booyah11

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2015
Been racing Subarus for the last four years and wanted to get into something different. As a child of the 80s I've always loved g-bodies, so when the hunt began for a new car it took top spot on my list. Add to that my experience with FI on the subie platform and the itch had to be scratched.

Gratuitous pic of the old race car...she will be missed:
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After selling off my Subaru and paying off the tow rig and some bills I had about $10k to play with. This left we with an interesting decision, either buy a decent car and have little money left over or buy a beater and do the work myself. As this was going to be a "hobby" car, buying a beater was my first choice.

The next thing I had to consider was the extent of the repairs the car would need. I'm a weekend warrior / garage mechanic so "big" stuff like pulling an engine or tranny would have to be left to the pros, same goes for extensive body work or paint. Finding a car that runs and drives was very important, but I didn't need pretty or perfect.

What I ended up with was a 1985 T-Type in Detroit, MI. The owner had lived in CA for 25 years and the car was stored during the winter, so given its age and location it was in decent shape. With that said the old girl needs a lot of work to get her where I want.

This thread will document my journey. Enjoy.
 
First post has a pic of a Subaru?!?!? How dare you!! :mad:

Fair enough, here is what she looked like when I got her home:
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As stated I got the car in Detroit, MI. I did get to drive it for ~3hrs from Detroit to Cleveland, at which point I realized shipping the car back to Colorado was the better choice. This pic is from me loading it on my trailer to get to get it back home.

First order of business was to take care of basic maintenance:
  • Oil / Filter
  • Transmission Fluid / Filter
  • Differential Fluid
  • Spark plugs / wires
  • Air filter
  • Fuel filter
I used the quintessential Spring Cleaning Guide as my main reference, but as many of you already know the '85 "hot air" cars present some unique challenges...more on that later.

When I changed the fluids I sent them away for analysis to Blackstone Labs to get a baseline, got a bit of good news and a bit of bad/expected news.
  • Oil: Zinc and other metals looked good, no viscosity or flash point issues. Small amount of coolant though so next OC will get analyzed as well
  • Transmission: Had never been changed before...ever...I hate people
  • Differential: Same as trans...yep
As I said this news was bad/expected. Why expected you say?? Well by the time I got the analysis results back I had completed the other maintenance items, so I had a pretty good understanding of the level of neglect I was dealing with. Also, just my visual inspection of the Trans and Diff fluids made me think they had never been changed...got to start somewhere.

So how did the other maintenance stuff go?? Ah yes...being a unique version of a unique car I'm sure that is going to end well. :cool:
 
Changing a Hot Air Fuel Filter

Added that in bold to maybe help the next sorry sack that is trying to follow the instructions for the "normal" TR cars. I say "normal" because so far there is not much that is actually normal about these cars. To me that is great because I was looking for an interesting car to play with. Does that mean I get double the interesting because my car is a 1985?? Yes!!

So what are the steps of changing a fuel filter?? Pretty easy:
  1. Relieve fuel pressure (pulling the fuel pump fuse and turning over the car is the easy button)
  2. Unbolt old filter
  3. Apply gasoline safe sealant to threads (permatex with PTFE)
  4. Bolt on new filter
  5. Cycle the ignition a couple times to rebuild fuel pressure
  6. Profit
See, easy!!

Wait, forgot a step...before you can "Unbolt old filter" you have to "Locate filter" right?? No problem that is easy, the Chiltons manual says it is by the carburetor. Oh wait no that is for NA regals, the SFI cars have it by the frame rail in front of the driver side rear tire. Oh wait no that is for the "normal" cars, you had to go and be unique silly boy so your fuel filter is under the ignition module behind the radiator fan...sweet:
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Okay that is not horrible, at least I don't have to lay on my back to change the fuel filter so that is actually kind of nice.

Now what was that I said about neglect?? How could I possibly have guessed that the transmission fluid had never been changed just by visual inspection?? Well, if an owner can't be bothered to change a small filter in the front of the engine that only requires 5, wait 6 easy steps then they are definitely not going to drop a messy transmission pan.

I highly doubt this poor fella has ever been changed:
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Had to add a couple steps to the Fuel Filter Change:
  1. Relieve fuel pressure (pulling the fuel pump fuse and turning over the car is the easy button)
  2. Locate filter
  3. Cut out old filter
  4. Install Fuel Line Repair Kit (Dorman 800-156)
  5. Apply gasoline safe sealant to threads (permatex with PTFE)
  6. Bolt on new filter
  7. Cycle the ignition a couple times to rebuild fuel pressure
  8. Wipe brow for disaster averted
The fuel line repair is pretty simple, just make sure to use a small pipe cutter to get a nice clean cut. The compression fittings with the kit are good up to 120psi, so there should be no issue there. As with the filter threads make sure to use the same gasoline safe sealant. One thing to be careful with is allowing enough room ahead of the compression fitting for the nut and sleeve. You want to have a nice straight run with compression fittings as they can leak if installed around a bend.

Baptism in the waters of Hot Air cars complete. :D
 
Just wait till you do the passenger side valve cover,spark plug anything passenger side related.an where you at in Colorado?
 
Hey you said Restomod...where is the Mod??

Might have skipped this up above so I'll cover it now. "What are your goals for the car??". For me that is an easy answer: Have Fun.

I'm not looking to create a museum piece, set 1/4 mile records or even win an award. This car is a toy and to that end it's only goal is to entertain me. I do love the nostalgia and quirkiness of the car so I don't want to change that. However, a 30 year old car has some gaps when it comes to meeting the needs of the modern driver. For me the first issue was the ability to plug in devices like phones and scan tools to do diagnostics.

Coming from the Subaru world I had access to a crap load of data and tuning tools, so getting eyes on the health of the car was critical. Easy button here is a Scanmaster + Power Logger right?? No!! You wanted to be unique remember??

No big deal, ALDL scanners have been around forever and thanks to the flexibility of Bluetooth and Android people way smarter than me solved the problem. I got a setup from 1320 Electronics that has so far been okay if not stellar. Installation is easy and the You Tube videos on the site walk you through everything. First step, plug it in the cigarette outlet...damn neglect hitting again.

So my cigarette outlet was corroded, easy fix but then I figured I didn't want an ugly plug cluttering up the dash. Also, there obviously weren't any USB jacks back in 1985 so I need a couple of those too. The key to the whole endeavor is a fuse splitter:
3


Then its just a matter of making a simple harness to run a USB jack and a new 12v power supply in the glove box for the scan tool:
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I like running a common ground for everything on a fuse, makes it easier to diagnose issues and de-clutters the wiring around each device on the circuit. Make sure to leave yourself plenty of extra wire as well test and label everything. Wrap it up in a fancy sleeve for a pro look.

Now I have USB jacks under the ash tray for charging phones and a power supply in the glove box to keep the scan tool out of sight. Winning!!
 
@blackazz , Spark plugs have been done. Not awesome but better than I thought honestly. I used a fancy pants swivel head plug remover for the one behind the up pipe and nearest the fire wall. Had a bit of a pucker moment with the one by the firewall as it felt like it was shearing but ended up fine.

Valve work is coming, I'll have pics and an update on that later.

I live in Colorado Springs, good town.
 
Sweet! I'm down in Pueblo.also looked into that scan tool,nice.
 
Ewwww Rust!!!

So being from Colorado I'm not so familiar with rust. My 12 year old Subaru was a CO only car and garaged, so it was still mostly rust free the day I sold it. Also had a 1972 Toyota HiLux Pickup in High School, at the time it was about 25 years old but again a CO car so rust was not a big deal. Plus I was a crappy high school kid that didn't really care.

This however is pretty common in Michigan apparently:
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Yeah, that is uber icky. I'm sure many of you have seen much worse but in CO this wouldn't happen. Well let me rephrase that, this would never happen to a car in CO owned by me...rust you gotta go.

Problem number one was dealing with the rocker now rotting from the inside out. The rust had eaten a hole through the front of the rocker, which meant all sorts of dirt and road grime got kicked up into the rocker from the front tire. My guess is this had been going on for several years so getting all that crap out was necessary.

I needed to cut out the icky bits no matter what, so I just expanded the size of the hole to allow me to feed in a hose from the shop vac and get all the years of filth sucked up.
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It took about 15 passes of the hose up and down the rocker before I stopped hearing bits sucked up. While feeding the hose in and out I tapped the rocker with a rubber mallet to loosen any caked on bits.

The next problem was treating the inside of the rocker. If I could find some smurfs this would have been a perfect job for them, another option would be to dip a ferret in Por 15 and have it run up and down the rocker a couple times...but alas I don't have a ferret either.

Here is the hero of the story:
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Got the kit from a local auto paint supply store for ~$40. The rust proofing itself is run of the mill stuff but the super fancy tube and 360* nozzle were well worth the price. I was able to feed the tube all the way to the end of the rocker, hit the sprayer and slowly pull the tube out. The nozzle ensures good coverage and worked really well. Ended up doing three coats inside the rocker and had enough left over to jab around the car rust proofing other little areas as well.

The tube kit came with three lengths of hose and four nozzles. Which meant I could have just tossed the one that I gunked up...but being a cheap ass I hooked it up to a can of carb cleaner, shot all the rust proofing out and could easily see getting 3-4 uses out of a single tube. Winning!!

Next up I had to patch the hole and treat all the other rust along the door edge. Maybe not the fancy glamorous hero but definitely a necessary side kick:
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Por 15 is some amazing stuff. It loves attaching to rust, is sandable, paintable, semi flexible and "mostly" easy to work with. I say mostly because the first coat can be pretty challenging as it is very thin and will cause major drips. After the first coat is on it sticks to itself which allows you to build up nice layers pretty quickly.

I actually used Por 15 in place of traditional fiberglass resin to patch the hole. I got this tip from a friend and it worked really well. Here is what I did:
  • Sand the area down, especially any painted areas
  • Layer a thin coat of Por 15, I found lint free rags used for staining worked the best
  • Wait about one hour
  • Apply another thin coat of Por 15
  • While it is wet apply fiber glass mesh
  • Apply another thin coat over the fiber glass
  • Wait about one hour and repeat for as many layers of fiber glass you need
I ended up doing three layers of fiber glass that got progressively bigger. The first layer covered the hole by about 1" on all sides and the subsequent layers covered by an additional 1" as well. After letting it dry overnight I had a rock hard weather proof seal that was completely bound to the rocker...very sweet.

The last step is standard body filler crap, which I suck at and totally hate but has to be done. I can barely frost a cupcake so trying to get body filler applied all pretty and smooth is just not in my DNA. But I do know how to use sanders, so my tactic is to lay on a big ugly thick coat and then sand it smooth.
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Definitely not pro quality as I hate this type of finish work. If you cared more than me the right thing to do is apply a coat of filler, sand, apply another coat of filler then sand/feather the edges. This type of work is only limited by your patience and willingness to apply filler + sand, so don't take my shoddy job as an indication of what your final product can look like.

My goals here were 90% rust removal / prevention and 10% aesthetics. With that in mind I'd give myself a B on rust killing and a D on making it pretty...story of my life.
 
Gauge install - Back to modding

In the middle of doing a bunch of other engine work but got screwed by Oreilly Auto on an Oil Pickup Screen so had to fill my time with different work. I rebuilt the oil pump and want to make sure it is working correctly so an Oil Pressure Gauge is a must. The boost gauge is more of a nice to have at this point, but as I was running line anyhow I just did the two together.

First pass at trying to run the oil gauge line was a total fail, the kit I bought came with 6' of plastic line, which was not nearly enough for how I wanted to route it. Access to the passenger cabin on the driver's side is easy so I figured running more line would be the better choice...nope. I bought two extra extension kits and ran the line back behind the engine, through the firewall, along the dash and then into the glove box..that was just stupid. Not only did I have to put in two extra unions that are just failure points but the heat behind the engine would have quickly ruined the plastic lines. :oops:

Being stubborn and stupid I actually considered buying a roll of copper refrigerant line and sticking to it. Thankfully I accepted my foolishness and just ran the line through the passenger's side.

The other thing I decided to do is wrap the plastic lines in silicon vacuum hose where it is closest to the engine. One trick here is to hang the line from the tracks of your garage and dangle something heavy from it. If you hit it lightly with your heat gun it will help straighten the line out, this make it much easier to work with and less likely to kink. Next just shoot some lube into a length of vacuum hose and slide the plastic tubing through.

Boost Gauge Line:
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Oil Gauge Line:
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Notice that I preserved the electronic Oil Pressure Switch for the idiot light. Fittings used:
  • Male / Male Coupler
  • Female T
  • Male / Female 90* Elbow
All connections have a dab of Sealant with PTFE, excellent stuff.

Next step is to get the tubing through the passenger side firewall. There is a big grommet with lots of space just above the ECM grommet, I had to pull the panel below the glove box as well as the ECM panel to get access. Also needed to use a right angle drill because space is pretty tight.

The grommet only had two sets of wire coming through it with plenty of room on the outer edge for a new hole, just be careful with the alignment of the drill and you'll be fine. I ended up with a 1/2" hole to fit my two gauge tubes, it is tight but that is good.

To fish the tubing through I first ran a length of solid copper wire from the inside of the car to the engine bay. The wire fed through just fine and ended up under the HVAC box exactly where I wanted it. Next step was to tape the two tubes to the copper wire and pull the whole shebang back through:
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Here is where having a buddy is really nice, just have them pull the wire through the firewall as you feed the tubing through and make sure it doesn't kink.

Fortunately I had already ran power to my glove box for an ALDL scanner so that was no sweat, space is tight but if you take your time the job isn't too bad. I like hiding this kind of stuff away and keeping the dash looking stock. I also don't have to worry about being all matching and pretty because 99% of the time the gauges are out of sight. Which if you read the rust post you'll know pretty is not my thing:
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Heat Management

Heat in a turbo car is a blessing and a curse, especially cars of the non-intercooled variety. A little light reading on the relationship between gas velocity and temperature. :pompous:

The gist of the story is that hotter gases move faster...duh right?? In the turbo world this means faster spool up of the impeller which equals less lag. How much less?? Not much but as mentioned, heat is good and bad so keeping the heat in the pipes will make the gases move faster and also help keep the heat off of parts that don't like it.

How bad is uncontrolled heat?? Well that is relative as well, but this definitely doesn't look good:
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This is the area of the hood liner just above the turbo housing...hot enough to burn hell. :sigh:

But that is just aesthetics and as we know I'm not a stickler for that type of thing, maybe when my resto is a couple years in this type of thing will be addressed but for now I don't really mind. However, the exhaust piping that hooks into the turbo is also around some more critical components, most notably the oil pan and passenger side valve cover. As mentioned, hot things move faster but I'll let the oil pump take care of moving the oil around and not rely on getting it super hot thank you very much.

Poor little valve cover getting roasted under all that hot mess:
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The oil pan isn't much happier with the cross pipe giving it a big warm hug, I didn't snap a before pic so you'll just have to wait and trust me that it's no good.

So now that the trouble areas are known, what next?? Personally I saw the valve cover as the bigger issue as it is inches away from all the major heat generators. So not only did I want to reduce the heat that was going to attack the cover, but I also wanted to protect it. Enter DEI cool tape!! Here is a pretty sweet demo of the effective heat reduction properties:

Yes an extreme example as the temp of the torch is much higher than the temp the piping will ever see, but even if I can get a small reduction in heat transfer to the valve cover I'll take it. Plus that is some serious bling right?? Well no, I'm not down with gold teeth and spinners so I went with the standard silver color.

First step was to clean my valve cover real well and give them a coat of high temp paint. They are mild steel and I didn't want to chance them corroding under the tape:
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I've been happy with Rusto High Heat paint on other projects so I stuck with that. VHT and DEI also provide high heat paint but I can buy a 1qt can of Rusto for the price of a single spray can of the other stuff. Plus I don't have to worry about overspray or stinking up the house, works for me.

While I was at it I put a couple coats on the rest of the exhaust bits. For odd shaped stuff you can hang it from some wire and get all the nooks and crannies without worrying about the piece sticking to your work surface.
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The DEI Cool Tape is pretty self explanatory stuff. I tried taping both longways and shortways and the jury is still out. If you tape longways the top is much easier, you'll have less seams which means less cutting and overlapping. But it is difficult to transition to sides and other curvy bits. If you go shortways you can do the top and sides in one shot and the shorter pieces are easier to manage around curvy bits. But you'll have a lot more pieces to cut and overlap which means a lot more seams.

Turned out pretty good:
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Now that the valve covers are protected from heat it was time to turn my attention to the pipes themselves. The biggest culprits for burning up nearby parts are the cross, up and down pipes. The headers are mostly hanging out by themselves and are far more complex to wrap, so I punted on that problem.

Heat wrapping has been around forever, so period correct as far as I'm concerned. I'm not much for looks normally but personally heat wrap looks pretty cool. Just like the tape it is self explanatory stuff, a couple tips through:
  • Lightly wet the wrap to make it more pliable but don't soak, that just makes it messy
  • Prewrap the pipes loosely to get started, this really keeps things from getting all twisted up
  • Always start from the bottom up, just like roofing a house
  • Cover yourself up, gloves, long sleeves, the works
Just like the covers the piping is mild steel so make sure to paint under and over the wrapping, this will prevent corrosion under the wrap and hold things together over the wrap. Turned out great:
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More cozy hug around the oil pan than hot icky hug now:
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Great project overall, two thumbs up!!
 
Maintenance mod...if that is a thing

If you are keeping up you'll know that this poor girl had not been maintained well. I was pretty sure the timing set had been done as there was some visible RTV around the cover and the water pump looked okay. What I was pretty sure had not been done was the rear seal as I was getting a pretty good leak on that side of the engine. Even if the timing set had been done I knew I wanted to get in there and take a look as well as clean it off reall good, because damn...
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I had followed the gnttype and Earl Brown guides for doing a timing set. Honestly not a difficult job but for a weekend warrior noob this is a couple day ordeal. Also make sure you have on had every possible part you might need:
  • Full gasket set (felpro 45930)
  • RTV
  • Timing set of your choice
  • Cam button
  • Tensioner if you stay stockish
  • Water pump
  • Oil pump rebuild kit
  • Oil filters
  • Lots of oil
  • Lots of coolant
As my car needs a lot of help, while I was elbow deep I did quite a bit more stuff:
  • All vacuum hoses
  • Radiator hoses
  • Heater core hoses
  • Thermostat
  • Thermostat housing
  • Both temp sensors (one is an actual sensor for the ecm the other is a switch for the idiot light)
  • Rear Main Seal
  • Oil pump filter
At a minimum if you are going through the hassle to do the front cover you should definitely drop the oil pan. In all likelihood you will find some gear teeth in the oil pan and a clogged/damaged pump filter screen. That leads to a rear main job and now you know why I have such a big list of stuff.

I call this a maintenance mod because in addition to just replacing old worn out crap it is a good time to follow the Earl Brown Oil Pressure Mod on the timing cover as well as replace the crappy rope seals with neoprene, install a better Cam Button and use a billet crank gear. Not sure how much of that qualifies as a "mod" vs. basic common sense, but I like the word mod so I'm sticking to it.

To clean the disgusting timing cover I filled a big plastic tote with a 50/50 solution of hot water and degreaser. Lots of scrubbing later I had a cover that was acceptable to put back into service.

One tip, when pulling everything apart create a cardboard template of the placement of the hardware. Really takes the guesswork out of things:
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Another nice thing to do is have little baggies for all the hardware and tape them to the part that they go with:
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So I debate a bit about mod vs. maintenance...but if the rope seal is gone and you replace it with a new neoprene one what do you call it?? Because both my front and rear rope seals were not just worn out...they were non existent. Actually I take that back, they were still on the car but instead of being where they were supposed to be they had completely clogged the oil pump filter. In addition the bypass hole had two timing teeth jammed in it...poor girl.

Back to "modding". When putting on the gasket you'll quickly notice it doesn't line up well on the water and oil ports. Not only will this overlap compromise the flow but it will also be more likely to leak as your fluids will have a lip to try and push under. To make sure you have the gasket lined up well you can cut segments of a plastic straw and stuff them in all the bolt holes:
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This keeps everything all nice and aligned while you use a file to "port" the gasket to fit correctly to the cover.

Definitely a must do when picking up a new to you car. Took me a full week to get all the work done, but I'm slow and had to make several trips to the store during the work. Great way to spend a week of vacation in my mind.
 
Seat belts - and this time it is really a restomod

So I debated a bit on other items, are they restoration or are they modification. Well this one is definitely a "restomod" as the existing seat belts were worn out, didn't lock up and were filthy. As I have not gotten to the brake situation yet I wanted to make sure if I hit something with the front of the car my face wouldn't hit the steering wheel. The existing belts wouldn't lock up so they had to go.

Seat belt tech really hasn't changed in forever, so I just walked through the junkyard for about an hour trying to find something that kind of matched. Also, I was mostly looking in the rear seats as they tend to see less usage than the front seats. My last criteria was to get the longest belts I could find as the mounting positions on the Buick are pretty far from each other and I didn't want to run out of material.

Beside having less wear, I had one more reason for picking seat belts from the rear of the car...locking. Rear seat belts have an extra feature that makes them lock out to mount a car seat. You trigger it by pulling the seat belt all the way out, then as it winds back up you can hear the locking mechanism engage keeping the seat belt under tension while the car seat is mounted. Knowing that I will at one point race this car I wanted to be able to lock up the seat belt around me the same way it would normally lock up around a car seat. BE CAREFUL with this. The only way to disengage the locking mechanism is to fully retract the belt, if you buy ones that are not long enough they wont be able to retract all the way and once locked you'll be stuck with a completely useless belt.

The other gotcha is with orientation and/or momentum locking mechanisms. The ones I scavenged came off a ford minivan and had a clever ball bearing device:
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The bearing sits in a little cavity when everything is okay, but if the car brakes, turns, accelerates or flips upside down the bearing moves and engages the lock. These two came off different belts from the same car, which means they are calibrated for a very precise mounting orientation. No chance in this working for my car so these had to go. Be super careful when pulling off the backing plate of the seat belt...remember that one side has a spring that WILL jump out at you if given a chance.

Okay so now it's time to rip up your car. :devil:

Lots of little screws with lots of differing lengths so just like in other posts, keep your crap organized. First thing off is the sill plate, nice warm up because that is dummy proof:
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Just a few screws and that piece easily comes off. Next up is the trim piece around the striker side of the door. It has group of obvious screws in the jam:
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The top portion has a small tab that fits under a metal trim piece above the door. You should not have to remove the metal bit, just slide the tab out. However, you do need to remove the bolt that attaches the shoulder mount of the seat belt. What is it again?? T45 or T50 torx?? Oh yeah it looks like a T50 but your 50 will not fit and the T45 is super wiggly and makes you feel like you're gonna strip it out...nice. I also tried a 1/4" allen key, which worked okay but not brilliant. In the end I didn't have any drama but there were definitely a few pucker moments when dealing with 30 year old bolts and sockets that don't fit quite right. I ended up replacing all those crappy torx bolts with standard bolts, I believe it is a 1/2" x 13 thread pitch.

Next up was the window panel, it has a lovely screw behind the seat back:
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You might also be able to use a really long skinny screw driver and push back the seat to make it work. I find my 1/4" ratchet is a go to tool for this kind of stuff. There is also a screw in the upper corner by the rear windshield, go ahead and remove the metal trim piece here as it is not worth fighting against.

When you pull this trim piece back be careful of the icky sealant that comes off around the window itself:
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Have a rag ready as this stuff will want to go everywhere and it impossible to clean.

Last bit is the the bottom cover where the armrest is. It has one screw that is pretty easy to get to behind the seat back and another one that is under the seat bottom:
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You might have to use a pry bar to hold up the seat bottom to get enough room to work but shouldn't be too bad. Now you should have full access to the seat belt tensioner so use the same T45 or 1/4" allen to get it off. There is also a little locking mechanism that is attached to a lever in the door jam, this comes off with a small plastic nut. I taped up all the pieces of the locking mechanism so they wouldn't rattle around and annoy me later.

The last mounting position for the seat belt is to the floor pan under the front seat. You have a couple options here, either pull the front seat and peel back the carpet to get to the bolt head, or cut a small 'X' in the carpet over the bolt head...easy decision for me:
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SUCCESS!! Celebrate however you like, beer, sweet tea, cheetos...all of the above.

Now you are faced with another decision, the new seat belt buckle will not likely be a perfect fit to the existing buckle lock. So you either need to pull out the stock buckle lock with the seat belt sensor and make it work on the new one, or take off the new seat belt buckle and replace it with the OEM one. I prefer the look and feel of the original buckles so decided to swap the OEM buckle over to the new belt. To do this you will need to pull the stitches off the new seat belt to allow the buckle to slide off. Getting the OEM buckle on can be a bit tricky, I found if you crimp the end of the belt it can slide under the retaining rod a little easier:
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Be ready for a bunch of trial and error with setting up the new belt, getting the shoulder and lap straps to align well and not be twisted will take some time. It is not difficult but can be frustrating. Just make sure to get all this figured out before putting the panels back on to avoid yet more time wasted.

Also, you will need to sew the end of the belt back together after putting the buckle on. I added a small amount of fabric glue to go with my stitching for added piece of mind:
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All the trim bits go back in reverse order. Be ready for some cursing because the screws are self tapping so there is no 'right' way to put them back, just try to wiggle things around to find the original hole.

Overall this is a great restomod, belts are much better now and I'm no longer worried about smashing my pretty face up.
 
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booyah11, I have a conversion kit I have no use for that allows you to convert to a 86/87 coil pack and module. Comes complete with adapter harness, mounting plate, coil pack, and module. The module is new. Coil pack has scratches on it but both are known good and have been tested on my car. Let me know if you want pics. Might even have a 87 ECM laying around too if interested.
 
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