JEC-31

Saturday was cleaning day, so I decided to rake all the leaves and dead cars out of my backyard. I had already taken off every good part and many marginal parts from the '82 parts heap so I called one of a local wrecker-scavenger to come take the rotten shell away. He did, and for a short time my backyard looked slightly more civilized.

4 hours later the guy unexpectedly returned with a little present for me. Turns out that someone else was cleaning out their yard that day, and had gotten rid of a clean white '85 GS with only 117,000 miles on it. "Motor's dead" was the word but I saw a dirty set of spark plugs and wires that had not been touched in ages so a glimmer of hope kindled in my sick little RX-7 addicted brain.

I hemmed, hawed, and grumbled about the flaking-off paint and tow-truck damage to the under-fascia and how I hated the red, ripped, and smoked-in interior. Then I fetched the trusty cordless and yanked the driver's side storage bin - and saw an ugly little rust spot. This little GS's cancer was not advanced yet. But I was visibly disappointed, and offered the guy $100. "Where do y'want it?" he quickly replied. "Doesn't matter, my wife is going to kill me and sell it anyway", I told him.
He made $20 plus the scrap price of the parts car off me in one day. That might've paid for the gasoline his big-block wrecker used up just bringing me my new toy.

So far I haven't got it running yet, as the starter mysteriously died as soon as I got the new plugs (old ones: fouled with gas but no oil yaayyy!), wires, cap, rotor, and a shot of ATF in.



But the best part? See below for what I found in the other storage bin!

Updates tomorrow...

SoRRoW

Hey...looks nice for 100. its worth it already..

Now if thats a OEM glass top..sell it to me for $50. and you made half back

JEC-31

Padded leather bra, with leather case, very nice condition.

Anybody want it? It's going in the Forum classifieds and Thepartstrader.com today.

SoRRoW

I doubt its leather.... more like pleather..plastic leather.. (vinyl)

JEC-31

The glass top is not OEM (it's about 2/3 of the size), and if it was it would not be for sale, and if I had one to sell it would be for much more than what I paid for the car.

Make me an offer on the bra, though.

Someone bought this GS and then aftermarketed it up to be a GSL-wannabe. They put on a bra, a glass sunroof (which shows absolutely no signs of leakage, suprisingly), and a strange cruise control, which I removed immediately:

Directfreak

iTrader: (2)

I'll Take her!!

V8kilr

let me know if you need a hand, if kentwood is anywhere around eastpointe

slag

Will the bra fit a 79? If so, I'm interested in it.

Thanks

JEC-31

V8kilr: Kentwood's the southern suburb of Grand Rapids. 'Tis a boring place but I call it home. If you want to drive across the state to help me sacrifice some boingers to the rotary gods, c'mon over. Look for the clouds of burning ATF.

slag: I have no clue if the bra will fit a '79 (but I'm pretty sure it won't fit Directfreak's posted hoochie mama...). As we all know, the front fascia is different and I don't even know how this bra attaches to this '85.

Maybe after I get it running I'll put the bra on for '80s nite at the local bar.

PistonKilla

100 bucks you got a sweet deal, looks really nice and even better for a C note

JEC-31

UPDATE:

Still no spark of life. I had assumed the starter died while I was cranking it, because it stopped turning the motor and started making a chattering noise.
But after swapping in the known good starter from my other '85 GS (a heartbreaker: low miles, bought from original owner, massive wheel well rust) I got nothing. Turn the key, hear pops from the speakers and fuel-pump whine - but nothing from the motor. No spin.

OK there's two possibilities:
1) Wiring faults. The wipers do not work, the (original) stereo gets power but no sound, and whoever installed the aftermarket cruise control (which I cut out, possibly shorting something in the process?) had done some pretty odd wiring. I'm planning on replacing the fusible links tonight. I love having an identical complete parts car!

2) Carbon Lock. The car probably sat for quite some time, so it's likely that when I doused the innards of this 12A with ATF (and a shot of starting fluid) a chunk of carbon deposit was loosened and got wedged in under an apex seal, freezing all rotary motion and causing the old starter to slip a tooth and chatter (several of it's teeth have damage of indeterminate age). Then I need to have my buddy push start me.

Other discoveries:
The catalytic converters had been replaced, recently, with a straight pipe and flex housing. Whoever did this did a half-*** job, just letting the little air-tube hang loose and kinda-almost hammering shut the big airpump-to-cat tube. I used a massive C-clamp to press-seal the big one and a wood screw to seal the little one for now. Later I'll strip all this crap and put a header on.

Under the car I noticed a bit of thin rope wound around one of the exhaust hangers. Then I saw that the friggin' speedometer cable was tied up to it! I looked to the tail of the tranny, and sure enough the speedo hole was empty except for lots of dirt. I could tell someone had worked on the tranny, the heatshield is bent back in places. What kind of mechanic remembers to plug in the tiny reverse light wires and forgets the huge speedo cable? The same one who lost the rubber plug on the bottom of the bellhousing, so that there's water under the flywheel. Bastard.

Wish me luck.