appeared to be fine. Justus (justlie) and I teed a pressure sender into a coolant line to monitor cooling system pressure while driving around. Basically, we found it was sitting right around ~21psi the whole time, which seems to be expected behavior for the green cap. There were no pressure spikes at any time while driving, regardless of rpm or boost.


I actually moved the sensor down below the coolant level after taking this photo, to ensure there would be coolant in the line.



with obligatory "anti-scratch" tape.





Afterward, we pulled the #5 spark plug (which previously appeared to have green barnacles on it after <1,000 miles of use) and noticed a little puddle of coolant on the top of the piston. Plan is to pull the head once I finish applying Rustoleum RockSolid polycuramine on the floor of my garage in the next week or so. I'm expecting to find a crack in the head, and may end up just picking up an entire lower mileage engine with the newer style head and solid lifters.



and here it sits...

21psi???? Is that the relief pressure on the cap? Does the coolant smell like combustion?

cosbySweater said:

21psi???? Is that the relief pressure on the cap? Does the coolant smell like combustion?

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Green cap is 150kpa

Love how clean this thing is. I agree with you about it not being the valve stem seals, the ones in my S70 are bad and it blows clouds at startup. I'd say you should use a coolant test kit but the water on top of the piston speaks for itself. I'm sure you'll get it handled no problem.

Killer garage space

I should mention that I also did a combustion leak test on the cooling system, using the tester that pulls vacuum on the reservoir through a blue test fluid. That test showed no combustion gases leaking into the coolant.

I have yet to see any test ‘fail’ or give solid indicators of the source of the problem (compression, leakdown, combustion leak, coolant pressure with engine off, coolant pressure leakdown overnight, coolant pressure while driving). Best indicator so far was the coolant sitting on the piston in cyl 5. I’m guessing cracked head, but we’ll see once I pull it apart.

sad panda....

This is a long post without a happy ending (yet).

TL;DR: I did some work on my garage and the 242 is taken apart. The turbo was rebuilt, a replacement head was sourced and it's now being prepped at a shop before reinstall.



Picking up where I left off in the last post... I coated the garage floor with Rustoleum RockSolid polycuramine.


A lot of powerwashing...

Some acid etching, crack filling, more powerwashing...

And installation of overhead garage door thresholds.

Roll out coating on half of the floor


Look at the car outside and miss driving it


Roll out the other half of the floor


Insulate garage walls


Throw up sheetrock before the snow started falling and cars were trapped inside


Get distracted by lots of other house projects, like having 118 year old maple floors refinished.







Install another strip of lights above the workbench area to generate motivation to look at the car


Finally, I got back to looking at the 242. A couple friends came by and we pulled the head to find that the gasket had failed. It wasn't entirely broken, but rather close.



Happily, everything else on the bottom end looked as expected.


At this point, the garage is starting to fill up. I have a lot of organization to do, in addition to finishing the walls, removing some of the attic to make room for a lift, painting everything, etc.


Somewhere along the way, I saw a nice set of 17x9 BBS RC305 for sale and couldn't resist. Almost identical to what I've had on the car except 1" wider.





However, the big selling point was that they included the somewhat uncommon(or at least costly) centercaps.


Test fit looks very promising. I just ordered a set of 245/40R17 Pirelli P Zero Nero GT for them while Tire Rack was running a pretty good deal on them.




With everything apart from removing the head, I decided to send off the turbo to Boost Lab in Florida to be inspected. That resulted in a new Garrett compressor wheel and rebuild. Wasn't super happy about that, but glad that I sent it out while it was convenient.


It wasn't until later that I really inspected the head. There is some pretty nasty damage from detonation right where the fire ring would seal. It's fairly deep, so this head is getting scrapped.




I picked up another head from a dismantler. This is currently off at a shop getting cleaned, brass liners installed in the exhaust valve guides, a valve job and then resurfaced.

I took the opportunity to try out a new color (wrinkle black) this time when I sent out the cam cover for powdercoat.

What happened to the compressor wheel to warrant a new one?

t8fanning said:

What happened to the compressor wheel to warrant a new one?

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Not sure of the source, but it was foreign object damage. A piece of air filter or perhaps something else small fell into the intake pipe while I was servicing it. It's a bit of a mystery to me. An expensive one.

The Full Banana said:

Not sure of the source, but it was foreign object damage. A piece of air filter or perhaps something else small fell into the intake pipe while I was servicing it. It's a bit of a mystery to me. An expensive one.

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Sorry to hear it. That's a shame. At least it's fixed properly.

Looks like you've been staying busy. Thanks for the lead on your garage lights, I bought some for my dirt bike shed. Also motivating me to do something with my garage beyond parking in it.

Nice looking set of wheels!

dat e28

Stiggy Pop said:

Thanks for the lead on your garage lights

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Tell me more.

12david34 said:

dat e28

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Srsly.

doucheNozzle said:

Tell me more.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MUAX40D/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Awesome progress report even if you're not enjoying all the fruits yet.

You have inspired me to go out in the garage and look at my 245! Maybe it will start to build itself if I look hard enough.

Progress is progress man, celebrate the small victories!

More info on the e28? It looks gorgeous! Also, nice job on the house floors, they turned out great! We need to do similar to the oak floors in our early-60's ranch. But, before that, we have to deal with foundation settling issues, and new gutters, and the crumbling, driveway, and....(screw this house, let's build something newer...lol)

MoCounselor said:

More info on the e28?

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Here are some pictures. PM if you want specific details. Not gonna threadjack.

https://ibb.co/album/fRhRiv

I want one so bad