Progress Thread 1993 LX-Cobra Conversion Project

91TwighlightGT · Mar 20, 2016

Today was basically a redux of last Sunday. Sand, sand, polish, sand, sand, Polish.

3 of 4 polished up and ready to start painting. Haven't touched the last wheel yet, though. Not going to touch this stuff for a few weeks, but still feels good to make progress.

Comparison shot with the unfinished wheel.

91TwighlightGT · Apr 17, 2016

The weather finally cooperated and we got some things done this weekend.

First thing was with the interior mostly painted up and ready, some of the details are still getting worked out. The ashtray was well used in this car, and very rusted, so we sandblasted it and hit it with some silver paint to make it look nice again.

The other thing is fairly minor but kind of neat. The plastic moisture barriers for the doors are long gone, but I didn't really care to spring for another 45 bucks for the American muscle ones. I had plastic sheeting left over from the booth construction,
and decided to make my own.

We mocked up the plastic in the door to trim it to size.

I used butyl tape to adhere it to the door panel so that I can remove and reinstall it without destroying it each time.

And the finished product (less some trimming for the door handles, etc.

I will trace the tape line with a black sharpie on the plastic to guide reinstallation down the road.

Lastly, we finally got the wheels painted.

Black base coat went down well.

Then we put four coats of clear with a mixture of black base.

After we pulled the tape off there is some finishing work to do on the edges of the black. We couldn't make a perfect circle with the tape, and were worried that the edge would look imperfect. Hopefully a sanding block held at an angle will smooth it out and make it okay.

So, got a wedding to go to next week, but hopefully we can get the wheels all finished up the following week so I can get some tires on them. Once those are on, we will swap to five lug and I hope this is the last picture I post with this thing wearing turbines.

JD1964 · Jun 24, 2018

Nice work!

91TwighlightGT · Jun 24, 2018

John Dirks Jr said:
Nice work!

Thanks. Dead project for now, but hopefully I will pick it back up in the fall

67coupe · Jun 24, 2018

91TwighlightGT said:
Thanks. Dead project for now, but hopefully I will pick it back up in the fall

Nice work! I’d like to convert my LX to a Cobra as well. How was the fit of the Cervini parts? Was that an OEM or aftermakert GT front bumper?

91TwighlightGT · Jun 24, 2018

67coupe said:
Nice work! I’d like to convert my LX to a Cobra as well. How was the fit of the Cervini parts? Was that an OEM or aftermakert GT front bumper?

Cervinis fit was good, I don’t feel there is any other viable option than OEM but those are just so expensive and rare.

The front bumper cover is aftermarket. It is also okay, but if you are a perfectionist you would want an original ford cover. There was some work in getting it right, particularly where the tops of the fenders meet the front cover. The edges were raised a little more and made it difficult to sand to get smooth.

From my perspective, this car was always intended to be a driver that I could and would use everyday. It hasn’t worked out that way, but that was the plan. Figuring it would get rock chips and door dings, I didn’t feel the need to go crazy making it a show car. I probably did too much sanding and everything based on that, but I can’t help myself

67coupe · Jun 24, 2018

91TwighlightGT said:
Cervinis fit was good, I don’t feel there is any other viable option than OEM but those are just so expensive and rare.

The front bumper cover is aftermarket. It is also okay, but if you are a perfectionist you would want an original ford cover. There was some work in getting it right, particularly where the tops of the fenders meet the front cover. The edges were raised a little more and made it difficult to sand to get smooth.

From my perspective, this car was always intended to be a driver that I could and would use everyday. It hasn’t worked out that way, but that was the plan. Figuring it would get rock chips and door dings, I didn’t feel the need to go crazy making it a show car. I probably did too much sanding and everything based on that, but I can’t help myself

Thanks for the info. I’ll keep looking for a good OEM one.

95BlueStallion · Jun 24, 2018

Dang, I was hoping this was coming back around because you were working on it again.

91TwighlightGT · Jun 24, 2018

95BlueStallion said:
Dang, I was hoping this was coming back around because you were working on it again.

Believe me, I wish it was too!

Fortunately, the car still lives so it will get finished one day

95BlueStallion · Jun 24, 2018

91TwighlightGT said:
Believe me, I wish it was too!

Fortunately, the car still lives so it will get finished one day

Glad to hear. Life gets in the way sometimes, happens to us all.

91TwighlightGT · Jul 19, 2020

A little over 4 years ago this project stalled out. My family moved houses, converted our old house into a rental property, and between working on that house and the new one there was simply no time for the old Mustang. On top of that, I always have company cars to drive around so I was never under any real pressure to get the car on the road.

I decided this winter that come spring time, it was time to finish this thing. Then coronavirus hit and instead of working on my car I was playing school teacher with my kids .

Three weeks ago I decided enough was enough, and we finally picked up some sandpaper and tape and got to work.

Finally, the wheels are done!

Mustang5L5 · Jul 20, 2020

Those came out nice.

Did you find chrome center caps for them?

91TwighlightGT · Jul 20, 2020

Mustang5L5 said:
Those came out nice.

Did you find chrome center caps for them?

Thanks!

Yeah, they accept the Chrome Pony centers. I bought a set of 4 a while back for about $100 IIRC, and I test fit them to make sure it would go okay. If all goes well I will have it swapped to 5 lug with wheels and tires installed in August. After that I need to respray the damaged area on the rear bumper cover and I should be good as far as paint and body.

91TwighlightGT · Jul 28, 2020

We’ve got tires!

The docket is pretty full so I’m not exactly sure when I will get a chance to do my five lug swap... But I am anxiously awaiting my next chance to work on the car!

91TwighlightGT · Aug 9, 2020

With a limited time to work, I knew it would be difficult to get much done this weekend, but every little bit helps! Front is finally converted to 5 lug (the cheap way, one day I’ll do a proper swap to SN stuff) with a few minor hiccups.

#1 - I didn’t realize that my dust covers wouldn’t fit on the Ranger rotors so I need to order up a couple of those.

#2 - The outside brake pad is just slightly rubbing the rotor hat. I may need to take the pads out and grind a bit of clearance, although they might clearance themselves after a mile or two.
Hopefully next week I’ll get the rear axles swapped and can the turbines once and for all!

91TwighlightGT · Aug 16, 2020

Baby steps, baby steps...

5 lug swap is complete... except that we made a mistake and the axles have to come out again
Unfortunately when you buy things years apart, you kind of forget about them. We pulled the old axles out...

And didn’t realize that the new axles didn’t have any studs, so of course a quick run to Autozone to get wheel studs. Not a huge deal, but the time schedule was tight because we had my Daughters birthday party so it just put a little stress on the time table.

So, we get the new studs installed and quickly reinstalled the axles. As I was tightening the differential cover, my Dad made an observation... “You know, these old axles have rubber o-rings on the splined side of the axle... we didn’t have those on the new axles.”

Well, we are out of time today so I guess we are pulling them next time

The drum was going to be coming off on the right side regardless, though. There is a cable inside the drum that rusted in half, so I need to replace that anyway.

Still, even with the setbacks we made some progress.

91TwighlightGT · Aug 30, 2020

Rear end is full of gear oil, and the center caps have found their way home! Also got the factory air dam reinstalled, as well as the filler neck housing - it was hanging loosely behind the gas door.

unfortunately, the good news ends there. I had the intention of running the car up and down the street a couple of times to make sure everything was good and there were no leaks, but when I went to pull the car out of the garage the steering was extremely sloppy...

The rag joint has disintegrated. Sigh. It’s not a big deal, just a bit of a distraction from wanting to focus on the interior. Still, the car was movable so we pulled it out and started taking inventory of the parts and determining where we stand.

basically, I have forgotten quite a bit over the last 10 years of how this thing goes together. It’s not helped by the fact that the car was already missing a lot of the correct fasteners and odds and ends from the beginning. So, I’m going to go ahead andbuy the interior screw kit from LMR to start fresh.

Also, we missed a few pieces that needed to be dyed gray with the rest of the interior - arm rest plugs, hatch cargo cover retainers, etc. I also still need to shoot some of the black pieces with some fresh paint, such as the A-pillar trim, door handles, window cranks...

I also took notice of the condition of the seat belts, and need to pull them out and clean them thoroughly. I think I can just soak them in some warm water and dawn dish soap (which nicely cleaned up the drivers seat belt receptacle before) but I may also need to spray the plastic as well.

I think I underestimated the amount I still needed to do in the interior. it doesn’t bother me a whole lot, but I guess it’s a little disappointing in a few ways. I’m more concerned about scouring the internet for pictures and making sure I put everything back together cleanly and efficiently at this point.

91TwighlightGT · Aug 30, 2020

Couple little videos to add...

Broken rag joint

A quick drive back into the garage...

91TwighlightGT · Sep 6, 2020

Not a super productive day, but at least we can steer again!

The job wasn’t terribly difficult, although we wasted an hour trying to grind out the rivets in the car instead of just pulling the steering shaft out and doing it the easy way. Shame on me for not realizing that the shaft comes out fairly easily, and that there was zero chance of removing the rivets while the thing was in the car.

Overall it wasn’t a terrible job and I didn’t even bust any knuckles breaking the bolts free!

Hopefully nothing else new breaks in the meantime so we can keep focusing on getting it back together.

punchlist...
But some Landau black to spray a few interior pieces to freshen them up.

Pull the seatbelts and clean them thoroughly.

Paint a few odds and ends opal gray that got missed (arm rest plugs, cargo cover retainers, headliner hooks, etc.)

Repair rear bumper (paint damage on the lr corner)

Reinstall headliner, carpet, interior plastics and trim, rear seats.

91TwighlightGT · Sep 13, 2020

Got a bit more done today. Kind of annoyed that my interior screw kit omits the door hardware, which slowed me down. Ultimately I ended up just going to the hardware store and replacing the 10mm anchor screws with some Phillips headed sheet metal screws.

Mainly today was just a painting day, putting some fresh black on some interior bits...

After that I needed to fab up a window crank washer, because I only had one. Fortunately I was able to take a worn out large push pin and knock out the center. Worked out pretty well!

Had to do a bit more work to get the inner diameter good from here, but you can see the basic idea.

Finally, got the doors back together.

Progress Thread 1993 LX-Cobra Conversion Project

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

JD1964

there is enough sticking out to grab on to

91TwighlightGT

67coupe

91TwighlightGT

67coupe

95BlueStallion

My assy trans to myself

91TwighlightGT

95BlueStallion

My assy trans to myself

91TwighlightGT

Mustang5L5

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

91TwighlightGT

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Progress Thread 1993 LX-Cobra Conversion Project

there is enough sticking out to grab on to

My assy trans to myself

My assy trans to myself

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

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