Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Cliff Notes Edition

There's truth in what you say Clay.

I think why I like it is that this car will be a daily driver that i would be perfectly happy with 325lbft of torque. I'm not really worried about the HP number. I'm NOT racing a t-top coupe.

Obviously this would be a much easier accomplishment with a 351 like I was hot and heavy for earlier.....

Had God decided to not make my finances pure sht for the last year this conversation would be moot. I would have already been up to my a**hole and elbows in a 351 and the blue car would be close to being done.

But since opportunity has given me a chance to be more frugal than I already have been, I was going to just get the little Essex running. And for the first time I can remember, @RaggedGT didn't give me the idea for something i wanted to do....

At that point, I'm stuck with a mighty 108 at the crank HP, pretty terrifying, huh? Then I thought about that turbocoupe t-bird that used to sit by my car. So I thought I would ask the yard owner if he had any supercoupes. He has several. He will part out one that has a blown head gasket, easy peasy fix.

So,here I am buddy. It will be different. Not @madmike1157 different, yet, not the usual.

And later, if I have money again, I can throw all sorts of money at that engine! Holy crap! There's craploads of aftermarket hi-po stuff for them.

Ok, got to the yard and cleaned out my mustang of all the that was in the interior.

While there, the yard owner showed me a few of his supercoupes. He narrowed it down to the one he'll part out for me.

I only got one picture, and that's of the engine bay. The mosquitoes were dining on me pretty heavily, so I didn't spend the time there that I originally wanted.

Oh well, here's the donor.
He hasn't quoted me a price yet, but I'm sure he will be more than fair.

Here we are at page 121!

Mustang5L5 said:

So the SC engine is officially a go? That's cool as skit

Click to expand...

It is Mike, got a lot of stuff to get done to pull it and get it home.

Big day! The yard owner told me $500 for everything from the engine bay plus the computer! I'm pleased as hell about that price.

I would go out there tonight to start disassembling it, but I have to go paint a side job.

Next week I'll start plucking that t-bird engine bay clean! Woohoo!

Big day, I paid for the sc engine.

From this t-bird. The yard owner will get out there in the next few days to cut out the trees and other weeds land locking the bird in. BTW, it's seats are in spectacular condition. Maybe sc seats in the blue car?

While there at the yard i threw the ten holes on the blue car. You want to know why? Because this Saturday at roughly 10:00 AM the blue car will leave the yard finally!!!Isn't it beautiful!

I have the people lined up, the trailer, and the yard owner will be there to let us in.

Both front wheels were locked up, btw. The brake pads had fused to the rotors. So I whipped the calipers off with a little motivation from a pry bar and took the pads off. Oddly the car must have had a brake job 16 years ago right before it came to the yard, they look new in thickness.

Today I removed the tarp to try to dry it out a little.

On the way to it's new home we will stop by a nice car wash and i'll blast the rat crap out of there and give it a mild scrubbing too.

I think I'm going to rename the blue car. Roby just doesn't work for me for this project.

I'm thinking with the power train changes that Scuby (like Scooby-doo) would be a good name.

Super
Charged
Ugly
Bastard
Y makes it sound cute.

Opinions?

Hey! Where's Scuby?

Ok, so, on the trailer.

Leaving the yard for the first time in sixteen years.

At the car wash.

In the sun "cleaned".

In his new home!

Rat crap free zone!

I didn't take a picture of something I discovered after putting the ten holes on scuby. I'll post one later.

It's the ultimate in redneck engineering. Remember how the driver's side floor pan had all of those mile long cracks? Well, the po must have decided they didn't like the seat sagging, so they fixed it.

I won't tell you what they did, next time i'm with the car i will get a picture. This is too good for me to try telling you what their repair was. You'll have to see it to really appreciate it.

I will post one more picture though. You surely remember my engine bay frame rails and how nicely they were completely filled with rat poop? They're not rotted! Yay.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. You remember those supercoupe seats I mentioned? Here they are.

You can see the couple small tears in the passenger seat, but other than that and a little fading???

He said he'll sell them to me, didn't say a price yet. I know i put a lot of effort into the original seats, but these look much more comfy......

If nothing else, I can put the original seats on a nice base and make them good garage seats for when y'all come visit me!

I went over to look at Scuby just a little bit ago......do you know why? BECAUSE I CAN!!!!!! BWAAHAAHAAHAA!

So, while I was there I took a couple pictures of the po's driver's seat reinforcement. I told you pictures would be better than me explaining what the po had done.

First, the driver's floor from inside.

Second, the "modification/reinforcement". Ingenious huh? I just might angle iron a set of subframe connectors there now.

One last of the engine bay frame rail on the left side, this was the rat's favorite toilet. The paint is still intact underneath!

One of everything that'll be in the storage unit for now. Room to pull the remaining parts and drivetrain. Yay!

Here's some good news, it's raining fairly hard today!

Why is that good? Scuby is staying dry during a rainstorm for the first time in 16 years!:zombie:

Progress today.

After work i went to see my beloved Scuby so I can keep on stripping him to a shell. I brought a 3 ton jack with me from the shop and yanked him into the middle of the unit.

This allowed me to open the passenger door and get the right fender off. Then taking the door off is nothing. I disconnected the wiring harness and buzzed out the hinge bolts and whamo, the door is off.

The hinge pillar is in nice shape.

Then i opened up the trunk and got that ragged a*s rear bumper off. Then I disconnected the wiring harness to the decklid and pulled it off.

For some reason God decided we needed more July here in September. It's 95 and humidity is at 85%! Good lord, when did I move to Alabama?

Now begins the exciting stuff for me. Saturday i'll start emptying the engine bay! Woohoo! Though one thing I'll do this saturday is to crawl under Scuby and do some measurements to see if he's been tweaked much.

Here is tonight's booty, I'll take the stuff to work tomorrow and remove a few things. I need to strip the decklid of it's wiring harness and stuff. I found the six pack of Dirty Bastard behind the bumper:zombie:

I want to have the drivetrain out before next weekend, MAYBE finish plucking it out on Saturday.

Here's the license plate off Scuby. So the last time it was registered by someone was July of 2000.

So, I know what you're thinking, what are you doing tomorrow night lazy bones? Why I'm going back to the yard to start the pull of my supercoupe engine! Two bananas!

I went to the yard today and removed a bit of stuff from the t-bird eb. I don't have a picture of what I took off because i'm just worn out.

Though I do have one picture. I mentioned to the yard owner about the radiator support being thrashed. He said he had one he pulled from a fox body cougar sitting up by his shop.

It's the same as my car, except for the bumper and absorbers, of course.

So I ask him, "How much?", he says to me, "you can have it for free".

FREE, my favorite four letter word!

I'm going back to the yard tomorrow to hopefully pick the last of the stuff that'll allow me to pull the actual engine.

I promise pictures of what i got tonight and what I'll pluck tomorrow.

How about that, did I mention FREE!, radiator support?

I'm going to take it to work monday and cut out what I need and sandblast it and throw a little etch primer and a couple coats of regular primer on it. This might be a good time for me to smooth it as well.

Page 130!! It's almost up to date!

I got a bit of stuff off the sc engine today. I started with the intercooler and radiator. I was a little confused how to remove the intercooler tubing. The top was easy enough, a few bolts and nuts, a pry bar and pop goes the weasel.

Now, that lower tube that feeds the cooled air to the intake..... not so easy. It's attached at the intercooler, intake manifold, the power steering pump, and at the block. So, sure, four nuts and a couple capscrews and it's out of there, right? Uhm....no.....

To remove the lower tube, the capscrew that bolts to the block needs to be removed. You can't get to it with the power steering pump in the way. It's bolted from underneath. The t-bird has settled down in the ground from sitting in one spot for so long, so no coming up to it from below.

Well, ok then, i'll just take the ps pump off and get to it......No, no I won't "just" take the ps pump off.

In order to get the pump of, you need to take the pulley off to get to the nuts holding it on. This was the most fatiguing part for me today. That pulley really wanted to stay where it was. Though, in the end, I conquered it like Conan the Barbarian.....now where's that serving wench with the mead......

As soon as I got home I used a little laquer thinner and paper towels to wipe off the lower tube. It was disgusting.

I had to pull the alternator as well to get the ps bracket off. NBD there. I wonder about this alternator, is it 3G, 4G? @jrichker ?

I pulled the edis6 module off too. Other small things like the coolant overflow, wiper fluid, etc. too.

Took off the air box and what i'm guessing is the MAF?

I was going to take the a/c compressor off, but i forgot my disconnectors for the lines.

Here's what the eb looks like right now.

It's kind of nice to finally see the valve covers at last.

You can count on me going to the car wash prior to putting the engine in my garage. I'll just need a couple cans of Gunk cleaner too. It's a dirty bastard.

In the end, one more trip and I'll pull the engine. I'll probably pull the sc off before yanking the engine itself as well.

Look at this pulley system, there are three separate belts with a tensioner for each one.

As for the rest of today, I'm cooling off a little, drinking beer and watching college football. My son is at the OSU-TCU game, so i'm watching that for now. When I cool off a bit I'll go out to my garage to set up my new shelves and rearrange things for the sc engine. I got a bunch of stuff to get and keep organized now.

Got the corner of the garage set up, new shelves and cleared out for the engine.

Once put on the shelves, it looks like I hardly brought anything home from the yard! It sure felt like more.....Why am I so tired?

I did throw the support in the back of my truck too. I'll trim out the parts I need on monday when i get back to the rest of my tools.

Ok, I did work on Scuby. Though I had to keep running back home because my favorite buddy diarrhea decided to visit me four times while I was there.

Let me tell you, with it being 93 and high humidity and no breeze and having to crap every 30 minutes i was having the time of my life!.

I gave up on the last loaf pinching. I'm just enjoying air conditioning now.

So here's the bay and what I got taken out.