I wanted to get a thread started even though I don't have pictures of the finished car yet. My friend wanted a del sol but around here they seem to be getting hard to find and most of them are tore up. We decided to pick up one that was really beat up and just fix the whole damned thing to be really nice. It started with body work and ended in a complete rebuild of the engine. I'll make more posts about it later and a list of all we did.



the interior was in severe need of a shampoo

both door handles were broke

he spray painted the freaking rims, and that wafer of metal used to be a rotor

rust

more rust

cut that off to find...more rust :/



All the rust was cut off and/or blasted. We made patch panels out of sheet metal and welded them in. All Metal was used to fill in the low spots. I decided to spare you the ugliness of my attempt at welding. I didn't take a lot of in process pictures because we were busy working. The car was sprayed with high build primer and sanded. Then sprayed with a mercedes color I can't pronounce much less type. Almindenscwarz Metallic? Something like that. Once the body was finished we got to the engine. It wasn't running on all four so we checked compression. Cylinders 1 and 2 had none, I mean none, zero, 0. Here's why...


I got some of my old valves, lapped them in, and tossed the head back on. It sounded good, ran good, and smoked like grandma on bingo night. The rings were toast. I got annoyed and ordered a rebuild kit. We pulled the motor on friday July 5th. We rebuilt it and dropped it back in on Sunday July 7th. That's where we are today. It runs great and sound pretty damn good.

 

Pics of bodywork & paint.

Subscribing. I hope to join the "fixed up an old rustbucket" crew here shortly

 

bless you sir, saving a sol like that. I want to get a another one eventually

 

comming along good lance. Just keep those pix rollin!

Esecially the part where the turbo goes in!!!

*edit: oh yea & make sure u post up that completed paint job.. i wanna check out that color.

 

ive said it before and ill say it again... i love the del sol, almost as much as i love the s2000, the del sol to me is the s2000's baby brother, and to see one take on such a project warms my heart, and i would love to hear the giant turbo woosh when/if it goes on
my buddy has a 94 del sol running a 10.9 something. its gawd awful fast

 

Looks like the main relay is being a homo. :madr: He worked some over time tonight and called me saying the car wouldn't start. I guess it gave him some fits the other day too. He couldn't hear the fuel pump prime, but when I got there I tried and it fired right up. I'll probably have some pics tomorrow since I think I'm going to go over and fix that along with a leaky injector. He's only been getting about 30mpg and we found an injector dripping so I think that's the culprit. There was so much more wrong with this car than I would have ever imagined. He's getting a little sick of fixing stuff but there isn't much left that can go wrong. Hopefully he sticks with it :hs:

 

re-solder all the points on the main-relay, it will usually work again!

 

I resoldered the joints and we'll try it tomorrow, in the mean time here's some crappy cell pics. I really need to take some good ones.

 

awesome job on the bodywork :thumbup: Tell your friend he's a sissy if he quits... great progress.

 

not bad.. engine bay is lookin pretty good too.