Hi, new to the forum first time poster, long time lurker. I've had a few libs most notably a clapped 2004 GT sedan and now a 2008 GT specB. Thought i'd introduce it and its story.
January 2023 hit up a bloke on messenger to buy parts for my preface sedan and trekked up to Newcastle to pick them up, got to his saw this wagon half in his driveway and made a joke about buying it, looked rough didn't run engine was in pieces. Fast Forward a few months and I'm messaging him for more parts and he suggests I just buy the wagon and flog my clapped pre-face off for cheap, got a few photos of it and a PPSR and thought it wasn't a bad deal for 3K. Trailered it down to my place, unregistered needing work before it would pass so It was sitting till about June.
Rego fail items were smashed windscreen, "Exhaust non compliant", Tint, torn CV boots, and oil leak. In my area there is only one place thats authorised for blue slips and I thought they wouldn't be assholes but guess I was wrong. 2 new CV's, tint removal, windscreen replacement, $1.5K, and a sump washer later I took it back to still get knocked back on the exhaust, fair enough this thing was loud. Got told I needed a letter from the exhaust manufacturer that it met ADR and I needed to do an emissions test because "I can't tell if there is a cat in the exhaust." One would assume that being a mechanic and having access to a hoist you could pull off the pipe, see the cat and pass it but he wasn't having a bar of it, even told him the model number for the exhaust was on the inside of the up pipe flange but he still refused to take it off and look at the cat in the up pipe. So I took it somewhere else and drove it unrego'd an hour away from home and took it somewhere else, gave him the failed report, he scratched his head and then put the car on the hoist, pulled off the mid-pipe said yeah theres a cat in that and passed it all in the span of 30 minutes.
Got my pass, got my plates, took it out to show it off to my mates and get their thoughts and immediately ran into problems, P0301, P0302, P0303, P0304, P0244, and P01410, Brilliant. Turns out I had blown off both ends on the vac line that goes from under the intake manifold and the blow off valve? I dunno what it is exactly. Repco Vac line came to the rescue and that cleared all but the P0244, and P1410. Turns out P01410 is quite common, if there was a club lib bingo card for shit that doesn't like working or most common code it would be up there. Asked around on facebook for ideas on what to do and turns out theres a way of "Tuning it out", great another 400 for a tune focusing on making the gearbox shift nicer and to get rid of the engine light. Lucky for me the P1410 is quite intermittent and can be avoided entirely by not launching the car at every green light and not driving like an absolute degenerate. Soon™ I plan on replacing the VF42 (not 100 percent sure what turbo it is, but its stock) with a GTX2948 that will "just bolt on trust me bro."
But that wasn't It, somehow both mechanics and myself had managed to miss the rear passenger side brake calliper that was Seized on. Couldn't source a replacement that fit, somehow ended up with legacy rear callipers and bit the bullet and got a set of TbSTI Brembos for 3.5K, Painted and assembled for 500, and fitted with new lines, new master cylinder, new pads and new rotors for 1.5K. Picked up a set of TbSTI wheels for a further 1.5K and finally had a nice running, driving, registered, and most importantly insured Lib that I am happy to call mine.
Tried out a few things on it, picked up one of those ungodly navi replacements that gives you carplay and android auto, can not stress how much of a piece of shit they are and an absolute waste of money. I'm actively looking for an unmolested cubby or ready to go nexus setup to replace it and a dual zone climate control double din facia.
Next job is to do a 6mt conversion, hopefully picking up a gearbox, subframe, drive shafts, pedals, and everything needed to do it. Then its time for a factory manual ECU, BCU, Ignition, and cluster so hopefully I can have a nice manual Cluster to match my soon to be Manual lib.
Oh yeah and the car has 395,659KM currently on it, it's driven quite a lot, I've put 7 or 8 thousand Ks on it. Plan is for a full service at 400,000 replacing everything because I plan to have it out to do the gearbox conversion, any hints/tricks/ advice for the conversion is appreciated.
before someone replies with it, I'm $11,400 deep not including the cost of rego, $16,900 including the 6mt box, cluster, and modules, and $18,400 including labour for just the manual conversion no engine work.