great white
Grumpy Old Fart
Note: The first two dozen or so posts are pretty much cut and paste form my posts on another forum to catch up to as it sits today.
I know project cheap thrills has probably been used many times before, but it just seems to work for me. I can be a cheap *astard, but I want it done right too. Those two things don't usually go together unless you have patience, can compromise, are creative and are ready to jump on a good deal when it happens.
I'm a bit of an older gent, but am a gearhead from a long way back. Retirement is looming just around the corner and I need a project to keep me busy. Problem is I had way to many hanging around and downsizing was needed. So I've started selling off my projects, as hard as it is. My 62 TBird is already gone and my 85 Honda interceptor is next.
I was going to get rid of the 83 mustang as well (and almost did), but it seemed to me a good candidate to pull into my retirement stable as my 4 wheeled project.
I have several motorcycle projects on the go (VMax powered Yamaha venture, ratty FJ1200 on the books for a resto and my 85 V45 Interceptor), seen here this last summer in a pic before I started ripping the Venture apart:
But I need something with 4 wheels just in case because each year it gets harder and harder to ride very long. The old bod is busted up pretty good after 26 years in the military.
I've also owned the car since 1983 in one form or another which made another good reason to keep it.
It was first purchased for/with my girlfriend (who would eventually 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 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 with the Cobra theme with 93 snake fender badges and a hatch cobra 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 preferred my 1978 460/C6 (swapped in) Thunderbird most of the time. Through the years, 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. I got some gains, but meager at best. Stone axe reliable was going to have to be good enough.
When we moved to Sask, the car went with us. It took us there actually. 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 also the typical problems at the 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!). She liked it, I though it was boring in both looks and performance.
After a decade of that hot/cold crap and what seemed like a yearly "plague" of some sort or another (IE: locusts, moquitos, newts, etc..Newts? seriously, newts?!?! WTF was up with that?!?), 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 4 cyl S10 truck, she got the new car (to go with the new house and 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.
Shortly after, wife #2 entered the picture. She doesn't think much of fox mustangs to start with as a car to her is nothing more than an appliance and she doesn't understand liking "quirks". About the only model Mustang she would consider owning/driving is the 65 body style. She thought even less of this fox given my history with it (ex wife, honeymoon, etc, etc). But she's a good woman 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/C4 and a 351/C4 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. By then it was mostly relegated to being a garage ornament.
When the call came to move to BC, we decided to keep our house in NS and I left the Mustang behind in the 4 bay garage next to my 62 TBird. 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 hauled the mustang and the TBird next door to my (now ex) neighbor's field where they would both sit for almost 2 years.
Sure enough, shortly after we gave up an sold the NS house 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 retirement is on the horizon and we're starting into that downsizing phase.
But after a couple weeks of my bud putting off picking the car up (don't have space yet, don't have time, etc), I changed my mind and decided to just keep it.
Back up to my neighbors field i went and 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. Turned out to be a good decision all around as I later found one of the steel the brake lines under the car rusted in half.
70 bucks later it was sitting in the driveway:
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 ( I later found the cowl had rot and teh drivers floor gone as a result). He could have taken it right up to when it was dropped in my driveway. But once it's on my blacktop; Hands off bubba!
The Mustang is going to be a pretty slow project, picking up parts and pieces as budget and good deals allow.
All my parts leeched away over the years, so it's back to square one in that dept. The first things I collected were a V8 throttle cable assembly, a Holley 4 BBL and an 85 front fascia (40 bucks for an 85, an 87-93 front and two 87-93 rear bumpers).
I have a preference for the looks of the 85/86 over the 83/84 nose. It's my favorite mustang front, with the 83/84 a very close second place.
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.
I know project cheap thrills has probably been used many times before, but it just seems to work for me. I can be a cheap *astard, but I want it done right too. Those two things don't usually go together unless you have patience, can compromise, are creative and are ready to jump on a good deal when it happens.
I'm a bit of an older gent, but am a gearhead from a long way back. Retirement is looming just around the corner and I need a project to keep me busy. Problem is I had way to many hanging around and downsizing was needed. So I've started selling off my projects, as hard as it is. My 62 TBird is already gone and my 85 Honda interceptor is next.
I was going to get rid of the 83 mustang as well (and almost did), but it seemed to me a good candidate to pull into my retirement stable as my 4 wheeled project.
I have several motorcycle projects on the go (VMax powered Yamaha venture, ratty FJ1200 on the books for a resto and my 85 V45 Interceptor), seen here this last summer in a pic before I started ripping the Venture apart:
But I need something with 4 wheels just in case because each year it gets harder and harder to ride very long. The old bod is busted up pretty good after 26 years in the military.
I've also owned the car since 1983 in one form or another which made another good reason to keep it.
It was first purchased for/with my girlfriend (who would eventually 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 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 with the Cobra theme with 93 snake fender badges and a hatch cobra 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 preferred my 1978 460/C6 (swapped in) Thunderbird most of the time. Through the years, 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. I got some gains, but meager at best. Stone axe reliable was going to have to be good enough.
When we moved to Sask, the car went with us. It took us there actually. 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 also the typical problems at the 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!). She liked it, I though it was boring in both looks and performance.
After a decade of that hot/cold crap and what seemed like a yearly "plague" of some sort or another (IE: locusts, moquitos, newts, etc..Newts? seriously, newts?!?! WTF was up with that?!?), 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 4 cyl S10 truck, she got the new car (to go with the new house and 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.
Shortly after, wife #2 entered the picture. She doesn't think much of fox mustangs to start with as a car to her is nothing more than an appliance and she doesn't understand liking "quirks". About the only model Mustang she would consider owning/driving is the 65 body style. She thought even less of this fox given my history with it (ex wife, honeymoon, etc, etc). But she's a good woman 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/C4 and a 351/C4 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. By then it was mostly relegated to being a garage ornament.
When the call came to move to BC, we decided to keep our house in NS and I left the Mustang behind in the 4 bay garage next to my 62 TBird. 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 hauled the mustang and the TBird next door to my (now ex) neighbor's field where they would both sit for almost 2 years.
Sure enough, shortly after we gave up an sold the NS house 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 retirement is on the horizon and we're starting into that downsizing phase.
But after a couple weeks of my bud putting off picking the car up (don't have space yet, don't have time, etc), I changed my mind and decided to just keep it.
Back up to my neighbors field i went and 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. Turned out to be a good decision all around as I later found one of the steel the brake lines under the car rusted in half.
70 bucks later it was sitting in the driveway:
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 ( I later found the cowl had rot and teh drivers floor gone as a result). He could have taken it right up to when it was dropped in my driveway. But once it's on my blacktop; Hands off bubba!
The Mustang is going to be a pretty slow project, picking up parts and pieces as budget and good deals allow.
All my parts leeched away over the years, so it's back to square one in that dept. The first things I collected were a V8 throttle cable assembly, a Holley 4 BBL and an 85 front fascia (40 bucks for an 85, an 87-93 front and two 87-93 rear bumpers).
I have a preference for the looks of the 85/86 over the 83/84 nose. It's my favorite mustang front, with the 83/84 a very close second place.
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.
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