Still get error when I try to post pictures.......Looks like TGP going across scales

If you like these cars and have the time I think this is a good deal. I was always intending on restoring. Engine and Brake master cylinder are probably worth $500.

Best cash offer gets it!

History
My Step Father Purchased for me while I was in college. ~1999. The car was in great shape! only had about 80,000 miles Everything worked except the brake accumulator. Bought Chip, accumulator, and crossover from Jeff M soon after purchase. Planned to keep for longtime but an idiot IU student visiting purdue rear ended me and pushed me into truck with hitch sticking out. Damaged the hood and hitch went through the front bumper. (NO FRAME DAMAGE!) Never fixed!!. Insurance gave me what I had in the car. Car became toy! In 2001 I drove down to florida but trans overheated (like it was stuck in Neutral) in atlanta. Tow Truck driver moved to U-haul lot. Tow truck driver let come off bed to fast and it bent rear suspension. Picked back up on way back and babied to Indiana. It has sat in garage ever since. I also had a second TGP ended up swapping the rims and tires, crossover, Cooling fans and accumulator. I sold the other car. I was plannning on restoring but no longer have time or interest.

Current Status
It is located in Ft Wayne, IN  (I have not lived in Indiana for last 5 yrs). Need to get this car out of an extra house my step father owns.
~140K miles I think...My father took the pictures and did not look at miles. (I will have him go back and look)
Body has rear and front end damage but I think the paint is still glossy if you clean off the 10 years of garage dust. (excpet the Left hood louver)
No Longer has Jeff M crossover (Original leaking one available)
No Longer has turbo installed. (Originally went to the other car but this one was rebuilt and I wanted to keep))
No longer has Accumulator.
No Longer has Engine Cooling fans.
Extra set of rear seats.
Rims are in poor shape.
Tires are bad.
No longer has radio...I had aftermarket (I will look for the original ) ...don't remeber if it was CD or tape...I will guess tape.
Had Viper Car Alarm installed not sure if still functional.
Has Sunroof.
Lower front valence was replaced but never painted and was damaged by Tow truck driver.
All gauges still worked when I last drove.
Ineterior is good shape. I had partially built piller Pod on A-pillar. Original Apillar and modifed go with car.
Not sure If I have the chip still I can look.
Has modified High output alternator (For sound system)
Replaced the Fuel injectors with aftermarket at some point.
Engine ran VERY Well!!..never had any problems until trans (Probably due to sustained High speed from Indiana to Georgia)

If Interested I will have to plan to come meet you on a weekend. Considering I will be driving 3hrs I will only come if you are serious about buying. Not to just look at.  I want this to go to someone who like these cars. DO NOT have time to PART out. If you want parts each part is 500.00 and you get the rest of the car with it. =)


Have Pictures (Not great ones) but get Error saing upload folder is full.!!

How about $400 for both the tranny and the motor?

First of this is a motor that was taken from an 89 Grand prix.


History:
This was my old car before I got the TGP.
It had 195,000 miles on it when the motor was pulled for rebuild. It was rebuilt by a freind. My friend had a professional machine shop rebuild the cylinder heads (C&P Machine, Ft Wayne, IN). My brother drove the car about a month and wrecked the car. He hit a concrete stump just big enough to hit the front cradle and bend the chassis but small enough to miss all of the front bumber. Junked the car, pulled the moter and tranny (BTW the tranny had about 10,000 miles on it since it was rebuilt by transmission shop).  My brother bought another grand prix planning on putting the rebuilt motor (and tranny) in it when the motor went out.  But sadly a month after he got it someone hit the car while it was parked on the side of a road. Therefore, that car was also junked.


Therfore I have a motor that has been sitting for about 6 months without a home.

Anyone interested?

It is in the Ft Wayne, IN area (Northeast corner of Indiana).
Will not want much fro it just need to get it out of my sister's garage.

I just got this car for my brother so I don't know much about the car yet. (I put mine up for restoration)

Has anyone had this problem before?

This is what I did.
1. Car won't start
2. Check fuel pressure (None)
3. Check fuse (it's blown)
4. Replace with 20 amp like it's supposed to have (it had a 10amp in it)
5. Start engine (idles for aboput 2 min and dies)
6 Check fuse (blown)
7 Put in another fuse
8 Turn key to on to let pump turn on
9. Will not blow fuse if not started (Let it sit like that and took in and out fuse to get the pump to recycle and it never blows the fuse)

Fuse blows ONLY after you start the car. It is random how long the car will run with out blowing it.

Could it be:
1. the fuel pump shorting out
2. or a short somewhere in the wiring

The relay is new.

malibuolds, I sent you a pm

I think NADA (NADAguides.com)gives better value estimates than KBB. Especially for our cars.

I know State farm and other insurance companies use it.

NADA estimates
LOW $3100
Average $5700
High $8625

Nada actually considers TGPs to be classics. KBB does not show value for a McClaren they only take into account the powertrain is a turbo.

To see this vaue you have to select "Grand Prix 2 Door Coupe (*) " when it lists all the 1990 pontiacs. THis will diect you to
1990 Pontiac Grand Prix
2 Door Coupe (*)
 (*) ASC/MCLAREN TURBO  

NADA specifically states
Note: This value does not represent a "100 Point" or "# 1" vehicle *.
* "100 Point" or "# 1" vehicle is not driven. It would generally be in a museum or transported in an enclosed trailer to concourse judging and car shows. This type of car would be stored in a climate-regulated facility.

Glad I could help.

I am not worried about someone stilling it. I doubt the stupid code is a deterient for anybody cause everyone knows you can get them unlocked. Who else would want a factor cd player except a TGP owner and once they put it in they could go to the dealer anyway and get it unlocked.

Besides that stereo is not in the TGP that I care about. Its in the car I just bought for $500. I might give it to my brother or sell it, Haven't decided. (any bids? ) Just put a rebuilt turbo from turbo chargers.com on it.

The mute trick did not work on mine and neither did removing it and putting it back in.

:D I just used this exact process on my TGP with the Factory CD player.

I needed to know how to do this and I found pieces of info on several sites including this one and w-body/tgp forum. None of them had complete information but I managed to peice all of them together.


1. Press and hold presets 2 and 3 for about 5 to 10 seconds until you
get 3 digits on your display. This is the first 3 of 6 digits you will
need, so write 'em down. (mine were 881)

2. After doing step one and writing down the code, immediately press the
AM/FM button to get the last 3 of the 6 numbers you'll need, and write
'em down. (if you wait too long between steps 1 and 2 and the LOC code
displays again, just start over). (mine were 322)

3. Call this number, it's a prerecorded message, so don't worry about
having to talk to anyone...1-800-537-5140. The voice will ask if you're
calling for Chevy, Pontiac, Cadillac, etc... When you hear this,
press 1 for chevy, followed by 02107and hit the * key. (i.e. 102107*) He'll ask you for the 6 digit code that you've written down.(mine was 881 322) Enter that and press the * key. He will then give you a code,(mine was 810 891)

4. To unlock the radio:

A. Turn the ignition on.
B. Press ?SET? (000 appears on display).
C. Press ?SEEK until the first digit of the code appears.

D. Press ?TUNE" until the second and third digits
E. Press "AM-FM" (000 appears on display).
F. Press ?SEEK? until the fourth digit of the code appears.
G. Press ?TUNE? until the fifth and sixth digits of the code appear.
H. Press "AM-FM". Now the radio can be turned on.

If the car dies after you take lose the battery...your alternator is shot.

The car should only use the battery to start the car. thatn the alternator takes over.

I have actually jumped cars that way on the highway when I didn't have cables. Leave one car runnning...take out the battery....put it in the other car...start it then put it back into the original car while both are still running. ...(Had to be extremely cautius not to let the hot lead touch anything.

Yes, The oil return hose was replaced and it did not have any kinks, I check several times.  I did check the compressor  wheel for play and it didn't move.

I just got back in from removing the turbo.
Guess What!!
It had to be the problem...if not it definately contributed.
The back side(turbine side was caked with charcoal. I probably scraped several ounces of black crust with out even tuching the housing. I think its definately going to be a $750-800 rebuild ...if it can be rebuilt at all.

I may have messed it up even more since the last time I check the compressor spin with my fingers. Cause now when you rotate the shaft you can fill it slightly binding. But that may be because when I scraped the charcoal stuff some of the pieces may have fallen inside.

Thanks all you guys for your help narrowing down what the problem is.

Now Alll I have to do is decide where I am going to ship the turbo off to tomorrow.  And pay 700.00.

I want to put all the turbo info in one spot for others to get quickly.

After searching the forum on Turbo Info heres what I found.

There is 3 main places people send there turbo for rebuild.

Turbochargers.com (Houston, Texas)  (800) 749-7111
Majesticturbo.com (Waco, Texas)  1-800-231-5566
DallasTurbo.com (Is this the same company as Majestic just in Dallas?)(800) 297-3626

The turbo is a Garret T-25.

Questions?
1. Will a stage 1 or 2 upgrade require chip retuning?

2. Has anyone managed to get there turbo rebuilt for the basic charge (~$300)? It seems everyone has had to pay large extra fees because the housing or impeler was screwed ($700-800).

3. It has been suggested that $700-800 is NOT a good deal for a factory turbo (Without upgrades). If so then how is the cost of needing a chip retuned and fabrications costs/time more worthwhile? Will the benifits be that great?

I must be color blind.....I went out this evening and first checked the oil cold.  The coolant looks good (not oily, not low).

Started it up and drove it in circles so I could try to get tranny warm. Let it idle and checked the tranny fluid. It was fine. Coughed a few times cause of smoke.  :D Then shut off the car and checked the oil again. The oil was down probably a 1/4 of a quart.   :x If anything it should have went up cause the fluid should expand when it gets warm.

Turned it back on and let it idle while I listened to the radio in a another car. After about 5 minutes the car started making noises. I think the noise is coming from the turbo.  :x Sounds like a faint metal on metal noise. Could it be the turbine wheel rubbing? It would only do it avery now and then. As I was putting my head closer to hear the noise I notice small puffs of smoke from the back of the turbo and a small oil spot in the small crack where the turbo housing meets the downpipe.

I think it is the Turbo. But I swear the smoke looks white.  :roll:

If what the dealer said was true that it started smoking after the tranny was put in....what could they have done to mess up the turbo?

Duh.... That makes sense. For some reason I was thinking it could only supply positive pressure. But if the pressure in the tranny exceeds the TB pressure, of course the fluid will get sucked up like a straw.

No fluid at all. Looked dry as could be.  I think the smoke is from the tranny fluid. (Based on smell and unless I am color blind is definately white) There is a ton of black soot (wet and goowie) coming out the tailpipe and splaterring on the back. I need to go out there and check the tranny fluid. I bet its really low.

Hopefully the transmission fluid will be severly low. (So that I will know most likely it is tranny fluid) Therefore since I don't know of any other way for the car to burn tranny fluid it must be the modulator thus if I let it run long enough it will stop.  The bottom of the tranny its dry so it probably doesn't leak fluid.

When I started this yesturday I drained the oil and filled it back up so I could tell if lots of oil was disappearing. I can't imagine all that soot and smoke being created by I small amount of oil (I check the level this morning at it was good). The soot litterally drips from the tail pipe and collects in a puddle on the ground. Maybe if I let it run longer and get it hot it will burn it all out and it will stop smoking.

BTW what does burning antifreeze smell like? (In case it is burning coolant) THat would suck to have a head gasket leak, I know coolant also looks white.

Let you know tonight...Thanks for your help