Teal Typhoon

I picked this gem up 3 weeks ago now, it was far too good of a deal to pass up for a running and almost driving Typhoon.

(turns out its 1 of 132 in teal, its number 0229 of the 4700 typhoons made)

The guy had bought it a good while back for cheap because he thought he could fix it up, turns out it was more of a challenge than he thought especially in SF. It sounded like the previous owner before him was fed up with people stealing pieces off it, or trying to so he just decided to sell the whole thing cheap. (I found this out with the pieces of cladding in the back that were broken and some of the exterior parts missing, the guy I bought it from explained a bit of this but I didnt totally understand because it has all the cladding on it currently.

So far with some digging it only seems to need to have the ignition cylinder swapped and the steering column cleaned up. most of its problems were buried in there.

It really had me confused with these two random plugs that almost looked like fancy relay plugs but it turns out they unhooked the wires that go to the column and had some very ghetto wiring done to turn the truck on with very small gauge wire. They used a door popper button to turn on the starter so when I didnt realize I was low on gas it wouldnt start and I kept using it and all of a sudden the button started smoking so I yanked all the connections out so that it wouldnt cause more problems haha.

The Typhoon and Syclone group on facebook has proven to be the most valuable thing as those guys know these trucks inside and out.
One of the guys has been helping me trouble shoot the column and get things sorted enough to make everything function again. I'm excited to test drive it as I think overall it should all still be working. It seems to make boost according to the inaccurate stock boost gauge haha. There are some simple upgrades I will be doing (corvette servo, shift kit, intake tube/filter, new charge cooler etc) nothing major. Maybe exhaust in the future and a ported wastegate to match and a limited slip in the rear diff.

What is really cool is this thing still has a tailgate and the rear seats fold flat to the cargo area behind them so it acts almost exactly like a truck with a camper shell but its built in and looks less like I'm in the generation that should stay home for corona virus lol.

Updates: It turns out the starter was not actually bad, the guy had a ghetto button(door popper) and tiny 20 gauge wire to bypass the key as the key and its respective lock cylinder were gone and the internal stuff is broken. The wiring used to trigger the starter was not large enough to kick over the solenoid until you clicked it ~3 times. Meanwhile the door popper and the wiring would get hot due to so much amperage passing through the undersized components.
Iran out of gas, tried to use the button to start it so I could move the truck and all of a sudden it was smoking so I pulled the connections but didn't keep track of what went where so I decided to figure out how to fix the column.

I have the column torn down now and the two mystery plugs they tapped into that I thought were for relays actually plug into the column mounted switch. the switch was actuated by the rod which was pushed when you turn a gear on the end of the lock cylinder and when thats pushed the starter is turned on. When I push the rod with my hand it spins the starter with ease and after adding gas it fires right up. Thats a major victory because I was assuming the starter was going out or at the least was misaligned and needed shims which I've only seemed to have luck fixing that with transmission removal especially if the starter damaged the flexplate.

Another update: I figured out how to pop the rear glass lock from the inside, luckily they didnt reinstall the hardware on the plastic so I was able to pull it aside and pop it, once the glass is open I am now able to fix the hinges, the lock and the struts for the glass so everything will be fully operational!

Next challenge- fix the intercooler heat exchanger. The previous owner used a transmission cooler zip tied in place as a heat exchanger. Ive been seeking a radiator small enough to mount it under the body with some fans instead of running a fancy 480 dollar heat exchanger in the front location, the front one is mounted very low with a scoop which would act as a bucket to scoop gravel off my driveway haha. I'm looking at a jeep comanche radiator currently as its about 36" long and 15" tall, and it should be able to be modified in a way to shrink it to fit between the frame rail and rear driveshaft. they can fit 3 shallow fans which should be more than enough to feed the the small air to water intercooler that came on these trucks and keep the engine bay looking mostly stock.

EDIT: 6/30/2020
Added a video from when I bought it and some pictures on what I've changed since I posted last.I've since noticed a lot of things that would make it run poorly like the spark plug wires resting on the exhaust off the back of the turbo lol. Also the starter wasnt starting because the ghetto bypass for the key was using too small of wire to put enough amperage to the solenoid on the starter, it starts well now.

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