A tale of woe, written off FTO - UPDATE

[Apothus]

A month ago during the extreme storm we had in Perth my beloved '95 GPX sucked water into the engine and siezed. Despite pulling the plugs out, filling the cylinders with light oil etc we could not get it to turn over and it was completely siezed. Thankfully insurance is covering it. They detiremed it would cost too much to repair the car and they have written it off. Thankfully being in the souther suburbs means that the car was not damaged by hail, only the siezed engine and some ruined carpets inside.

What i am looking at doing is buying the car back as a repairable write off from auction then buying an engine from a wrecker (87,000km on the engine). I have changed the clutch before and i am confident that i can install a new engine. Thankfully the engine comes with a 3month or 5,000km warranty provided i change timing belts, water pump and get the radiator reconditioned. What i am interested in knowing is what else i should look at doing to the car whilst i have the engine out of it and it is easy to work on. Are there any upgrades i should look at installing (no a turbo is well out of the budget) whilst i have the engine accessible, what about parts that will need to be serviced in the next 20~30 thousand km.

[I8A4RE]

DO THE TIMING BELT, WATER PUMP AND TENSIONERS!!

SO much easier when the engine is out.

[Ghost]

Hey mate, while it is out and doing the timing belt and tensioners, also spend the time in doing the cam seals, change spark plugs, rebuild injectors or just replace them, leads, I would personally replace the thermostat and housing. When the engine is in, do a full engine flush (oil flush and coolant flush). Let us know how you go.

[crimson236]

Where are u getting the engine from and how much would the labour cost? I'm looking around for an engine as well since there's water in mine.

[Apothus]

Well I'm still looking around for a motor at the moment but i will be installing it myself. I'm too much of a control freak to be happy with the job someone else would do. Those all sound like good things to change, i hadn't thought about the tensioners, or the injectors for that matter. It wouldn't hurt to change them, the one upgrade I'm thinking of installing at the moment is a set of extractors from RPW.

[crimson236]

Cool! Do you have a workshop or something like that? Keep us updated on your progess.

[Fto_Jason]

Pictures or it didnt happen

[Apothus]

Pictures or it didnt happen

I couldn't bare to take photos of it in such a state. It was well and truly siezed, we had a 3/4 inch socket set connected to the crankshaft, then a 1.5m pole attached to the end of it and even with 100kg of weight it still wouldnt budge (desperate times call for desperate measures).

I do kind of have a workshop. I may be asking my dads boss if i can rent a bay at his workshop for a few weeks so i can work on it and have access to a hoist.

[koolio1234]

I may be asking my dads boss if i can rent a bay at his workshop for a few weeks so i can work on it and have access to a hoist.

That's going to make life a lot easier, appearantly its a PITA to do this kind of work without a hoist

[Apothus]

I Managed to buy the car back at auction a few weeks ago. A stressful process but i am happy to have it back in the garage at home, admittedly without any license plates or a working engine. I got it for a decent price, $2.5k once all the paperwork was sorted. I have also been able to buy a replacement engine for it, 87,000km on the replacement engine but it comes with a 3month or 5,000km warranty so that should give me enough time to make sure it was a solid engine. The engine, a set of four 18" rims + tyres plus a few guards and parts i needed for $2k from Mitsubi in Malaga!

Now i just need to get the old engine out and the new one in......

[aza013]

When you get the new engine in get it on a dyno so they can give it a good workout.
That should let you know if it's a good one. If it let's go then you can change it

[Kustom]

Good to hear your on the road to recovery!