I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but all the pictures are lumped together, with the last ones inserted at the top. Anyone know how I can move these around so they're in the rights locations?
I've posted some information on the 1985 Mustang I "inherited" from my youngest son. This is an ex-show car, featured in Mustang magazines at the time. I even see pictures of it show up on websites, such as LMR.
At first glance, it looks great and has a lot of really custom work done on it. 2004 Cobra front bumper molded into the 1985 top bumper, 1993 Cobra side skirts and moldings, rear 93 Cobra bumper, 1998 Cobra interior, T3550 transmission, 3.55:1 8.8 rear, aluminum heads, shorty headers, FI Tech Go EFI 8 fuel injection, the famous B cam, stock block 302, LED lights, 3" rise hood, Saleen rear spoiler, custom rear seat delete with 10" woofers and amp, wire tuck in engine compartment which has been smoothed, MSD ignition, full 5-lug conversion using SN95 parts, 4-wheel disk brakes, USB adapter for input to the stereo, aluminum radiator, HID headlights; the list goes on and on. Really a very cool car.
A couple things it no longer has; the air suspension and the FR500 wheels. The air suspension quit working and my son put on coilovers. The FR500 wheels were confiscated by my son, so I put my OEM Bullits on it.
However .......... the car's been passed around from owner to owner and maintenance has been, shall we say, lacking? Initially, the car ran good, as my son (the last owner before me) had put $70 spark plug wires on it with high temp plug wire sleeves. Due to the configuration of the header tubes, within 30 days (not driving it very much) three plug wires had burned through. Not wanting to buy plug wires every month I bought a set of Accel porcelain wires. Problem solved, or not. The second wire on the passenger (right) side would not go onto the spark plug. I found this out as I drove it to work the first time and by the time I reached the office it was barking and puking like it was just going to go toes up.
I decided (incorrectly it turns out) that that if i sanded down the porcelain end of the plug wire that I could get it onto the plug and drive home in peace. Not a chance. I spent my entire lunch hour trying to get that plug wire on the Accel shorty plug I bought. "Shorty" is a bit of a misnomer. I'm certain it is somewhat shorter, but not by much. At the end of the day it was no go. I resigned myself to driving home on 7 cylinders.
On the way home I bought a 90* plug wire for that cylinder, put a high temp booty on it and called it good. I don't want to dimple the header tuber to get things to fit. I'll just run one odd wire.
Once I started taking a hard look at the car I noticed several things that weren't quite right. First off was the parking brakes. They didn't work. The handle acted like it was working, but I found a rear cable bound up. I replaced all three parking brakes cables, using an adjustable FRacing cable on the front. Thanks to LMR I now have parking brakes. Actually, I need to buy stock in LMR, I've been buying so much from them.
Somewhere along the way the quality bucket seats were replaced with cheap crap seats. My arse ached after just a few minutes driving (not that I've got much left). Someone also installed horrid three-point harnesses. I had a set of 2004 Cobra leather seats and decided I would give the old buns a break and install them. Whoa, cowboy! Not so fast. In order to get rid of the three-point harnesses and install the seats I had to remove the entire interior! The headliner was wrinkled and dirty, anyways, so I decided to do the full-meal-deal. I stripped the interior of all the body panels, seats and carpet. I then installed a three-layer sound and temperature control system. I started with FatMat covering about 50% of the body panels. This was to reduce resonance. Then a full layer of closed-cell foam mat to reduce road noise. In between those layers was a layer of thermal blanketing. I installed the FatMat on the roof, as well as the thermal layer.
I'm going with a black interior, as opposed to the grey/black one that was in there. The dash has some cracks in it, so I have another dash to take its place. This won't be a simple swap, though, as it will have to be trimmed to fit the 85 shape. Some of the rear interior panels had stress cracks in them, probably from other people taking them off and putting them on incorrectly. I used some panel bond to fix them, sprayed with vinyl prep and painted. The best color seems to be a mat black, instead of satin. The satin is just too glossy. I did find rattle can paint that has flex agent in it, so I tried that as opposed to dye. We'll see how that holds up. When I can find them I'll replace both rear panels. They look pretty good, but have been beat down to parade rest.
TBC
Jim
At first glance, it looks great and has a lot of really custom work done on it. 2004 Cobra front bumper molded into the 1985 top bumper, 1993 Cobra side skirts and moldings, rear 93 Cobra bumper, 1998 Cobra interior, T3550 transmission, 3.55:1 8.8 rear, aluminum heads, shorty headers, FI Tech Go EFI 8 fuel injection, the famous B cam, stock block 302, LED lights, 3" rise hood, Saleen rear spoiler, custom rear seat delete with 10" woofers and amp, wire tuck in engine compartment which has been smoothed, MSD ignition, full 5-lug conversion using SN95 parts, 4-wheel disk brakes, USB adapter for input to the stereo, aluminum radiator, HID headlights; the list goes on and on. Really a very cool car.
A couple things it no longer has; the air suspension and the FR500 wheels. The air suspension quit working and my son put on coilovers. The FR500 wheels were confiscated by my son, so I put my OEM Bullits on it.
However .......... the car's been passed around from owner to owner and maintenance has been, shall we say, lacking? Initially, the car ran good, as my son (the last owner before me) had put $70 spark plug wires on it with high temp plug wire sleeves. Due to the configuration of the header tubes, within 30 days (not driving it very much) three plug wires had burned through. Not wanting to buy plug wires every month I bought a set of Accel porcelain wires. Problem solved, or not. The second wire on the passenger (right) side would not go onto the spark plug. I found this out as I drove it to work the first time and by the time I reached the office it was barking and puking like it was just going to go toes up.
I decided (incorrectly it turns out) that that if i sanded down the porcelain end of the plug wire that I could get it onto the plug and drive home in peace. Not a chance. I spent my entire lunch hour trying to get that plug wire on the Accel shorty plug I bought. "Shorty" is a bit of a misnomer. I'm certain it is somewhat shorter, but not by much. At the end of the day it was no go. I resigned myself to driving home on 7 cylinders.
On the way home I bought a 90* plug wire for that cylinder, put a high temp booty on it and called it good. I don't want to dimple the header tuber to get things to fit. I'll just run one odd wire.
Once I started taking a hard look at the car I noticed several things that weren't quite right. First off was the parking brakes. They didn't work. The handle acted like it was working, but I found a rear cable bound up. I replaced all three parking brakes cables, using an adjustable FRacing cable on the front. Thanks to LMR I now have parking brakes. Actually, I need to buy stock in LMR, I've been buying so much from them.
Somewhere along the way the quality bucket seats were replaced with cheap crap seats. My arse ached after just a few minutes driving (not that I've got much left). Someone also installed horrid three-point harnesses. I had a set of 2004 Cobra leather seats and decided I would give the old buns a break and install them. Whoa, cowboy! Not so fast. In order to get rid of the three-point harnesses and install the seats I had to remove the entire interior! The headliner was wrinkled and dirty, anyways, so I decided to do the full-meal-deal. I stripped the interior of all the body panels, seats and carpet. I then installed a three-layer sound and temperature control system. I started with FatMat covering about 50% of the body panels. This was to reduce resonance. Then a full layer of closed-cell foam mat to reduce road noise. In between those layers was a layer of thermal blanketing. I installed the FatMat on the roof, as well as the thermal layer.
I'm going with a black interior, as opposed to the grey/black one that was in there. The dash has some cracks in it, so I have another dash to take its place. This won't be a simple swap, though, as it will have to be trimmed to fit the 85 shape. Some of the rear interior panels had stress cracks in them, probably from other people taking them off and putting them on incorrectly. I used some panel bond to fix them, sprayed with vinyl prep and painted. The best color seems to be a mat black, instead of satin. The satin is just too glossy. I did find rattle can paint that has flex agent in it, so I tried that as opposed to dye. We'll see how that holds up. When I can find them I'll replace both rear panels. They look pretty good, but have been beat down to parade rest.
TBC
Jim
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