1983 GL project - 3.8 C5 to Carb roller engine and 5 speed!
I've already given a brief run down on the car in "new user introductions", but this will the project posting.
Basically, I've owned the car since 1983 in one form or another.
It was first purchased for my girlfriend (who would become wife #1) from a dealer in the Annapolis valley. It was a GL with 3.8 and the C5. It had a sunroof (OEM), it was red and it was a mustang, which is all the "options" she really wanted. Standard hubcaps and a black lower body band. Only thing power is the brakes and steering.
Someone (I'm guessing the dealer) had slapped a "Cobra" sticker on it before we had seen it in (what I'm guessing was) a marketing ploy, so the wife always thought it was a Cobra. It made her happy to think so, so I never corrected her. Pretty sure she knew it wasn't, but I don't think she cared. Later on, I carried on the Cobra theme with side badges and a 93 hatch badge. Some cobra medallions from the 79-82 era found their way into the interior too.
That 3.8 was/is pretty much gutless and not exactly good on fuel either. But it was/is stone axe reliable and currently has 328,000 kms on it. We both drove it to high school and university, although I drove my Thunderbird most of the time. I toyed on and off with trying to get the 3.8 to make more power (even had a custom intake and a 4BBL at one time), but it was a lost cause and I eventually just left it alone. Stone axe reliable was going to have to be good enough.
When we moved to Sask (I'm military), the car went with us. It survived -40C and +40C, although I was out in the middle of freezing cold in a snowstorm the first year to install a bloody block heater. It also survived a tornado out there!
While out west, the car began to show it's age and I had it painted. Mainly because the A pillars were rotting at the body lead in the upper pillar area, although there were the typical pinch seams at the hatch and rear wheel wells.
It was also about this time the wife moved on to a 92 4 cyl mustang (and I thought the 3.8 was gutless! Sheesh!)
After a decade of that hot/cold crap, we came back east.
Shortly after, wife#1 became the practice wife and I moved out with the mustang in tow. I got the old mustang and my old truck, she got the new car (to go with the new house and my new daughter).
This also explains why I don't have any pictures of the mustang or the repaint prep I did: I got the car but apparently the ex decided she owned all the pictures of our previous life. I do have one pic of it from that time though. This is from about 10-12 years ago after the repaint:
Along the way it picked up an LX rear spoiler, some 10 hole rims and a console.
About this time, wife #2 entered the picture. She doesn't think much of fox mustangs to start with (a car is nothing more than an appliance to her and she doesn't understand liking "quirks") and thought even less of this one given my history with it (ex wife, honeymoon, etc, etc). But she's a good old girl and understands that I like the car for what it is and doesn't give me a hard time about it hanging around or working on it. She knows I'm a tinkerer and I need something to keep me busy/occupied. She's happy I'd rather spend my spare time in the garage than out somewhere else...or drinking...or smoking....or anything else a bit on the side of "negative".
The car's engine bay has held a 302 and a 351 in it's lifetime. But when the 351 decided to blow out a window in the side of the block, I dropped in the old 3.8 that was still hanging around so I could at least move it under it's own power and it was mostly relegated to being a garage ornament.
When the call came to move to BC, we decided to keep our house and I left the Mustang behind in the 4 bay garage. Plan was to move back after a couple years, but we were moved to NL after BC. After 3 years there, it began to look like we were never going back, so we sold the house (two mortgages was dragging us down the hole of financial ruin) and I had the mustang and my 62 TBird towed next door to my neighbor's field.
Sure enough, shortly after we were posted back home and I went to check on my cars:
Yup, still there. Although the Mustang had broken out with cancer in all the same old places again.
Once we were established in the new house, I made plans to get rid of one car and fix the other. I was actually planning to get rid of both. As the TBird needed serious reconstruction/rust repair, I sold it off for peanuts. I almost gave the mustang away to friend of mine who had a 351 sitting on a stand. I was pretty much at a "just get rid of it" stage as I'm getting older, close to retirement and we're starting into that downsizing phase.
But after a couple weeks of my bud putting off picking the car up, I changed my mind and decided to just keep it. I fought with it to get it running to drive it home, but I couldn't get fuel from the tank (lines were frozen or collapsed and the fuel pump diaphragm must have been gone as it wouldn't even suck from a gas filled bottle 3 inches away). I fought with it for a few hours in the field, but when ice cold rain started to fall I said "puck it" and called for a jerr-dan to haul it home.
70 bucks later it was sitting in the driveway:
And that's pretty much how it sits today.
My buddy I almost gave it to dropped by to see it later that day and kicked himself all the way to his car for not grabbing it when I offered it to him. He couldn't believe it still had original floors and solid everywhere else except the rusty roof A pillars. He could have taken it right up to when it was dropped in my driveway. But once it's on my pavement; it's mine bubba!
I have several motorcycle projects on the go (VMax powered Yamaha venture and an FJ12000) so the Mustang is going to be a very slow project, picking up parts and pieces as budget and good deal allow.
All my parts leeched away over the years, so it's back to square one. in that dept. So far I've collected a V8 throttle cable assembly, a Holley 4 BBL and I just picked up an 85 front fascia (40 bucks for an 85, an 87-93 front and two 87-93 rear bumpers).
I now it's not going to be a popular choice here, but I have a preference for the looks of the 85/86 over the 83/84 nose. Meh. My car, my choice. Fox mustangs are just good little builder cars to me, not a holy grail. Not even particularly collectible either. At least not to me.
The moldings are also in bad shape on my 83. Not just curled, but torn and split. I may just use 85 rub strips (with the 85 nose) to the front of the front wheel well and the later style with a later model rear bumper. The wheel well may make a good enough break for the molding differences, but I' still undecided on that one. Repop 85/86 side moldings are available, but they come a little dear in price and I don't want that "GT" rear molding since mine is not a GT.
Anyways, that's where it sits and maybe where it is going.
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Originally Posted by grabbergreen84
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