1990 Celebrity Eurosport fixer upper

I’m from Charlevoix area. Aside from a couple freak days, it hasn’t been very warm. Below freezing at night and 40s daytime. Supposedly it will get warmer next week. Warm enough to finally seal up those taillights.

I’ve been working on the car most evenings it’s not raining. The amount of foolishness I’m encountering is crazy. (I’d prefer a word I probably can’t say here.) Can’t even keep up with pictures.

So got the alternator in, that works good. Didn’t change the fuel pressure, but it started easier after another seafoam treatment.

Ordered a radiator, but meanwhile the radiator in my other Celebrity daily driver started leaking coolant around the trans cooler fittings, so had to tackle that one first. I know what happened, I was stuck in traffic in TC (Traverse City) and it got a little warmer than usual, and this radiator was probably 15-20 years old. BTW TC was easily 70f and the air was nice and warm, T shirt weather. Got back to Charlevoix around 1-2 pm and it’s barely 40, people outside in winter coats. Grand Rapids is a big difference too. That’s where my kid lives.

The next weekend I saw my mom for Mother’s Day, then stopped at the junkyard. Surprised but not really, he still had that Celebrity that I pulled the windshield from for my Cruiser in 2019, along with the headlights and marker lights as spares. At the time it was backed against a large tank so I couldn’t get to the taillights. So this time I grabbed the front turn signals in the bumper after digging in the dirt a little (still thinking about putting them in the rear bumper as rear fogs). And kept tearing apart the trunk lock cylinder until I got the trunk open, then got the taillights. 4 lights for $40. Been going there since the 90s, and used to take my kid all the time too when she was younger.

Got the accompanying parts from Rock Auto, upper and lower hoses / thermostats / radiator caps all for 3 cars, spare water pump and heater core, 6 gallons of full strength green coolant, all for under $200 shipped.

Got the radiator in the daily driver last Saturday. Last Sunday I go to put the radiator in the Euro wagon, it comes out quite easily, and is corroded all over. Find out the new one has a broken filler neck. So took it back to Advance, ordered another one, and I pick it up tomorrow. Also I got maybe a half quart of coolant out of the radiator. Thought maybe more would come out the lower hose, but nope, dry. Looking in the radiator I see white scale. Gonna run a good cleaner through before filling with coolant. Hopefully there’s no damage from the low level. Maybe I’m lucky and it all leaked out in my driveway.

So I figured what a great time to run my tach wiring off the ignition module harness while I’ve got tons of room. I notice one coil has been replaced. Upon removing the plug wires, one of those posts is totally rusted up. No silicone was used apparently. I’ve had these cars as winter drivers for a decade and no issues like that. Get the post cleaned up, and the new coil is still out of spec. I probably have spares. Even though it works it’s probably putting strain on the module. Been down that road before. Also since the spark plug wire retainer was flopping in the breeze, I figured I’d put it back in place. But nope, the bolt/stud isn’t even there. Wonder how many of 3 bolts are actually holding the module on. The bottom one likes to fall behind the starter if you’re not careful, so there might only be 1.

Got the tach wire run under the hood, through the proper harnesses to look decent. Drilled a hole through the firewall, deburred and sealed. Under the dash I find the ECM hanging by one bolt and its harness. Got that put up correctly from my parts stash. Wire is in place. The gauge mods wait until the car is sound otherwise.

Figured I’d do the taillight mod wiring. Cut the white wire at the turn signal switch and it works exactly as planned, hazards too. Sealed the ends and left enough to reassemble it later if desired. Did the wiring in the rear with little modification. Top bulbs left alone as turn signals, but cut and sealed off the marker light wires. Bottom bulbs I connected to my new wires from the 3rd brake light harness, following the other wires through the pillars and roof. All wiring is soldered and marine grade heat shrink. But now the turn signals are steady and don’t flash, with the load of 1 bulb instead of 2. I have an electronic flasher which will solve that. Ready for the new taillights to go in.

Tonight I got it on blocks and stands, and got the wheels off. New tires being mounted tomorrow, Cruiser loaded up. I was actually surprised, no stripped or overtorqued lug nuts, no wheels seized to the hubs, anti seize was even used on the hubs. First thing I see is both front brake hoses have ruptured jackets which would blow at the first hard stop. Pads are shot and calipers are pretty rough. Just going to replace all the hoses and calipers, etc, master cylinder too. Lines look clean but the problem spot on these cars is always the crossover under the steering rack. Need to crawl under there and look when it’s in a better spot, not soft ground. When I did the lines for my Jeep and Tracker, I got them from Zoro Tools for half the price including shipping. The rear assemblies seem ok so I’m leaving them alone for now except the hoses at the axle. At some point I would like to do the rear disc conversion like I’ve done on many other A bodies.

I did get to look at the fuel lines. These like to corrode and leak at the long flimsy sender lines coming from the tank. They look ok for the most part, but if I have to drop the tank I’m replacing those too. And the rest of the line is nylon for 1989 and up so normally no issue. But leave it to the previous owner. The line was crushed at some point by what looks like putting a jack in the wrong place. I’ve never done that. That could be the fuel pressure issue. The hard nylon has been flattened and creased and could blow at any time. So add that to the list.

And the muffler and most of the pipe has major holes in it, so I’m replacing that too. I’m surprised the car isn’t louder than it is.

 

Was pretty tired all day after getting up early, hoping to get my tires done. No other customers, but they still said they wouldn’t do it today and I’d have to come back Sunday. Wouldn’t even let me leave them them there. But I did pick up the radiator while I was in town.

Got back and decided to remove the ignition module to replace the coil. The stud was actually installed on the bottom, and a pain to get out because it’s not supposed to be there. Got the missing bolt from my stash, had to cut it down a bit to match. My guess is the bottom bolt fell behind the starter when the previous owner changed the coil, and is still there. Not messing with that right now.

I have 2 spare coils that test good, so replaced the one. But decided to check the module while it was apart, because there’s supposed to be heat sink grease under it. Of course it wasn’t reapplied. So the module waits until I can get some. And the radiator waits until the module is back in.

So afterwards I ordered $500 worth of parts from Rock Auto, good brands where it matters. Hopefully should cover everything else I need to fix on this car.

 

Heat sink grease coming tomorrow. So Accomplished a few more things today.

Drivers door lock fixed. Had to remove the multi layer contraption of a door panel, then several more things, to get at the lock rod. But it popped right back in place.

Located the turn signal flasher, and swapped on my electronic one. Turn signal works great now. Then put the old one into my Celebrity daily driver with 318k, that one had slowed down to about 3-4 seconds between flashes. Works more normal now.

Located the missing ignition module bolt. It was actually laying on the front edge of the starter, held up by a loom. Surprised it never fell out all this time.

 

Got all my parts finally. Well for now.

Ignition module reassembled with thermal paste, installed into car. Plug wires routed better, stud and bracket installed. Wire ends cleaned up especially that rusty one. Runs good.

Radiator installed, filled with distilled water and cooling system cleaner. While doing this, found that blower motor wasn’t working. Smacked it a few times with a 2x4 and got it working, but still stopped occasionally. Then it started smoking a bit. That will be on the next order.

Front brake calipers, pads, hoses installed. Rotors seemed fine, cleaned them up and reinstalled. However more foolishness. There was a roll pin pounded between the vanes, same length as the vane section. Why? All I can figure is they used it to keep the rotor from turning if removing/ installing the drive axle nut. And since they couldn’t pull it out, they pounded it in instead. Why not just use an old screwdriver for anti rotation like everyone else?

Back to the taillights. Decided to cut the opening for the 194 bulb, rather than abandon the existing socket. Several hours with a machinist rule, caliper, hobby knife, dremel, and files. Now to clean and reassemble them.

And then I decided to mow, so it’s done before the 80s show this weekend.