Progress Thread 88 Gt T-top- Project problem child

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Just thought I'd start a thread to show the progress of my car.

I picked the car up in early November 2015. The poor car had been through some owners with less than good taste. Here are some pics as I got it.

As you can see, Spider-Man was not amused with the cobra badges and homemade dash pad.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

First thing I did was deal with those tail lights , and later changed them again

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Next was dealing with the dash pad. Turns out they tried to reskin one from a different car but did a poor job. $6 from parts yard and I was good.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

No pics for this one, but the next thing I found was none of the hatch lights worked. Turns out they were unhooked in the drivers side quarter. Simple fix once I found it.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Next I started I wanted to 3G swap it and electric fan swap the car.

A trip to the yard found me a nice motor craft alt and all the wiring to do the swap including a factory power wire with inline fuse from a early Taurus 3.0.

I also took this time to pull all the accessories and brackets , wire wheel them, then paint them with engine paint.

I them added a sn95 fan with a Hayden controller coupled with a tyco 75 amp relay.

I'll likely trim down the fan for use in the factory shroud.

Also along the way traded the " cold " air intake for a stock style one. Much better in my opinion.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

The cheep no name valve covers were leaking and not properly connected to the pcv system as well as my pcv screen was missing , found these covers locally pretty cheap.

Also changed the upper intake bolts, the 1" space that is probably pointless needs longer bolts that the previous owner was too lazy/ inept to change. 60 cents at lowes cured that.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

The white face cluster with indigo lights simply had to go. A factory ( 89) 140 cluster with $7 worth of eBay led's was the fix.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Forgot the pic

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Old and crusty

billison · Mar 20, 2016

New and shiny

billison · Mar 20, 2016

Almost forgot the 3 cobra badges, the aluminum round 5.0 badges instead of the ford badges, the horse on the back window, the giant " COBRA" on the front window, and the painfully purple window tint.

This is me 15 min after buying the car.

billison · Mar 20, 2016

skyline247 · Mar 21, 2016

Good progress!

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

FoxMustangLvr · Mar 21, 2016

Wait, what happened to the vert? Didn't you just get a black one last fall or summer? Maybe I'm confusing you with somebody else.....anyways, sweet t-top!! If I ever find one again, but in good condition, I will buy it on the spot and add it to my fleet.

billison · Mar 21, 2016

Yeah I had a very nice 89 gt drop top. Really liked it. But I always wanted a t-top and with fox prices in the raise I decided now was the time. So I sold the 89 to a young man fresh out of the army, then began my hunt for a t-top. I looked at about 20 or so. Most of them were either ran into the ground or priced way too high. Almost got a different one but the last video I got of it showed poorly dealt with rust with new paint on top. I finally settled on this one. It's a 88, 5.0 5 speed. I've not found rust anywhere yet but won't be surprised if I find a spot in the rear floorboards. The only issues with the car were poorly done mods and a cheap paint job. As you can see I've about fixed all the "mods" and I'll deal with the paint at some point. It's a factory black car they painted white, it will likely be back in black before its done.

I'll be getting the ac lines cleaned and installed soon, followed by getting the low coolant and low washer fluid sensors working. I also plan to put the electric fan into the stock shroud to give it a factory ish look. Inch by inch right.

billison · Mar 21, 2016

As seen in some of the pics above, I sold the hood that came with the car. It was a cirvinis knock off that needed a ton of blocking to be flat and I didn't care for the body lines it made. I found a same style and size true cirvinis for just a few bucks more. I just need to decide if I'm gonna toss some paint on it or wait till I do it all. We have a baby coming in October, so I might run out of time.

stykthyn · Mar 21, 2016

Do whatever you can before the baby comes. Your life will be on pause for a while.

FoxMustangLvr · Mar 21, 2016

Newborns sleep a lot, take a baby monitor in the garage with you and wear coveralls to save on clothes changing. That what I did. Good luck!

billison · Mar 21, 2016

Oh I know, this is kid number 2. For now I'm gonna focus on things that I can do now, and maybe start saving for paint. We'll see. The longer I have it , the more the white grows on me.

I also have a set of ranger axles , 94 spindles and all the brakes, so a 5 lug might happen. It's mainly depending on finding the right deal on wheels. I had a set of 03 bullitts but we were hit with $1500 in expenses so I flipped them to help cover some. I got my eyes on another set as well as some 94-95 tribars . I know the tribars are out dated but how played out are Cobras..

billison · Mar 21, 2016

I guess a quick history of me and mustangs. Drove several in high school, got married, found frame rot in the one I had, parted it out and took a break from mustangs. That was in 2006. In 2012 I was selling my old driver (200k mile Saturn), and someone called me up wanting to trade my a 92 5.0 5 speed vert that looked like my sweetheart car from high school( I'm in my yearbook with it). That happened. Drove and loved it for a year and a trade for a 67 coupe happened. Liked it but it was more than I wanted to do plus my kid who loved the vert hated it . So it got traded for the 89. Now I've settled on the t-top- it's the best of both worlds.

Progress Thread 88 Gt T-top- Project problem child

I like tinted tail

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I love my Pimp

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I want to measure mine. It doesn't look that tall.

I love my Pimp

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