Progress Thread "Alter Ego" White 1993 LX 5.0 5spd

[idareu]

I found this 1993 LX 5.0 5spd while "window shopping" online. The motor was recently rebuilt and has less than 500 miles on it (overall mileage is unknown for the chassis). The owner had done a ton work on it already and was looking to move on to another project. The paint has some blemishes but all in all not too bad. There is a little rust along the top of the hatch and sunroof but I'll be looking to have the car ready for a new paint job in the next year or two so that shouldn't be too much of a concern right now. The price was reasonable given the amount of work had been done so after talking with the owner and driving up to see it, I pulled the trigger and brought it home yesterday.

The car runs strong although I'm not sold on the "F" cam and 4.10 gears just yet. I'm not sure how "street-able" its going to be but I'll run them for a bit and see how I feel.

The first order of business will be getting some new wheels/tires. I've got a set of 16' Pony's in the garage that need some paint and some new rubber (maybe a 245/50/16 all the way around) so I'll probably swap over to those in the next couple of weeks. I'll have to adjust the speedometer gear that point but right now the speedo isn't working so I need to look at it anyway.

Once that's squared away, I'm going to start cleaning up the motor. It needs a some TLC, elbow grease and paint. I'll have to look at the best way to paint things like the intake as it's looking pretty rough right now.

I also need to replace the dump tailpipes and get some 2.5" LX style pipes to come out the back. It's an iconic look and right now things look "funky" without them there.

List of upgrades:
Under Hood:
Rebuilt A9L computer
Line lock
Brake lines
new master & wheels cylinder
Motor mounts
Starter Solenoid
Replaced all hoses
Camber Castor plates

Front and Rear end:
8:8 rear end rebuilt
4:10 Ford Motorsports
Spherical upper housing bearings
Upper and Lower Control arms
Seals
pinion & cover
Long Wheel studs front & rear
Urethane rear spring isolators
Urethane front sway bar bushing

Body & under carriage:
Front Struts
Rear shocks
340 LPH fuel pump Welbro
X-pipe & Flowmaster super 40 exhaust
Tires 275/60/15 & 215/60/15
Welds (4) 8x15.

Interior:
Front & rear carpets & hatch area
Headliner
Shifter boot kit
Door hinge kit
Door seal kit
Hatch seal kit
Sunroof seal kit, body & hatch
Sunroof retaining clips
5 speed clutch brake pedals
Stereo
Rubber clutch & brake pad
Fuel filter neck grommet
Mirror hole cover kit.

Motor & Transmission components:
King cam bearings
Clevite main & rod bearings
Speed Pro rings
Melling’s high volume oil pump
SVT oil pump shaft
Cloyes double roller timing chain
Fel-Pro full gasket set w/one piece oil pan gasket
GT40 heads (ported)
ARP head bolts/560 lift springs (Alex Springs)
GT40 Explorer upper and lower intake
MAC 70 mm throttle body
MAC cold air intake w/ 75 mm MAF sensor
Ford Motorsports “F” cam
MAC ceramic shorty headers
Ford Motor Sports 8 mm plug wires
Alum high flow radiator
Water pump
SN95 alternator conversion
Mini starter
50 oz. pressure plate
Center Force stage 2 pressure plate & clutch
ARP pressure plate bolts
T5 rebuilt w/ Pro 5.0 shifter base

Pictures
Obligatory Trailer Picture

Front

Driver's Side

Rear

Passenger Side

Engine

 

[Noobz347]

NSFW




I'd call it "Cocaine"

 

[Noobz347]

 

[idareu]

That's a sweet fox.

As for mine, right now I'm thinking about "Ol'drippy".... We had a downpour a little while ago. I went out and noticed the windows were fogged up, not a good sign. Open the door and I had water weeping out around the sun-visor mounts. I guess the moon-roof drains must be cracked/broken. I'm going to have to see what it takes to expose them so I can see what's going on. For now, I'll have to keep it garaged until then. Just one of those things I didn't think to check.

 

[Noobz347]

Copy all. New straws for Cocaine

 

[General karthief]

In my signature at the bottom there is a link to my thread, in there is my fun time dealing with my sunroof drains, should only need cleaning out.
That's the fun part.

 

[idareu]

In my signature at the bottom there is a link to my thread, in there is my fun time dealing with my sunroof drains, should only need cleaning out.
That's the fun part.

Cool, thanks for posting that. I'll have to read it over in a bit.

 

[Mac131]

I found this 1993 LX 5.0 5spd while "window shopping" online. The motor was recently rebuilt and has less than 500 miles on it (overall mileage is unknown for the chassis). The owner had done a ton work on it already and was looking to move on to another project. The paint has some blemishes but all in all not too bad. There is a little rust along the top of the hatch and sunroof but I'll be looking to have the car ready for a new paint job in the next year or two so that shouldn't be too much of a concern right now. The price was reasonable given the amount of work had been done so after talking with the owner and driving up to see it, I pulled the trigger and brought it home yesterday.

The car runs strong although I'm not sold on the "F" cam and 4.10 gears just yet. I'm not sure how "street-able" its going to be but I'll run them for a bit and see how I feel.

The first order of business will be getting some new wheels/tires. I've got a set of 16' Pony's in the garage that need some paint and some new rubber (maybe a 245/50/16 all the way around) so I'll probably swap over to those in the next couple of weeks. I'll have to adjust the speedometer gear that point but right now the speedo isn't working so I need to look at it anyway.

Once that's squared away, I'm going to start cleaning up the motor. It needs a some TLC, elbow grease and paint. I'll have to look at the best way to paint things like the intake as it's looking pretty rough right now.

I also need to replace the dump tailpipes and get some 2.5" LX style pipes to come out the back. It's an iconic look and right now things look "funky" without them there.

List of upgrades:
Under Hood:
Rebuilt A9L computer
Line lock
Brake lines
new master & wheels cylinder
Motor mounts
Starter Solenoid
Replaced all hoses
Camber Castor plates

Front and Rear end:
8:8 rear end rebuilt
4:10 Ford Motorsports
Spherical upper housing bearings
Upper and Lower Control arms
Seals
pinion & cover
Long Wheel studs front & rear
Urethane rear spring isolators
Urethane front sway bar bushing

Body & under carriage:
Front Struts
Rear shocks
340 LPH fuel pump Welbro
X-pipe & Flowmaster super 40 exhaust
Tires 275/60/15 & 215/60/15
Welds (4) 8x15.

Interior:
Front & rear carpets & hatch area
Headliner
Shifter boot kit
Door hinge kit
Door seal kit
Hatch seal kit
Sunroof seal kit, body & hatch
Sunroof retaining clips
5 speed clutch brake pedals
Stereo
Rubber clutch & brake pad
Fuel filter neck grommet
Mirror hole cover kit.

Motor & Transmission components:
King cam bearings
Clevite main & rod bearings
Speed Pro rings
Melling’s high volume oil pump
SVT oil pump shaft
Cloyes double roller timing chain
Fel-Pro full gasket set w/one piece oil pan gasket
GT40 heads (ported)
ARP head bolts/560 lift springs (Alex Springs)
GT40 Explorer upper and lower intake
MAC 70 mm throttle body
MAC cold air intake w/ 75 mm MAF sensor
Ford Motorsports “F” cam
MAC ceramic shorty headers
Ford Motor Sports 8 mm plug wires
Alum high flow radiator
Water pump
SN95 alternator conversion
Mini starter
50 oz. pressure plate
Center Force stage 2 pressure plate & clutch
ARP pressure plate bolts
T5 rebuilt w/ Pro 5.0 shifter base

Pictures
Obligatory Trailer Picture

Front

Driver's Side

Rear

Passenger Side

Engine

I agree that it will look so much better with ponies on it. Hopefully it will get rid of the stink bug stance it has (unless that's what you like). Looks like a solid base to start with for sure! Don't let go of those MAC parts either.

 

[nickyb]

I named mine Milky, she's white and fluid.
Maybe Whitey?

 

[idareu]

I sealed up the sunroof clips and cleaned out the drains so hopefully that solves the leaking issue. If not, I'll have to tear down the headliner and see what's going on up there. As far the wheels, yeah I'm not a fan on the stance. I need to get some paint and clean up the ponies that I have and get some new rubber on them. I was running around town this weekend and it's definitively strong. I'm still getting used to having the 4.10s in rear and am rowing through the gears faster than I'm used to (last mustang I drove had 3.08s) LOL. I've toyed with the idea of dropping down to a 3.55 but I'll wait and see on that.

Currently I have a few things to work one:

• New radiator and fan set. It looks like it has 2 core with a old style flex fan (no fan clutch). That might be okay for the drag strip but I need something more street-able.
• Replaced the belt tensioner but still have a "high pitched chirp" coming from under the hood while driving (It's hard to describe).
• When I turn the A/C on, the car doesn't idle very well and wants to die. The previous owner suggested doing a base idle reset, so I'll have to look at that.
• Remove the white face gauge decals, can't see squat when I'm driving at night as they make the panel way to dim. Plus I like the stock look of black guages.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the car. It lived a previous life as a 4cyl so I may have to name it "Alter Ego" since its been converted. I still have the 91 GT in the garage and after talking with the wife, she said I should just keep it and keep working on it while I drive the crap out of this one. Who am I to argue with that.

 

[idareu]

I pulled the instrument cluster apart last night and was able to get the white face decals off the tach and speedo but the ones over the gauges refuse to come off without destroying the original black paint. I may swap the cluster from the '91 over to this car temporarily and then go hit a few junkyards in a few weeks. It looks like I have a few bulbs that are out behind the cluster as well, so I'll dive back into it this weekend.

I did notice a thin film of oil along the top of the passenger side value cover. There is a breather cap on the valve cover just behind the throttle-body meets the intake. I'm thinking that the oil could be coming from that breather, never had one on a car before but it seems logical.

 

[gkomo]

Reminds me i need to remove my cluster and take the face plate off and clean inside of it. Super dusty, and there is a big white piece of something covering a portion of my temp guage, looks like puddy or something. I'll have to watch a video on how to remove it, but pretty simple?

 

[idareu]

Reminds me i need to remove my cluster and take the face plate off and clean inside of it. Super dusty, and there is a big white piece of something covering a portion of my temp guage, looks like puddy or something. I'll have to watch a video on how to remove it, but pretty simple?

Yeah, it's pretty simple. The only thing I had to be careful was when I pulled the switches out of the gauge pod. They have small plastic clips that release them and then they pull forward so you can remove the wiring harnesses. Watching a quick video is a good idea

 

[idareu]

It looks clearing the sunroof drains and sealing up the clips fixed the leaking issue so that's good. Ran water through the channel for a bit and didn't see anything inside and had water hitting the concrete where the drains exit.

Next up on the list is to address an issue with the "Flex Fan". The previous owner put a flex fan with a 2 inch spacer on the water pump. The problem I have is that there is less than a 1/4 inch clearance between the fan and the A/C compressor pulley and the fan was rubbing up against the fan shroud. I was able to shave enough of the shroud to stop the rubbing but I'm not liking minimal clearance between the fan and the pulley. A normal fan clutch/fan setup would push the fan forward another inch so I'm thinking about ditching the flex fan and going with the original style plastic fan for now. I'll have to check my bucket-o-bolts to see if I have the hardware to mount the clutch and fan to the water pump. Eventually I want to do the contour electric fan setup but $450 for the kit at LMR is a bit much right now.

 

[AeroCoupe]

Have you looked at getting the fans from the salvage yard and just buying a fan controller? I mean the LMR kit is nice but a little work and you can do it for half that cost.

 

[idareu]

Been a crazy month but I did get the fan and clutch installed. When I was done I noticed some squealing from belt on startup and then it would die off after 15 - 20 minutes of driving. It was driving me crazy though so I've been trying to run that down. First up was a new belt, the previous owner had a 87.5" since I'm running without a smog pump. Most places online suggest a 84.5" belt so I picked on up at Autozone but there is no way in hell that belt was going to fit. I needed at least another 2 inches in order to get it up and over the A/C compressor. I picked up an 86.5" and it was a snug fit but was able to get it on and under the belt tensioner. I started it and was happy not hear any squeal at idle but once I get above 2k, it squeals like crazy.

Looking at the water pump pulley, the belt seems to be riding the front lip of the pulley rather than running down the center. I've seen people mention that if the power steering pump pulley was mis-aligned it could cause something like that but my P/S pulley looks flush. Any ideas?

Water pump

Power Steering

 

[AeroCoupe]

That water pump pulley looks wrong to me and I would be more suspect of the tensioner pulley than anything.

 

[idareu]

That water pump pulley looks wrong to me and I would be more suspect of the tensioner pulley than anything.

I'll have to check those 2 things, thanks for the feedback.

Pulley is "supposed" to be stock but I'll have to take it off to measure it. The tensioner is a replacement from Advance Auto that I put on last month but I do think I have a spare pulley I can swap to and see what happens. The previous tensioner was an aftermarket was well and the pulley sounded like a roller-skate.

 

[AeroCoupe]

It’s the width of the pulley that makes me suspect it’s wrong.

 

[idareu]

It’s the width of the pulley that makes me suspect it’s wrong.

You might be right, a quick measurement shows the pulley is just over 1 1/4" wide. I found a pulley in my box of parts from my other project and that pulley measures 1 1/16" wide. I'll have to clean it up and swap that pulley and see what happens. Thanks again for the feedback!