Progress Thread Starting a progress thread for my 86 GT.

opihinalu

Active Member
Feb 10, 2021
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Florida
Hi all! I have owned my car for almost 2 years and daily drove it for a little over a year before I decided to start working on it. My goal is to make it into a nice street car doing a little bit of drag stuff for fun. I’m 18 and I have never worked on any car before this one and I have literally zero mechanical knowledge but I have a love for foxes and this hopefully going to be the start towards a career of doing things like this. I am making this progress thread more as motivation to me to keep pushing on and kind of a cool story to look back on, so I don’t care if nobody reads it.

Because I experienced some overheating issues I decided to completely revamp the cooling system. I installed a new water pump, thermostat and housing, and now I am working on installing an aluminum radiator and electric cooling fan as well as all new hoses. However, after about a week of my car being in the garage, I have run into a pretty big problem: rats. I went to go drop the radiator in today and heard scurrying around underneath the grate below the windshield. I put up a rat trap that we have, but I know there is at least more than 1. Any tips on how to get them out? I am so frustrated I really just wanna call the exterminator to deal with it. Thanks for reading guys, will update you on next post.
 

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Rat bait from Home Depot. The green blocks work great, and they eat them right up. If you have them that bad you should put them around the garage every month. Just make sure no dogs get near them. They will be gone that night.......Good job with your car. You will do a great job with what you can learn on the internet. Just take notes, and bag everything with Zip locks.
 
Rat bait from Home Depot. The green blocks work great, and they eat them right up. If you have them that bad you should put them around the garage every month. Just make sure no dogs get near them. They will be gone that night.......Good job with your car. You will do a great job with what you can learn on the internet. Just take notes, and bag everything with Zip locks.
Thanks for the tips and the kind words. I will go pick up the green blocks tomorrow and post an update. Yes, I have begun to bag everything with zip locks after a few problems trying to put the water pump back on:doh:
 
That's a nice car !!! I don't like poisoning rats or mice around cars. They have a way of being dead in the hardest spots to get to. That smell will linger for a long time.

I use moth balls melted in warm water and sprayed around the engine bay corners and in the cowl. The stink for a couple days but eventually you won't smell it but mice, rats, and snakes hate it.
 
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That looks to be a pretty tight garage and not a “barn”. I’d be looking to see how, why, where they are getting in......... and then eliminate them with any means possible!
I spray Home Defense religiously in my garage just to keep the spiders and crickets at bay. I may have to break out the .22 if I had rats!

And by the way ....... awesome car ..... ‘86 is THE YEAR!
 
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I'm the original owner of an '86 GT. Mine has recently gone thru an engine upgrade (aluminum heads, cam, intake, headers, etc.) I did replace the stock radiator with an aluminum SVE radiator, and installed a new fan clutch. Mine cools great without the difficulty of getting the electric fans to work.