Progress Thread My First Foxbody

Zelm 3

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Mar 19, 2018
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Hello everyone my name is Reid. I am 22 and I live in northern Indiana. After looking through some progress threads I decided to start one of my own. I want to do this not only for myself but it seems like a lot of the people that use this website regularly are very experienced in working with a foxbody mustang. I just bought my first mustang last weekend and I am soooooo excited to get working on it. I bought a 1988 Mustang GT convertible, the car is 7 years older than I am. I don't really know a lot about cars but I want to learn and I had the itch to get a hot rod after I just helped my dad and uncle rebuild the engines in theirs. My dad and uncle are twins and they both are mechanics for a ford dealership. They worked on these cars when they were brand new so they have a lot of knowledge with them. I will have this car for the rest of my life so I wanted to document this progress. I am going to put up a picture from the day I bought it and when we hauled it home. As well as a picture after we cleaned her up. As of now we have the driver seat out of it and the rear quarter panels. I just bought the rear quarter window kit from LMR to replace the window motors on the rear quarter windows as well as stiffen them up because they are really wobbly. The clutch quadrant is bad in the car right now and I can only put it in gear when the car is off. The clutch quadrant kit came in today so My dad, uncle, and I are going to put that in tonight and hopefully ill be able to drive it. Right now the plan is to get it drive-able and water sealed so that I can have some fun with it this summer and then in the winter we are going to work on putting a 347 in it as well as clean up some other stuff. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment!
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Welcome !!!! My car came from Indiana.

I absolutely love mustang gt convertibles. Mine is a notch back.... but I've owned tons of those convertibles.

Keep us updated.
 
Consider replacing the cable and a firwall adjuster while you're at it, but only with a Maximum Motorsports or Steeda cable. Do NOT mess with a parts store cable.

A hard, badly adjusted, or strectching clutch cable/pedal can ruin the driving experience.
 
UPDATE

So last night we got the firewall adjuster and clutch quadrant on. The bell housing didn't even have the cover on it that protects the clutch cable. We noticed that two of the four bolts that hold the transmission in were too long so they just used spacers (Ill have to try to remember to get a picture of that). But after we got the adjuster and quadrant on we were able to drive it, which was awesome, but we noticed the clutch in the car is really bad. While my dad was driving it down the road in the dark the headlights just turned off and he had to hold the brights on just to keep the lights on. We also thought we were smelling clutch after we were done driving it but we realized that the rear right brake is locked up. So today we ordered a clutch and a flywheel that will hopefully be in before the weekend so we can put those in. I also ordered a headlight switch repair kit and convertible top switch today (the convertible top switch is broken in the car and we figured we could just fix that while we fix the headlight switch). Hopefully tonight we can get that brake freed up. The rear quarter window repair kit will be in tomorrow so we are staying busy!
 
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The headlight switches in the gt are a pain. They overheat all types of stuff. Check the wiring at the ignition switch, too.
 
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We replaced the ignition switch and was able to get the brake loose fairly easy. We found a mouse living in my car last night which was pretty scary especially because my dad has a 2004 mach 1 that is immaculate in the same garage. Lets just say we killed that muh $%@#$@
 
We found some rust in the left side of the trunk. I want to say this might be called a rain channel or drain or something? Found a rip in the convertible liner that is under the top so im guessing that is where the leak is. The drain was clogged I think at one point and water built up here. Has anyone seen this before or have any tips on fixing it?
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Update:

We put in a new clutch, hurst shifter (the car shifts awesome now), and replaced the wheel cylinders . Bought a donor car yesterday for $275. Its a 1992 convertible. Im hoping to take some of the things I need off of it and then scrap it and make my money back. Also we put the rear window kit from LMR in the quarter windows, but now just trying to get them adjusted. We also purchased the book for the convertible top from LMR and it should be here Saturday and then hopefully we can get those adjusted. Has anyone else had trouble getting them adjusted? Any tips would be great!
 
I've done a bunch of convertibles. There are a bunch of adjustments to get those quarter windows closing and opening correctly. There is also an adjustment behind seal bracket the windows slide in on the top frame.

That rust looks kinda bad back there. Is there any way you can get those sections off the parts car and patch them in ?

Every other car on this planet is worth more in convertible form once it hits true historic status. These mustangs will start climbing in value, too. The convertible GT will be a very hard car tho find in decent condition. Good Luck on this project. I'll help where i can.

Post some pics of what the windows are doing.