OddlyShaded's GA Galant

[geezer101]

a very nervous few moments when we both got followed for about 5klm by a police car, with Al spewing blue smoke all over them every time we took off from a set of traffic lights

Uh oh, that isn't cool. I have a friend that bought a 'restored' Mazda 808 sedan and it did the same thing in front of a bike cop. That ended with a defect notice and it got sent off the road.

[VGJONO]

Uh oh, that isn't cool. I have a friend that bought a 'restored' Mazda 808 sedan and it did the same thing in front of a bike cop. That ended with a defect notice and it got sent off the road.

nah it isnt good, but no big deal, i got given a bunch of G32B engines so we will just drop one of those in it when it finally gives in, also here they wont pull you over for a defect like that, they will just put the plates into the system and send you a letter with a date and time to have the car at the pits. if that happens ill just rip the motor out and tell em they are more than welcome to come help me push it half way across brisbane if they want to see it that badly

[VGJONO]

Well, the inevitable happened, well not like i thought it would but a blown motor is a blown motor, head gasket is gone in Al, with the other issues the motor has it would be a waste of time to try and fix it so its engine swap time

[VGJONO]

Well motor and box was removed today, kind of out of time so putting another engine together is now out of the question, only complete engine i have is a 4G52, safe to say S#@% just got serious

will rock a 4G52 until i can get another 4G32 put together to go into it reason why i want to go back to a 4G32 later is for legality reasons, otherwise it will need a mod plate, and that just isnt money my sister doesnt have right now.

Cheers
VGJONO

[VGJONO]

So the 4G52 idea got scrapped and the car has sat, but Oddly and my Father got some work done to Al today, We have decided to rebuild the Engine so they spent the day pulling it apart and prepping the block


Didnt take long to find some nasty surprises





Despite the Carnage the block came up pretty good, after a hone the bores look good so now we just need everything else.....



We then decided to pull apart a spare 4G32 i had to rob it of its pistons only to quickly realise something wasnt right, we grabbed one of the pistons from the GA's 4G32 and found out they are 1.5mm Oversize. so not quite the stocker i thought it was.
So now we are going to see how easy it is to get everything before we make a decision on where we go from here.

Cheers
VGJONO

[geezer101]

Dude, that is some savage piston damage! Whoever was driving it when it was detonating that badly must've been deaf or stupid

[bruggz351]

Nearly woulda been able ta feel that!!! Jar of marbles....

[tandanus]

Wow Another fan of the 4g32
Nice to see
They are great motors - IMHO not as well thought out as the 1500, but still a great piece of work.
Good on ya
T.

[VGJONO]

So today i Got some New 1.5mm oversized pistons, Rings to suit and a Full 4G32 Gasket kit. Main bearings should be here tomorrow but sadly things were going too smoothly. I also dropped the head in to the local Machine shop only to get a call an hour later that they have found a few cracks in the head and its not worth repairing So tomorrow im going to pull the head off of another motor that is here and take it in, if its in bad shape too then it might be game over for the chain drive... a very expensive game over considering we already have everything :/

[VGJONO]

Today (or yesterday now) i picked up the last of the stuff i need for the Rebuild

Also found that the pistons i have are a touch different, they seem to be a tad taller than the other ones so maybe a bit of a difference compression wise.

old

new (note the difference in the location of the pin the rod connects too) ..... (if you can see it in my Potato spec images )


Also removed the spare head from the other engine to find this.......

[VGJONO]

Turns out the second head is not cracked, although the valves need to be re-seated as they were not sealing.

meanwhile we had pulled the GA's original engine apart to see if the head on it was usable....

NOPE

some more internal poop


So now we are waiting till monday when i should get the head back ready to go

[geezer101]

O-M-freakin'-G. What the hell happened to that engine!!?! And you had to snap the head bolts off it to take it apart...

[VGJONO]

Geezer.... we did alot more than snap them off...... we spent about 4 hours getting the head off, we had to drill the head bolts and use a chisel to remove the top of the bolts, then use an arrangement of chisels to pry the head far enough away from the block to use an angle grinder to cut the bottoms of the head bolts off, the engine must have been cooked badly before it was left sitting, the head was so warped that all but 3 head bolts are still stuck in it.

[VGJONO]

Not much was done on AL this weekend, waiting on the head now, although Oddly got started on making a few engine bits shiny

[VGJONO]

So got some stuff done over the past few days, Conjoined effort between My Father, Oddly and I.

WARNING Massive photo dump















And end of the day




So things are progressing pretty well, engine should be back in the car this week

Cheers
VGJONO

[geezer101]

Looking good guys but...not...shiny...ENOUGH!!?!

[VGJONO]

Since oddly shaded is being lazy and wont update her thread i guess ill have to do my best to update it in fast forward so we can catchup

Stuff went in



Gauges went in as my previous "ignorance is bliss" motto with the broken temp gauge ect, obviously didnt go too well


New steering wheel went in


and thats caught up pretty much to friday afternoon, when it was first started. we filled it with oil, hit the key and success it was alive, runs nice and smooth despite an exhaust manifold leak. however not all was well straight away, only hours after i decided to take it for a drive to a local car meet, sadly the shifter had been fitted wrong and was more or less a random gear selector, once at the meet i borrowed tools and corrected that, then i went to hit the key, dead battery, great, so got a jump start and made it around the corner before it started misfiring and carrying on due to lack of charge. long story short after i got home i found that the fan belt was loose

Anyways next day and me and Oddly cruised the little bugger down to the carwash to give both Al and my GD sedan a wash as we had a show/track day to attend the day after (no the GA didnt go on track, the engine is still being run in)





since it was dark by the time we were done i decided to check the alternator (of which is brand new) was charging, to my surprise it wasnt, then i seen the issue, the top bolt of the alternator had gone missing, so somehow i xiptied it in place and we set off, only to have issues a few k's up the road because of it, so i had another attempt at ziptieing and this time i was 90% succesful, but we decided it be best if i drove Al and Oddly drove my GD sedan. once home and i had convinced Karly to relinquish the Keys to my GD we got to work on fixing the alternator, only to find that once we had put the new bolt in and fiddled with how it was mounted that the fan belt no longer fit.... at 8pm on a saturday night and us due to leave for Queensland raceway at 4:15am. after a bit of messing around, stressing and yelling it was sorted... kind of. Next morning, 4:15 am and he roars to life and starts charging correctly with only a slight belt squeal (i think some SA members may have heard the belt squeal if they listened hard enough) every now and then. but it worked, and it drove out to Queensland raceway without a single problem.



TL;DR - Galant works, kind of, sort of, maybe

Cheers
VGJONO

[VGJONO]

So Grumpy Al as has really been earning his name no Problems but now when there is a problem i normally walk away with a little less blood and skin than i started out with, for the most part though he has been cruising along fine. Just this weekend gone he got an Oil change after the motor had done its first 500klm and then was driven to north brisbane after that. I noticed on the way there he was quite gutless even though we have the timing a few degrees below optimum setting, so i decided to check the vacuum secondaries were working, which ofcourse they werent, quickly checked all the carby's i had in the shed and found a vacuum diaphragm that works reasonably well and threw it on, little bugger picked up a fair whack of power, not far off of my GD sedan. we will be replacing the brake booster this week and hopefully next week it will be time to get a new exhaust, starting to get tired of the several exhaust leaks between the manifold and the muffler, anyways here is a video of how he is running (last minute of the video i put my foot into the loud pedal just a little)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-TQpAdAWj4

And some photo's from the other day that Oddly took while the galant were parked next to each other out the back






Cheers
VGJONO

[tandanus]

So Sweeeeet !

T.

[VGJONO]

Been a little while since i updated this, Long story short the car has been running beautifully since the rebuild, only one problem giving us greif is a sticky timing chain tensioner piston, if the engine is warm but has sat for a little bit the tensioner will not work properly until you hold revs to raise the oil pressure enough to un-stick the tensioner piston.



Few mods have been done aswell

Most importantly, the compulsory fluffy dice have been fitted



We also had some fun with Plasti dip for halloween



Then some real Mod's Began, Firstly the Wheels, we tidied up a set of ROH Wildfires i had lying around 13x6 wrapped in Nankang NSII 195/65/r13



Then we had the Extractors and Exhaust fitted, which made a massive improvement in power, shortly afterward we also replaced the brake booster as it had started leaking vacuum pressure.

Short video of the exhaust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D4XWcJeSZU

After that it has been driven and enjoyed by all.



We also had some admirers



And it is now officially Doge approved... well approved by our dog anyways




Next up we are replacing the gearbox, it has quickly become apparent that the synchro's for second and third are well and truly stuffed, so replacement gearbox will go in, and so will a new gearbox mount as the old one is well and truly past its use by date. Then its off to get the exhaust corrected (few things our exhaust guy wants to fix) and an Auto electrician will be going through the car as we are chasing electronic gremlins all over the place, currently only the rear blinkers work and they blow fuses every few days -_-

Anyways
Cheers
VGJONO