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Verde Street, Track, & Restoration

51K views 198 replies 38 participants last post by  peakay 
#1 ·
My name is Sam. As some of you have seen me post some of my 164S and others ive delt with me in the Classifieds! Well here is my 1988 Milano Verde.
Hope all enjoy! :)

Finally decided to put my build on here, even though i shouldve started it a while back. So you can read through, just figured id share my project with everyone!

Bought to be a track car, but also a street-able car for nice days.

I dont have a fancy camera so basically, iphone camera is all ive got. You can follow along if you choose, so here goes...


Basically this build started back in November of 2012 when my alternator took a crap, so i decided to park it for winter while i tore it apart and got all my funds together and figured out a plan.

First plan of action, get the local to rebuild one of my ****ty alternators.

This may be the boring part for all of you, so you can back out now if you'd like..





The plan was to clean up the crappy overfilled engine bay of all of its useless stuff.



First: to get rid of most of the wires on the drivers side of the engine bay, i decided to switch to a Non-abs brake system. The 25+ year old system didnt function anyways, So its gotta go.

first comes the terrible ABS harness.



all this unnecessary stuff





second, abs accumulator pump, master cylinder, and wheel speed sensors.



During all that, also removed cruise control and cruise control harness and module.

I know, boring stuff, right?

okay. so all that is out, starting engine bay prep.

moving battery to back eventually, so battery tray needs to go.



big rust hole underneath that once i got it removed.

cut it out, and cleaned up that area, cut a patch panel, welded in.





did some welding on the other side



over view of progress



over the following days, i grinded down all the welds, filled some stuff with fiberglass, and put very little bondo to cover the minor imperfections.

Also some new used parts dropped in from a friend. (Mike164S on here)
IAP headers, with mating downpipes (need re done), and an S manifold which i dont think im going to use.



friend was over with his camera, so he snagged a good pic of midway progress!



rolled outside to blow the body dust and stuff off and clean off the bay in prep for primer and paint



primer passenger, driver side, front rad support, rear of bay also but no progress picture.







moved on to painting the bay, thank god. shaving the bay was a pain.



finshed with that, moving on finally.

In the meantime did some random things while i saved money and also spent it as quick as it was coming in.

took my calipers, had them sandblasted and cleaned up.





painted them. my new brake hardware came in. ended up being the wrong hardware so awaiting new.







Good many parts rolling in to get started on.

Since im switching to Non-Abs system, new master cylinder, brake booster, pedal assembly, and some miscellaneous parts.



Koni adjustables were on sale, so i couldnt resist saving $150 during the build



Also needed new radiator, so i bought new hose, thermostat.

Needed to do a valve adjustment as well, so valve cover gaskets, spark plug tube seals, and some other gaskets ordered too.





Cleaned up all my non abs parts, made sure everything was in tact, painted, and used that newer copper brake tubing to make some lines.



made some more lines, set up proportioning valve. found out the valve leaks, so for better track adjustment, i picked up a universal adjustable one from jegs

(Does anyone know much about them? ive herd of a few guys on here running them but not sure how to connect all the lines)





Made sure it started up, ran, and everything functioned properly. Will be a while untili can road test as i have the suspension building approaching.



Now one of the big obstacles out of the way, moving forward.

All the suspension arrived so i can actually get to my favorite part.

ball joints, all bushings, tie rods, rear springs and perches.



Last pic of the car being on the ground. my friend is excited for the new change.



Ripped everything off, forgot to get pictures, but definately needed to clean up.



lots of scrubbing, sanded down, primered and painted



I knocked the old bearings out of lower control arm. prepped for sandblasting the control arms and paint.



After i had sandblasted everything, i painted everything, then i put the bushings in.



after i sandblasted and painted my lower control arms, i forgot i broke a shock bolt in the arm. big pain in the butt drilling out, thread chasing, but i got it surprisingly fast.



got that situated,now to adjusting the ride height per the torsion bars

terrible picture, sorry



i quickly bolted up the minimum to test my ride height



terribly wrong on my adjustment, all i could do is laugh as i wanted to lower it (first time with torsion bars)



so, yeah. pretty much brings me up to date on what is going on currently. i took everything back apart for some serious adjustment. While i wait on new front rotors and brake pads, i sent my wheel hubs to a friend for some cleaning.



Wheel bearings are packed and put into the one wheel hub ive got back from my friend.

waiting on my new brake hardware kit, rotors, and pads to get here, then i can recheck my ride height and see what im at.
 
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#2 ·
Rotors arrived today from Centerline so i could put the rest of my suspension together, get it on the ground, and check my ride height again.





Ill be running 17's when i get closer to the point of it actually being road/ track worthy.





Since the front is on the ground, ill be starting the rear suspension. I will get updates in the next couple days.

Stay tuned! :)
 
#5 ·
Plumbing the adjustable brake pressure regulator into the braking system is quite straight forward.
The brake port at the rear of the master cylinder (closest to the vacuum booster) is for the rear brakes. Have a brake line go from the MC to the input side of the pressure regulator and the output go to the brake line for the rear brakes.
The other 2 lines are for 1 of the front brakes and provide a pressure reference signal to the factory pressure regulator. All you need to do is connect the brake line that goes to the front left brake, directly to the master cylinder.
 
#8 ·
Plumbing the adjustable brake pressure regulator into the braking system is quite straight forward.
The brake port at the rear of the master cylinder (closest to the vacuum booster) is for the rear brakes. Have a brake line go from the MC to the input side of the pressure regulator and the output go to the brake line for the rear brakes.
The other 2 lines are for 1 of the front brakes and provide a pressure reference signal to the factory pressure regulator. All you need to do is connect the brake line that goes to the front left brake, directly to the master cylinder.
Thank you! It was something so simple yet I made so difficult in my head.


Everyone thank you for the kind words. I just through one big update together to put it on here. There will be more to come :)
 
#9 ·
Looking good.
For a track or street car I'd replace those caster bushings with ball joints, now's the time to do it while you have clear access in the engine bay. Even with those nice bushings you have your values will change every time you align the car.
 

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#11 ·
Looking good.
For a track or street car I'd replace those caster bushings with ball joints, now's the time to do it while you have clear access in the engine bay. Even with those nice bushings you have your values will change every time you align the car.
Attached Images
Yes I plan on doing the caster ball joints. I got the bushings a while back and just used them to set everything up then read some good stuff about the ball joints. I also need to figure out my caster rods, because I could not get them to bust loose for ANYTHING. Any suggestions?
 
#16 ·
Hope your gonna keep Her for a long time. Nice work! More than I'd ever do. Can't imagine the hours you put in to this resto. Looks like awhile to go.
 
#18 ·
Man, I must say one thing I don't get is "shaving" the engine bay. Seems like a whole lot of work for a sort of "meh, I guess it's cool looking" sort of reaction.

Maybe I'm more of a driver guy, not a show guy.
 
#21 ·
ABS & Cruise Control Harness

Hi

You said "....the Gold doesn't have the ABS harness or cruise control...."

Not so.Lots of Golds (including my own) came with cruise control. But it's not a problem, you just unplug the cruise control elements and either cut the wires or fold them away.
As far as the ABS harness goes, it's own entity. It's not integrated into the main wiring harness at all, it makes a few connections to the ARC, and to some fuses but that's it.
As far as removing the ABS harness, it's the same deal as the cruise control harness, unplug the components and either cut the wires, or remove the harness as one piece. If you want to remove the entire ABS harness, you need to pull the dash and remove the ABS relay set hidden under the dash.

Bye
 
#22 ·
I am at that stage. I did some wiring and pulled my ABS out. It seemed like when I tried to pull all the wires out of the cruise control wiring, one of the wires is the power feed to the instrument cluster. I'd rather have a new harness to start over with is what I'm after. I haven't messed with the wiring much lately, so I haven't went into full diagnoses.

Most would say this is what I get for trying to "tuck" and "wire hide" the engine bay. The main goal here has been to strip out as much useless wires and accessories as possible but still maintaining the street able drive. The only the I plan on keeping in the car is the instrument cluster, the stereo, the window and sunroof functions.
 
#23 · (Edited)
So finally got around to doing some work on the Verde. It's been a couple weeks because ive started anew job and had some life changes going on. Feels good to be back at it though.

This rear end is a mess. Full of busted bushings, and tons of rust.











So far i have all my new bushings, springs, shocks, but the list is far from done.

For the rear end:
- brake caliper rebuild kit (obviously they were leaking)
-new pads and hardware
-rotors,
-need new axle boots and rebuild
-diff mount (I think that's what it's called)
-both guibos
-center support bearing

Going to have the DeDion tube, transmission crossmember, shift rod, and a few other things media blasted and powder coated.

New hardware for places that need.
Hopefully upgrade rear sway bar.
Replace brake and clutch lines.
And whatever else that comes along.

As of right now, I'm stuck at getting the DeDion tube out and my shop manual isn't very clear. I've marked and unbolted the driveshaft as seen it's pretty much mandatory to do. Questioning on how to remove the transmission crossmember to slide the DeDion out? Any suggestions?
 
#24 · (Edited)
Tonights project was to get the DeDion out, along with everything else.



The rotors are stuck on there and big problem.... No brakes because im redoing all of that also. Bad time.



DeDion is out.



Rear Subframe is rusty as hell, but what isnt on this car it seems.



Driveshaft Out.



Time to order some more parts, and get everything off to be cleaned!
 
#25 ·
Tonight,

i disassembled some of the DeDion, Axles and Watts links.



I could have removed it last, but i wanted to get it out of the way. The Rear sway bar came out, i took the Endlinks off and the bushings were so shot, i thought i could easily press them out, apparently it was a little harder than i thought....



ooops. In the clamps defense, it was wimpy anyways.



After all that, i dropped the remaining. wasnt too bad.



These brakes had only been used for maybe 5 drives, and they look like rusty crap. Calipers were leaking, and theyre going to need some work.



 
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