Progress Thread Finally got my first Fox Body - 1988 GT

90sickfox · Mar 1, 2021

I know your ordered from a good place and the bushings look to be the correct ones but bushing that are slightly too big I'll cause that sticking door issue. Also, you need to adjust the door latch so the two jaws of the latch contact the bushing in the middle. With the door striker removed does you door molding and body line line up to the quarter panel ? If not you need to adjust the door at the hinges.

Mustang5L5 · Mar 1, 2021

That's how my door sounds. I could close my eyes and think you were opening the door to my car.

Those striker bushings are sensitive to where you locate them. If it seems to stick, just readjust it. Eventually you get them to a point where the door will close with a easy push, and then will open easily.

Then, you'll jack up one wheel and do to open the door and see how much the body twists because you'll notice how harder it is to open the door. Then you buy subframe connectors.

General karthief · Mar 2, 2021

My thoughts and observations,
You replace one thing and the worn stuff causes issues with the new part, new striker, now the worn hinge bushings are a problem, look, here is how it works
Rear quarter panel is fixed, non adjustable so you line the back, top and bottom of the door to match the quarter, flush, straight lines, even gaps.
You don't align the front of the door to match the fender (so to speak) you align the fender to match the door/hood.
In our older cars (yes they are old now) you have to make compromises, one thing I noticed when you were closing that door was the door skin was not flush with the rear quarter skin, looks to me like the door is closing past the quarter,
Question: when you slowly close the door, is the door moving up when engaging the stricker? With the door about half way open, when you lift the door does it feel loose?

DudeStang · Mar 2, 2021

Thanks for the last few comments. I am pretty crazy busy with work at the moment but will look at door again and respond. I think it’s sorted out now but not 100 percent confident.

General Karthief, I remember reading about that test and I think when I did it a week or two ago it didn’t feel loose but I’m going to check again since the Fox is the only car in the garage at the moment.

90sickfox · Mar 5, 2021

Great seeing you, the dog, and your lady out for a ride in the fox. Your car is exactly what I expect out of a good project fox.

To anyone that doesn't know....this guy is cool in my book. Always fun chatting mustang stuff while the wife smiles and freezes in the car. Wish I had my fox out.

DudeStang · Mar 5, 2021

90sickfox said:
Great seeing you, the dog, and your lady out for a ride in the fox. Your car is exactly what I expect out of a good project fox.

To anyone that doesn't know....this guy is cool in my book. Always fun chatting mustang stuff while the wife smiles and freezes in the car. Wish I had my fox out.

Good finally meeting you and talking to you man. My wife was a good sport about it. She said “as soon as I heard the other guy say something about the Fox I just assumed we’d be sitting here for a while”.

DudeStang · Mar 10, 2021

I haven't messed around with the door latch strikers any more but now I think I understand what people were saying when they talked about adjusting them back and forth/up and down. I'll try to get that squared away this weekend and hopefully find some time to start working on the hoses and water pump since the weather is finally starting to warm up.

After closer examination of the center caps that came with my super cheap pony wheels, I decided to just go ahead and order new ones. Hopefully the color is a close enough match. Now I just need to figure out how soon I'm going to brave the rear main seal/clutch replacements and then have a better idea of what time I'll order some new tires.

I haven't heard anything back from the body shop yet about finding a replacement bumper. In the meanwhile, I added some more sticker power.

I started another separate playlist for when I'm not actually doing work on either of the cars and just rambling. My plan is to try and keep this mostly Mustang related but we'll see how that goes...

View: https://youtu.be/1cYVwvrV6Fo

DudeStang · Mar 15, 2021

Center caps arrived yesterday. After looking at these, I'm A. positive I couldn't salvage the originals to look this good; and B. going to need to wash the wheels pretty well, haha.

I did a little bit of work on straightening out the pinch welds on the Fox on Saturday. I'll have a video up on that soon. Little thing that I had been meaning to do and also procrastinating on doing the cooling system stuff.

DudeStang · Mar 17, 2021

Got the jack pad and pinch weld video up this morning. There’s more detail in the video but I’m pretty happy with these SVE jack pads. It would be awesome if they made them in a few different sizes (like maybe slightly bigger to better fit the jack cup like the rubber one pictured below) but these seem like they will work pretty well for the Fox. I haven’t tried them on the 2014 yet.

It’s pretty awesome that they have magnets.

View: https://youtu.be/4M8qyZ6jsvw

Blueinfan · Mar 25, 2021

DudeStang said:
I've wanted a fox body for a long time. The first Mustang I ever rode in was a fox body. The first Mustang I ever drove was a fox body. I’ve been a huge fan of these cars since I was a teenager and always wanted to own one. I also wanted a project car that I could tinker with and build up and mod and learn on.

I spent the past few weeks trying to track down a reasonably priced fox body. I negotiated a sale on a 1988 GT but at the last minute the seller decided he wanted to keep the car. I tried to buy a 1990 LX and again the seller decided he was going to keep the car. I tried to buy a 1992 GT and basically told the seller I would pay asking price and then he stopped responding to my emails.

Convinced the universe was conspiring against me, I was about to take a break for a while but came across a couple more options. I checked out this 1988 GT and made an offer a couple of weeks ago. Finally picked the car up last weekend. She definitely needs some work but she runs strong and is a lot of fun to drive. Looks good in the garage next to my 2014 GT.

Be prepared for a load of threads/questions as I get started working on this thing, lol.

congrats! here is mine...1991 Mustang 5.0 with 91k original miles. No rust. As you can see the inside is trashed. I'm leaving the engine stock and maybe later on do a swap. Plus, changing the top to black and the insides too. The last picture is my goal in 3 years but in green. Anything old that comes off will be replaced and will be selling the parts too. These original pony rims will be up for sale once I upgrade to 5 lug.

DudeStang · Mar 27, 2021

Blueinfan said:
congrats! here is mine...1991 Mustang 5.0 with 91k original miles. No rust. As you can see the inside is trashed. I'm leaving the engine stock and maybe later on do a swap. Plus, changing the top to black and the insides too. The last picture is my goal in 3 years but in green. Anything old that comes off will be replaced and will be selling the parts too. These original pony rims will be up for sale once I upgrade to 5 lug.

Thanks. Nice fox there. I love green. Sounds like it will be a challenging but rewarding project.

DudeStang · Mar 27, 2021

Posted some more ramblings on the channel...mostly just trying to figure out where to put my money in either Mustang, lol.

View: https://youtu.be/8u48C94yRZI

I took advantage of the warm weather to finally get started on the cooling system stuff, which I’ve been procrastinating on. I drained the coolant, removed three of the hoses, and sprayed some PB blaster on the water pump bolts. Had to do some work on the back deck this morning so I didn’t get a ton of time on the Fox but I’m glad I finally started that process.

I still need to get the bottom radiator hose off. My plan for tomorrow is to hit the water pump hardware with more pb blaster, remove the belt, etc. and then start carefully trying to remove the water pump.

Also found a large drip pan at Auto Zone today. It was $10 so I grabbed it. Figure it’s better than constantly throwing cardboard boxes underneath to catch leaks.

Cheapskate207 · Mar 28, 2021

Good plan! And good luck with the water pump bolts.. those can be a nightmare.

DudeStang · Mar 28, 2021

Made a little bit more progress today - got all the hoses removed, got 4 of the water pump bolts out, and took the coolant overflow tank out.

Taking the tank out made me glad I decided to order a new one.

The bolts have been coming out OK so far. I’ve been really slow and careful but I’ve got a few more to go. I got the belt out but haven’t figured out exactly how the water pump disconnects from the fan/fan clutch but I will get that sorted out sometime this week.

General karthief · Mar 28, 2021

The four bolts on the pulley and it will fall off and ding a hole in the radiator so put a piece of cardboard between the fan and the radiator, unless you've taken it out already,

DudeStang · Mar 28, 2021

General karthief said:
The four bolts on the pulley and it will fall off and ding a hole in the radiator so put a piece of cardboard between the fan and the radiator, unless you've taken it out already,

Thanks. I assume you’re referring to these bolts?

What falls into the radiator? The fan clutch? I haven’t taken the fan or fan clutch out. Here’s how it looks at the moment.

General karthief · Mar 28, 2021

Undo three of the four bolts at the pulley, leave the forth loose, take the two bolts from the top of the shroud out, lift it a little and the tabs at the bottom will allow the shroud to move back towards the engine, slide a piece of cardboard in between the fan and the radiator, take the last bolt out of the pulley and lift the fan/clutch and the shroud up and out, this saves possibly damaging the radiator.
Easy peasy (after doing it a couple dozen times.

DudeStang · Mar 29, 2021

General karthief said:
Undo three of the four bolts at the pulley, leave the forth loose, take the two bolts from the top of the shroud out, lift it a little and the tabs at the bottom will allow the shroud to move back towards the engine, slide a piece of cardboard in between the fan and the radiator, take the last bolt out of the pulley and lift the fan/clutch and the shroud up and out, this saves possibly damaging the radiator.
Easy peasy (after doing it a couple dozen times.

Thanks for clarifying. A few of the videos I was looking at - they either already had the fan/radiator out of the car or they were adding the water pump to an engine that was out of the car so it wasn't completely clear how to proceed on that particular part. I'm hoping to make some time to keep working on this tonight after work or tomorrow.

My thread updates have already surpassed this but I made a new video, which I uploaded last night. The earlier bits are me failing at something unrelated to the cooling system, rambling, taking a trip to Auto Zone, and then eventually getting around to working on the cooling system bits.

View: https://youtu.be/VnjAaqH5tp4

General karthief · Mar 29, 2021

Let's talk here for a minute, first jack that junk up and stick some jack stands under it, it's too hard to maneuver around in the small space when the car is at rest, second, that hose would have been easier to deal with after the fan and shroud was removed, you'll learn,
Now, a few words of caution, and this has happened to me more than once, the bolts that hold the water pump also hold the top part of the timing cover to the block and the coolant flows through it, the reason I mention this, after you change the water pump the timing cover could start to leak coolant in the area of the water jacket. This has happened to me nearly every time I have changed a water pump on an engine with the original timing cover to block gasket in place, without getting into you changing the timing cover to block gasket cause that is a whole nuther bag of wrenches. Consider, if the water pump is not causing any issues, swap out the hoses and call it good.
Don't let me talk you out of changing it but just be forewarned.

DudeStang · Mar 29, 2021

General karthief said:
Let's talk here for a minute, first jack that junk up and stick some jack stands under it, it's too hard to maneuver around in the small space when the car is at rest, second, that hose would have been easier to deal with after the fan and shroud was removed, you'll learn,
Now, a few words of caution, and this has happened to me more than once, the bolts that hold the water pump also hold the top part of the timing cover to the block and the coolant flows through it, the reason I mention this, after you change the water pump the timing cover could start to leak coolant in the area of the water jacket. This has happened to me nearly every time I have changed a water pump on an engine with the original timing cover to block gasket in place, without getting into you changing the timing cover to block gasket cause that is a whole nuther bag of wrenches. Consider, if the water pump is not causing any issues, swap out the hoses and call it good.
Don't let me talk you out of changing it but just be forewarned.

You probably just talked me out of changing it, lol.

Progress Thread Finally got my first Fox Body - 1988 GT

Wasn't a pretty sight...and I've got big hands

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

Nuts fell off while driving

Wasn't a pretty sight...and I've got big hands

Nuts fell off while driving

Nuts fell off while driving

Nuts fell off while driving

Nuts fell off while driving

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Nuts fell off while driving

Nuts fell off while driving

The left one hangs a little lower

Nuts fell off while driving

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

Nuts fell off while driving

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

Nuts fell off while driving

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

Nuts fell off while driving

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