I was just given an 88 gta 5.7 tpi. The car is a work in progress. The motor only has 43000 miles but hasnt run in over 3 years. What is recommended prior to trying to start this car again. What service or maintainance would be recommended?? Thanks for the help.

WS6 Dealer
99 ram air ta
88 gta

 

Definitely do an oil change, drain the gas tank and replace with fresh gas, disconnect the coil and let the motor spin over some to build up oil presure before you try and crank it.

Before you do much driving you should also replace the other fluids (antifreeze, trans, rear) to get the old gunk out...especially the trans and rearend.

 

Oh great, now people are gonna get me and irocz confused! U got to 'ole miss irocz?

 

yeah i think you are definitley on the right track. Once the car is able to run im gonna go through all the systems( drivetrain, braking, suspension, electrical) I think thats the way to go. Im a wreck I like this car so much i want to make it perfect but its tough knowing where to begin.Thanks for the advice.

 

Ws6, I know how you feel. I just found a 89 GTA a few weeks back. I went and bought it knowing that it had a blown head gasket. They only wanted $1,000 for it, and the body is in great shape. No rust that I can see anywhere. I did a pretty thorough search too.

I'm a little hesitant on changing the head gaskets on this car though. There is so much in the way. On my dads boat the heads are right there, and its only a single side draft carb on a dual plane intake. Its easy as pie on that boat. Its from 1960. So I'm a little nervous about doing this. But I don't think it'll be too hard, just that it'll take me a long time. I have to send one head in for shaving though, as well as a pressure check to see if its cracked.

 

just take your time and label everything. What i do sometimes is mount my video cam near the job so i can document everything that i did to make it work. If not just label everything with masking tape and a marker . You should be in good shape. Keep one thing in mind when it comes to milling the head every .005 five thousands makes 1 cc. 5 cc makes 1 pt of compression. So if they need to cut alot , that motor will not run balanced unless you have the other head cut. Just a little advice. I worked in a machine shop long enough to have learned that one the hard way. Good luck!

 

Thanks WS6, however I"m not doing the machining myself. I don't have the equipment, nor the skills to do it. So I'm sending it off to a shop to do it. They want $80/head and thats to shave them and pressure check them for cracks.

My father really didn't want me to buy the car. He wanted me to spend about 3,000 on a car and there just isn't anyway I can afford ot drop 3,000 into a car right now. I'm finally starting school and thats going to suck up enough money between books/supplies, travel, and the hours at my job I have to cut so I can go to school. I"m going to be a very poor man for the next 3 years or so. I'm going into Telecommunications Managment at DeVRY university. Basically it boils down to network administration.

BTW, here is a few pics of the GTA i bought. I still have it at the mechanics shop because I haven't been able to tow it yet. That'll happen this weekend.


Really big picture of it from the side. About 170kb. Its 1800x1200 so be prepared to scroll down