My 1984 GT Refurbish/Upgrade Thread

[Davedacarpainter]

I'm just getting caught up Brock. So pardon me for the .

Do you know if it runs yet, or can be made to run fairly easy?

When the "free" word gets thrown out there it's hard to not pay attention. I'm interested in seeing an update there buddy.

[84StangSVT]

Hoping by March, that things will slow up a bit and I will only be traveling one week a month instead of the schedule I'm on currently. I'm hoping to have the new motor done by late spring, as I really need it and clutch work done before any more seriously long trips.

WELP.......throw that idea out of the airplane into an active volcano. It's April and no end in sight for a schedule that requires less travel.

I'm ok with it though as things could be worse. These cars will still be here when I finally get the chance to slow down.

[84StangSVT]

I'm just getting caught up Brock. So pardon me for the .

Do you know if it runs yet, or can be made to run fairly easy?

When the "free" word gets thrown out there it's hard to not pay attention. I'm interested in seeing an update there buddy.

I do have an update on the 87 vert Dave. I will derail my thread a bit to post it up since you are interested.

I went out to Lincoln to look at it and all in all, it wasn't in horrible shape. I decided since it was "free" to go ahead and load it up on the trailer and bring it home. Trying to move it out of the garage turned into a fiasco for a bit. After sitting the past 8 years, she didn't want to budge by hand. I had to unhook the trailer, hook up to the car with a strap and give her a couple decent tugs with the truck to get it to finally roll. Got it up on the trailer and headed home.

Got it in the garage at the house, much to the wife's dismay as it is on her side, and started looking it over. It was dirty as heck, but I was actually surprised at how good of shape the car is in especially being a midwest car. There's some surface rust around it but most of it is minor. I only found 3 spots of rust through and they are minor/small, all things considered. Each side of the very front floor pans have a hole about 1" by 3" and the drivers side rear quarter has a hole. The rest of the floor pans, usual body rust areas, frame rails and strut towers are clean.

After that, I decided it was worth seeing if it ran.
Checked all fluids and they were amazingly clean. I pulled the plugs and they were clean. Dropped a little oil down in each cylinder. I grabbed the breaker bar and proceeded to spin the motor by hand. It actually spun fairly easy. Reinstalled plugs and put a fresh battery in it. The tank was bone dry so I through a couple gallons of gas in her. Hop in and hit the key, hoping for the best. Took a couple tries but she fired right off once the fuel got there. SWEET! No knocks, rattles, or other weird things. She came down and settled into a nice smooth idle. Not bad at all for a little 2.3 that hasn't been started in 8 years. Shifted through all ranges of the transmission and she shifted in and out of each one smoothly. Carefully took it around the block to test the transmission under some load and it seemed to be fine. The brakes were a whole different story! They barely work.

All in all, with some love, time and little money...I think this will be a fairly decent car to play around with as a cruiser.

[84StangSVT]

Some more:

[84StangSVT]

I also couldn't stand the 14" steelies with hubcaps, so I changed its shoes.

Before:


After:


Got lucky and these mesh popped up for sale locally. 15" ARE wheels with 2 center caps and useable rubber. Guy wanted $200 for them and I snagged them for $125. I thought it was a pretty good deal.

[droopie85gt]

Damn, that's pretty clean considering where you are and the age! NICE score on the wheels! $125 for 4 round wheels is never bad, but some Mesh ones?

[homer302]

DANG! Spray bomb that black bumper molding and get some not-yellow lenses for the lights and that thing is surely presentable. Nice work!

[Davedacarpainter]

Mesh wheels look excellent Brock!

It's pretty cool you got it running so easy.

[84StangSVT]

DANG! Spray bomb that black bumper molding and get some not-yellow lenses for the lights and that thing is surely presentable. Nice work!

Thanks! My plan is to clean it up the best I can and drive it around for a while while I figure out what I want to do with it. I think that “back to black” stuff will work good on the trim and a good polish will make it look better. There’s only so much I can do since the clearcoat on the hood is peeling pretty bad. I looked at the headlights and the reflectors are in excellent shape, so I think I’ll do the multistep wet sand on them and give them a good polish, which should help tremendously.

I’m hoping that work will slow up a bit and I can get some time to work on both cars. If I can, then I’m going to try and have both cars ready for the trip to Foxtoberfest this year.