KP's 1989 AE92 GTi-16
KP's 1989 AE92 GTi-16
Hi all,
Two things are coming your way, and epic wall of text and a truck load of pictures
First things first, the story and thus - epic W.O.T.
I purchased my GTi way back in 2008 when I was 14, she set my back a lovely £495 and another £5.01 in fuel to get her home, which meant I was already over the £500 budget. Great. :laugh:
The night I got her home I stripped her straight down inside, and then out, only to reveal my "little pre driving project" had become a mountainous and pretty epic list of faults, niggles, glitches and wallet draining tasks.
Here is the extent of the damage:
These pictures were taken at a later date from the original strip down so the car is at different stages -
The Sills were... what sills?
Rear Suspension Turrets were revealing daylight:
The Sunroof was ridiculous:
All four arches had rotten out:
My N/S B-Pillar had gone too:
Rear Corners had bitten it:
So at this point I was 14, had no money, no tools and a single garage. I had two choices 1. Tank on with the rolla or 2. Scrap her for £50, buy loads of Monster energy and play COD for the rest of my youth.
I chose 1. and I am yet to decided if that was the right choice....
Anyway, work began and the first job was to replace the Gasket, Clutch and generally learn the basics of an engine:
It looked ok for a 20 year old motor:
Not before too long she was stripped down further to be patched and painted:
I started to make the engine look pretty:
And then put it back together:
At this point I was going to have the engine bay and car resprayed and reassembled at a garage, so the engine had to rest in there and then be taken back out for the respray.
We got her there and soon enough she was clad with fresh Lexus 040-1 Super White in the Bay:
Sadly the garage closed down during the respray so we had to find another way of getting her done...
During the search time and saving period for the respray, I decided to get her engine working properly. I had countless issues this being my first build and all but eventually I got her there and she sounded great. However I only truly got her engine operating perfectly and the car driving post respray. There are a lot of cross over periods with this, and even times when I had to take a break. This Project can take so much from me which you will later see :glare:
She then arrived at my new location with all the bodywork patched and sprayed and even a new blue tint screen to freshen it up
I had a couple of months to then get her to her first show - Japfest 2011
The Interior goes back in for the first time in over 2 and 1/2 years:
She is now close to completion.... but BAM, the water pump packed in, now I won't name names, but it turns out that the bloke who put the pump in did so with 1 out of 5 bolts. His initials are KPJ... but I wont reveal him. :laugh:
Still, I carried on:
Skirts now fitted up:
I had a Carbon sunroof on order from the US which was 3 months late to arrive, but then turned out not to fit. So a week before the show I had to bodge an old spare for a temporary fix..
Eventually she was ready for her MOT!
But as she arrived at the centre, we found her pouring oil out al over the place... off the road she went again:
It then turned out that she needed a new Handbrake, Rear Calliper and rocker gaskets along with a few other bits and pieces. Not cool, as this was another £300!
But after all that she passed! And it was time for the sunroof to be wrapped and the final pre-show prep:
The day before the show me and a group of friends all went balls out and finished her off:
*Painted Callipers
*Painted Splash Guards
*Fit Boot Slam Panel Bungs
*Clean Interior
*Clean Engine Bay
*Fit New Clean Plates
*Polish and wax the whole car
Our efforts paid off and she made it to the show, albeit a little steamed due to a loose water pipe:
I even treated her to some Badges:
I had finally built my dream machine and I couldn't be happier, she had made it to her first show with the Club I had started to keep these rare Jap Hatches alive
BUT as always there was a kick in the face....
On the way to view and R32 GTST Skyline she developed a knocking noise, and I took it upon myself to strip the engine back down and sort any problems myself...
This is why you tighten water junctions...
She's out;
Home and separated from the 'Box;
Sump off;
Annoyingly, having checked each Big-End carefully the whole Bottom End appears to be absolutely spot on with no issues!! So next stop is removing the Caps and checking the Bearings themselves. I found two very small metal shavings in there but I couldn't be sure of what they were from.
Scored Horribly:
Metallic Paste:
Bearing 2 was utterly Mullered!:
Here's the Video:
[youtube]idWchJj6rE0[/youtube]
So after all this I thought I'd bring the engine and bay up to scratch, I was never happy with it and it needed redoing:
They're whiter than they all look!
Silver Pump:
The Tensioner Pulley Assembly is in one piece now and looking ace IMO. Here are a few more pictures: