Progress Thread 2001 3.8L Coupe Rust to Road build.

kiddiccarus

The first widely accepted Tranny
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Dec 24, 2003
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30 Mins from a Ragged GT
2001 3.8L

Being brought back from a certain death from rust.

I hope that everyone of us in our lifetime can do a worthwhile project with our child that they are genuinely excited about. At First Glance this Mustang is a steal at the price ($600.00) we originally gave for it. When I got it back to the shop and seen the extensive decomposition that hides beneath the surface I was disheartened. My employees here were not short in the jokes and advice to tear it apart for parts and scrap. I did not disagree with them and was already thinking along those lines, but when I spoke with my son about it he had a different idea. He said that he is not afraid of putting in the work, learning from the mistakes and doing things that not only will get the chassis back into shape but to strengthen it further for the future. A Father could not hear better words from a son!

Knowing that he is taking the approach of using this build for learning while building and we get a father/son project out of it. I am more than willing to go forward with it and see what the outcome brings. We could have a gem or a turd when it is all over, but we will both learn and have fun in the process. I do hope that each and every one of us all can get this same opportunity in life.

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I guess it can not be a Peckerwood Build Without Proof!!!
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Index:​
 
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Ok Going to post some Pot Roast Pics here so bear with me. Need to Get things into one thread for posterity purposes.

As some of you know, My son and I have been looking for a project car for a while now and everyone has heard my thoughts on Convertibles, especially my own. That being said, we were defiantly looking for a Coupe to get brought up as a daily driver for him.

Two cars slipped through out hands before finding this one which the owners were trying to fix but kept running into problems. The main two that made them decide to sell happen to be an overheating issue and the car would not accelerate for them and bogged down within 150 yards. It has some cancer that is fixable but pretty ugly and should keep people away if they were thinking of a car they would be able to turn the key and use as a daily quickly.

In the end. I gave $600.00 for this one and am pretty happy about it. I know that some on here will look at these pictures and scream that it is nothing better than a parts car which I could easily make 3x the initial investment out of and for most people out there that would be correct. But!!!!!! I'm a Peckerwood Shop Manager you see and well, If in the end this build literally catches fire and burns to the frame, well that is acceptable.

The Purpose of this build in the end will be to make a fun daily driver for my son who is almost out of college. We are initially NOT looking to do performance mods on this. It is a Father/Son project to teach/learn how to use ones own hands to take something others deem as garbage and make it reliable and a solid base for future changes. When you see the pictures we will post, I am sure the best word for them will be cringe-worthy because It is damn scary in some spots. BUT, the pictures will be "Before" and "After" to show how we received it and how we corrected it. I get enough flack from one of my employees who constantly says to throw it away and buy another car. The thing is that this is only answer to his problems, he does not simply fix a foundation and build from it, he wants to take the easy way out of everything. That is not what I want to teach my son. I want him to look at something and have a competent thought on how it can be fixed/restored/resurrected into something he can be proud of.

"Teach a Man to Fish" Anyone ever hear of that approach???

The last car I purchased my son was an 05 Honda Accord for $800.00 off the back of a tow truck just hours after the accident where the owner sold it outright for parts to the driver. I took possession of that car on a Friday and by the next Wednesday it was licensed and on the road running like a champ with a black eye. It still is not a Prom Queen but it delivers day after day in getting him back and forth to college and work.

Undercarriage: It Does Have Some Cancer that needs addressed.
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What I found during the past few days of inspection and looking to solve the problems the Last Owner had discussed with us.

Overheating:
They could not seem to figure out why it would not stay under temperature after swapping out the radiator hoses, water pump and Power Steering Pulley..... Simple pressure test solved that mystery. As you can see where the ink pen is located, the coolant is seeping out of the pump. What you do not see is that the bolts on that water pump were only finger tight. I think that they snugged them on and the put the Power Steering bracket in place but forgot to torque down the water pump bolts. Furthermore, they only used the gasket for the pump and no RTV. They seemed to put RTV around the outside of the pump after the install and there was also a glob inside the pump when I removed it. I got a new gasket and slathered it on both sides with RTV Gold before putting the pump on and ensuring that the bolts were tight and torqued.
Water Pump.jpg


Power Loss:
I was told that they just changed out the plugs and wires because they were experiencing a power loss that they could not figure out. Well, the wires were arranged 1,2,3 and 4,5,6 from front to back....... Yes Miss fires in 4,5,6 all day long..... So we corrected the wire issue and started it up. Same thing in less than 2 minutes. I then pulled each of the plugs and looked at them for being fouled up and none of them were. So I ordered in a Coil Pack, installed it, cleared the codes and that solved the problem of the Miss Fire, runs smoothly.

While pulling the 4,5 and 6 plugs I looked down and I found Waldo!!!!! Yep, all the way down there you can see one white porcelain AC Delco
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I took the car out for a drive and did not make it far at all. Same issue as before. Loss of Power. I would make it from the back lot to the front easily but as soon as I turned onto the road, the car would bog down and begin to crawl. I would be forced to turn onto the first street and go back to the shop.

In the parking lot of the shop I lifted the hood and was mulling over in my head all of the things that could cause a power loss when an engine is running smoothly. My mechanic was close to me and walked over while My face was hovering over the passenger side of the engine and I was revving it up. He asked me what I was doing right when I got a huge cloud of blue smoke coming off of the firewall. I looked down at the end of the manifold and shook my head in disbelief. No Nuts on the Y Pipe, on either side........ That explained the blue smoke and the strong smell of Exhaust inside the car while driving.
Missing Nuts.jpg



It still did not solve the question of the loss in power though. I again looked to my mechanic (Has been turning a wrench for 30 years now) He smiled and asked me to come to him after the others in the shop were done putting in their expert opinions. So, that is exactly what I did. He told me that the Cats were most likely clogged up and if I pulled the Y-pipe loose since it already had no nuts on it to keep it tight that he would be surprised if the power was not restored.
(To be clear, he is MY mechanic as in MY employee not MY mechanic as in he does the work on my car for me. He is just amazingly smart and I usually do what he suggests because he is seldom wrong)

So, I asked my son to come to the shop this morning after he got out of work so we could test what my mechanic said to do. We got the car back up on the rack and back under it. That is when I noticed, something is missing..... Like the 4th cat is missing.... The previous owner had removed one cat for some reason and never put the nuts back on the manifolds when they inserted the bolts. When we took the y-pipe free. We found the nuts, they are attached to the opposite side of the flange. (I will address what looks like a bad oil leak a little later. I hope the Exxon Valdez does not get jealous of this picture).

Once we had the Y-Pipes free of the Manifolds and still not touching the ground, we took it out for a drive. It found its power that is for sure. This little pony galloped down the road and sounded like a freight train..... Tomorrow we will take the Exhaust completely off (100% welded together SUX) and will make an attempt to clean the Cats out. I have a Peckerwood Idea for that also. OOH it will be Epic!!!!
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7/4/2020

So we decided to take the Y pipe to the car wash and see what was going on here. We found that one of the Pipes, 4,5,6 side was quite restrictive......
Like ZERO Flow. As you can see here the last Owner was Quite the Welder...... I counted 8 locations where the soap was coming out before where it should have only been coming out at.
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So, Since my son wants this to be just a Daily Driver and nothing more at this time......... We looked for an economical solution. Jegs came through here and all you see amounts to about $450.

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Since this began as a single exhaust V6 I actually was looking to keep it that way. NOPE, you literally cant not come across many options to keep these as singles. When I did find something, it was cost preventative for this build. So we settled on the parts in the above picture but need a few parts still in the below two pictures. We will be searching the salvage yards for 99-04 V8's so we can cannibalize the exhaust hangars.

Ignore the Cancer that you see here. we have a plan for all of that also. This is not the Vert!!!!! This is the Father/Son project.... We are not afraid of work and restoration (Peckerwood Style) For now we are just getting this running smooth so we can move toward the next step.

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We needed an Inner Tie Rod End to shore up the front end parts here so I got that done this week. Here is a much improved exhaust system over what we took off the car. Yes it is still in a stated of flux. I need the V8 Exhaust hangars still but for now it is functional. This weekend we are doing the rear main seal and will put in flange gaskets to seal the exhaust up at the manifold.

Look at the Wave of OIL Filth that is heading toward the rear LOL it almost looks artistic. With all of that lubricant I can;t see why it has rusted.

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July 19
We went to the pull a part today to see what we could get off a car that just hit the lot. I joked that if when we got there the car had a T5 in it we would not be getting the other things we were looking for because I would spend all day getting the teams out if I had to. Soooooooooooo Looks like a T5 swap to me. Had a CAI also, why not, took that also.
T5.jpg

Let's take a moment to thank the car who will be donating things for this build.
Donor Car.jpg

Ok that is enough time. Cordless Sawzall!!!!!!
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9 am to 4:30 p.m. I'm tired. Time to go home and participate in beer:30
 
SOOOOOOO, I lost my walled at the Pull A Part today and did not even know it until my son gave me his so he would stop sitting on it. We went through everything and could not find it anywhere. We put everything away thinking that we could not buy anything and the loss of all the cash plus other items in the wallet. My son went up to see if anyone turned in the wallet with at least the credit cards in it. Minus the $500 in cash that I had. Nothing. I was not happy and was thinking of throwing things when I retraced my steps for the full day inside the yard. Then I got under the car. I have no earthly idea how the walled fell out of my pocket and landed on this wheel. Fun Times. Got my wallet back, Got a T5, Got Panels, Got a plan for more parts. :nice:
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July 19
We went to the pull a part today to see what we could get off a car that just hit the lot. I joked that if when we got there the car had a T5 in it we would not be getting the other things we were looking for because I would spend all day getting the teams out if I had to. Soooooooooooo Looks like a T5 swap to me. Had a CAI also, why not, took that also.
T5.jpg

Let's take a moment to thank the car who will be donating things for this build.
Donor Car.jpg

Ok that is enough time. Cordless Sawzall!!!!!!
donor 1.jpg
donor 2.jpg
donor panels.jpg

9 am to 4:30 p.m. I'm tired. Time to go home and participate in beer:30
Man ,glad to hear you found your wallet . Nice score on parts -by any chance-didya happen to look at the front seats/console in that car?
 
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@RaggedGT The seats are manual track. I took one out to get the pedal assembly out. They are decent. I put them back inside and closed the doors. The console is cracked and garbage. It's In Row 204

There is. 98 gt out there and I need to see if it still has a rear axle. If so this weekend I will grab that also. 8.8 upgrade hopefully
 
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Axle Discussion

Scored BIG today with a little bit of patience and searching. What I have been doing is talking to my son about what he would like to do here in the build and saying that when we are taking thi8ngs off to be replaced, why not upgrade some of the things in the process so we wont have to go back later on and go it all over again.

So, one of the items is to upgrade from the 7.5 2.73:1 to exactly what I did in mine with an 8.8 3.27:1. He has been looking and looking for a bit and came across an ad for a 99-04 GT rear end. I looked at the ad and had a few questions so I reached out to the man posting and soon we had an agreement on price and pickup.

When I arrived at the location he had 2 Cobra and 3 GT's sitting outside. I browsed around them and was thinking one of the GT would be a great roller but I did not bring a trailer with me. He had quite a few parts sitting outside also that were obviously stock and waiting for homes.

When he arrived to meet me, I asked him if he restored the Mustangs and sold them. He replied, "No, I part them all out and make more money that way."

Inside he had a GT Vert in the air and I pointed to things I wanted and he kept taking them off and handing them to me. It was like a Full Service Pull-A-Part....... I will be returning for future parts if I have trouble getting them from the Local Pull A Part myself.

He said that I can furnish this amount of information for him for prospective buyers, through contact he can furnish the rest.

Name: Chris Galloway (Administrator for Louisville Mustang Classifieds)
Where to find him and what he is offering: Louisville Mustangs Classifieds (Facebook)


  1. 8.8 3.27:1 w Trac Loc
  2. Painted Calipers, new pads, good rotors
  3. OEM Quad and regular shocks still attached
  4. rear bumper mount, COMPLETE
  5. Muffler mounts and 1 tank strap

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Still will be some time before these are installed. We will have to clean them up, paint them and do whatever replacement may be needed. Just could not pass up the deal when we came across it.
 
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