Got a lot done on my '88 GT in the last few weeks...

[JohnnyGMachine]

When you're used to having your Mustang as a daily driver and then you aren't driving it for a few weeks you really start to miss it!!! Been driving my 67 Euro Spec Bug everyday. Makes my GT feel like a luxury car!



Here's a list of what we got done on the GT...
- Tremec TKO - I had this from my other Mustang, it's an early TKO. Shifts great, better than my tired 20+ year old T-5.
- Billet Steel flywheel and Centerforce Dual Friction Clutch
- Pro-5.0 Shifter
- MAC Off Road H-Pipe (WOW the car got a lot louder - LOVE IT!)
- New Waterpump
- New Steering Pump
- Aluminum Driveshaft
Here's a couple pics before and after I painted the tail light recess satin black and swapped out the faded "cheesegrater" GT tail lights for a mint set of '84 tail lights. Looks completely different. Only issue which is minor but being picky I wish the '84 tail lights would come out more flush to the bumper crease at the bottom horizontal edge of the tail lights. Looks a little recessed but I'm OK with it. I can always get 93 Cobra tails later.

Here I have the area prepped and masked the holes off. After this I put down some drop cloths and masked everything else off.


Here's the satin black applied to the tail panel recess...


Here's the final results!

 

[87GT Drop Top]

NICE!!!

 

[JohnnyGMachine]

BTW...the tail light lense install kit with clips and sealer kinda sucks. The sealer or roll of black sticky stuff isn't enough to keep the lense sealed together. There's no instructions so I'm going to carefully pry the lense back off and add some black sealant to it with the caulk gun then carefully clamp them on and leave 'em overnight to cure. See how that works.

 

[85_SS_302_Coupe]

Man i'm not sure what i think about the black behind the lenses. It does look good but it makes the whole back end look so much darker. Nice car though. You can't beat a GT with Bullitt rims.

 

[NIKwoaC]

I think the tails look really good!

 

[Cobra912]

that looks good, never seen it done before. Those tails are my favorite by far.

 

[thethirdeye88]

beautiful...very clean...

 

[ttopstang]

Looks good!

 

[WLDHRSE]

looks good dude!

 

[fivespeedsteed]

looks great. very nice stance

 

[Adams91LX]

blackout taillight panel is sick... will be stealing that for my coupe when comes time for paint.

 

[JohnnyGMachine]

Man i'm not sure what i think about the black behind the lenses. It does look good but it makes the whole back end look so much darker. Nice car though. You can't beat a GT with Bullitt rims.

Yeah at first i can see that BUT with the 87-93 GTs having such a fat butt out back with the taller rear wing and low fat rear skirt it really needed something to break it up out back. There was just way too much monocromatic 80's action going on. I think the black out tail section really helped slim down the rear on the GT. To each his own though. I still love seeing a nicce clean stock 87-93 GT from time to time too.
*
Thanks for the compliments guys, glad i could share the idea.

 

[JohnnyGMachine]

Here's another shot I took, low angle. You can really see how nicely the darker 84-86 tail light assemblies and blacked out recess break up the rather tall rear end of the 87-93 GTs. I've never been a GT body style fan. Not a ground effects guy, I always liked the LXs better since they looked more trimmed down, cleaner, and they showed off more tire than the GTs did. The more I do to this GT though the more I want to leave it a GT instead of doing a GT-to-LX conversion.
Cars with bodykits absolutely NEED wider, bigger tires to help balance out the sometimes heavier look. Nothing wrong with a clean bodykit but they do add more body mass visually. I absolutely hate seeing a Mustang (especially the newer larger cars from 94+) with stock wheels on it that already sit way inside the wheel wells and then somebody puts an aftermarket kit on it Put the bigger wheels and tires on FIRST then do the body kit!

 

[fivespeedsteed]

it looks great. love the stance. you use all new isolators when you did sport lines?

 

[JohnnyGMachine]

No I used the stock ones. When i bought this car 3 years ago...wow has it been three years???....it only had 97k on it and you could just about eat off the chassis (with a good initial rinsing of course LOL). A lot of the undercarriage hardware, parts, rubber, etc. were in excellent shape. I was fortunate to get a really clean low mileage "starter" car. I love the stance of the Eibach Sportlines (1.7" front drop, 1.5" rear drop). I had C-springs and tossed 'em.

 

[SVT32VDOHC]

I like what you did. I always wanted to do that, but the license plate covers most of the black.

 

[85_SS_302_Coupe]

Gotta admit it is growing on me. Looks good.

 

[GSP393]

I like it. I think some black letters for the bumper cover and side skirts would be the finishing touch.

 

[JohnnyGMachine]

Yeah maybe on the black lettering. Well for now the car will remain as is. I'm hoping to start my smoothed LX front and rear bumper molds within the next few weeks. I have the donor bumpers and my tooling guy is ready to go. I really wanna get rid of the thick side molding on this car and clean it up for a build I wanna do with it. More in the near future.