When I bought the car it needed a bump to start and it does have some rust (planning to get it rust repaired and re-painted).
Started off taking out the spark plugs and leads, unfortunately on the way out one of the leads broke and I had to find replacements. Replaced the leads and plugs with Eagle ignition leads E54461 and NGK spark plugs.
I have also refreshed the front-end of the car, taking out the lower control arms, giving them a good wire brush and fresh paint. I have also re-painted the brake calipers a nice red and put some new brake rotors and pads.
As for getting the car starting, I have changed the oil and oil filter, and super happy to say that the car starts with the turn of a key without any hiccups. It turned out to be part of the security system that is installed in the car which was preventing it from starting.
For now, next up for the car is changing the left engine mount as I found it to be pretty rusty after removing the battery tray (which was broken). Also sorting out what to do with the rear brakes as replacements don’t seem to exist. Hoping to get the car blue slipped and rego’d this year!
Thanks for reading! Any questions, advice, etc is appreciated!
Hi, nice that you’ve started a thread. I had one of these, it’s now living in Adelaide. Interestingly it was a “re-shelled Detomaso”, which meant that to have it legally on the road when it was first imported, it had to be re-shelled into an Aus compliant body. In actuality, it just got a new chassis number stamped on the strut tower. It came with a letter of dispensation, kind of like a birth certificate. It would be interesting to see if your’s was similar?
Starting with the rear brakes, I have decided to go ahead with the applause conversion for the rear. It’s pretty simple and just bolts on.
Needed are the rear applause knuckles, applause hubs, and applause rotors. The hubs and rotors I purchased from eBay. As well you will need a spacer so that the rotor has clearance from the DeTomaso calliper bracket. Huge thank you to Carl from the charade owners group for sorting out the knuckle and the spacer for me. Here’s the entire set up all bolted on.
