Progress Thread Almost Stock Rebuild (89 GT)

KRUISR said:

How was the cross country trip with a blown apart car - or was it back together again?

How did the passenger side cowl (below the windshield) turn out? Any further rust down the framing for the door mounts?

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Car was mostly together for the trip across the country. Although the hatch was only duct taped on, and the fenders had only a few bolts in. It didn't run great, only enough to start it and drive it on/off the trailer. I also transported the shell of another mustang I am working on at the same time. That one needed to be pushed up by a few people into the trailer.

I used Intercity Lines (https://intercitylines.com/) for both of these cars as well as getting our daily drivers across. The cost of their enclosed transport was quite a bit more (~$3000 v ~$1000-$1500) than an open carrier but worth it to keep them protected. Intercity also has some agreement with exclusive drivers and/or owns their trailers. Point being - they don't subcontract the transport out to a fly by a night operator. More cost but I felt better about moving these cars. No idea what costs are these days as it seemed their quotes fluctuated depending on fuel prices. Took about a week-ish to go from New England to CA.

Passenger cowl had rust as expected. I did an okay job repairing it. Basically tried to cut out all the rust, form new pieces, weld in, and repaint. Doesn't look the greatest as it's a weird area where there are a lot of complex shapes that overlap. Probably would have been better to find a clean car to cut a section out of but I think it's okay for now. Hidden at least which is good.

Door mount / A pillar had some as well but mostly surface, not a ton of rot. That was easier as it was mostly rectangular pieces that needed to be removed. Then I treated the area and plug welded in some new pieces.

Stang337 said:

3.55 gears is what I have in my 89 Saleen, especially driving in SoCal traffic went it's on the road. After the sub frames, maybe look into other MM stuff, I see their caster/camber plates. I have their Strut tower brace, rear lower control arms and HD upper bushings, Needed their strut brace as I changed to the 93 cobra intake (ported and polished) larger TB, Mas Air Meter, 24# injectors and Walpro 255 FP and BBK CAI which is CARB cert for CA. Have other bolt on things as well, incase someone wanted to put it back to original. (1.7 roller rockers, CARB shorty headers, better mufflers) Runs and sounds good for what it is. Almost forgot, better stopping with Power Stop cross drilled rotors, pads and stainless braid brake lines!

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Looks nice! Even has the original underhood insulator. Wish mine was in as nice of shape.

I have 3.55 gears sitting on the shelf waiting to be installed. Also already did MM rear lower control arms. Have a set of their "stock" upper arms along with the rubber bushings which I will also do at some point when the gears are done.

General karthief said:

Maybe not in Cali but here in the 'state of confusion' you park that mustang next to a tesla and the mustang will be the attention getter.
Old Skool kool trumps commuter blob.

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It's always been a small car but to see a fox next to any "modern" car in 2026 is wild. So nice to drive though because it can just slot into any parking space.

I'm in the process of prepping the car for a 1) alignment, 2) subframe connector install, and 3) rear gear change.

When I blew the car apart in ~2020 I installed a (reman) new edge steering rack, MM hybrid shaft, and reman power steering pump. Since getting the car back on the road this year I have noticed a shudder at low speed / RPM. Does not sound great at all and made me wince when driving at low speed / in parking lots. I bled the pump reservoir multiple times and also put a vacuum on it to try and get any air out. That made an improvement but did not fix it 100%. I decided that if I was getting the car aligned I should get it solved before that.

So I bought and just installed a new power steering pump (Lares 12338) and rack (Lares 24307). The pump is pretty straight forward but the rack is advertised as a fast (10:1 ratio / 2.5 turn) rack. If I had to guess the only difference between the one I bought (new edge version) and the fox version is the input shaft (triangular vs. splined). How these compare to the various new edge versions (SPR-ZM, etc) I don't really know. But after reading a bunch about the reman racks out there and hearing that it is possible that housings get mixed with various internals, I figured it couldn't hurt.

Suffice to say, the noise on the pump side is basically gone. As is the shudder. There is a hint at low RPM and with a lot of effort but I am hoping that another vacuum bleed will remove that. Have not gotten around to doing that yet though. Very happy with the install and won't be touching this system for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I had to swap the inner tie rods since the new edge are a different thread / length. Hindsight 20/20 I would have gotten the MM fox solid shaft and gone with the Lares new fox rack. Oh well...

Only thing I have noticed since getting the car on the road is that it seems I may need another limiter - which is odd to me. I am running the LMR repro turbines with 225/60R15 tires and confirmed the rack already had 1x limiters installed. But in parking lots at low speeds and at full lock, I seem to be rubbing on something. Car is lowered but not significantly. Slight drop on the springs and also Bilstein all the way around.

Oh also replaced the speedo cable and got the new one lubed up. No more chirping from under the dash and nice to correct an issue (bouncing speedo) I have had since I bought the car in 2011.

AeroCoupe said:

What did you lube the speedo cable with? Should only use powdered graphite lubricant. Any kind of grease will eventually get thick and lock the cable up.

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Yeah I bought that from NPD (https://www.npdlink.com/product/spe...powdered-graphite-lubricant-021oz-tube/233444). I wasn't sure exactly how much / how to use so I pulled the inner core out and then dumped some out and rubbed it with my fingers into the core. Only did the lower 2/3 of the core as mentioned on here, didn't want any (other) speedo issues.

I wish the repro cable had a nicer sheathing like OEM but it should be fine.