My '82 Black GT Get 'er Back on the Road Thread

[82GTforME]

This thread is about what started out as a rear end rebuild/swap that went into a five lug, four wheel disc set up, maintaining it's original identity while putting in a lot of TLC and moving into a lot of other directions at the same time. This project really got going in and around mid-February, 2013.

I had never really done any of this prior. I basically jumped in and learned a lot as I went. I also did a lot of research and reading up front (this site is a great resource!). I took all necessary precautions with using jack stands, PPE and the proper tools for the jobs. A slogan we have at work is: Safe by Choice, Not by Accident.

Enter and Enjoy

[82GTforME]

This is an excerpt from my Introduction Post

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...ner-in-Calgary!

Greetings from an 82 owner in Calgary!

My fox experience actually started with my first car in 1987 which was an 81 coupe with an I-6. It was a great little car until it was stolen for the Alpine cassette deck (that was the iPod of the 80's for you youngsters). Anyways, the punks that stole it, burnt it that night on the outskirts of the city.

My next car was an '85 T-Bird Turbo-Coupe. That was an awesome car! Too bad it got totalled in a wreck in the summer of 90.

When I had my 81, I knew of the GT's and now I had the opportunity to search for one. I found my current 82 GT and bought it in the early fall of 90 from the original owner. It had a pearl black paint job, wire rims with fake knock offs and winter tires. Over the next few years I had quite a bit done to it.
-Ronal five spokes (I already sold them on Kijiji a couple of weeks ago) and Goodyear Gatorbacks for summer (the old rims worked perfect for winter).
-A set of rear louvers a buddy sold me off his wrecked Capri
-Complete rebuild with cam, performer rpm intake, ported heads, Carter 4 barrel, T4 rebuild and 4.10 rear gears (work not performed by me)
-Koni red adjustables all around
-driver floor repairs and weld in sub-frame connectors
-misc other stuff: springs, bushings etc.
-A complete paint job happened in 92 after a stray hub cap caught me in the driver side and went most of the way to the back corner. With the pearl paint it had it was too hard to match so I went through a friend of a friend (man I wish I had the money to do it all over again). It didn't turn out the best but...

This was my all-year daily driver until around 95 when I started storing it for the winter. It was the summer of 2001 when the gears for the traction-loc busted. The car has sat in my garage until the fall of 2012. With growing kids and a never ending list of other things on the priority list, it just sat, being started twice a year until a couple ago when I couldn't get it going.



My oldest son turned 15 last year and asked me when I was ever going to do anything with it because he remembers riding in it as a toddler and one day he would like to drive it (maybe I'll let him someday). This got me thinking about it so I had it towed over to a shop to see about rebuilding the 7.5 (not recommended) and recommissioning the motor. Well, I might as well have just bent over and taken it up the a** for what they want to do the work. I never really delved to much into the more complex stuff other than bolt on stuff and that now brings me here.

So I have now started accumulating parts and have started down a path where there is no going back. To list a few so far:
For the rear:
-purchased a rebuilt 8.8 with 3.73, shortened factory five Moser axles and Cobra disk set up (purchased through MPS auto salvage in Georgia and shipped to the nearest border town for pick up). It looks good although I will inspect it closer when I install it. This was a cheaper and more convenient option than locating a core and having to build it up.
-MM adjustable lower rear control arms
-Ford racing equivalent rear upper control arms
-Ford Racing lowering springs

For the front so far:
-95 front spindles from a wrecked GT
-calipers and rotors from a 2003 Mach 1 (Cobra style)
-new ball joints, front control arm bushings, sway bar bushings, new sway bar links
-remanufactured 15:1 steering rack and urethane bushings (20:1 are apparently obsolete) and power steering pump (Cardone)
-Ford racing lowering springs
-MM caster/camber plates

And other stuff so far:
-17X8 black chrome Bullits with Nitto rubber
-master restorers T-Top weatherstrip kit

The engine runs and appears still good and strong having been rebuilt in 93. It has at the most 20k miles on it since then. I have already started by removing the water pump and I am in the process of removing the front cover to replace the timing chain and I'll probably try one of those Quick Fuel carbs when I'm ready to go!

There is a long way to go yet without even really thinking about the MC and brake crap yet. I am really glad I have started this project and I am glad that I have decided to do most of it myself.

Never once over the years did I think of selling this car (although I'm sure my wife did). The interior is near mint and the exterior is very straight and very rust free for its age and schlepping thought a number of winters in its life. The buck tags are still intact even.

So there you have it up until now. It's going to be expensive I'm sure and take a while but I hope to have it at least drivable by the end of the summer (yes 2013). Maybe bodywork and paint will be in the future next year.

Thanks to everyone in advance for I'm sure some dumb questions coming your way and for all of the info I have already gained

Cheers!

Darran in Cowtown.

Edit: Shout out to Joel and especially Matt at The Mustang Shop here in Calgary for their help so far! Fantastic knowledge base!: http://www.themustangshop.ca/

[82GTforME]

My son and I backed the car out late last fall to wash the dust off and see what we had after 11 years. Broken diff so it took both us to get it back into the garage after.







We have a really good foundation to work with!!

[82GTforME]

Here are the buck and door tags and stuff. FoxChassis decoded it for me here:

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...ck-82-T-Top-GT

The top says 05/82. Oversrayed; read post 2 about the crappy paint job.



I think I could decode this one



The car is pretty loaded, but as you could see was a radio delete originally and no tilt. It had a tape deck and rear speaker holes cut in when I got it.

[82GTforME]

After having the car out in the fall in post three, I had the car towed over to a garage that called themselves a "performance" shop (the owner drag raced and sponsored cars in the past by the photos in the office). I took it here to get an assessment on the rear end and to re-commission the motor as well as talk about other options. At this point I was thinking a carb rebuild, tune up and rebuild (?) a rear end (I was definitely open to upgrading though and to paying someone to do it). After the car being there a few days, I was given to one of the shop leads to go over what I wanted to do etc., etc. He was familiar with fox Mustang stuff by the sounds of it. I did end up taking some of his recommendations later.

Anyways long and short of it, they got the car going, welded the rear end so they could move it around, checked a few things out and I got a call for their options etc. They talked of 8.8 and discs and T5, front discs and spindles. There were other things too. Water pump, tranny tail shaft seal, bushings, suspension, carb. You name it. Their cost were very high for everything. I pared the list down and tried to lock down their prices. $115 per hour!!

I hummed and hawed and priced stuff out myself, I bought some of the part mentioned above in the intro myself to supply. They couldn't find a 8.8 core to rebuild easily. Then they found one a couple hours away but it was a 2.xx rear so new carrier on top of everything. Against their recommendation, I found and purchased my own.
The lead got fired or quit and they fell behind it took awhile for them to get back. This probably went on for 1-2 months but I was okay with that. The tipping point was when they were wanting some money (understandably of course). They also had a more detailed breakdown of parts and some of the labor instead of a package price. The bill they handed to me was almost a grand for work done . 4-5 hours labor checking it out, getting it running, weld the rear, oil change, belt etc. They charged me $75 for a belt!! That's 100% mark up from retail! I did not feel like I got my money's worth and lost all confidence in them. Their quote with a lot of the major parts bought by me was still around $4000. They wouldn't pin down the labor as this was "custom" and things could change.

Over the next few days while I "thought about it", I priced out another shop that didn't come much better with the price. That's when I decided to have it towed back home. I guess that is when I really decided to do it myself The owner was kind of upset that I wasn't even going to get the water pump done or anything!

This was December. Things sat for a bit while I accumulated more stuff. I was rolling down that road of more, more, more!!

I picked up the rear end at a storage depot at the US border in Sweetgrass, MT mid-January. It was around mid-February that things got moving. Oh and when I joined FEP!

[79mustangcobra]

I know these things can get expensive real quick. What I have done over the years is buy a NOS or a really good used part a month. It really helps out to game plan with a notebook or Excel spreadsheet. Look over the car, what do you need to get. Then start buying the parts a little at a time. It takes some time but it will get there. This way you can still enjoy your car eat, pay rent and other necessities of life.

Good luck to you.

[82GTforME]

I started by removing all of the front suspension: calipers, spindles, struts, swaybar and end links. I wasn't going to, but I decided to pull the control arms and change the bushings while I was this far in already.




I bead blasted everything and painted with "Roll Bar and Chassis" paint. Those spindles in the pic are the newer 94 ones.

[82GTforME]

After I pulled the arms out, I was going to get a shop to swap them for me. I took them to a chain shop and they called me later in the day to say they didn't have the right "press tool". Other places were all over the map on the time ($), another wouldn't install customer supplied parts (?!): warranty issues they claimed.
So I decided to try it myself. I didn't have a torch to burn them out as other suggested so this is what I did:

Cut the end off first:


Drilled many, many holes around the sleeve:



Knocked out the center sleeve and removed all of the rubber with a chisel:


I GENTLY used a sawzall to cut almost through the outer shell then crushed it from the outside and they slid right out:






They went easier and faster after the first one.

[82GTforME]

As easy as it sounded on other threads I read, this was a little challenging to get set up as well.

I tried the threaded rod method as suggested but the sleeves would only go as far as the first ridge on them. I was starting to put on too much tension on them and I didn't want to distort the arms:


I switched it up and did each side individually. I cut some 3/8 bolts down and snugged them inside the arms so they wouldn't collapse:



Finally got them in and no damage to the arms


I didn't take any pictures, but I used the long rod set up to slide the poly bushings into the shells similar to the first picture in this post.

I had to shave off one end of some of the bushings to actually reinstall the arms. They were too tight to force them in. I had read that this is a common thing to happen and do.

[82GTforME]

It was recommended to change out the water pump with it being the age that it was as well as sitting for so long.



While in this far, I thought I would check and replace the timing chain even though there was only 10K miles on it since the rebuild in '93.
Balancer off:


Chain play wasn't too bad:


Everything off:


New gear set in:


Cover back on and new pump in. Lucky me, all of the bolts were still in good condition and none seized or broke! This is a Ford Racing replacement pump:


For the first time doing the front cover it went pretty smooth. I used this video for a little reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtIsAGpytBA

[82GTforME]

I spent a good deal of time bead blasting all of the items I took off and painted them. Pulleys, brackets etc.

[82GTforME]

I found a nice battery tray at the junk yard out of an '82 T-Bird and replaced mine. After removing it there was some surface rust underneath but nothing close to perforations. I cleaned, buffed and wire brushed what I could and then primed and painted it. Believe it or not I also found a fairly decent replacement negative battery cable off an early fox and installed that as mine was so brittle it was toast.

[82GTforME]

I had a handful of spots under the hood where the reinforcing frame had separated from the hood. I used an epoxy putty that I found at the hardware store in the same aisle as the JB weld. The two parts are separate (an inner part and outer shell) and shaped like a Tootsie Roll that you break off a piece and knead it in your hands for a couple of minutes. It gets warm and the reaction starts. You then have a few minutes to get it in place and set. It bonds numerous materials and seemed to work really good for this.

[82GTforME]

Wow, I'm behind on uploading my progress.

The 82 TRW 20:1 rack came out and was replaced with a rebuilt 15:1 unit. The 20:1 is not easy to find a replacement for. With the change to this rack a change in PS pump was required.




A new pressure and return hose were required as the newer rebuilt Ford rack had different size connections than the TRW.



I had a small snag while reinstalling the PS pump pulley. Something jammed and as I tried to reverse it off broke the bolt off in the shaft. I managed to weld a nut on it and backed it out after unsuccessfully trying to drill and easy-out it.



Everything is looking good with everything back in with the painted brackets etc.



Everything went relatively smoothly. I thought while I was in this far, even though there were no visible leaks or anything, I might as well go and do this rack swap. The difference in the inner tie-rod seal stiffness is greatly improved from the original. No other issues with this swap other than a warning to check the steering wheel orientation before doing up the rag joint bolts completely. Disconnect, check and repeat.

I wished I could have done the SN95 rack and steering column swap. It sounds like the results are really good, but the extra cost for the end purpose of the vehicle didn't make sense. Plus the issues with inner tie-rods etc., etc. Not this time.

[82GTforME]

I had a cracked drivers side inner fender splash shield. I found one off an 81 Capri a guy on Kijiji was getting rid of parts before he sent it to the junkyard. I salvaged some plastic push-in retainers from the junkyard as I was missing a couple.



Luckily none of the screws were too rusted that they came out fairly easy.

I also scraped a lot of the caked on dirt and crud in the hard to clean areas while I had access.

[82GTforME]

Maximum Motorsports caster/camber plates in http://www.maximummotorsports.com/st...roducts_id=252

These are pretty much required when lowering your car to be able to align them correctly. These seem to be one of the most popular out there. These are quality looking parts!

[82GTforME]

Installed the '94 GT front spindles with what I thought were shorter SN95 ball joints. I replaced the ball joints with a kit I borrowed from a friend. I still had to add two washers under the castle nut. So much for thinking ahead. Note the proximity of the nut and the bottom of the strut with this set-up. Of course that has to be torqued down before permanently installing the strut.


The pre-87(?) style Koni 87 struts I'm re-using needed to have the TOP hole oblonged to fit the newer spindle hole spacing as well as washers to fit between ears on the strut and the spindle. I suppose I could have bought newer struts to fit better, but these ones are still good and warrantied for life!:



I utilized the bump stops that came with the MM caster/camber plates and got some good pliable aftermarket dust boots:




Next to be installed were new Ford Racing M5300-C ~1" lowering springs. This was sooo easy with the Maximum Motorsports spring install tool!! http://www.maximummotorsports.com/st...oducts_id=1232 I believe this tool will only work with lowering springs and will not work with stock height springs. Note: you can see the washers in between the strut and spindle in this picture.

[82GTforME]

I ran into a small problem with the front sway bar mount after purchasing new polyurethane bushings. The Energy Suspension bushings for the 1-1/8" bar I have were not as thick as the factory ones between the bar and the mount so the factory hardware would not work due to being sloppy. I decided on a quick fix of just making a 3/4" spacer and using the supplied bracket and some 3/8" grade 8 bolts. This kept the bar very close to the factory location and gave enough clearance to the oil pan. New end links as well. The ones in it were slightly bent on one side and the bushings were definitely toast.



I suppose I should drill and insert some grease zerks in there.

[82GTforME]

I had read a bit about these not really being required and many don't use them. These new ones came installed on the '03 Mach 1 spindles that I wasn't using. I drilled the rivets out but I had no way of riveting these on myself. I decided to use some 1/4" short bolts with lock washers to secure them. Oh and new Timkin wheel hubs Got them much cheaper than retail through one of our industrial bearing suppliers at work. Special order from them but a decent price.

[82GTforME]

I got these 13" rotors and PBR cobra style calipers off of the same 2003 Mach 1 as the dust shields in the previous post for my front brakes (It all came as one assembly and I used everything but the spindle and the flex line). They came already bead blasted so all I had to do was disassemble and de-grease them before using some hi-heat caliper paint. The instructions on the can recommended baking the paint at 200F for an hour to cure the paint or just using the brakes will warm them enough. I went with the oven method as I wasn't going to be using them for a bit yet.
Note: of course baking paint adds some paint-like odor to the house and this does not make wives happy




Crappy lighting:

[mustangxtreme]

I'm glad you were able to get this back up. Your car is coming along great.

[82GTforME]

I'm glad you were able to get this back up. Your car is coming along great.

Thanks a lot. I'm really glad as well! I can't wait to get to where I am today!

[82GTforME]

Everything seemed to be going well. Rotors went on, caliper bracket went on, calipers and pads went in all without a hitch (of course) Maybe too good





I would have expected these brake pads to not ride so far to the outer edge of the rotor, but I guess that's where they are supposed to be.

[82GTforME]

I had practically started this ordeal by first choosing my wheel style and size and working off of that.

The wheels I chose were some Wheel Replica 17 X 9 black chrome Bullitt replicas.
http://wheelreplicas.com/1994-2004-m...a-wheel-94-04/
Very nice look to them and they will go with the black car nicely.

Right off of the website description:

Fitment
MODELS: 1994-2004 Ford Mustang, Mustang GT, Mustang Cobra
FRONT/REAR: Use as Front or Rear Wheel
TIRES: Tire Size 245 to 275 Width

They look real good!



After a couple of spins by hand and you could tell there was some extra friction. The problem was a very slight clearance issue between the inner portion of the rim and the outer fins on the caliper(s). One side being slightly worse than the other.



Note the white scuff on the ends of the caliper.



I talked to my supplier and even though I had bought these months ago could still send them back to the US. I may have gotten better results with a second set but...
These look to be stamped steel plus made in China like everything else these days so quality control and tolerances may not be 100%.

[82GTforME]

I started a thread to get some opinions a while back to get some input about a problem:
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...e-non-existent

I did quite a bit of research about modifying calipers as well and found that this has been done by numerous people out there for many different applications. There were a couple on the above thread that wouldn't have done it but I was at a point I wanted to get some progress done and not sit and wait weeks for replacements.

I ended up "clearancing" the fins on the calipers. The fins are mainly there for increasing surface area to assist cooling and possibly to add some strength to the cast part. I used a flat file and checked numerous times as I went: install and check, take off and take a little more. I believe that at the most 1/8"-3/16" came off mainly at the outer edges. I than took a flapper disc to polish the file marks out and make it smooth again. Then of course: repaint and re-bake.






I have less than an 1/8" of clearance afterwards. I guess we will see in the future if there will be any rim flex and contact. I'm am very confident it will be fine for my driving purposes. Does anyone have the front Cobra set up and Factory 17" rims to check their clearance to compare?