Last Wednesday I picked up this 1990 Q45 with 127k miles.
Exteriors is in really good condition, the interior is almost showroom. According to the previous owner it would stall out at 3-4 mph. He got fed up with shops being unable to fix it, even swapping transmissions, so he stuck it in his "barn" 10 years ago. After a test drive, it didn't appear to have any stalling issues, so I handed over $1000, pulled the drive shaft, and loaded it on a dolly for the 4 hour drive home. He even threw in an extra transmission.
Once we got it back to the shop and up on the lift, we could start finding what was wrong with it. At first glance, it seemed like I would need to address the following:
1. Plastic chain guides and tensioners (kit on the way)
2. Power steering leak (rusted lines)
3. No rear brakes (rusted lines)
4. Transmission/Stalling issues
5. Half a tank of 10 year old gas
6. New oil, plugs, and filters
7. Warped front rotors
8. Awful stick on "wood" trim (most is pulled out now)
9. Significant exhaust leak
10. Drive shaft vibration
The first things we address were the power steering lines and the exhaust leaks. There were a few pinhole leaks, but the majority of the noise was coming from under the heatshields between the resonators and the cats. Pulling them off revealed waterlogged insulation and exhaust pipe that looked like a sieve.
So we cut out the bad section:
And welded in some new pipe:
Now you can hardly tell it's running. Next up were the rusted-through power steering lines. Apparently the part is no longer available, so we had to improvise. Using brake line and the recycled fittings, we made up some new lines:
The power steering held for a while, but it's leaking from somewhere again.
The engine wouldn't start up the first time we tried it (probably flooded it accidentally), but it worked fine the next morning. Except that it stalled at 3-4 mph. After letting it warm up, there were no issues. Driving it, it wouldn't shift out of second gear. This problem went away after reading and clearing the codes. Now it shifts fine, if a little slow. I hope new a new transmission filter and fluid will help with this.
We hooked 12V up to the fuel pump, rid it of its old fuel, and filled it up with some premium. After running some Seafom, it seems to be running better, but not at its full potential.
Now that it's somewhat running, I can move on to my future plans!
1. Run more Seafoam, change the timing chain and guides, oil, oil filter, fuel filter and plugs.
2. Fix power steering leaks and replace rusted brake lines. Maybe replace warped rotors. Bypass "Word Brakepad" warning.
3. Z32TT 5 Speed swap. We'll probably try to make the adapter ourselves and avoid using any spacers.
4. ITB setup. Using throttle bodies from a sport bike and some sort of standalone ECU, unless the NismoTronic starts supporting VH45DE.
That's all for now. I've already gleaned tons of useful information from this forum and hope to contribute some in the future. If anyone needs an auto transmission in the SE Ohio area, I can cut you a deal.