Long overdue update.... For the last few years my coupe project has been on hold. Things like time, priorities, moving, and money kind of got in the way, you know 'life'. I really haven't driven it much over the couple of years, in fact the last time that I drove it on the street was when I moved it from my old house 20 months ago.
A little back story. I purchased the coupe out of the Portland, OR area in 2006. It had been floating around various for sale forums for 6 mos before I finally jumped on it. I bought it sight unseen for $1000 and paid the owner another $200 to trailer it up to my place just north of Seattle. It was two owner, low mileage car (92k original miles) in great shape for its age. It started its life with my family as a father/son project. Body, paint, carpet, and seats were done in 2007; wheels and tires in 2008. After that, I had picked up a engine and transmission from a totaled '88 Turbo coupe. The initial plan was to keep the car a turbo-4 to keep my son's insurance rates down. After my son and I 'traded' cars (he didn't like driving the stick), it morphed into my personal project 2 years later.
In the fall of 2010, I recovered the seats with TMI's pony vinyl skins (parchment on black). The fall of 2011, I bought a rusted out 82 Capri RS to harvest the 5.0 and T5 along with the related bits to do a factory looking engine swap. A couple of longtime members from here offered to help with the swap.. Since then, only some trim, dress up items, and a carb rebuild by our infamous Neil (WHTLTHR79RS), the car has basically sat.
Finally, this summer I have some free time and motivation to continue working on the coupe. First item on the agenda is to upgrade the Pinto sized 9.3" front brakes to 11" SN95 version. I have collected most of the parts required over the last couple of years.
Here is what I am starting with. A hold over from the Mustang II, behold the 9 inch disc brakes.
The strut and spring was pretty easy to get out. Having and electric impact wrench made easy work of the bolts holding the strut to the spindle (15/16” head and 7/8” nut). The strut was completely worn out. After I pushed it in all the way, the shaft only came back out about 1/2”. A day later, it still had not come out a full inch. I did not need a spring compressor to remove the spring although I did run a tie down strap through the spring and a-arm so it wouldn’t go far if it launched out of the pocket.
I tackled the a-arm next. I had to go out and buy a 30mm impact socket (easier to find than a 1-3/16” ) to fit on the head of the a-arm bolts. The nut was 15/16”. Once the impact started spinning the bolt, it was fairly easy to unbolt. After breaking the front one loose, I unbolted it by hand. It took a little longer but I didn’t want to damage the bellows on the steering rack. Unlike some of the stories that I have heard about, these weren’t rusted and came out rather easily.
Here is what is going in:
These are old stock FMS arms (date coded 9/97 and 10/97) that I located last spring and FMS ‘C’ springs that I have had sitting in a box for a few years.
Old Project Links
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...Project-Update
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...led-New-Wheels
Marti Report
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...eport!!!/page2
5850 coupes were built with the turbo 2.3l 4sp
Of those 5850 cars, 235 were painted Dark Jade Metallic
Of those 235 cars, 2 had black leather bucket seats
Of those 2, only 1 had a standard (non-tilt) steering column
This is that car.
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