Wonk Box GLH-T

[PunKid]

Okay it started almost a year ago. It was itch to go fast, get good gas mileage and be cheap. I really wanted it to be turbo and AWD, and if not RWD. I had it narrowed down to a DSM or a Conquest/Starion. I quickly got over the DSM crave as they were just over done and my good friend just hit a 12.9 on his with stock long block and turbo. So just to beat him would be a challenge. My research with the Conquest really turned me off. Reading about with massive electric problems, heavy cars and very hard to find parts as well as the car itself.

Then came a random very cheap 1987 CSX #115 that my Friend Tony (SilverFleet) told me about through one of his forums. Me being the Mopar guy of the group it only made sense. but I got caught up in the FWD (wrong wheel drive as I called it) and I ended up being to hesitant and Tony pounced on it himself. He got basically the deal of the life time but what I got was some motivation to research.

http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?58295-1987-Shelby-CSX-115-Restoration-and-Build-Thread&highlight=

So I signed up here and the more I read the more I liked. Some of the stories of people beating newer vehicles with these late 80s and early 90s econoboxes really got me exited. Then I remembered that saying "Goes Like Hell" I remember reading an article in a magazine when I was probably 15 or 16 about these scary fast little 4 door hatch backs that had no business being as quick as they were.

I love odd ball stuff and that's where my search started it has to be an Omni or Horizon. My friends thought I was crazy, they found me Chargers, Daytona, Spirts. But they just weren't quirky enough.

As you noticed I can get long winded so I will start a new post for the actual find of the car.

[Directconnection]

Not to jump in the middle of your project posts, but being that you're not too far from me since I set you up with the parts GLHT up here in Maine last summer, you oughta come back for a vist sometime. When you snagged up that car, did you meet Jaimie at his place, or where the car was being stored at? (my IROC R/T is in Jaimie's building)

[PunKid]

Yes I did meet Jamie, briefly. I think we were a bit tired from the ride up but we did talk some. I cant remember if your car was there or not but I could not believe the array of projects going in that place. I would love to come up and hang out sometime!

[Directconnection]

Yes I did meet Jamie, briefly. I think we were a bit tired from the ride up but we did talk some. I cant remember if your car was there or not but I could not believe the array of projects going in that place. I would love to come up and hang out sometime!

Yeah, my R/T was actually in his 2 bay garage by his house, but last fall we took it out, gave her a bath and pulled the interior. Then sat it in his huge building.

I'll pm ya...

[PunKid]

Snomni

I posted on here about wanting a GLH-T. After looking through E bay and craigslist everything was either too far or too expensive. Directconnection told me about a Black 85 GLH-T up in Maine that was passed between a couple people but laid idle because of some severe rust problems. Being from NewEngland means everything has rust so I was not too scared. But then I got some photos and I was very turned off, I contacted Jaimie and got a price and was interested again. While contemplating this I found another 85 GLH-T in Maine described as "Rust free" and had a bunch of replacement parts. Being from NewEngland I was very skeptic. The price tho was set at 3000$ and after talking with the owner I was turned off. So I went with the cheap rusted black car.

I got to Maine and the car was outside before Jaime was and my friends and I quickly realized why this car is so cheap and why no one is pursing it. The rust is still the worst I have ever seen (SilverFleets 115 CSX is a close second)





I will have to take a couple more photos to really show it. Traveling all that way with a trailer and not getting anything would have been a crime so I at lease went home with something.

Basically the driver and passenger floor pan is completely rusted out as well as all the way up the toe board. there is also large rust holes through out the rest of the floor and the rockers. All four doors have rust out bottoms as well. The final nail in the coffin was the passenger side frame rail from the floor pan to almost the top of the arc in the fender was missing. Someone had started cutting out the frame and couple small pieces were welded to it.

This made me nervous, its one thing to fix some rust, its much different when your starting where someone else left off. The worst part about the car was the exterior looked great. It was recently repainted and I think this is what made it so difficult to realize that the rust had won.





I even washed it thinking that I would be saving it.

I eventually made the decision that it was not worth it and started focusing in on the health of the motor and trans.





I was able to find all the parts to the engine and even got it to run with some external fuel lines that I had to rig up. Making it run made me feel alot better. Now All I needed was a donor Omni or Horizon with a solid body.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17cr3...ature=youtu.be
And the name Snomni came from winter. we had a TON of snow and out in my driveway was this little car with snow piled on top of it, so my girl and I started calling it Snomni.

okay next chapter

[PunKid]

The Search Continues

I finally wanted to look at that rust free red car that was priced at 3000$. After looking it over I realized the exterior was a rougher then my black car (some dents) and the interior was complete and in fair condition. The undercarriage was almost rust free but it did have a couple rust holes. He could not get the car to start because the battery was dead and it was buried in the garage. He also had the front end apart because he thought he had calipers locking up. The car did have a ton of new parts, some on the car and some off. Brand new tires, new clutch set up, new starter, and he also had brakes and struts that were in the boxes not installed yet.

The price was still to High for me and he would not come down to what I wanted to pay.

I spent the next couple months scouring the internet for car, I probably even was in talks with some of you guys about a rust free Omni or Horizon. Again tho everything that was perfect was almost a 1000 miles away.

Meanwhile I noticed that red car in Maine kept dropping, 2500$ then a week later 2000$ then a couple weeks went by and it was a final chance of 1500$. I made some calls and got my buddy with his truck and trailer and we went to go check it out and maybe buy it.

[PunKid]

I Bought the red car! (soon to get nick named wonk box)

Some of the first things I had to fix

-Swap two ignition wires so it was actually running on all 4 cylinders!
-Replace all four brake hoses, as they were the reason the calipers were sticking, this soon was followed by replacing all the brake lines that were on the car, which was then followed by replacing the rear wheel cylinders all provided by Snomni.
-Alignment
-Centering the Engine
-basically snugging up everything else the PO touched.

My first big problem was no heat. the result was a giant mouse nest in the heater box
http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?54137-No-Heat-Mouse-nest&highlight=

Once that was fixed I drove it until about December when they finally salted the roads and parked it for the winter. I put about 2500 miles on it and I really enjoyed it.


Okay a couple more posts and I will be all caught up!

[PunKid]

Last post I swear of just reading then pictures.

I drove this car all of last year (2011). I put over 10,000 miles on it, averaged 27.5mpg.

Some Highlights.

In March 2011
I did a full 3" Turbo Unleashed exhaust with magnaflow 3" oval muffler. I tried to swap the Swingvalve to a 2.5" one while in the car. This was an utter fail and resulted in pulling the head. To extract all 5 broken bolts, 3 needed to be helicoiled.

In April 2011
I finally got the car running and inspected and felt comfortable enough to go to the track. I ran a 15.7 on basically a bone stock car. The details are in the thread below
http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?58938-Took-the-Little-Omni-to-the-Track-for-the-first-time.&highlight=

In May 2011
Car had been running great and I added a manual boost controller and wanted to see if I could better my time. Well the extremely sloppy shifter got the best of me and I missed third and found first. I think I calculated 8000RPM the motor spun to. The Car spit out a rocket and broke something in the trans. The name of the project was a result of all this. A week prior my friend was checking out the car for the first time and said "Whoa!!!, how the hell you shift this WONK BOX, its so WONKY". More details and the carnage in this thread.
http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?59157-I-might-have-broke-my-car-very-badly&highlight=

In June 2011
I used the trans from the really rusty GLH-T and decided to just drive the car. It did great for a couple months but left me stranded when it snapped the timing belt, thank god for non interference engines.

In October 2011
I finally got the nerve to try running down the track again. This time I had all new shift linkage from ajakeski‎ so that was an improvement, but the syncros in the new trans were horrible. No matter what I did I could not beat my old time.

In December 2011
Was the last drive for the car. I have been itchy to install all my T2 pieces as well as fix some rust.


Whew!!! finally now if anyone is still reading on to some pictures.

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:31 PM ----------

Since December I have slowly started to work on the car, more lately. Below is some pictures of the findings, Mind you I bought this car as a claimed "rust free" car

Pass side floor



Drivers side



From the back



As you can see the rust is much worse then I thought.

The positives is the trunk, rear seat pans, and rear seat floors are 90% rust free maybe just a little surface rust. both frame rails are completely rust free. I also pulled both side skirts and both rockers have zero rust.

The bad is the passenger side rust goes all the way up the wheel well arch to and even into the fire wall. It also got into the inner rocker just a little




Yup its bad and it will be a lot of work but Its still way less rusty then the black car.

[Directconnection]

Keep at it! You'll be all smiles when she's done and running some real good times this summer.

[beeblebrox82]

ug thats alot of rust. good luck!! Just takes time.

[omni_840]

Nice project, just sucks you thought the car was rust free....

[jckrieger]

My GLHS is in the same state. I have about a 4"x4" rust hole to repair and then will be installing new carpet and seats. It's good to see another 4 door L body being brought back from the dead!

[PunKid]

Yup, from the under side it was a hole maybe the size of a baseball, and just some rust about an inch around it. The problem is once I lifted the rugs the surface rust from the inside and thinned out the metal too much to weld to. So my baseball size hole turned into a 24" by 18" area.

The drivers side will be similar but it does not go up the firewall. But I think I will have to remove the steering column

[PunKid]

Been busy cutting, grinding, POR15ing and welding.











Also started mocking up the new front seats




Finished all the patches on the passengerside. I got it all spot welded, but just as I started running small beads between the spot welds I ran out of MIG gas.


I also pulled the head off last weekend, so today i pulled the turbo, intake and exhaust off.

The turbo has a ton of run out which would explain my smoking while idling problem. The other problem is the compressor wheel looks like it ingested something, all the blades are chewed up. I am almost positive that the compressor wheel is neutrally balanced, so I think when I rebuild the turbo I will use the compressor wheel from my parts car.

[jckrieger]

You can mix and match turbo parts more or less. You may end up with a slight imbalance, but most of the time you should be ok. Replace the thrust bearing while you have it apart, I think the whole rebuild kit is only around $80. Carbon compressor seal...

[PunKid]

The driverside was is much better shape. I cut out all the rust and made a patch panel out of one piece of steel. currently the primer is still drying so hopefully if I don't have to work late this week I can start welding it is.



Still got a lot to do before I can drive it.

New fuel pump,
New fuel lines,
rebuilt turbo,
Install head,
Mount a FMIC,
figure out a Radiator,
Install the heatercore.
Finish mounting the new seats.

[jckrieger]

This thread brings back the good ol' days. I'll be digging into the floor pan of my GLHS soon... just refilled the Ar/CO2 bottle and picked up some .023" wire for the mig.

What kind of steel are you going to use to make the new floor pan? On my last vehicle I used a section of hood from a Ford Festiva.

[PunKid]

I actually went to the local steel yard and bought two sheets of 20ga sheet, 4'3' for 10 dollars each.

[PunKid]

Sorry still no picture update. maybe later this week.

Since the last post.

-new fuel pump is installed but a new tank is in my future, its starting to show surface rust on the inside.
-New fuel lines have been made. and semi installed (still need to connect to a fuel filter)
-I rebuilt the turbo.
-Head has been fully assembled with T2 intake, modified exhaust manifold and new turbo lines.
-Seats brackets are all made except for one corner on PS, and I need to repair the seat mount cross member.
-heatercore and box have been installed.
-PS fender and inner fender re installed.
-FMIC and piping kit ordered.


Still got a couple big ticket items, installing head, and plumbing IC. but after that it should be real close to driving.

[Directconnection]

Sounds good. You're putting some blood, sweat and tears into your car. Something 98% of this generation of kids cannot/care to do. (ie: bolt-ons or kits)