Not bad for lining up a junk fender and bumper. Imagine using good stuff. Lol!
Not bad for lining up a junk fender and bumper. Imagine using good stuff. Lol!More work on the rear bumper, drivers side and lining things up. The bumper pictured is not the original. It is the one you order today from Saleen and the drivers side front fender is aftermarket.
Not bad for lining up a junk fender and bumper. Imagine using good stuff. Lol!
Lol! That new Saleen bumper was just slightly wider than the car.
Theres just something about a nice tight body with perfect gaps. Even in primer….that I love seeing. Especially given the aftermarket repop bumpers and previous body bumps. This one just needed a ton of work everywhere. But not a speck of rust. Even the former owner put a big dent in it in the short time he had it before bringing it to meNow we are caught up a little to where I purchased the car in February. In February I was presented with two Saleen S281s I could pick up for the same price. One car was running/driving and then there was a shell. Even before I found out the shell was at @95steedamustang shop, something about the picture below, not sure what but I knew it was the one. I knew nothing about it other than it was a shell, I didn't even know what the original color was. Someone on Facebook actually knew I was looking and sent me the photo and where it was located, it wasn't till the next day when I discovered it was at Kevin's shop. I immediately sent Kevin a text and got to chatting about the car, wasn't too long after I was working out a deal with the owner to purchase the shell.
Next day I was thinking, I just bought a shell. Let the adventure begin.
From this point forward I will give updates on part collection, parts I've been hoarding for 20+ years and the pain and suffering it takes to restore one of these cars (Even though I think Kevin has done a great job at that already). I really hope people are enjoying this build.
You are absolutely correct on that. It is sad the bumpers Saleen sells now are as bad as they are, but you did awesome work to make them look good.There's just something about a nice tight body with perfect gaps. Even in primer….that I love seeing. Especially given the aftermarket repop bumpers and previous body bumps. This one just needed a ton of work everywhere. But not a speck of rust. Even the former owner put a big dent in it in the short time he had it before bringing it to me
I did collect some Foxbody stuff, nothing like I did on the SN95 stuff. Mainly gauges, gauge clusters and wheels (Speedline). The only other Foxbody stuff would be SVO parts.We’re you just collecting SN95 stuff or did you dip into foxbody as well? Just curious…
I use that bot for many thing, even for this project and others.Good bot... (pats head)
These calipers fit into a category…I like to call anything can be fixed..and rare set of calipers…I’ll do what it takes to make new. But this is what happens when people send there stuff to a buddy at one of these U tube shops. It takes a pro to handle calipers like this. Luckily, I have a machine shop to drill and tap them. Plus I make caliper brackets and rotors to make them work. Just unreal the idiot moves it took to get a perfectly good set of calipers to this point. Moral is dont intrust anything u care about to some goobers on u tubeSeats:
Being a Recaro fan for many years I've collected many sets (LX, LS & SR). When I bought 97-19 I immediately knew I was going to put the correct Recaro LX Seats in it. Luckily I already had some seats in my inventory with the correct headrests.
The goal here will be to get them redone in the correct material and stitching on the back panel.
Brakes:
This part was going to be difficult. The correct brakes would be the ever so hard to find Alcon setup. I have multiple sets of Cobra R/Focus RS Mk1 Brembo's sitting on my shelves. I made the decision that I would go Brembo unless I could find a set of Alcon. Before I made my first trip out to see 97-19 I had this deal come up that I jumped on. A set of Alcon recently refinished, with new pads and slightly used rotors. I was like score! Week goes by and the calipers show up and immediately I noticed something wrong. One of the calipers was missing all the bolts that hold both halves together and neither had the spring retention clips for the pads. The same caliper was also missing the crossover tube. After more inspection the paint was already peeling away from being redone incorrectly. This was a total gut punch but not the end of the world. I reach out to the seller to ask a few questions and find out where the pads and rotors were. The seller let me know the rotors would be shipped soon from a friend and he would reach out to the person who redid the calipers to find the missing parts. A couple weeks go by and the rotors show up, sad to say they were not even Alcon rotors. They look to be a standard slotted Cobra 13" rotor (compared them to a set I had). This had me really upset at this point so I reach out to the seller again and tried working with them to either credit me back some money and admit to knowingly selling me stuff that was misrepresented, but sadly after weeks of communication no luck. The pads eventually showed up too but not to my surprise they were the wrong ones.
Talking to @95steedamustang about the situation I decided that I'm already in the hole on these things, I might as well keep digging. I spent a good 6 weeks on the phone with Alcon in the UK, the easiest was the rebuild kit, costly but was easy to get once I had all the part numbers. The hard part and what took the longest was getting all the correct data for the bolts. During that time a NOS NASCAR caliper, that was an Alcon Type B popped up on eBay for cheap. Looking at the price for the correct bolts that I could order directly through Alcon vs buying the NASCAR one, I went with the NASCAR one. It showed up a few days later still in the original Alcon box. I immediately took it apart and got the parts to Kevin, since I knew he would do them justice to restore them correctly. When Kevin was working on the calipers he found out that one of the bleeders was striped, so he had to repair that. Nothing at this phase on these calipers would surprise me anymore.
Needless to say these things became the biggest headache so far on this project but they will look good once done and installed.
Note: The seller eventually just stopped responding to my messages.
Give me an original fender in 3 pieces over an aftermarket new one. I’ll weld the original back together it will fit better. But the previous owner had never built a car and didnt know cars like @SorsCode. He tried everyway and everything to derail the build but I found a better owner and now its going somewhere.Another update this week.
I purchased the car in February and in April I get to finally go out to TN to go see the car for the first time. This is the first time I have purchased a car without ever physically seeing it. After many phone calls and texts with @95steedamustang I rent an SUV to take a load of parts out. Since the 97 didn't have any side skirts or door fillers anymore (prior owner pitched), I was fortunate enough to track down an original set of side skirts and door fillers from a customer that I worked with in the past.
Parts I took with me:
- Export Mirrors
- Export Tail lights
- Alcon Calipers
- Complete Saleen graphics kit
- NOS Quarter windows
- NOS Grille emblem
- Dash Pod
- Kaenen Hood
- NOS Hood vents and fillers
The dash pod is not an original Saleen pod, however it is a similar style that snaps into the dash. The idea here is to have Kevin upholster it and make it look similar. The Kaenen hood was a must because the heat extractor just makes these cars and fortunately I had a few in inventory. This was a tough decision as I do have an original hood but I'm holding out on using it. It would have been used if this car originally came with the Saleen heat extractor from the factory, but since it didn't I was okay with the Kaenen.
With the SUV loaded up, I took off at 3am for the 8hr drive to Kevin's shop. Once I got onsite, I got to look the 97 over in detail. I could immediately tell all the work Kevin had into the car. Once we started talking there were things that just needed fix and none of them were Kevin's fault. The prior owner tossed the front fascia and Kevin saved the rear fascia. I could tell how the newer fascias do not fit as nicely as the originals. So the list of things we wanted to correct was a lot of the aftermarket items (not a complete list):
- Drivers side fender
- Rear Fascia (Saleen but not original)
- Front Fascia (Saleen but not original)
- Headlight Header Panel
- Front Impact Bar and Foam
I believe the prior owners idea of "buying new" regardless of original or aftermarket was a little ambitious and short sided. There are some good aftermarket pieces but nothing ever really beats factory original (there are exceptions). Me personally a car like this needs to be as original as possible when it comes to parts.
While at the shop we put the hood on and the tail lights to have a little fun. That evening I made the trip back home and the start of searching for all kinds of parts.
Hopefully people are enjoying the build.
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