I figured I'd hit the hangout page this evening (and rant), since I haven't done a build thread on my current project and probably won't. So four years ago, my father-in-law, then 76 years old, bought a 1997 Mustang GT convertible (my mother-n-law bought it and claimed it was for him). The dealer lead him to believe it was well taken care of and in good shape. It did look nice. I mean who doesn't love a Black Mustang GT with a relatively new black top and black leather interior, V8 5-speed, $4500, 90K miles, not a bad deal right? Fast forward three years (about a year ago) and he has loaned it to my nephew, who runs it low on oil and throws a rod through the side of the block at full throttle after having scuffed both bumpers and both front fenders. I buy it for $500 and trailer it home from Indiana to Virginia and it sits for a full year...not a great deal for me, but the 79 year old father-in-law didn't need to deal with it and the brother-in-way would have just junked it. I finally got it in the garage a couple of weeks ago to pull the engine and that is where the education began. The car is in much worse shape than I thought it was. Besides the abuse it took at the hands of a 76 year old that has little business driving at night and a teenage boy who doesn't care, it turns out the previous owner converted the car from automatic to standard, but did a half-ass job. My father-in-law is already one of those bubble gum and bailing wire / farmer mechanics anyway, so anything that broke got duct tapped. The engine and transmission are out now. The car is pushed back out into the driveway. The engine is on a stand next to the replacement. The tranny is still strapped to the tranny jack. And, I don't even know where to start describing all the BS I've already found. About a year after he bought it, he drove it up onto a concrete barricade at night, damaging the frontend. I was under the impression that got fixed, as it drove okay after it came back from the shop. NOPE! He hit the concrete so hard it broke one of the bushing eyes off the rack. The shop (owned by his brother-in-law) fixed that by wrapping a heavy duty clamp around the rack and the k-member to hold it in place enough for an alignment. There is power steering fluid coating everything. I bet he was using a pint every couple of weeks. The center of the k-member was pushed up into the oil pan. You can see the cable marks where they used a come-along to bend the k-member back down. Part of the k-member bolts are missing, which is probably the only way they could get it to move enough for the alignment. The x-brace was also crushed and was missing most of it's bolts. One of the three bolt ears on the starter was broken off and that bolt was missing. This appears to have happened before he bought it. It has an automatic radiator, but they didn't bother capping the tranny cooler line holes, so they are corroded and full of crap (and no, she cannot have my last Steeda Ultracool radiator that has a two-speed fan attached). It has an automatic block plate instead of a standard block plate. However, they couldn't be bothered to put the lower access plate back on, so the bell housing is full of years worth of road grime and salt residue. The tranny input shaft, sleeve and seal are garbage now. The throw-out bearing was bad. The rear main seal was leaking. The water pump was leaking. Both motor mounts were crumbling and the passenger side one was almost missing. The isolator plate (motor mount heat shield) on the driver's side was not correctly installed, and the one for the passenger side is missing. There is a plug on the driver's side under the fuse box that wasn't plugged into anything and a relay on the passenger fender well with no wires going to it. I will have to get the book out and figure both of those out. The cooling fan was held on with zip ties. One of the bell housing bolts is missing and one was not even finger tight. Two of them were rounded off, telling me they were abused with an impact wrench. I use an impact as well, but am careful and don't reuse an already damaged bolts. The radiator was full of brown sludge :-( The tranny oil looked and smelled burned. How the hell do you burn up tranny oil in a T45? That was a new one for me. The exhaust had axle dumps, which I'm not above, but don't do with a convertible. The exhaust was leaking at three of the four joints. It has California exhaust, so six cats. That will get replaced. I will have a great deal of hammer/dolly work to do on the pinch seams before I can weld in subframe connectors and jacking rails. What a mess. I do have a complete Stifflers slide-to-fit setup in my leftovers, so there is that. Half the clips and plugs on the wiring harness are damaged, as well as much of the crumple pipe (split insulator tubing). There are several safety system that have been bypassed, including the fuel pump cutoff switch, the switch that keeps you from activating the power top at speed, and the neutral safety switch. The driver's power seat has been converted to manual and is broken. Did I mention that I don't enjoy wiring? I have a couple of old harnesses (an 01 GT convertible body harness and an 03 engine harness) that I may pirate some plugs and/or clips off of. I bought this thing as a father-son project. My older son, now 17, can't remember the difference between a nut and bolt (quite literally) and has to be dragged out to the shop (it just isn't his thing). However, the 12 year old is loving it. He is picking it up like a natural and is really good help. Anyway, enough of the rant and complaining. The build plan is to do a good job of fixing everything right, so take our time, repair and restore, but not a formal restoration. It will be a daily driver for my wife. I have a PI engine from an 03 GT Convertible. I have a complete frontend from an 01 Cobra. It will need bushings and all the ware parts replaced. I have an NOS set of Steeda offset control arm bushings, X2 ball joints, bump steer kit, and offset rack bushings left over from when I owned Atlantic Coast Mustang. It has the rack still attached, but I will probably replace it with a rebuild, as that old Cobra was pretty high mileage and it has been sitting in the dusty part of the shop for a very long time. I bought an 03 Cobra Convertible x-brace with all the hardware for $100. I will send the tranny to a shop for rebuild next week. I think it is probably mostly okay, but the engine seized at full throttle and there is a bit more play in the input shaft than I care for (plus the dark fluid). I don't want to have to mess with it once I put a nice clutch set in. I have a big box of POR-15 that should arrive tomorrow. Everything will be gloss black or aluminum. I asked the wife and she doesn't want any color under the hood. I was planning to used a set of Accel Supercoil packs and yellow FRPP wires (more leftovers), but I guess I will probably just use factory/stock replacement stuff. I have a set of no-name tubular rear control arms, but I don't remember what shape the bushings are in. I'll have to dig them out of the box, plus I think they are red. I have a bunch of aluminum bits and pieces to go under the hood that are left over from other projects and/or swap meets. I still have to shop for a ton of stuff that I don't have. She doesn't like any of the three sets of wheels we have and I won't let her have the FR500s and Sumitomo tires off of my car. So, it is 2am in Virginia, so I'm out.
