1983 GL project

[qikgts]

Had to dent the livin' bejesus out of the drivers side in order to clear the SN95 V6 clutch fork as it comes out right damned square in the middle of the #6 primary. Couple light dimples were required to clear the steering shaft too. But after watching this I'm not too worried about my little massaging anymore:

I would have never believed those headers performed like they did... Dyno FTW... Thanks for sharing that.

[Walking-Tall]

302/T5 in:



Not too shabby for a day's work.

Nice shape, and I find it amazing how much more room there is with a SBF in there.

[great white]

Nice shape, and I find it amazing how much more room there is with a SBF in there.

Well, there's no accessories in there with it so that makes it look small than it is, but yes; it does seem pretty small.

That I'm keeping it tight and traditional with minimal bits hanging off it helps too.

The excess V6 is a pretty big piece, which probably makes the change look smaller than it is. Going from an I4 to the V8 probably would have made a bigger visual difference.

[great white]

Well, the 3.8/C5 driveshaft is now confirmed to NOT work with the 302/T5 combination.

It's too long. When I measured (Little foggy on exact number) it was 47.5"

Standard fox one is supposedly 45.5"

Quick trip to the local yard and I nicked a shaft off a 2002 v6. 45.5", center to center.

Grabbed a transmission tunnel shifter rubber seal while I was there.

Collected up my 95 SN95 spindles and called it a day.

It's almost a runner and capable of moving under it's own power.....

[great white]

Annnnd.....another snag.

The SN95 shaft I grabbed is the right length, but came from an automatic car.

Spline count is good and slides right on, but the OD of the seal surface is too large and hits the tail housing inside the tail piece so it won't slide all the way home.

Went to swap my C5 yoke on (which fits the T5 just fine), but turns out the SN95 shaft u joint yokes are wider than the c5 yoke. U joint caps are the same, just the u joint itself is wider.

Just can't freakin win.....back to the yard tomorrow to grab the shaft and yoke out of the 95 T5 car that was right beside the auto I got the shaft from.

The transmission in my fox is a 95 T5, so it should fit. Unless the man upstairs isn't done having fun messing with me yet that is.....

[Walking-Tall]

Murphy... he's a royal bastard, he hangs around here sometimes, lol...

[great white]

Picked up the 95 V6/T5 driveshaft from the yard. Just straight exchange.

Slipped right into my 83 slick as snot.

One more piece of the puzzle in place.

[great white]

Looking to do something like this with the 87 bodywork I'm picking up this weekend:



Lots of stuff going on there I'm not a fan of, but I do like the 87 lowers grafted to the 83 nose. I do like the 85 LX nose I've got in the garage that I was going to swap for the 83 (I personally think the 85/86 nose was the best looking fox mustang), but something about changing the 83 look has ever just sat right with me. This is a nice compromise to my eye.

It also does away with the 79-84 body moldings which aren't being repopped yet (couple of mine are ripped in the center). Another bonus is since the rub stripe is integrated into to lower pieces, so all I really need to buy to finish it is the door strips, which saves me some moola....

It's also not a look you'll see at every cruise night or car show. I'd say "one of a kind", but the pic alone proves there will be at least 2 cars done this way.

That gent did away with the front turn signals, so I'll have to figure something out for those if I go that way. Might just cut them out of the 85 LX nose and graft them in, but photoshopping in the bumper lights doesn't reveal a very good look. Maybe just a thin light inside the rub strip depression area or something that is flush instead of set back like the 83 stockers. More thought is required....

That pic shows the body work to be a bit "rough", I'll be working for a better finished piece.

[great white]

grabbed a couple pics off the internet and did a quick concept photochop:



Colors, shading and perspective is a little janked up, but it was thrown together just to get a quick visual of what a finished product might look like before cutting the PUR.

Probably not to everyone's liking, but I like it. I've always thought the 83-84 foxes have been the widest looking and "sharpest nosed" fox Mustangs (which I like), and this seems to make it (visually) even wider yet.

It's perhaps a little heavier looking than a stock 83:



But the 83 nose has always looked kind of "anorexic" to me to begin with.

No fog lights going on this car. Since I'm carbureted, I'll draw my air through the light openings through inner fender ducting. Intention is to make a bifurcated duct for each opening and feed the carb through a dual snorkel cleaner and route the second tube from each opening to corresponding brake cooling ducts. I'm not going crazy on the braking package, just a set of 95 spindles and 11" brakes with PBR calipers. Brake cooling will be a welcome addition if I ever "push it hard".

I especially like that bifurcated duct idea as it means I can get away without mounting the 79-83 scoop on the hood and still feed lots of fresh air to the carb. I'm not looking forward to cluttering up the engine bay with two air cleaner ducts, but so be it. Better than jamming a hole in the hood and dropping a scoop over it.

bumper cover goes under the knife this weekend....

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First fitting:





Not too shabby. Only pop rivets holding it on right now for shaping and fitting.

I wanted urethane bonding only, but its so flexible i may have to leave the pop rivets in to keep it uniform while bonding and bury them in the urethane bonding agent.

I will still urethane it together front and back, the pop rivets wont be visible after body work. While the urethane should be more than enough to make it one piece, the pop rivets will also add a mechanical bond as well. Should be a pretty solid piece once done.

I used small rivets just in case so the heads should be easy to bury. They "indented" themselves slightly in the cover, so they're already recessed a bit quick will help in hiding them. I may remove them and switch to a countersunk type rivet in order to make it a smidge easier to cover with the urethane. Couple passes with the DA and it should be a done deal.

A nice bonus from removing the inner fender liners was that i could reach up into the plenum and feel around the air horn on the drivers side. After pulling out more "mouse house" crap, all i could feel was smooth OEM paint. The pinch welds and metal surfaces are all in great shape. Unbelievable for an 83 that's lived it whole life on the Atlantic coast, but this car has always been good to me. So, hopefully, all i have to repair on the cowl this winter is about a 6x6" area beside the drivers side air horn. That's good news. I though I'd have to make a whole new cowl piece and have horrible rust problems in the pinch seams.

An unwelcome surprise was damage and rust on the drivers side radiator panel. It looks like someone had driven over something, jammed the corner of the panel up, then tried to pound it back out and had brazed (!) a piece of thin metal over it all. This was a very funny thing to find since ive basically owned the car since new. All i can figure is the ex wife must have damaged the car when i was away on one of my business trips and had someone cobble it back up before i came home with me none the wiser. So that's something unexpected I will have to address this winter as well......

[great white]

Upper and lower bonded together with the urethane, turn signal openings added and bonded in:



It's (essentially) back to being one piece of urethane again.

I'd like to say it was easy, but it wasn't.

It was a major pita.

I separated the two pieces and prepped the surfaces. The two part urethane was runnier than I expected and ran down the front on one side while I was still running the bead to the other side. Lining the two parts back up and pop riveting them together again was a massive rush as I only had a 5 minute work time. Once back together and starting to cure, I flipped it over and applied another thick bead on the back across the two pieces and bonded/filled the turn signal openings into the bumper surface. The turn signal openings are the ones from the 83 lower bumper piece. I just cut them out, split them in half and removed about 1.5" from each. The narrower slit fits the 87+ bumper strip much better than if I had left them full width.

That piece of 2x4 is there because I was heat shaping the lower opening and it's just keeping it from sagging while it cools.

That wraps up this weekend.

Next weekend will be filling and shaping.

[great white]

been thinking about how to get air to the holley.

ive backed away from the hood scoop idea. i have a preference for a clean flat hood. just looks better to my eye.

thought about the dual snorkle ducted up from the gt fog light openings, but im not overly thrilled with ducting all over the engine bay. the engine is the center piece in this project, not a big aircleaner and ducting.

im actually thinking maybe just an open round air cleaner now. kind of fits the simple theme i have for the car. ill be sacrificing 5 or so hp, but ultimate hp from the engine is not what this car is about.....

[Walking-Tall]

An idea that's bounced around in my mind, is the Nascar-ish cowl-fed thing. There's all sorts of real estate with nothing but paint on it, right rearward of the carburetor, at the top of the firewall, that could get an opening cut into it and connected with V-ducting of sorts and to the air filter.

[great white]

An idea that's bounced around in my mind, is the Nascar-ish cowl-fed thing. There's all sorts of real estate with nothing but paint on it, right rearward of the carburetor, at the top of the firewall, that could get an opening cut into it and connected with V-ducting of sorts and to the air filter.

Yup, i thought of that also. Not a fan of cutting into the firewall though. Also, being carbureted and non AC, there's a high possibility of getting a fuel smell in the cabin when I open fresh air vents or if the car sits with the fresh air vents open.

[great white]

Current plans: 83 K-member slid forward with control arm mounts moved in/up, engine moved back 1" on mounts, 2000 SN95 control arms, 2000 steering rack.

The 2000 stuff will come from a V6. The control arms are dimensional-ly the same as all 94-04 arms, but allow more clearance for a tighter turning radius and larger rims. Supposedly, my planned configuration will fit under the fenders, my K-member modifications should tuck them in just nicely with perhaps a little rolling of the fender lips and a light trim of the front lower body work.

The Steering rack is nothing special to an SN95, but better than the fox rack currently in the 83 and it will have the right length tie rods for the 95 sn95 spindles.

The steering shaft will have to be modified. You can buy off the shelf solutions to mate the Sn95 rack to the fox column, but they're around 200 bucks USD. That won't do for my budget, so I'll make my own hybrid out of an SN95 shaft and my fox shaft. I've seen a couple ways of doing it through an internet search. I think I can just rotate my wheel since I have the pre-airbag column. If I can't, I'll just take the rack apart and rotate the gear.

I'll need caster/camber plates. I'm undecided on making them or buying them. I had a set once upon a time and all I needed to do was some welding to finish them, but a divorce meant they went in the trash with a lot of other mustang stuff and tools I wasn't quick enough to get out of the house. Now the aurora bearings cost almost as much as a cheap set of finished plates.....yeesh.

I'm not building a track car and it is a budget build, so mixing and matching factory parts (and building a few things) to get the best all around package is the path for me. Just looking to build a nice street car with a little something "extra".

Some home built subframe connectors, rocker rail reinforcements, an SN95 rear 8.8, a panhard bar and a torque arm will round out the chassis. Probably chuck a K-member brace and strut tower brace in and call it a day.

I have toyed with a roll bar/cage, but I'm thinking that might be going a little too far for this car and it's intended use...

[great white]

Bit of a score today.

Run across a gent giving away an 85 v6 auto Capri to anyone willing to haul it away. I can't take a whole car, so I ask him if he is willing to part a few bits off it. He says not for free, but for 25 bucks I can take whatever I want off it.

I need a steering shaft since my fox and sn95 shaft both got ruined in "hybrid-ing" them. 25 bucks would be fine for another.

It's literally 8 mins from my house.

I get there and the thing is ripe! Literally rotted from roof to subframe. Anything I lean on goes "crunch", everything is sharp, everything is seized. I tear my hands up on anything I touch. Going to need a tetanus shot tomorrow....

After a good 1\2 hour fight with three bolts on the steering shaft, I discover it won't come free from the column. No worries, I'll figure I'll drop the column and pull the slip shaft apart. Get inside and discover its a fox tilt column. I yank it all out in one piece and chuck it in the truck. My 83 is a fixed column and this will swap in nicely.

Then I yank the sail panels, the cowl grill, the cruise module, the rear speaker grills, the center console and the kick panels. I grab the door boots and pack up my tools.

Not bad for 25 bucks...

[great white]

Bilstein struts and set of 03 Mach 1 springs on the way....

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Turned out some rack inserts on the lathe since you can't buy 'em for my 83 with an sn95 rack:





For some reason they changed the bolts somewhere in 84, and all the places I looked at only make bushings for post 84. The bolts are a larger diameter pre-84. Can't switch to the later bolts unless you want for open up the holes in the early k member to accept the later style bolts with sleeves.

I'm using my 83 k member so I can use the sn95 a arms along with the sn95 spindles. The longer arms give a better camber curve during suspension movement. It one of the few cases where I will actually admit longer is better.

[Walking-Tall]

Great score indeed with the Capri parts, and nice work with the rack inserts.
I'm enjoying reading your updates, especially the budget-minded home-built touches and fabrication. Keep it up!

[great white]

So, my parts selection has backed me into a corner and I need to punch a hole in the hood for air cleaner clearance.

I have an 82 style scoop (fiberglass reproduction) but I really don't like the way it's straight profile doesn't fit the 83 hood tapered profile.

So:



Cut and split to fit. Some fiberglass work and it will look just like it did "pre-cutting".

I'd rather have no scoop or bulge at all, but there's no way my combo is going to fit under the hood so a scoop/bulge of some sort is a necessity. It's either that or some type of cowl hood. I can always buy a new hood, bit that's quite expensive. This is essentially out the door for around 100 bucks and my own labor.

Given my druthers, I'd rather chuck an oem style 83 hood "bulge" on it and call it done but they're hard/nearly impossible to find and prohibitively expensive when you do....

[great white]

Stripped a PBR down and painted it:



It was a solid reminder of why i despise working on cars/parts from the Maritimes.

The pistons were frozen due to corrosion of the aluminum housing causing all the clearances to close up.

Compressed air wouldn't move them a C hair. C clamp would barely draw them in at all. Bleeder screw was locked solid.

I ended up using a rose bud tip to heat the bleeder screw, tossed caution to the wind and just reefed it out.

Once removed, I brazed a grease nipple to it, vice gripped the rubber hose shut and then used a grease gun to force the pistons out by pumping the housing full through the bleeder port. Still had to gently work one piston out with water pump pliers.

Then is was a couple hours of cleaning out the seal lands from the corroded aluminum "fuzz" that had migrated its way under the dust seals.

Then several washings, blow gun the passages, more washings, more blow gun, cleaning the outer housings with scotch brite, then more brake cleaner washings and blow gun.

Finally into vht red paint.

What a monstrous pita, but its done.

One more to go and sand blast the carriers.

[great white]

Start:







In progress:


(car is admiring it's new "clampers", looks pretty happy about it! )

Finish:



And no, it wasn't fun.

Maritime weather made it one serious PITA to recondition them. Rust, corrosion and all manner of filth made them look like they just came off the bottom of the ocean.

My 2003 Mach 1 springs are also in there now, although you cant tell with the car still up on jack stands.

Last thing I'm waiting for on the front end is the 2003 Cobra front A Arms (regular SN95 arms in there right now), which are scheduled to show up later this week.

You can see my Bilsteins peeking out in those pics too.

Then a quick clean up and slop of paint in the wheels wells and the front end is (essentially) done.

Then it's on to building up the 31 spline 8.8. My Mark Williams Engineering rear caps should be in by then so it should be full steam ahead.

[great white]

Oops:



Where did those come from?

[tORMENtOR]

Nice progress

[great white]

So, is it option 1 (16"):









Or option 2 (17"):





The 16's have tires on them that would pass MVI, the 17's do not. The 17's would allow me to upgrade to the Cobra brake package in the future (which I can see myself eventually doing), the 16's would not (not enough clearance). Both rims are in about the same shape cosmetically.

I tend to like the look of the 16's more, but I need to live with the 17's on there for a while before I can say I like one more than the other.

The 17's do change the "feel" of the car over the 16's. 16's feel period correct for the car, 17's seem a bit more "show-offish".

17's would give me a little better performance in autocross, but a little more harshness on the street.

After seeing them in person on a fox, 17's are also a big as I would ever dare go as far as looks are concerned. These are already dancing on the edge of "too big" for my tastes.

So, what do you think: 16's or 17's?

I think I'm leaning to the 17's for the option to upgrade the brakes in the future.....