The deal that (almost) fell through...

... didn't in the end. For some reason the insurance underwriter came back and suggested that the information I had provided so far was enough and the seller and me were able to revive the deal for this:

'93 Eagle Talon TSI AWD.

Got it home last night almost without drama (the coolant had been a little low and it burped it in a rather dramatical fashion, but after we topped it up it ran fine).

It needs a little work, namely:

• It needs a coolant catch tank, currently the overflow goes right on the ground and that's not what I want if I take it on a track or Auto-X'ing. Not a good way to make new friends IMHO.
• The front tint needs to be removed and replaced with something much less limo-tint like. Not because of legalities but because it's just too dark for my liking and almost impossible for me to see out of at dusk. And that strip on the windshield needs to go, too. It's more irritating than helpful
• It does appear to have a slight boost/air leak as I could hear it 'snuffeling' near the throttle body. Once I've got that sorted I'll probably need to try and tweak the hot idle a little as the big injectors make for a rather uneven idle.
• The additional gauges want to be relocated from the A-pillar mount, but that's not that urgent.
• Probably needs an alignment, but the tire pressures might be off so I'll check that first.
• Needs a GRM sticker, but I've got plenty of those.

I'm not a big fan of the wheels, plus they seem to be fairly heavy, so the longer run will include at least one set of wheels. The exhaust is a bit rice-tastic but I'll see if I can live with it. It's not obnoxiously loud, fit needs tweaking a little as the cat occasionally bangs against the floor.

I guess this weekend will be spent cleaning it and giving it a once-over to come up with the "real to do list". It wasn't that cheap for a 1st gen Talon but in the end I mostly paid for the parts on it and got the car for almost free so that can't be that bad a deal.

It also appears to be the only vehicle we have at the moment that doesn't have a penchant for marking its territory...

DSM goodness right there. Nice catch. Oh wait, no DSM thread is complete without this:

pigeon wrote: DSM goodness right there. Nice catch. Oh wait, no DSM thread is complete without this:

That is one of my favorites of all time.

In reply to pigeon:

That never gets old...

Hey, the search is over. Nice job. I wouldn't mind having one of those to play with sometime.

Wait. You can remove the window tint from a Eclipse? I've never seen one without tint.

I think you can if you replace it with a different tint . I don't mind a light tint with the intensity of the sun out here and a pretty heavy tint on the glass sunroof, but the one that's on the car is ridiculous for front windows IMHO.

Glad it worked out. See, insurance people aren't all bad...

Car looks great. I have to say I agree about the wheels. They're not horrible, but wouldn't be my first choice. But that's the easy bolt on stuff. If the "bones" of the car are good, that's awesome.

Looks like you got a winner there. Got the 4 bolt rear end, and the stronger of the two 7 bolt choices on the crank side (It happens, but isn't NEARLY as prevalent in the 1g cars) Looks pretty clean overall, which is tough to find in a 1g these days.

easily my favorite DSM! nice

mndsm wrote: Looks pretty clean overall, which is tough to find in a 1g these days.

That's what I was thinking. I don't think I've seen a cleaner 1g in many years, even if it is just a pic on the web. Nice find.

The big attraction for me was that it looks like it's been adult owned since new - IIRC it's got either two or three previous owners in 18 years. For something like this that's pretty good going.

Oh well, I found out why the coolant was low when I picked it up...

Water pump is leaking - supposedly the timing belt had been changed about 20k ago and I bet the water pump wasn't replaced at the same time. So it's now with my local mechanic of least mistrust for a timing belt and water pump change.

At least it looks like I found the major vaccuum/boost leak - one of the hose fittings on the intake manifold either wasn't capped off or had lost the cap. No wonder it wouldn't idle...

Once I 'capped' that one with a bit of masking tape it idled fine and had about 5psi more vaccuum on overrun.

I put a set of those Motegis on my Hyundai, they didn't feel very heavy at all but I didn't weigh them.

Nice find BTW

and didn't we just read that heavy wheels don't matter anyway

belteshazzar wrote: and didn't we just read that heavy wheels don't matter anyway

Shhh. I need a good excuse to throw some Rota Grids on the car (unless I get a massive tax refund and want to double the value of the car by sticking a set of 'real' TE37s on).

I like clean 1st gens. One day I will get one.

I also liked the eagle's better then the other 1st gen dsm's. Never liked the flip up head light I guess...