New Addition To Our Stable

LILCBRA

I wish I didn't have all of these balls in the air
15 Year Member
Dec 6, 2005
4,710
3,778
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Marietta, Ga
So I was perusing through Craigslist last night looking for a suitable engine/transmission combo for the wife's new-to-her 67 last night. I ran across this ad and thought it might be a good donor car: http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/cto/5420451210.html (It may be a dead link as it is no longer available...). Long story short, it is an 87 GT convertible with a 5 speed. It's the combo she wanted to go with in her old convertible that we sold when we moved and what she wanted to install in the 67. Well, I think nostalgia got ahold of her and she wanted her convertible back, so we went and looked at it. It's not bad, a little rust in the toe board area, the engine runs like a champ and has 76000 miles on the odometer. We took it for a short test drive in their apartment parking lot, found it needs a motor mount and exhaust work and talked them down to $2k. So now she has 2 mustangs separated by 20 years. Oh the monster I've created! So now we have 3......

(pics from the CL ad...)
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Still using it for a donor or gonna fix it up? Aside from the missing tape stripe and torn seats it looks pretty clean.
 
She wants to fix it up. Kinda sounds like the syncs are going bad too, so a T5 rebuild is in the cards as well. Been looking but can't seem to find the info I looked up a couple years ago concerning the mass air ecus. There was one that I considered to be the best performing stock ecu that I ended up going with when we put her 84 together. I know the A9L is the most popular, but I cannot for the life of me remember if that is the one we went with or if it was something else. Regardless, there are a few things to do with it before we get into the mass air conversion, but we are going to want to do it. We bought a set of GT40 Explorer heads for the 84 that we still have laying around that we will more than likely throw on this one and probably pick up an Explorer GT40 intake from the Pull-A-Part when we get around to it. I definitely have enough to keep me busy and out of trouble for a while!!

I have to put my II back together. I haven't touched it in almost a year now since my accident, so it's in the same state it was when I last posted something about it. Engine is in the engine bay and that's about it.

We want to install power disc brakes and probably an Explorer rear in the 67 and find another set of wheels. Now that she has the 87, she is thinking of leaving the I6 in it, so basically just body/paint/interior after the brakes.

And the plethora of stuff we have been kinda discussing for the 87. Start with the necessary broken motor mount replacement, T5 rebuild, exhaust work, have a window off track to fix, new top and back window, and body/paint/interior. Will probably get subframe connectors and a strut tower brace, and thinking of a 5 lug conversion on this as well as a possible brake upgrade.

I really need to get my garage built!! The carport isn't cutting it anymore!!
 
Researched the door tag the other day, turns out that this is how it left the factory:

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That was my least favorite combination!
We got her new motor mount and mufflers yesterday. We will more than likely be installing them over the weekend. Ended up going with Summit brand 2 chambers and new extension pipes. From what I can tell, most of the exhaust is in pretty good shape, it's just more or less disconnected at one muffler. Going to be leaving the exhaust stock (except the mufflers of course...) until we get into really modding the car, When we get going on it, this will be my first time wrenching on anything since before the accident. I'm actually looking forward to it!! :)
 
We got the motor mount changed and exhaust done today. Found a little rust in the driver rear wheel well under the chrome trim that was on the car that we'll have to take care of when the time comes. But this is what we found when we were able to crawl underneath it.

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Loved the speaker wire!! :D
We didn't take any pics of the new muffler install yet. We still need to finish welding the joints when we are able to get the car in the air a little more. There was enough room to do a little, but a really bad angle for really getting into welding everything. I need a lift when I get my garage built!!

I probably need to start posting in the Fox forum as well as the classic and II sections, huh? I guess I'd gain some frequent flyer miles....
 
That's a nice Fox, I'm sure the guys over there will love it. Everyone should have at least 2 generations. :)

I see a nice opportunity for a cat-back exhaust upgrade. It's pretty refreshing to buy parts off the shelf and bolt them on, as compared to working on a II. Of course fabrication is a kick all its own, but it's nice to take a break sometimes. Glad you're back in the saddle!
 
Thanks! Getting there! Hoping to start putting the II back together this weekend!! And you are totally right about being nice to buy off the shelf parts and put something together. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and say "That's what I want..." and just put it in vs engineering almost everything. I don't mind doing that either, but sometimes it's nice to not have to.

And about the cat back.... that's more or less done already! :) It sounds A LOT better than it did when we brought it home. I think I fixed the idle issue (dirty IAC), ordered a T5 rebuild kit, bought a new gauge cluster and bezel (thread in the Foxbody section: http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/threads/gauge-overlay-removal.889105/), have a new top on it's way, and will be looking at the suspension a little more closely tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it has at least one bad ball joint. But if I am going to dig into it that far, I figure we may as well replace the shocks/struts while we're at it. And the list keeps growing!! :)
 
OK, it didn't have any bad joints in the front, but it seems that the struts have seen better days. I have a set of struts and shocks sitting here waiting for installation now. She also got new wheels and tires. We ended up putting them on today along with new quad shocks. The new wheels rub on the quad shock boot, so we will have to look closer next time we get to working on it. It started raining on us while swapping the new wheels in place of the Ponys, so we didn't get to look close enough to see if it was only the boot or if it was rubbing anywhere else. She likes the looks of the black wheels, but I'm not too sure about them. They look alright I guess, but I think the anthracite wheels would have looked better. What do you all think?

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On my 95 the factory quad shocks didn't have boots, nor do the replacements. You might just be able to cut the boots off of there, problem solved. You can also flip them if you have clearance issues, that may help if the boot is thicker than the shock body. For even more clearance people often remove the quads (for which new adjustable rear control arms are a good idea to eliminate the wheel hop).

I chose anthracite myself because it stands out more, black kind of looks like an un-dressed steel wheel at a great distance. But in your case I like black as it matches the top, and there's very little silver / chrome trim on the car. For that style of wheel I think I like the black better (I like the anthracite on Bullits).
 
We flipped the quads when we installed the new ones. Clearance looked tight from what I could see with it in the air and I suspected there might be an issue there, but left the boot on anyway to find out, and found out we did! I'm pretty sure it is only rubbing on the boot, but we'll find out next time we get to working on it.

And I agree with the black looking like an unfinished wheel, but I also think they match the car fairly well. I don't know-maybe they'll grow on me. I think the anthracite wheels would've stood out a little more I guess. But it's her toy, she gets the final say. If she likes them, that's all that matters! On another note, I double-checked the back spacing on these as I was curious if they'd fit the II. They won't, so I can't really just swap them onto mine and see if I'd like them on my car.... :(
 
Well, I found out the tight clearance I thought I saw was actually -0- clearance. So, we tried the original-ish quads and had the same problem. No more quad shocks! We took them out completely-problem solved! Now on to other projects!! :)
 
So now I see why the owner wanted to sell it! It really isn't a big deal, but I'm 99% sure the fuel pump is crap. We've been working on a few other things on the vert as time allows like getting the dash lights to work right (new dimmer switch), getting the top to operate as it is supposed to (disconnected wire), replaced the gauges, headlight harness and switch, and we just got the top removed to replace it. Well, the battery is on it's last leg, so it has to be started every couple of days and ran a little to keep a charge to it otherwise we have to jump it. We've been doing that for the past couple of weeks coupled with one leisurely drive a while back. It had a full tank when we got it, and the gauge was reading about an 1/8th, so I tried to take it less then a mile to the nearest gas station to fill it up. Needless to say it died on me 1/2 way there. So, I hobbled back home and later went to pull it back home fully expecting that it ran out of gas. It started right up when we went back. I drove it home and parked it. It could be something else, but I suspect the fuel pump is shot and overheating within the tank since there isn't enough fuel to keep it cool. Like I said, no big deal to me, but the owner prided himself on being a mechanic. With some of the stuff we've found previously and now a suspected bad fuel pump, I've "determined that was a lie!" So basically, from what I can assume, is he didn't want to hassle with pulling the tank to replace the pump. Makes sense since he didn't want to hassle with fixing the exhaust with something other than speaker wire! :mad: I am so happy that this car doesn't appear to be modified in any other way!!!!
 
The TFI and the distributor PIP are also big-time suspects in hot-stall conditions with injected 5.0's, where it won't restart until it cools off. I'd definitely verify you have no fuel pressure when it does it before going through the big hassle of replacing the pump.
 
Yeah, I thought about those too. I don't have a pressure gauge, but when I released pressure from the Schrader valve, it didn't release with a lot of pressure which is why I am leaning toward the pump. I will be inspecting a little closer when I get back to it, but replacing the pump won't be a bad thing in our case anyway. There will be some mods in the future, but nothing too big to necessitate a 255 pump. I'll probably go with a 155. In our case, the only mods that we'll probably do is a set of GT40 Explorer heads and an Explorer intake with a better exhaust system. We already have the heads left over from her old vert that we have installed new springs a while back, just never had the opportunity to install them on the 84. I figure a little larger pump will feed it after that stuff just fine as well as probably be the fix necessary to get it running in the here and now. But, like I said, I'm going to have to do a little more digging with it, but I'm still pretty sold that it's the pump. Time will tell......