1992 Eagle Talon

[Dr-Evil]

This is the Build Thread for 1992 Eagle Talon. Reply below.

 

[Dr-Evil]

Story Time: Purchasing

I stumbled across this car as I do many others on the beloved Facebook Marketplace! It was your typical vague information post with some terrible pictures, stating the car ran fine, had low mileage, needed brakes, all with a price tag of $1,200 Firm! The owner was supposedly waiting for the title in the mail as the ad had stated. So I messaged the guy and asked if he had received the title yet. He proceeds to tell me that he has but the car is pending sale at the moment. I told him to please let me know if the sale falls through and that I was interested in the car. Well a day goes by and the post is still up, so I go back and check my messages and I didn't see anything, so I messaged the guy again. He finally gets back to me and tells me that the car didn't sell. I then proceed to ask a few more questions, get him talked down on the price, and get a meet up time set so I can go take a look at this thing that's roughly 2 hours away from me. This all started on a Friday, went into Saturday, then Sunday comes and my buddy and I make the drive across Indiana to go check this Talon out. By the time we get there the guy unfortunately had to be at work, so we ended up dealing with his girlfriend, which to our surprise knew more about the car than he did.

So after jump starting the car after a brief conversation, it starts but it's got the classic low coolant idle surge going on like a Honda with a bad IACV. The low coolant light's glowing on the dash, brake warning light is on, but it's running and it sounds pretty solid. I take it for a quick spin around the block, trans shifts smooth, steering feels decent, brake pedal goes straight to the floor, and they are grinding pretty bad while struggling to stop the car. So I bring the car back, did the title/money exchange, go to load the car up, and notice that it's starting to run over operating temp. So I hurry up and drive it up the trailer, we strap it down, and we were out of there with one pretty clean, all stock, Talon.

***Side Note: While I was looking at the car and going over a few things by myself, my buddy was talking to the owners girlfriend, who gave him a fairly decent back story on the car to what they had been told. Story was that supposedly the original owner (who was local to the area) bought the car new and only brought it out for the James Dean Festival in Gas City, IN and maybe one or two other car shows in the area. Then supposedly their friend that they purchased the car from had bought it from either the original owner or her family, and then he had sold the car to the guy that I bought it from. So if the story is correct, I should be the 4th owner of this pretty well preserved 1GB Talon.

 

[Dr-Evil]

Sales ad photos along with after we got her loaded on the trailer!

 

[Spleen8urLSX]

Looks to be a nice clean survivor car, love this color on 1g’s.

 

[Dr-Evil]

Looks to be a nice clean survivor car, love this color on 1g’s.

It's a super solid car, especially for being up north its whole life. It doesn't have any of the usual 1G rust spots or anything! But yeah I agree, this color has always been one of my favorites. Think I'm just going to clean this one up and just make a reliable, clean driver out of it.

 

[Dr-Evil]

So after I got this thing home I went through the the normal inspection stuff. Checking fluids, belts, leaks, and so on.

Found that the entire brake system was absolutely junk, seized rear calipers, left front had ejected the inner pad a long time ago, trashed the caliper, and the rotor as expected.

So I ordered 4 brand new calipers, new pads and rotors, then a master cylinder when it was all said and done.

Of course cleaning things up here and there while waiting on parts to show up.

 

[Dr-Evil]

Update:

So due to totaling my Cherokee after a kamikaze buck incident on the way home from a wedding back in October. I had been daily driving the talon off and on up until about a week ago. I had left it at our other location for work overnight, went to pick it up the following day, started up like normal, let it warm up for a couple of minutes, and eventually left to go grab lunch before returning to work. I didn't even make it a mile from the store and the car developed a sputter/misfire. It has done this in the past but normally clears right up and runs as it should. This time it didn't, it progressively got worse, but instead of sputtering, it just felt down on power and wouldn't go over about 20/25mph, and that was with an excessive amount of throttle input to get it to do even that. Doesn't have any codes, starts right up, idles okay, revs out, but it's extremely sluggish. I've been checking things here and there when I have time to mess with it. Tossed a fresh set of NGK's in it, checked the timing to make sure it didn't skip a tooth or something stupid, checked the ECU, and so far all is good. Car is running extremely rich as well. I'm wondering if maybe the CAS is having some issue or if maybe it's a fueling related problem. I will continue to diagnose the issue and will try to post an update once I get this resolved. If anyone may have anything useful to add or suggestions on things for me to check out, feel free to let me know. This one's a little odd and has me scratching my head.

 

[dwb]

I was going to say a boost leak, but looks like this is NA.
Re-check your spark plugs and see if any still look brand new. When you checked the mechanical timing, did you check both cam gears and the crank timing marks all align at the same time?

 

[Dr-Evil]

I was going to say a boost leak, but looks like this is NA.
Re-check your spark plugs and see if any still look brand new. When you checked the mechanical timing, did you check both cam gears and the crank timing marks all align at the same time?

Yeah, it's a N/A 4g with an auto trans. Plugs have about 15 minutes of run time on them collectively. I replaced them after the issue occurred. But you're right, probably wouldn't hurt to recheck them. Timing marks all line up as they should, which honestly surprised me. The belt on this car is due to be replaced, I figured it skipped a tooth or two with how it's running but it did not.

 

[victorgalant]

Update:

So due to totaling my Cherokee after a kamikaze buck incident on the way home from a wedding back in October. I had been daily driving the talon off and on up until about a week ago. I had left it at our other location for work overnight, went to pick it up the following day, started up like normal, let it warm up for a couple of minutes, and eventually left to go grab lunch before returning to work. I didn't even make it a mile from the store and the car developed a sputter/misfire. It has done this in the past but normally clears right up and runs as it should. This time it didn't, it progressively got worse, but instead of sputtering, it just felt down on power and wouldn't go over about 20/25mph, and that was with an excessive amount of throttle input to get it to do even that. Doesn't have any codes, starts right up, idles okay, revs out, but it's extremely sluggish. I've been checking things here and there when I have time to mess with it. Tossed a fresh set of NGK's in it, checked the timing to make sure it didn't skip a tooth or something stupid, checked the ECU, and so far all is good. Car is running extremely rich as well. I'm wondering if maybe the CAS is having some issue or if maybe it's a fueling related problem. I will continue to diagnose the issue and will try to post an update once I get this resolved. If anyone may have anything useful to add or suggestions on things for me to check out, feel free to let me know. This one's a little odd and has me scratching my head.

Do you have a way to check compression? Check all cylinders. I used to have a problem like that in a totally unrelated (not dsm i mean) car and it ended up being a blown head gasket. Good luck!

 

[pauleyman]

Does it free rev?

 

[Dr-Evil]

Does it free rev?

Very slowly

 

[pauleyman]

Sounds like a dead misfire. Does it idle? If poorly pull the plugs wires off one by one. Each one should make it even worse except one.

 

[DreamChaser7]

I’m not savvy enough to help with this yet, but I love the Tennessee Blue 1GB with that gen Stang in the garage. Just saying..wink wink

 

[92AWDHX40]

I had one of those it was a,panda 1gb nice car

 

[Dr-Evil]

Well the weather has finally started to break here in Indiana so I took advantage of it and figured it was time to dive into diagnosing my poor running condition. Luckily it was something simple that I for whatever reason overlooked. I pulled the plug wires off one by one with the car running to find that cylinders 1 & 4 had no spark whatsoever. So I pulled the coil pack out of the car and ohm tested it to find that the 1/4 coil was way out of spec. After cleaning the coils up a bit from 30+ years of dust and gunk, I noticed that the coil had a pretty noticeable crack in it which probably was part of its failure I’d guess. So after replacing the coil pack and plug wires, she’s back to running on all 4 cylinders again.

I have a set of new rear wheel bearings that I need put in the car, a recently purchased non cracked valve cover from the awesome guys over at Performance Partout, along with a new gasket.

Today’s Ebay find of the day was a decently clean set of OE fog lights for the car, I’m pretty excited for those to show up, and those mounted in the car as well!

Also in addition to all of the new goodies, I forgot to post a pic of the car after I got the windows tinted shortly before the running issues took place!

 

[Dr-Evil]

I’m not savvy enough to help with this yet, but I love the Tennessee Blue 1GB with that gen Stang in the garage. Just saying..wink wink

Here’s a better picture of my Mustang! I never was much of a Mustang fan until I drove a coyote car years ago. I picked this up about 3 years ago with 21,000 miles on it and I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever about it! It gets a ton of attention anytime I get it out and it’s an absolute blast to drive. Definitely one of my all time favorites for sure!

 

[92AWDHX40]

Here is my old in im respraying another one now. Same color.

 

[DreamChaser7]

Here’s a better picture of my Mustang! I never was much of a Mustang fan until I drove a coyote car years ago. I picked this up about 3 years ago with 21,000 miles on it and I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever about it! It gets a ton of attention anytime I get it out and it’s an absolute blast to drive. Definitely one of my all time favorites for sure!

View attachment 726577

Nice! Ours is a 2014 California Special. She’s got 19k and change on the ticker now.