Chris' 1986 GLHS H/J Bodies page


Owner: Mike Lintner
Stats: 1989 Chrysler Lebaron GTS
"'Twas a dark and stormy night....."

 Seriously though, the real situation was much more bland.

 "After only two years of hen-pecking for a new car (the '80 Celica was losing its appeal) I finally gave in to the pervasive pecking and started some casual looking - never mind the negative cash flow with one kid in college and the other on a hockey travel team (in Idaho you have to travel 200 miles to find the nearest team). Finally in December '89 the sale ad appeared: $2000 off list on the only two remaing '89 Chryslers (the '90's had been out for a couple of months) PLUS $2000 trade-in on anything you could drive onto the lot! I had to look. I did. I drove both - there was no comparison between the turbo I coupe and the turbo II sedan. I pulled out my credit rating (the only thing of value at that time) and slapped it down. I was the happy owner of a GTS! My wife was even happy. The hen-pecking ceased when she started driving it to work. I ended up with the car after the divorce. There was no equity in it as I was paying the loan off at the same rate it was depreciating. With only three years left on the loan the car was no bargain so her lawyer advised against it. Lucky me! As the years went by, the turbo slowly lost its umph. Little - by - little my screaming performance GTS turned into just another car. Last year I decided to fix the turbo. The car had only 70K miles on it (1/2 of its lifetime by my way of thinking) so I started looking for a re-built unit. None locally, so the search proceded to the Internet. And there it was - BOOM. The Shelby Dodge Mailing List. Other people liked Chrysler turbos too! To wind up my story, one day I was messing with changing my air filter and I happened to bump the outlet hose from the turbo. It was loose! The hose clamp had never been tightened. As the hose aged and lost its elasticity, it started to stretch and leak. A little at first, but more later. I tightened the clamp. Lucky me again! The performance was back with a few turns of the screw.


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