TEH NOTCH: Used to have an '89 notch back when I lived in KCMO (circa 2001), and like an idiot I sold it off for some dumb reason. Regretted it ever since. Found this one in May of '05 (I think) for $2,000 for sale by some kid way out in Surprise, AZ. Had a few things done to it here and there by the owner before him, but all the kid did was have a shop hack-weld in some cats to the off-road H-pipe and throw on some crappy tailpipe and then drove the holy hell out of it. Some Mexicans (according to the kid) broke the sunroof to steal his stereo one night, so he used silicone house caulking to glue in a sheet of Plexiglas in its place.
But the car had a recently rebuilt motor and everything else seemed in order, and I was really eager just to get my hands on another notch, so I went for it. Car looked like this when I bought it:
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My ex was with me at the time and her first words upon seeing it were, "You're paying HOW MUCH for THAT?!?" She totally didn't understand my excitement.
I rattle-canned the car white with black trim at first, then later redid it in the Rustoleum Gloss Black that it now proudly wears (and is holding up well after almost 4 years). After about $6,000 worth of miscellaneous repairs and upgrades, basically rebuilding the car from end to end a piece at a time - King Cobra clutch, new flywheel, hardened input shaft, steel input shaft bearing retainer, FRPP driveshaft, injectors from a '95 4.6L T-Bird, damn near every sensor/sending unit/switch/relay under the hood, new sunroof, gauges, tires and wheels (twice), several exhaust setups, motor/trans mounts, tail lenses, etc. - this is how it now sits (before I waxed it the other day):
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THE BLACK PEARL: Around October of last year, I traded some dude my '86 GT AOD 'vert for this '84 LX 5.0 AOD hatch because I was frickin' sick of all the 'vert-related issues. Haven't put a LOT of money into this car, really, but I've put a TON of work and time into ironing out the issues with this thing's cooling system and trying to get it to run right, in general. When I first got it, here's the mess I took in:
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The idiot prior owner jury-rigged a bunch of things on the car and ran straight water in the system for who-knows-how-long, which is largely what has been the cause of my headaches with this car. Supposedly, the 84k miles shown on the odometer and title are original, but I've never Carfax'ed it to verify it. Anyway, now it runs a helluva lot better, and it looks like this:
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