RIP the macn89blckstng. Gone but not forgotten

MAC'n89Blckstng

Active Member
Jun 11, 2003
1,012
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36
NJ
So as some of you know, I'm doing a body swap becuase of rust issues that I ran into with my 89 GT that I loved dearly. This car was an awesome car. I had five years of amazing times in her. I slept countless nights in her and drove her everywhere. Rain, snow, sleet, mud. I just finished stripping the parts I need for my 88 LX off of it and now it sits there on a wooden pallet waiting for the scrap yard. I will miss her but her heart will beat on in another body. Here are pics of it and how it progessed over the years.
I only have pictures of it about a year and a half after I bought it. I have pictures of it on film but do not have a scanner. I bought it BONE stock in May of 2003. My first mods that summer were a MAC (of coarse) x pipe and cat back, wheels and then a saleen wing, and about 8000 shift knobs, (couldn't find the right one lol). Then I crashed it fall of 03 and made it look like this in Spring of 04.........
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It stayed like that for a pretty long time until one day (super bowl sunday 2006) going to college my wheel fell off and the car pretty much from there on was never too pleasing to the eye. I got curious about my body work skills and always had a plan to paint it but we all can see how far that got me......


It turned to this summer of 06
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My friend also backed into my door with his dads 78 Lincoln town car, the lincoln won.
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So then I got new doors
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It stayed like that for the summer and then in the fall I finished the body work and primed it to make it look a little better.
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Heres where the stripping started. Sold the doors and some interior and then started stripping the parts I needed for the new car.
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And here as it sits today.
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Here are a few pics I took of the reason I decided this body was junk. I found two more holes that I didn't take pics of.

Oh yea to add something, this car has 246,000 miles on it.

Frame Rail
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Floor Pan
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Behind fender area
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Bottom of floor pan
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Trunk Floor
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Toe Board
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Yea I took the side skirts off to prime it and took the rotted brackets off and never bought new brackets. The side skirts WILL be going back on. Although I have gotten countless compliments on how it looks good without them. I have a bunch of pics of the 88 but its not much to look at now either. I need to get the engine bay finished and painted asap! I had a progress thread going but I haven't updated it lately. Maybe I'll start a new one.
 
Hey Jesse here is a shot of your car that I had from one of our meets, I just used it to demonstrate the 05 GT emblem that you had...RIP 89 GT

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she was a looker back then...good luck with the 88 build!
 
wow, I forgot how much I loved that car when it was all black. I sure miss the old days with her. Anyways, here are a few pics of the new car. It now has the hatch and rear bumper from the 89 on her. Gotta get some more decent digital photos of her.
Heres the engine bay before I started doing mud work. Its about 75% done now.
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The car came with lakewood 90/10's up front, 50/50's in the back, a new fuel tank and a full black interior with nice flofits for 800 bucks. Thats a deal I could not let go.
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very nice looking new car. the old one was a good looking car. i know ill never forget the avitar of it in the mud. how come you slept in it so much? 246k is a good number. glad to see someone driving a fox allot. i know it was hard but that is a **** ton of rust and you made a wise decision. keep this thread up with your build up.
 
very nice looking new car. the old one was a good looking car. i know ill never forget the avitar of it in the mud. how come you slept in it so much? 246k is a good number. glad to see someone driving a fox allot. i know it was hard but that is a **** ton of rust and you made a wise decision. keep this thread up with your build up.

I slept in it on nights that I was out partyin or something. Yea gettin it stuck in the mud was definatly hilarious. I felt bad that I got my nice shiny Mustang stuck in the mud but it was fun. I'll definatly keep up on posting the progress, right now Im just cleaning/sand blasting everything up and repainting everything on the engine. Im hopefully getting the 88 in the shop soon so I can continue to finish the engine bay and paint it up and then assemble the new suspension and drop the drivetrain in. Slowly but surely :nice:

Oh yea, and I couldn't be happier to be in the t-top club. I've always wanted one AND black interior but none were around when I first was looking for a stang and then just at the right time this car plopped into my hands. I couldn't be happier.
 
There are about ten or so (its been quite a while since I'v taken them off) screws under the car that attach the ground effects to the bottom of the car, then take the wheel well screws from behind the wheel out (two of em) and pull straight up on the side skirt. It slides into a bracket on the rocker panel. Its kind of a pain in the ass but you should be able to figure it out once its loose.
 
yea, this car was never garage kept and drivin throughout every winter in Jersey for the past 8 years so that killed it. If anything, the brackets on your car will be a lil rusty but they make new ones and they just rivet on.
 
Looks like a good project, and it's a T top.:nice:

If I ever got another fox it would be a LX, mainly because of the ground effects rust on the GT's; but I would at least have to put a Saleen front air dam on it though. (No body mods if it was a notch.)

The replacement ground effects brackets cost an arm and a leg the last time I checked. I just used some automotive double stick tape on the side skirts, its still holding well after nine months.