85 Omni GLH-T Project

[Turbo224]

After selling my old GLH to buy a Harley a couple of years ago I finally decided I wanted to buy another one. I wanted a blue one that was as stock as possible, no rust, and had working A/C. I found this car is down in New Mexico. The previous owner found it somewhere down there and decided to get it back on the road. He painted the car, put on new struts, tires, fuel pump, and a 2.5" exhaust on it and drve it around for a while until he got bored with it. Thats where I came in.

The exterior of the car looks presentable, and it runs excellent. My only problem was that the interior was in great need of attention as the New Mexico sun justed baked everything in this car. So stage one is getting the interior back in shape.

[iTurbo]

WoW, beautiful car Tyler! Not often you see a GLH Turbo that nice anymore!

I take it you like blue cars haha? Wasn't your mini Cooper blue also?

[Turbo224]

The first thing I decided to do was repair and repaint all the plastic inside the car. I went to a local automotive paint supply shop and they were able to mix up the exact color for me. A few of the pieces were cracked or broken, so I used some fiberglass netting and some epoxy to put it back together and reinforce it. Just need to smooth it over with some filler and texturize it and no one will ever know.

[Turbo224]

As you can see, the carpet was both filthy and faded, but I was pretty please with what I found under the carpet. No major rust! I bought some replacement carpet from stockinteriors.com that isn't all that high quality, but it will do okay for now. The padding that the new carpet came with was a little thin, so I removed the padding off the back of the stock carpet and used both sets. I also am using a product under the carpet called EZ Cool which is a sound/heat insulator. The shape of the replacement carpet was actually pretty good and didn't require much trimming. It certainly looks a lot better and should be a bit quieter as well.

[Turbo224]

WoW, beautiful car Tyler! Not often you see a GLH Turbo that nice anymore!

I take it you like blue cars haha? Wasn't your mini Cooper blue also?

Thanks! Yeah, my Mini is also blue.

[tryingbe]

What's your plan for it?

[Directconnection]

8v or T-III?

[Turbo224]

What's your plan for it?

As of right now the plan is to keep it as stock as possible and use it for a daily driver. The more I modify cars the worse they tend to run, so I wont fool with this car as long as it keeps running well.

---------- Post added at 03:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------

8v or T-III?

Its just a stock T1 8V right now.

[Directconnection]

You're not going to run a nice car like that through the winter months, correct?

[Turbo224]

The car didn't have the window trim on it when I bought it, and the window scrappers were in terrible shape. I scored a really nice set of scrappers and trim off an Omni in a wrecking yard here, so I was pretty excited about that. I repainted both the trim and the scrappers which went a long way towards making this car look better.

[Turbo224]

You're not going to run a nice car like that through the winter months, correct?

No, I have a Jeep for that.

[Turbo224]

I found a really nice set of seats in a shadow at a local wrecking yard that I grabbed for the car since the original seats are in pretty rough shape. One day I might try to get the original seats recovered, but these seats will work for now. Also a couple of pictures of the finished door panels and refinished seat tracks.

[Turbo224]

The headliner in the car was long gone when I got it and the headline board was warped and broken. I found a new headliner board at the wrecking yard and ordered a replacement headliner again from stockinteriors.com. After reading a few threads on the process of redoing a headliner it was actually really easy and turned out nice.

[Turbo224]

And a few more pictures after getting it all back together. And yes, I really need to get the center arm rest recovered....

[cordes]

Wow. That is some very inspiring progress. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Turbo224]

Wow. That is some very inspiring progress. Thanks for sharing it with us.

My pleasure! Its been a lot of work in a short period of time, but it's pretty satisfying to to put it back together so quickly.

[Directconnection]

Looks nice! Just waitin' to see if you change your mind and install some 16v power, or even a potent 50trim 8v. You could get to work much earlier? (think of the positives)

[Turbo224]

Looks nice! Just waitin' to see if you change your mind and install some 16v power, or even a potent 50trim 8v. You could get to work much earlier? (think of the positives)

Actually, the long term plan is to put a 2.4 turbo in it, but that probably wont happen for a long time. I just want a decent daily driver right now, so I think keeping it all stock is the way to go. If the motor were to blow up or something then I guess I would start the 2.4 swap a little earlier.

[Evilancer]

Great looking GLH-T! It's really good to see you pay attention to details and make the car look great again, good job man.

Jon

[Reeves]

Wow! Very nice find and very nice re-do of the interior!

I've NEVER seen L-body floorboards that nice.....even in the late 90's our 1990 Horizon had more rust than that!