Picked up this 1984 GSL-SE for free (Has $700 of back due fees on it) a few weeks ago and am starting to get into fixing it. It has an S4 NA motor in it with 60k miles and the car is pretty straight. The P/O told me that it has a 4krpm stuttering/hesitation, which I will address after I get the brakes and leaks finished.

Here's the day I got it:


I went ahead and fixed a super easy thing that bothered me first-the dead hatch struts. New struts and the hatch is almost too hard to close now. No more broom handle here!


The MAIN problem with the car is that the brakes don't work at all. I went ahead and looked around to find that the brake master cylinder and the brake booster both leaked. Here's a picture of the brake booster where it meets the master cylinder:

Doesn't that look tasty?

While I was removing it I noticed that the clutch master cylinder leaks too...


The frame rail and other parts around where they leaked don't have any paint covering them anymore. Here's a picture of everything removed:


You can kind of see where it's bare metal.

Anyways I have a new clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder, and a braided steel clutch line on the way right now.

To address the brake issue I already have the new brake booster here and brake master cylinder, but I'm waiting to re-install until I figure out what to do about the bare metal on the car. Originally I was going to sand it, rattle can self etching primer, then primer, then some duplicolor white the small area, then removing the motor down the road to paint the engine bay. After thinking this over I decided that painting the engine bay is going to be WAY too much work.

I'm thinking my best bet for now is to sand where I can and use a paint brush to apply POR-15, as I've had good luck with this product on a 240z I had years back. I figure when I paint the car white the black engine bay shouldn't bother me THAT much...hopefully.

SO I'm going to pick up some POR-15 tomorrow after work and see how well I can brush it on the bare metal areas. I'm going to use it UNDER the car too where the undercoating peeled off due to the brake fluid leak. I live in California, so hopefully rust won't become an issue.

I've also got some 195/60/14 Federal SS-595 on order. They were $48 each, so I figure they're worth trying. Once everything is said and done I'll pick up some Falken Azeni RT-615's.

I'll update this as I accomplish things.

 

my FC was like that, i just stripped, cleaned and painted in a color that was close, and a few years later its hard to spot

 

That upper bolt on the clutch master cylinder is a PIA. Looking forward to the build. Where did you get the brake master cylinder and booster from?

 

Nice find! POR-15 is in my opinion the best way to go, but if rust isn't an issue in general, then you might not even need it in that area - just light sanding in the area to feather in the edges and give the paint something to grab onto, then prime it and paint it with some body color. But, the POR-15 is (relatively) cheap insurance. You definitely can't go wrong with it.

So was the car impounded for back taxes and you bought it from a tax sale? How do you get the title? Is a new title issued to you? Just curious. Can't wait to see the progress you make.

 

CA is a weird state, sometimes cars come with all these back registration fees that haven't been paid, but then sometimes the state just takes the registration fees out of your paycheck. no rhyme or reason.

 

So I picked the car up from my friend, who got it from his friend. The car didn't run at the time and he paid like $210 of fees on it, but they wouldn't transfer it to him until he smogged it. Can't really smog a car that doesn't run...then the pink slip was stolen, so now I've got 2 bill of sales-one from his friend to him and one from him to me. Not sure how the fees piled up that high. I've got an appointment with the DMV in 2 weeks, so hopefully I can get some of this sorted out.

The bolt wasn't too bad, I just used a deep socket, wobble, and a long extension.

There's no room for me to actually spray anywhere in the engine bay, so I'm going with the brush method. The steering column is in my way and I think it would be too much work to remove it. I recall when I did the interior of my old 240z with the POR-15 it laid out really nice and you couldn't even see the brush marks, so it'll do until way later when I get fed up and yank the engine to paint the bay.

The store didn't have POR-15, so I just ordered it online. Right now I can't do much on the car until it gets here.

I'm tempted to pull the dash, seats, and carpet so I can steam clean the carpet and seats and wipe up any brake fluid that may be under there. Could be something to do while I wait for my stuff to get delivered.

 

Been busy with firearm stuff and home improvement stuff, but managed to get about 4 hours of work done on the car. I finally got the POR-15 in and decided to make some progress. I sanded the affected area with 80 grit, but soon realized that the undercoating loss was a larger area than I thought. I had to use an impact to remove the wheel and even then it wouldn't come off until I kicked the wheel about 10 times. I really wanted to get the POR-15 on there tonight, but it needs to be 100% dry and I don't want to risk it. Here's a picture of the area that's been prepped and awaiting POR-15:

You can see that I tried the self etching primer, but the POR-15 seems to be the better route.

While the in between degreasing and metal prep I decided to install the braided steel brake line and a speed bleeder valve (not shown):


Tomorrow I'm going to town with the POR-15 and Wednesday I've got an appointment at the DMV to hopefully get the paperwork sorted out. My goal is by the end of the week I want the braided brake lines , the brake master & booster, the clutch master, slave, & braided line, and have them all bled.

I think the biggest holdup for me is going to be tires...they're on backorder. That gives me time to sort out the interior though.

 

POR-15 is on, braided steel brake lines are on all 4 corners and speed bleeders, dmv is sorted out (paid $400, just need to smog it and I get plates ), brake booster and brake master cylinder is installed. Brakes are all bled. I installed the new slave cylinder and braided clutch line.

Rock Auto sent me the wrong clutch slave cylinder, so now I'm waiting for the correct one to show up. Tires are still on backorder.

I've still got to wire up the Taurus fan and figure out the bogging issue with the engine. It bogs under moderate to heavy throttle input.

 

Clutch master cylinder is on and bled. My neighbor (a fellow rotor head) came over and we pulled my upper and lower intake manifold, so I could clean and un-stick one of the auxiliary ports. It's all torn apart now and I'm ordering the new gaskets now. Going to get a banjo bolt while all this crap is off too.
Also there's nasty gunk in the center intake ports...