I purchased a Houston TX Flood car. Plan is to go through the whole car and bring it back to life!
Much like all of you, I've always had a love of these cars. When I saw this S54 car at the auction in my favorite color, I had to have it. I've had a few flood cars and really do not like them. Salt water is Terrible and not worth bring a car back. Fresh water is a bit more forgiving. So that's why I'm giving this a try.
Had to order a key for it because it arrived at my shop with the key snapped off in the ignition and the doors locked. I opened the car up, and it was surprisingly dry already. I unplugged the DME, ABS module and a few other connections to see if they were damp. Not even any residual moister. There is a coating of dirt on every surface, and some plugs show a tiny bit of corrosion. Luckily, the important plugs showed hardly any.
The seats are coming out now. The passenger seat functioned, but the drivers is not cooperating. Of course it's in the full down position and making it very hard to reach any connections.
I had the car on the lift earlier to drain all the fluids. The differential had teaspoons of water in it. The transmission had a bit more. The engine on the other hand, had a couple gallons of water come out before the oil. I'll be pulling the engine out and giving it a full rebuild assuming there's no unforeseen reason this is not possible. I'd like to keep the original engine in the car (after the rebuild). Worse case, I rebuild a different S54 and put it in. TBD
The ignition will not go into the start position for some reason. I'll be tearing that apart at some point to straighten it out.
Just wanted to document the process here. Plan is to get it back to 100% and add it to the collection!
Much like all of you, I've always had a love of these cars. When I saw this S54 car at the auction in my favorite color, I had to have it. I've had a few flood cars and really do not like them. Salt water is Terrible and not worth bring a car back. Fresh water is a bit more forgiving. So that's why I'm giving this a try.
Had to order a key for it because it arrived at my shop with the key snapped off in the ignition and the doors locked. I opened the car up, and it was surprisingly dry already. I unplugged the DME, ABS module and a few other connections to see if they were damp. Not even any residual moister. There is a coating of dirt on every surface, and some plugs show a tiny bit of corrosion. Luckily, the important plugs showed hardly any.
The seats are coming out now. The passenger seat functioned, but the drivers is not cooperating. Of course it's in the full down position and making it very hard to reach any connections.
I had the car on the lift earlier to drain all the fluids. The differential had teaspoons of water in it. The transmission had a bit more. The engine on the other hand, had a couple gallons of water come out before the oil. I'll be pulling the engine out and giving it a full rebuild assuming there's no unforeseen reason this is not possible. I'd like to keep the original engine in the car (after the rebuild). Worse case, I rebuild a different S54 and put it in. TBD
The ignition will not go into the start position for some reason. I'll be tearing that apart at some point to straighten it out.
Just wanted to document the process here. Plan is to get it back to 100% and add it to the collection!
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