88 All trac Project - New to cars

Hello,

Just purchased an 88 All-trac for $800. It's been sitting in his garage for a couple of years, he was the original owner.

It's pretty worn down and rusted with 355xxx KM's on it. I would love to restore it, but it's my first project car. I've been trying to research non-stop and trying to take everything in.

Just some questions.. I put a good battery in and took it for a quick test run. I was on 2nd gear and floored it but it just slowly accelerated, so it's lacking a lot of power.
But before proceeding to fix those problems, would it be more worth it to do a complete tear down? (I'd like to rebuild the engine eventually). Also get rid of the rust. Or should I try to fix all the problems I can before doing a tear down?


I'll post some pics later, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I apologize for the noobness.

Welcome and congrats on the 800.00 dollar deal! The first thing I'd start with is add fuel injection cleaner maybe try to remove all the old gas, change oil, trans fluid, coolent and clean the MAF then last but not least do a tune up. Btw I'm surprized your car was able to move on its own power rather then always towin it like I had to do with both my tracs

Thanks for your reply and advice.
Haha, I was surprised as well. I had to get it towed to my place, all the tires were flat. The original owner didn't start it for about 3 years. But besides letting it sit and rot, he jotted down everything he did to that car since day one (and gave me the note pad he wrote it on).

But yes, I will start doing those small tune ups for now.

As said previously, do all the tune up stuff and get the old gas out of it. See how she does then. If she pulls and drives decent then do suspension stuff and progressively build things up that can still be used after rebuild.

I would recommend trying to drive her for a bit. That way you can see what you want to improve when the full tear down happens.

UtahSleeper":2d8mzdnw said:

I would recommend trying to drive her for a bit. That way you can see what you want to improve when the full tear down happens.

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This a million times over. Tune up first, then proper diagnostics of any lingering issues, then drive it and see what areas you think need to be improved. If it's your first project it's easy to get overwhelmed if you dive into too much at once so just take it slow and do things in manageable chunks. If you get frustrated or overwhelmed don't hesitate to take a step back for a while or ask us for help.

awesome!
thanks for the support everyone.

really appreciate the advice. great community