Going to also post here my log of the refresh & rebuild of my trusty '92 Sundance. It's going to get a new personality with a tbi->turbo conversion and build up.
I really didn't care much for the car when I first got it, mainly because of what happened to me in the acquisition. It was my first one purchased from a car lot. Got it back in '97 at one of those heavily advertised no-credit/bad credit car lots - as I had none at the time. The transmission on my first car(82 Regal 4dr - $200, crank grind & oversize bearings, lasted me a year) went out on the way to the dealership to trade in, they gave $200.
Got my choice between the sundance or a tempo with lots more mileage and wear. Paid a little over $9,000 principal at %28, ouch!
I have to say, the car has been good to me, and that I'm now kinda fond of the P-body. Outside of regular maintenance items, up until a couple months ago I had only needed to replace a water pump, radiator, couple alternators, clutch, egr valve, and 1 cracked head in 17 years and 200k mi of ownership.
At a little shy of 250k mi, I pulled the head off the block a couple months ago after continually having overheat issues the first few minutes into the drive and ultimately discovering exhaust bubbles/fumes in the coolant overflow bottle, couldn't smell coolant in the exhaust though. It's obvious coolant was getting into #1. Probably started as just a blown HG that I took too long to start digging into. Machine shop says the head is cracked/leaking.
Since I took it down, I've just been keeping an eye out for, and have purchased some already, parts planned to go in the car and am just taking my time on it, getting what I can when available or when I can afford it. Right now the work is mainly focused on removing parts in preparation for repainting at some point. Before the head cracked I had started work on upgrading the suspension. I'll put up photos of some of that work soon and will try to post stuff I do with it here as I go along.
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