Back in November i bought a 93 Spirit for a daily driver.Peeling paint ,bad a/c,1 ding and 1 dent,great interior,76k miles,all for a grand.
Well I drove it for a few weeks and the head gasket blew.I got a fel-pro HG set ,substituted a Mopar Performance gasket.Picked up a timing belt,tensioner,water pump,oil,filter,antifreeze, thermostat,belts.Money problems prevented getting the work done till recently.
I got back in touch with a mechanic i've used in the past.He did the HG,water pump,fluids changed,drilled a bleed hole in the t-stat before installing it...all for 425$ w/90 day warranty.
He also showed me the old HG cylinder area 1-2 was scorched,2-3 was burnt,3-4 was burnt.Looked like a blow torch had been applied,up to a quarter inch of material was missing.Now when he first looked at the car he commented"looks like the head has already been off".He said when he took off the head bolts on 4 or 5 of them he used finger pressure to back them out!!!
So i was basically shelling out close to $600 because someone either reused stretched headbolts or did not torque them down properly.
He pointed out a couple of small problems that need to be taken care of in the future(bad motor mount,missing bushing on the alt mount).But he felt that the car was pretty good overall and should last for a while.
I drove the car a few days to get a feel of how it was performing,then I dropped the transmission pan.I replaced the filter,cleaned the pan and magnet(a little build up),refilled with atf+4.
I am happy to say the car is running good and I'm pretty happy.The Spirit should get better mpg than the Grand Marquis i have been driving.
Now to start the process of fixing/upgrading the car.
Well I drove it for a few weeks and the head gasket blew.I got a fel-pro HG set ,substituted a Mopar Performance gasket.Picked up a timing belt,tensioner,water pump,oil,filter,antifreeze, thermostat,belts.Money problems prevented getting the work done till recently.
I got back in touch with a mechanic i've used in the past.He did the HG,water pump,fluids changed,drilled a bleed hole in the t-stat before installing it...all for 425$ w/90 day warranty.
He also showed me the old HG cylinder area 1-2 was scorched,2-3 was burnt,3-4 was burnt.Looked like a blow torch had been applied,up to a quarter inch of material was missing.Now when he first looked at the car he commented"looks like the head has already been off".He said when he took off the head bolts on 4 or 5 of them he used finger pressure to back them out!!!
So i was basically shelling out close to $600 because someone either reused stretched headbolts or did not torque them down properly.
He pointed out a couple of small problems that need to be taken care of in the future(bad motor mount,missing bushing on the alt mount).But he felt that the car was pretty good overall and should last for a while.
I drove the car a few days to get a feel of how it was performing,then I dropped the transmission pan.I replaced the filter,cleaned the pan and magnet(a little build up),refilled with atf+4.
I am happy to say the car is running good and I'm pretty happy.The Spirit should get better mpg than the Grand Marquis i have been driving.
Now to start the process of fixing/upgrading the car.
