Old GN needs help

L

Lugnutz

Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2002
I have an 87 GN that has been parked for many years and needs a lot of work. Nothing is broken or blown up but at 140000 hard miles she needs a lot of TLC and I have little knowledge of what to do. The engine and tranny need to be rebuilt, the interior needs replacing and the body needs a lot of attention.

When finished, I want to end up with a very street-able, very reliable, daily driver but I want more power than the factory supplied. My problem is that I havent kept up with any of this knowledge for years so I am lost as to where to begin. Im hoping I can get some guidance from more knowledgeable people on this site.

Anyone want to help me out with some suggestions? I suppose the starting point is rebuilding the engine and transmission. What would you do to beef them up and improve upon them while you had them apart? I have a local engine shop that can do the work but I have no idea where to take the transmission for work.
 
You will benefit greatly by going to vortex.com and gnttype.com and spend a few days reading. Then you can search the site archives for answers to your immediate questions and finally you get to ask as many questions as needed for you to understand the special information about these cars.
 
Thanks. I already knew of gnttype.org but when I went to vortex.com it seemed like it had nothing to do with our cars. Was that possibly the wrong site?
 
Are you planning on doing most everything yourself? What is the time frame in which you want the car done? Budget? Nice to hear another GN is being brought back to life. There is tons of information on this site and very knowledgeable people. Search and ask questions. People here will help.

Peter
 
I have some mechanical knowledge and I have a very adept buddy who wants to help so I will do some of this myself. I havent decided how much of the engine work I will do myself. Im just now starting to make plans and see what I need to do. The transmission will definitely be done by someone else but I have no idea who to take/ship it to.

I dont have a firm budget or timeframe but I would like to keep from blowing a lot of cash and I would like to have it drivable before this year is up. As for the body and interior, that will be further down the road.
 
I am 4.5 hours north of you. I had a local guy rebuild my tranny and I'm very happy with it. I have about 1000 miles on it. He works from his home. Worked for Aamco for 25 years, then 10 years at Univ. of Il (rebuilt trannys for their vehicles). He is very reasonable, showed me the broken parts when he removed them and the new hardened parts before he installed them, and even called me two weeks after I got the car back to make sure I was happy!:smile: PM me and I will give you his name and phone #. Are you sure you need it rebuilt? I have over 200k on the tranny on my other car, still shifts like new (almost).
 
I'm not certain it needs rebuilding. However, it doesn't shift hard at all. It used to break your neck when you hit second but now it feels much softer. I did just read the spring cleaning topic on gnttype.org and I will perform all the tranny maintenance to see if that helps. I certainly have had fun with the car but never abused the transmission so it hasn't seen horrible conditions or anything.
 
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