Next challenge was to trailer it from Ohio to Maryland the day after Thanksgiving. Well we kind of did it with our Honda Odyssey minivan.

You may be wondering how well the Honda minivan did during that 500 mile trip. Well it is 17 years old and I have only done minimal maintenance to this Honda Odyssey except change the alternator, drive shafts and routine maintenance (engine oil, some tires and batteries). That 170k mile transmission with 17 year old fluid did not like the weight of the trailer and ShelbyZ weight and gave up around Somerset, PA when trying to climb up the 3,000 ft. mountain. I should have changed the transmission fluid years ago. Luckily, I have friends who know a lot about Hondas, told me the transmission fluid probably boiled (it was like burnt coffee) and if I changed the transmission fluid, it should shift properly and could get it back home. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving everything was closed except for a godsend Walmart. At the Walmart got transmission fluid, tools and a pan to recycle the old trany fluid. In the Walmart parking lot, while snowing, changed the trany fluid and was back on the road with the Odyssey shifting rough but made it home. As for the Honda, when I got home, did two transmission flushes with the correct trany oil and replaced the clogged filter. That was all it needed, now it shifts like new. For those with a Honda Odyssey those lifetime trany filters if not replaced will kill your minivan. I guess that is why they/dealer call it a lifetime filter.

 

Very cool. Our kids are going to be driving twins.

Welcome have fun building.

We paid $2500 up front bout 2k in parts already. Still need to do brake hardline up front, potentially some rear lines.

Runs right now with a li'l bit of blow by at idle. But could prob run it. Needs the core plugs pulled and redone though so pullin whole motor!

Enjoy!

 

About a year and a half ago I helped my son pick up his first car. We got a 1990 Dayton ES Turbo 1 5-speed. Spent about 3-4 months to get it going again. He has beat the dog snot out of it, but we have kept it going.

 

I guess all three of our sons like the louvers, since they are keeping it on their cars. I never cared for them as it makes the hatch very heavy.

 

If your sons are into electronics as mine... He wanted a keyless entry with remote, since our cars did not come with one. We just installed it. It's fairly easy, installed in 2.5 hours and can be found on Amazon for under $30 sometimes. You need to get the DEI/ Avital # 2101 because it comes with built in relays for it to work on our reverse polarity power door lock system. I posted the installation blog on here as a seperate post, for you all to use and also attached.

 

Very nice. My 2nd turbo dodge was also an 87 Shelby Z from Ohio back in 1996. Ended up getting a temporary tag and driving it home to NY...warped rotors and all!

 

We started tearing into the engine. Well of course this car has a bad headgasket. You can see where at cylinder #1 the gasket is deformed and maybe also leaking at cylinder #4. Does anyone know if this is the original headgasket or what is the brand?

While we have everything taken apart, will check the head for warpage. We are also going to tackle the leaking power steering lines and pump, starter, all coolant lines, thermostat, water pump and give it all new belts, since they seem to be very old. The O2 sensor is very old and will change that too.

 

mopar performance gaskets are labeled in this area.
Here’s a picture of them

 

Question about head warpage.
In the picture above, (thanks to D Snook6) I have an OEM headgasket and pretty sure it is the original 35 year old gasket. While removing all the oriiginal clamps there is no indication of anything unusual, evertyhing is old OEM and doesn't look touched or turned. Based on this I think the head in my car probably has never been taken off with a true original 86k miles odometer on my car.
While taking the head bolts off they did not seem to be even 65 ft-lbs tight. I first turned them all a 1/4 turn loose in the proper reverse order. Then again all a 1/4 turn and they seemed to be loose only finger tight and could be removed easily.
There were no cracks on the head.
The only areas on the head that I can find warpage was a tight .002 gap between cylinders 1 and 2. On cylinder #1 measured .003 around the outer edge the 7 and 11 oclock area. Using a .004 feeler gauge would not go thru. Also in the picture above you can see the head gasket deformed in those areas. I plan to use a FEL-PRO HS 9296 headgasket and new Fel-Pro bolts.
Questions 1: Should I resurface the head or do you think the Fel-pro gasket can accomadate that much warpage.
Question 2: Should I use copper spray on the head gasket during install on both sides?
Any other tips.
Thank you in advance to the TD community.

 

After a thorough cleaning of the head and using the 3M grey bristles the surface became very smooth. I then used 1000 grit wet sandpaper to do a final go around and rechecked the warpage. The maximum warpage I got after cleaning was .001 between cylinder 1 and 2 and .002 at the outer edge of cylinder #1 thinking and hoping the FelPro gasket would accommodate the warpage. There are many FelPro gaskets out there I used the latest version FelPro R5 (version5) with the reinforced corners, R5 printed on the gasket next to cylinder # 1 right above headbolt#2 hole. The Chrysler spec for max. warpage is .004. I did not use the copper spray.

After 3 months now and about 100 miles engine runs smooth, no oil smoke or moisture in the exhaust. I floored it last night and the turbo has a 1.5 second lag but keeps a steady 12 psi boost in 3rd and 4th gear. It seems and feels fast with all the engine noise but I'm not used to all that engine noise. The Prestone coolant is still clear and holding. The oil dipstick is still golden clear. Seems like the FelPro R5 (version5) gasket was the way to go.

 

Do not use the fel pro bolts they're garbage.

I had one snap, and the ones that were in it, likely not stock as the motor had been opened before, snapped too.

Go with studs or mopar bolts.

I used copper spray on my fel pro gasket both sides. My surfaces were far from machined perfect.

 

Next to tackle was the driver's floor board. Found a large sheet of 22 gauge stainless steel on Amazon delivered to my door in five days for $20. Welded the drivers and passenger side. My son did the welding from up top and I from the bottom. The stainless is harder to weld but with some patience it came out solid from top and bottom. I used machine screws to keep it down and removed them during welding. The stainless floor will probably outlast the rest of the car.
The reason mine rotted out was due to the poor original seal on the wheel well. Salt and debris get tossed on the back of the wheel well. The plastic surround is a bout an inch narrow and does not meet up with the metal wheel well, so all the moisture, salt and debris gets caught in the wedge where the wheel well and the quarter panel meet. On my car even that was poorly constructed as there was two inch thick original sealant to cover the original 35 year old un-even weld. I pulled out that sealant and rusted metal and the metal seemed like the edges were never flush or met to weld so they just used lots of sealant on the seam. You can see the original sealant under/behind the emergency brake pedal. The new wiring you see is for the door lock remote, still working well.

 

Then we cleaned up the sanding and welding dust, shampooed the rugs and seats, now the interior looks almost new.

 

Now that the car is drivable noticing a few things that may not pass inspection.
1) My son drove it to Taco Bell and while parking the power steering failed and caused an engine fire. Panicking he put it out with his bare hands. He is OK with some minor burns. See how I solved the Power steering Oring problem getting cut and crushed ( on My Second Power Steering leak -Solved thread) that others may experience since the BRAND NEW PS pressure hose fitting end was defective and was not flared correctly.

 

2) As my son was driving I noticed the speedometer was working but made a slight noise. Thinking maybe the trip odometer may be getting stuck I reset the trip odometer while he was driving and now the trip and actual odometer wont register and may be broken. Maybe I should have not touched the reset button while moving? Has anyone else experienced this and is there a simple fix?

 

Didn't have that exact same problem but years back was getting a noise (ticking sound) from the speedo in my Daytona while driving but my speedometer itself plus the mileage and trip odometers weren't working. Thinking it was the cable I swapped that out but it still didn't work. It turned out to be the speedometer itself as there's a multitude of connecting plastic gears in there which tie together the trip odometer and mileage odometer. I ended up getting a NOS speedometer to fix it. Not sure if it was here or on YouTube where I saw a video/article on obtaining new plastic gears and repairing them. Might be easier to just try and find another good used or NOS unit to replace it with.

 

3) While driving the car seems to porpoise with the warmer weather. Thinking I need new front struts? The car has the original 35 year-old struts. Any tips on which struts to get and how to do it? I'm afraid of removing the springs.

 

3) While driving the car seems to porpoise with the warmer weather. Thinking I need new front struts? The car has the original 35 year-old struts. Any tips on which struts to get and how to do it? I'm afraid of removing the springs.

Heavy-duty spring clamps work just fine. I went with the cheap brand on rockauto, not sure how good they will be. Years ago you could get the KYB GR2 but they don't have them any more. I did monroe on my 91 back in like 2001.

 

Well we put in the KYB 235902 Excel-G Gas Struts and mount kit and the car rides like a Cadillac. Actually had my local garage put it in, since I was afraid of taking the springs off. He did it for $250 in one hour and 15 minutes. He advised that I replace the drive axle shafts since the 35 year old axle boots were petrified and cracked. Now that he broke loose all the bolts it should be easier to slip in new drvie axles. But I am reading the passenger side intermediate link attachment may be a bear to seperate. Any tips on how to do that?

 

If your axle won't easily slide out of the intermediate shaft, most likely it's held in by rust. I've found the easiest way to remove the axle is to drill and tap the intermediate shaft and install a grease fitting, then use grease pressure to remove it. Drill and tap close to the u joint end.

 

Our shaft came out the int shaft with zero issues. I used tons of anti seize putting it all back together.


You'll likely need to do an alignment after regardless.

 

Even though this car had been garaged most of its life there are the common deterioration of certain parts on these cars. For example, the outside sunroof seal had petrified crumbling and falling apart. The inside seal is original, soft and perfect so that did not need replacing just a good cleaning and conditioning with silicone spray.
I measured the original outside seal and it is a D-shaped rubber/felt weather seal that is 9mm wide to fill in the gap around the sunroof glass and body well. Of course, after 36 years it was not flexible anymore and crumbling. Using a grinder, with a sandpaper attachment I cleaned all the rust and hardened seal particles from the stainless-steel edge of the sunroof. The stainless steel edge was shiny stainless again.

Then I glued onto the edge of the sunroof a D-shaped 10 mm Weatherstrip seal with 3M Self Adhesive. It attached to the edge of the sunroof very well and strong. The weatherstrip was only $10.59 on Amazon. Cheap fix since OE parts aren’t around and alternatives are much more.

I had to work the seal in a little since it was 1 mm too large, but it easily went into place. Now it looks good as new.

UPDATE: After a week of close to 100 degrees, I left the car sitting under the full sun so the weather seal would reshape itself and conform to the sunroof gap. Today it is in the 80's I opened the sunroof and YES the weather seal reshaped itself and is now a perfect size. I also checked after a pounding thunderstorm and the weather seal glue is intact and no leaks under the sunroof. This is a good and cheap fix for those who want to redo the outer sunroof seal.

 

Hi. What yr is your Daytona and do you know if the sunroofs on 85/86/87 have same size glass and seal. Mine is an 86 Daytona Turbo Z

 

Update 2/4/24:
Very SAD day, finished our Shelby Z car restoration project.
We finally gave up on fixing the OE cassette radio. Tried buying several on Ebay which were DOA and had to return them for refunds. Seems all those Infinity I,II, III, Gold cassette or CD car radios have all died, even some that are supposedly restored were bad. Thought about re-soldering the original cassette radio but it would take too long. Decided to go with a Sony 10 band EQ, CD, Bluetooth radio at Best Buy which my son found for $54 (new-open box). Sounds as good as the OE Infinity radio, using the original Infinity speakers. Wow, I remember when the CD player option for the Shelby Z Infinity radio was $500 just for the CD player alone back in 1988. Anyway my son drives it daily and has been very reliable this winter. During restoration in the past year, we've bought about 78 items in total everything from car parts to paint totaling $1,904 and about 14 months of labor on the weekends. It was very well worth it when I see my son driving off with a smile on his face.
Here is my link on another post here of all the common problems we encountered on our car and how we fixed it.

 

Wow, for all the work that was done, that was a fair price all in. Great job, and hopefully the car will be enjoyed for years to come! Great work!

 

Thanks, I didn't mention the number of endless hours researching parts and prices, as well as, the labor with my son working on the car most weekends in the past 14 months. He actually enjoyed turning the wrench and figuring out some of the problems we encountered. The main reason being I wanted to get him off the screen, phone and not playing video games as much as possible.