Progress Thread Daily Driver.... 89 GT - Body & Paint Done

TIGGER

Founding Member
Mar 6, 2000
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Portland, OR
I got this car last Wednesday. Since it needs some work I figured I would start a build thread. I did a few on my Pinto's back in the day but never one for any of my Mustangs. Anyway, I picked this 89 GT up from one of my best friends. His father-in-law bought it new. Gave it to him for Christmas in 03 I think. It was my buddy's daily driver till about 3 years ago. Then he drove it off and on and then when all the little things wrong with it piled up he parked it. He realized he would rather focus his time and money on one of this other cars so he decided to let this one go. Gave me first dibs since he knew I would fix it and give it the attention it needs. The car has been sitting for over a year. I threw a charged battery in it and fired right up like it ran yesterday. I was surprised. Driving it the 4 miles back to my house proved to be a challenge due to drivers seat being broken. I had to hold myself up by the steering wheel and push the clutch in and drive at the same time. All and all it is a real solid car that needs a bunch of TLC. All the parts he had came with it.

The car is pretty much unmolested. It has a Tri-ax shifter, underdrive pullleys, and a strut tower brace. He bought 3.55's for it back in the day buy never put them in. Other than that, it has just normal wear items done. The plan for the car is to daily drive it. I LOVE driving my Saleen but there are so many idiots out on the roads lately that I am scared something is going to happen to it. I am going to mod this one and do some of the things I wanted to do to my Saleen and then didn't because of originality. I will try and post some pictures from what it looked like the day I bought it home. Not sure how many I can do. I use to use photobucket back in the day but not sure what else is out there these days. Anyway, here is goes....
 

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The Portland swap meet was this past weekend. Back in the day it was the second largest swap meet on the west coast. I am not sure where it ranks now. To do it right and see everything you need 2-3 days. This was the first time in two years that it was going to happen, and since I have a new toy I figured I would go and see if I could find a few things that the car needed. Nope..... There were very few foxbody parts there. I mean a very few. There was a little SN95. There was a decent amount of early Mustang stuff but not nearly as much as say 10 years ago. I saw more RAM truck stuff and new mini cooper stuff than I saw mustang. I was disappointed to say the least.

Instead of going back yesterday, I decided to finish taking out the interior of the 89 so I could assess the damage to the seat and floor pan. I know my 86 like the back of my hand but it has been a while since I have taken apart a 87+ car so it was a bit of a learning curve again. I got the carpet out and was presently surprised. I figured the floor pan would be cracked like the one on my Saleen was but I didnt see any issues with that. The front seat support channel is worse for wear though. I cut a pieces from one of my parts cars like 8 years ago and gave it to my buddy but he never got around to put it in. Carpet was a little damp on the drivers side though so I will have to look into that and see if I can find where the water came from. So far no build sheet.

My neighbor buddy was going to weld in the patch yesterday but it took me longer than expected to get the interior out. By that time it was too late so hopefully later this week he can do that for me. At the same time, I am going to put subframe connectors on it. I have a set of old school Kenny brown super subs that I was saving for another car. I am going to use them on this one instead.

This is where I am at today.
 

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The Portland swap meet was this past weekend. Back in the day it was the second largest swap meet on the west coast. I am not sure where it ranks now. To do it right and see everything you need 2-3 days. This was the first time in two years that it was going to happen, and since I have a new toy I figured I would go and see if I could find a few things that the car needed. Nope..... There were very few foxbody parts there. I mean a very few. There was a little SN95. There was a decent amount of early Mustang stuff but not nearly as much as say 10 years ago. I saw more RAM truck stuff and new mini cooper stuff than I saw mustang. I was disappointed to say the least.
Probably 35 years ago it was an amazing place... Last time I went, probably 12 years ago, it was pretty sad... A victim of the internet and Ebay
 
Nice car! Looking forward to the build. What’s the plan?

Fix the seat and floor so I can drive it. Change all the fluids and do all the basic maintenance just so I know it is all done. The clean up the interior. It needs a headliner, new weatherstripping etc. Once that is done outside give it a good wax, and redo the trim,. That single stage will come back but I will have to redo the titanium. Hoping SEM makes the correct color. Then it is Gears, exhaust, wheels and suspension. I have a spare set of 16" Rikens that I had for spares for my Saleen. I am not a fan of the turbines. That is my least favorite Mustang wheel but the tires are still good so I may rock those for a while till I get other things done. The car has ~212k on the clock. If I remember correctly, the transmission was rebuilt at around 90K for some reason, just before my friend got it. Only thing really done to the motor was a timing chain.
 
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Probably 35 years ago it was an amazing place... Last time I went, probably 12 years ago, it was pretty sad... A victim of the internet and Ebay
I have been going fairly religiously since probably 1986, however it was probably 4 years since the last time.I went. This last time, I took one of my co-worker friends that has a 66 Chevelle. He was impressed with the amount of stuff there was to look at. Unfortunately he didn't find the one emblem he was looking for. I have never had a goal to find something specific before or at least it has been a while. I usually find a bunch of stuff I am not really looking for but not this time. There were tons of people that were giving stuff away. Boxes and boxes of stuff for free. Everything from random wheels and tires, OEM silverado headlights (looked like they were in nice shape), new brake rotors for some random car.s, to NOS ford parts. I have a brand new in the box power door actuator that the this guy just gave to me. He said it was for a F series truck, enjoy! I have not looked up the part number yet to see if it will fit this 89. This is the second time some guy was giving away NOS ford stuff. that I ran across. I just find it weird.
 
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From the pictures it looks like that car has the sand beige interior. The only one I’ve ever seen besides my car.
 
Yes, sandy beige interior. I need to find a few things though. All the seat belt plastics crumbled. The ones on the rockers crumbled to a million pieces. There is nothing left. One of the door sill moldings is cracked too. Head liner got damaged when the sunroof leaked years ago. I have one out of a parts car I had but It is from a non sunroof car. Hope it works. Kinda worried where the dome light is on the non sunroof hatch vs the sunroof opening. Hope it is going to work. I work a couple miles from SMS fabrics so I should be able to get the vinyl for the headliner over lunch one day.
 
Worked from home today so I had some time this evening to tinker. Took some rubbing compound to the worst spot on the roof and then some wax cleaner. I think this paint is going to come back around fairly easy:banana: Then I went to my buddy's house when he got home and we fixed the floor pan where the seat mounts. It was dark when we were done so I just put the seat back in and did not take a pic of the repair completed. You get the idea though. Next up is the seat frame and subframe connectors. I will have to take the seat apart. Hopefully he will have time to weld both this weekend.

I am going to have to order a few things soon and have a question on the sunroof, is there a gasket or something supposed to go around the metal of the sunroof? Or is there supposed to be this much of a gap between the body and the sunroof itself?

I finally went thru all the spare parts that came with the car. There are a bunch of odds and ends but tonight I was interested in the weatherstripping. I have door and hatch weatherstrip. Looks like I will need to get some sunroof stuff and definitely the ones for the window channel. The outer dew wipes still seem soft, Inner drivers side is decent as well but the inner passenger is hard as a rock. Seems weird that the one inner is hard.

Last question for tonight is on the roof rail and door sill moldings. They look like they have vinyl on them where my Saleen, at least for the roof rail is just painted metal. 4 eyes do not have the door sill moldings like the 87+ cars do. How do you restore those? Strip what is left of the vinyl and paint them?

Here are a couple pictures. Those are clouds reflecting in the paint not wax
 

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There is a gasket around the sunroof. The repops are rather thin compared to oem which filled the gap much better.

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My roof rail molding trim is metal, but painted black. I don’t really want to pick it apart but I don’t think there is a vinyl on it. Maybe paint?

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