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kampman's 245 turbo revival and restothread

kampman

dunning-krugersquirt
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Location
Columbus, O.
It's been about 8 years since I sold my last 240 and I've been looking for another one for a while. This 245 showed up in the orphan thread about a month ago and it caught my attention since it was about 2 hours away from me in southern Ohio. I haven't seen many clean 240s for sale in Ohio in the last few years, to say nothing of turbo cars, so I finally gave into temptation and drove down to check it out this past Saturday. It followed me home and here we are. :-D

It's an '84 model, non-intercooled, with the AW71 and black leather. As far as I can tell it was a WV car for most if not all of its life. A very long time ago TBer John242Ti sent me a link to a blue turbo wagon at the Cincy IAAI auction and the seller confirmed that he bought it from there. I'm almost certain that it's the same car. The seller was originally going to LS swap it but I think he realized it was a rare find and stored it instead. I don't think it's been driven at all since he bought it.

It appears that it got written off after a small underhood fire - I think a fuel line leaked and/or there was a wiring problem. It must have been put out quickly, though. It barely singed the hood blanket and firewall insulation and besides the wiring the only casualties appear to be the dipstick handles and some other plastic bits in that area. The wiring is a bit of a mess but probably salvageable.

The body, though...wow. There's barely a speck of rust underneath. There's no way this car ever saw salt. One of the buttcheeks is crunched in pretty badly and someone cut the mudflap mounts off but that's about the extent of the body issues.

I want to see if I can get the wiring and fuel system cleaned up and get it running on the K-Jet. I also want to get the driver's window to roll up. :lol: If that works out then I'll probably leave it alone, I'm not that much of a purist but (wiring aside) it's an extremely original car and there probably aren't many like it left.

So far all I've done is drop the fuel tank for cleaning. I installed a battery and verified that it cranks, but I haven't tried to take it any further. I really don't want to push a bunch of rust through the fuel system (any more than already has been, anyway...)

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Nice improvised throttle cable...

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Engine bay full of spaghetti...

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Ground zero for the crispy stuff:

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Popped the oil cap and the cam looks good, oil is very clean.

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Doesn't seem like the injector lines have ever been disturbed.

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Nice door pockets:

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Floorboards are all this clean.

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Looking up at the driver's buttcheek and quarter seam, it's perfect:

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Inside the trunk well is spotless:

https://i.imgur.com/r8fIE1D.mp4

I already dropped the fuel tank and the metal above is bone dry.

https://imgur.com/nwn47Ai.mp4
 
PM'd you Jack.

Took the door apart last night to air things out and see if I could make any headway with the power windows - there was some moisture in the switches and the door card was a little damp, probably from sitting outside with the window down. :roll: The moisture barrier (more of an absorber at this point) fell apart at the gentlest touch but it obviously wasn't doing much so no great loss. I'll have to get some poly sheet to replace it. I dried out the switches and cleaned them but it didn't change anything. The only window that works is the passenger rear and it's really slow. I hear the driver's window motor click but that's it. The fuses are good but I probably need to give the contacts a proper cleaning. The battery I'm testing with is weak so I'm going to get a newer one that's a proper fit for this car before trying again. On the upside the heater blower works and it's quiet, most of the interior illumination works, and the speaker surround is still intact and pliable. So much winning. :)

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Verified last night that the main plunger in the fuel distributor is stuck - the metering plate can't be lifted upward at all. Not surprising considering how long it's been sitting.
 
Got the fuel distributor out this weekend. With better access I found that the plunger will move a little but it's still pretty stuck. I have it marinating in some cleaner to see if I can get it moving without taking it apart or paying someone else to. There was a bunch of varnish on the underside of the FI housing, wonder if someone tried pouring fuel into the air cleaner.

Today I took a little road trip and got a better fuel tank from a local. It's not perfect but it was cheap, it isn't rusty inside, and it came with a much nicer sending unit than the one that was in the car so score. Gonna have to do a little work to adapt the newer sending unit to the return line but I found a fitting in my parts hoard that should work. Glad I didn't throw away all of my 240 stuff. :)

Everyone's seen this stuff but here it is anyway. I was a little worried about mouse nests in the airbox considering what I've run into in other long-dormant cars but fortunately there were just leaves.

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Take the entire fuel distributor and soak it in something for a couple of days. Then take it apart, clean everything until it is shiny, then clean it some more. Fuel head gaskets are out there, adjustment procedures are out there. Clean the lines, ultrasound clean the injectors. Kjet left standing for a number of years is a biatch, but it's manageable.
 
After reading some instructions I may give rebuilding the distributor a shot, I know the tendency here is to treat it as a black box but it seems like there's much better documentation of the process out there since the last time I had a K-Jet car.

One question - I was looking at the vacuum diagram and comparing it to what's under the hood. In the diagram there's a "delay valve" in one of the lines to the WUR that's missing in my car, both ports are connected to the same vacuum line with a tee. Is the delay valve just a one-way check valve (looks like it) or is it something more elaborate? Is it intended to block vacuum or boost?
 
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Pouring cleaner into the ports on the fuel distributor didn't have any effect so I got an empty paint can, put the FD in it, and submerged it in mineral spirits. Gonna leave it that way for a few days and see whether it helps.
 
Took the fuel distributor apart. Seems like someone has been in here before and they weren't careful. There was noticeable copper spray residue on stuff, which isn't so bad, but the scratch above the hole nearest to the camera in the first pic is deep enough to catch my fingernail and there's a big gouge in the flange next to one of the ports (9 o'clock, second pic). I could probably polish out the scratch but I assume the gouge is no bueno as far as trying to rebuild it is concerned. Anyone reading have a good core?

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After doing some research I guess I could try filling the gouge and scratch with a little dab of JB Weld before polishing the mating surface but I feel like that's a bit sketchy considering the pressures present in the K-Jet system. I bought another fuel distributor on eBay and I'm going to see what kind of shape it's in, I might rebuild it or run it depending on how it looks when it shows up.
 
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