My car needs some rehauling and upgrades for next season. Ill be documenting my progress here over the winterbreak for new people with questions or in case I need help myself.

Checklist of things to be done.

Priority items
Engine rebuild- DONE
Rear Bushings- DONE!
Fix dents- DONE
gauge panel- DONE
timing belt- DONE!
Hard Wire Fans- DONE!
Replace Wiring Harness- DONE!
lower car- DONE!
corner balancing-
Hawk brake pads- DONE!
bleed brake fluid- DONE!
seat brace- DONE!

"If time and money allow" items
-Welt rear swaybar - not this season
-New paintjob- DONE!
-modify camber plates for more caster- maybe?
-wheel spacers- not this season
- delrin front of front control arm bushings- not this season

Car ready for work, safely secured on 4 jackstands. Safety First!



Tools all organized to make sure I can find whatever I need quickly and easily. After years of frustration I've learned this lesson the hard way.

That's a lot of work. I'm just going to replace my bent valve, install my 951 oil cooler, replace my trashed rear torsion bar bushings, maybe corner balance, new tires, and get a real alignment. All I've wanted this whole past season was to just have 4 cylinders in decent working order, and wheels that are actually pointed straight.

First order of business was to remove the passenger fender for "repair." Those of you who have seen it know its seen better days. Finding and removing the screws buried under 1/2 inch of rubber undercoating is not a fun task, pulling the fender off the car is even more so.

There are a number of bolts holding the fender on, some less obvious than others. A number on top in the engine bay, 1 by the headlight assembly, 3 by the front valance, 1 on the bottom of the fender by the door and 3 that are covered in goo inside the fender by the door.

Fender off-




After getting the fender off I found that some carefully chosen pieces of wood and a mallet worked pretty well to work the fender back to normal shape. My fender was in pretty bad shape so there was no saving the paint but otherwise I'm fairly happy with the results, mind the duct tape residue.

Weston wrote:

I thought so too but with how much i got done in just one day I think its managable, my engine rebuild is pending what the compression results show, it could be as little as a couple gaskets or as big as a new head.


After finishing the fender work I moved on to the rear suspension. My rear suspension has all the big go fast parts but is still using the 20 year old rubber bushings. This made for a sloppy and bouncy rear suspension, not the best for racing. I've had some welt poly rear bushings laying around for nearly a year but never got around to the daunting task of installation.

welt rear bushings


Removing the rear suspension wasnt as bad as i thought. Yes, it was a pain and a lot of bolts, but more straight forward than I expected.

Torsion bars, and parts removed from car.


The bushings dont just come off, One method I learned from Dave_W (Avant Addict) is to roast them in a grill for a while till the bushings burn off, guess ill be doing that this weekend.

parts with bushings on them

All of my bolts organized and labeled so i know where they go and where they are