What have you done to your car today?

A month ago my last project/weekend car left the garage. After a ten year run, I have had my fill.

This 82 DJ5 was stretched to a 94” WB. 5.3 LM7, sm465, NP231 with 4:1 gears. 21” Ground Clearance at the skid. Currie Dana 60 Rear, Dana 44 front, chromoly axles, 4:56 gears and Yukon Lockers. The power to weight ratio was pretty wicked.


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The driveway contractor did a shit job sealcoating and got overspray all over my truck. I'm talmbout, its so bad, it had to cover at least 3/4 of it plus overspray on the hardscaping and garage. If i had known it was a spray job and not squeegee on i woulda passed...

Anyways, showed him all the damage and dude said he wanted do come out with some solvent and wipe down the truck since thats what he does to his work trucks. I said piss off with that bs, having a detailer do it and its coming out of your balance--this was gross negligence doing a spray job on residential this bad.

Normally i'd clean it up myself but since it was on his dime, i called up a local mobile detailer with good insta-cred and had him tackle decontaminating it plus a ceramic coat on my dime. I bought this truck used off lease and it never looked so good.

Paint was absolutely covered with spray like this:

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And after

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That reflection doe...

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Santapez said:
@Red Mosquito Before going crazy if the carpet is really dirty, look into how much a replacement carpet is. I bought one once for a mid-60's car and it wasn't that expensive and molded to fit properly.

Your hatch struts make me laugh because I bought a 1990 Mustang years ago and it came with broken struts and a bent & broken piece of patio umbrella pole that the prior owner used to hold up the hatch. I used that pole for the entire time I owned that car instead of replacing the struts as a poor kid.
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I got the OER carpet and it's only about $200
 
GSTim said:
My guess is the battery and/or alternator is dying. Had this same issue with my daughter's BMW and thought the trans was shot. Saw a few things online about battery issues and changed the battery, issue solved. Some cars (especially German) are really sensitive to low or varying voltage. I would change the battery first before you let them sell you unneeded repairs.
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Brand new battery. Installed February this year
 
UtahJoe said:
So I had to take my wife's 3.6R outback to the dealer for the first time ever.....the TR680 CVT needed a drain and fill on the fluid and you can't buy the fluid in anything other than 5 gallon buckets which cost $4-500...which would have been more than the dealer wanted for the drain and fill. So I dropped it off to them knowing full well I was going to get the upsell call.

Hey the trans has a leak....$3000
The rear struts...the outsides are rusty $1400 with alignment
the radiator cap is bad, $40 plus $300 for coolant flush
the exhaust is rusty, $1200
needs an oil change....im like, how would you know that? you read my log book in my garage? $125

lol...goddam....fucking con artists...I feel bad for the people who get taken in with this bullshit.
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My sons have ‘21 and ‘22 Crosstreks, sub20k miles each that have never seen a dealer. I know what they’re in for when ever they do take them in.
 
Started on the interior today. It was a bit of a pain since I don't have much garage space, and I need to pull it out if I want to get to the passenger side. So I worked from the driver side and was able to yank the console and the seat. I gave it a good vacuuming with the tornador, it really picks up a lot of dirt. I should have no trouble getting the upholstery close to spotless once I shampoo it. The lighting and shadows make it look way worse than it is.

My only concern is one spot that looks like an ancient wad of gum on the rear pass. floor, I'll have to look into my options there. It's not enough to make me want to pull the whole carpet at this stage. That can be done in the future, I want to drive it soon.

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This is the best way I found to keep the bolts organized, plus a ton of pictures from where they come out. And all of the electrical plugs.

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Can't wait to fire up this gem I found under the passenger seat

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Red Mosquito said:
Started on the interior today. It was a bit of a pain since I don't have much garage space, and I need to pull it out if I want to get to the passenger side. So I worked from the driver side and was able to yank the console and the seat. I gave it a good vacuuming with the tornador, it really picks up a lot of dirt. I should have no trouble getting the upholstery close to spotless once I shampoo it. The lighting and shadows make it look way worse than it is.

My only concern is one spot that looks like an ancient wad of gum on the rear pass. floor, I'll have to look into my options there. It's not enough to make me want to pull the whole carpet at this stage. That can be done in the future, I want to drive it soon.

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This is the best way I found to keep the bolts organized, plus a ton of pictures from where they come out. And all of the electrical plugs.

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Can't wait to fire up this gem I found under the passenger seat

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Looking good.
You gotta have faith.
 
I spent the evening deep cleaning the console. I didn't take any before pics but use your imagination. It was very grimy, but pretty much everything came out. I pulled out the boot and all of the switches to make sure all the nooks got cleaned up. I gave the switches themselves a good cleaning too with qtips. Everything is in pretty good shape, just dirty. I can't figure out how it got like this. It must have been stored with the windows open at times, I can't think of any other way.PXL_20260426_020930645.jpgPXL_20260426_020918079.jpgPXL_20260426_005603275.jpg
 
sundaydoug said:
Finally got around to doing what I bought this truck to do. Towed my new E36 M3 track toy up to Watkins Glen for a weekend of HPDE. @Carson I apologize in advance for both cars being dirty.
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Any Interest in a set of E36 M3 Porterfield R4 front track pads? These are the R4 track not S/street model. I have a damn near new set with just 1 day at NJMP. $80 and they're yours.
 
Here's an update. The vw/audi shop in De has no clue what is wrong with my transmission so after they replace the airbags in the front suspension that the towing co messed up its being towed to the Audi dealer in Wilmington.
 
sundaydoug said:
Finally got around to doing what I bought this truck to do. Towed my new E36 M3 track toy up to Watkins Glen for a weekend of HPDE. @Carson I apologize in advance for both cars being dirty.

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Curious about the reverse tow, was it squirrelly with the extra weight behind the axles?

Also, I have a line on some light weight trailer rentals (lighter than the uhaul) if you're interested. When I towed my Firebird I was up against my 5k weight limit for my Ascent, so I had to seek out lighter trailers.
 
Red Mosquito said:
Curious about the reverse tow, was it squirrelly with the extra weight behind the axles?

Also, I have a line on some light weight trailer rentals (lighter than the uhaul) if you're interested. When I towed my Firebird I was up against my 5k weight limit for my Ascent, so I had to seek out lighter trailers.
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The reason we loaded it that way was because of clearance with the front lip. I was a little apprehensive because everything in the Uhaul literature said specifically not to do that, but the guy at the Uhaul place actually told me it would be OK. These cars are apparently close to 50/50 front/rear weight distribution and from what I read from others with lots of E36 towing experience it really wouldn't matter which way you load it.

This was my first time towing anything with any vehicle, so I don't have anything to compare it to. But the 4Runner did great. Got a Scangauge to measure trans temps along with a big external trans cooler. Just took it nice and slow and used low gearing on all those hills going up 17/86 near Monticello.

Yea, the Uhaul trailers are def heavy. This was kind of the test to see how well both me and the truck handled towing. I may actually look at buying a trailer now, a lighter-weight trailer, brake controller, and WD hitch I'm sure would be a huge improvement. I rolled the E36 up on scales over the weekend and it was 2,905lbs with me in it and 3/4 tank. I think the Uhauls are 2,200ish so it was prob right around 5,000lbs in tow.
 
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