Hey guys,
As I posted in my intro thread, I'm new here, but not new to Contours, having owned a '96 as my DD for many years. Just picked up a somewhat neglected '98 CSVT as my next project (and hopefully soon to be daily driver).
The passenger side window was broken out when some bozo stole the (not very valuable) stereo out of it...
There was glass EVERYWHERE. I know from past experience with this sort of thing, you never get all the glass out...five years from now I could be cleaning it out and still find some.
Here it is during my initial swamp out. It was kind of pigged out inside. Garbage, cigarette boxes, etc. Found about $2.50 in change which I gave to my kids. Seats are in pretty good shape. Carpet is gross...passenger side looks like it might have mold under the mat. I have a small carpet machine that will probably clean it up, it's just a lot of work.
Spent the better part of a day with the Porter Cable and some Poor Boys...the paint is actually in pretty good shape for as old and uncared for as it is. The worst of it was the rear bumper, which looked like someone actually took sandpaper to it. I was actually thinking I was going to have to shoot some more clear on it, but after polishing it actually looks pretty good.
Before:
After:
The rest of the paint looks pretty good. Front bumper has a small crease where they ran into something, and some cracks from running into something else. I may paint it someday, but it looks good enough for now it's not a top priority.
Here she is after polishing and some exterior detailing...
Also gave the headlights a polish. Was going to do the Hightower mod, but discovered that after heating the headlights 5 or 6 times I threw in the towel. It just seemed like I was going to destroy them before I got them apart. Oh well...at least they're clear now.
Before:
After...
I hit them with 400, 800, 1000, 1500 wet paper, then buffed out with Poor Boys SSR2 and finished with some EXP sealant. I think they look about as good as you can expect a 16 year old piece of plastic to look. Not quite brand new, but pretty darn close. I have one of those Powerball type things for headlights, but I decided to try an orange cutting pad and the SSR2 to polish them...the difference wasn't night and day, but it was significant. The car polish and pad actually looked way better than the headlight ball. Nice to know I can just use my car polish on headlights too lol. I'll keep the Powerball for polishing wheels though. Works good for getting scratches out of DVDs too lol.
So, she's looking pretty good now...not currently running though
. Pulled codes off the computer, and it said the IMRC was stuck open, and EGR flow was excessive. The IMCR actually had a couple of problems...first, one of the screws holding the gears in place was broken and the gear were jammed, second, the cable was broken . So, the car is parked until I can find a working IMCR... I'm not having any luck locally--I live in a town of 6000 people, and the only junkyard in the area doesn't have anything. The EGR passages were plugged pretty bad and I cleaned those out...but the excessive flow code means I'm also probably looking at a new DPFE... Also desperately needed an oil change (done) and general tune up. The good new is, even with it's issues the motor ran really well, so it should have a lot of life left in it. There's only 110K on the clock, though I suspect those were pretty hard miles lol.
Anyway, my "to do" list looks something like this:
Passenger side window (broken out), Windshield (cracked all over), Clock (broken) Defrost Switch (broken), E-Brake Boot (missing), Shift Knob (worn through), Stereo (stolen), rear strut mount (broken), fog lights (neither works), left rear sail panel (broken by idiots trying to break into car).
Mechanical: Already changed oil and serp belt (pretty sure it was original). Need to change plugs and maybe wires, IMRC, DPFE, wire harness issues, flush coolant, maybe replace water pump just to get ahead of it. Need to find stock air filter box (has a yucky open element filter on it now...just sucking hot air off the engine). Need to take the wheels off and inspect the brakes... Need to figure out ABS and coolant lights (why they're on that is). That's pretty much all I can think of for now.
So, anyway...kind of a project, but not a huge one. Should be a nice driver once I get all the bugs worked out.
As I posted in my intro thread, I'm new here, but not new to Contours, having owned a '96 as my DD for many years. Just picked up a somewhat neglected '98 CSVT as my next project (and hopefully soon to be daily driver).
The passenger side window was broken out when some bozo stole the (not very valuable) stereo out of it...
There was glass EVERYWHERE. I know from past experience with this sort of thing, you never get all the glass out...five years from now I could be cleaning it out and still find some.
Here it is during my initial swamp out. It was kind of pigged out inside. Garbage, cigarette boxes, etc. Found about $2.50 in change which I gave to my kids. Seats are in pretty good shape. Carpet is gross...passenger side looks like it might have mold under the mat. I have a small carpet machine that will probably clean it up, it's just a lot of work.
Spent the better part of a day with the Porter Cable and some Poor Boys...the paint is actually in pretty good shape for as old and uncared for as it is. The worst of it was the rear bumper, which looked like someone actually took sandpaper to it. I was actually thinking I was going to have to shoot some more clear on it, but after polishing it actually looks pretty good.
Before:
After:
The rest of the paint looks pretty good. Front bumper has a small crease where they ran into something, and some cracks from running into something else. I may paint it someday, but it looks good enough for now it's not a top priority.
Here she is after polishing and some exterior detailing...
Also gave the headlights a polish. Was going to do the Hightower mod, but discovered that after heating the headlights 5 or 6 times I threw in the towel. It just seemed like I was going to destroy them before I got them apart. Oh well...at least they're clear now.
Before:
After...
I hit them with 400, 800, 1000, 1500 wet paper, then buffed out with Poor Boys SSR2 and finished with some EXP sealant. I think they look about as good as you can expect a 16 year old piece of plastic to look. Not quite brand new, but pretty darn close. I have one of those Powerball type things for headlights, but I decided to try an orange cutting pad and the SSR2 to polish them...the difference wasn't night and day, but it was significant. The car polish and pad actually looked way better than the headlight ball. Nice to know I can just use my car polish on headlights too lol. I'll keep the Powerball for polishing wheels though. Works good for getting scratches out of DVDs too lol.
So, she's looking pretty good now...not currently running though
. Pulled codes off the computer, and it said the IMRC was stuck open, and EGR flow was excessive. The IMCR actually had a couple of problems...first, one of the screws holding the gears in place was broken and the gear were jammed, second, the cable was broken . So, the car is parked until I can find a working IMCR... I'm not having any luck locally--I live in a town of 6000 people, and the only junkyard in the area doesn't have anything. The EGR passages were plugged pretty bad and I cleaned those out...but the excessive flow code means I'm also probably looking at a new DPFE... Also desperately needed an oil change (done) and general tune up. The good new is, even with it's issues the motor ran really well, so it should have a lot of life left in it. There's only 110K on the clock, though I suspect those were pretty hard miles lol. Anyway, my "to do" list looks something like this:
Passenger side window (broken out), Windshield (cracked all over), Clock (broken) Defrost Switch (broken), E-Brake Boot (missing), Shift Knob (worn through), Stereo (stolen), rear strut mount (broken), fog lights (neither works), left rear sail panel (broken by idiots trying to break into car).
Mechanical: Already changed oil and serp belt (pretty sure it was original). Need to change plugs and maybe wires, IMRC, DPFE, wire harness issues, flush coolant, maybe replace water pump just to get ahead of it. Need to find stock air filter box (has a yucky open element filter on it now...just sucking hot air off the engine). Need to take the wheels off and inspect the brakes... Need to figure out ABS and coolant lights (why they're on that is). That's pretty much all I can think of for now.
So, anyway...kind of a project, but not a huge one. Should be a nice driver once I get all the bugs worked out.
