New Fun Car

Nice work, KJ. Manual transmission V8 deserves a howling exhaust system!

I tried to make them work but I'm going to have to put all new front brakes on too, they will match the rears. Car goes to the body shop this Wednesday to go on the frame rack to get pulled straight. This is the biggest hurdle to get past if they can hopefully do it, then I can forge forward with what needs be done yet and what I want to do with more fun changes. Wife's Mustang is getting new tires today and I'm getting the old tires on my rims. Still life left in them so now I have safe tires.

Waiting for new shoes.

Mike I live in a small town 30 miles west of the big city and suburbs so not as much of issue at least so far. Plus my neighbor that faces the car is a mechanic who does the work on my cars when I need it. Also has helped me a lot on this project and some on the Camaro.

So bought new tires for the wife's Mustang and I got the old tires on my rims to give me something I can drive on for now. Also painted the rims, they are not in great shape so can see getting new rims and tires in the future.




Wifes summer performance tires.

Car is at the body shop since last week to get the frame pulled into alignment, I haven't heard anything yet other then going to get to it about now. Went to salvage yard about 45mins from the house on Thursday afternoon because they had four 99-04 Mustang's. I needed a good factory driver's fender for the body shop to make sure things line up. While there seen one of the Mustang's had coilover suspension with 16 click shocks and struts. They needed to check with owner of the yard if he wanted to sell it yet, haven't heard back yet.

I got the car back from body shop jail last week with a junk yard red fender after getting the frame pulled out. I found out after the fact that they may have not checked the car over all if the front and back were square to each other, they may have only worked on the drivers front where the visible damage was.

This weekend I installed the strut tower brace that I got last spring to put on the wife's car but I needed it on mine to be sure that things stay where they were straightened out to. I have new front brakes coming this week, strangely I got only one of the calipers of the pair ordered from Amazon so dealing with that now.

Well big setback last night. While waiting for new front brakes to arrive I went to tackle the issue with the drivers side new rear brake. There is drag back there making it very hard to rotate the wheel by hand when both are jacked up. The night before I went after trying to release more parking brake cable thinking it was sticking it on and it was, so after freeing up the rusty hand brake inside the center console I improved the cable slack. Still rear wheel sticking, I had noticed with the new rotors and brake pads that the drivers side rub marks even with the very limited moving around of the car it was shiny at the top 1/2 inch of the rotor unlike the passenger side which was even. So taking the brakes back off the driver side I seen the issue, the caliper metal at the top was rubbing on the top inside of the rotor pressing against it. Further investigation confirmed my fear that the bracket adaptor that bolts to the end of the axel tube is bent at a angle from the crash.

So this sucks huge, I'm pretty sure the flange on the axel tube is not bent just the adaptor that the caliper bracket bolts to. The part is discontinued from Ford and looks like no aftermarket replacements except dual caliper mount or Cobra brakes, both expensive. But I did fine a pair of originals used on eBay for $80 shipped, so ordered those. Now have reverse what I did to put the new axel in back in the beginning of this adventure. My wife is not happy and neither am I, hers is the money it keeps costing and me the frustration of it not even drivable yet.

Can hardly wait for the next issue I find and that maybe when I get it aligned and see if the whole car is square.

Guess I should update this.

So first the body shop did not check the overall square of the car front to the back, they only addressed the drivers front and engine bay. I will need to take some cross measurements under the car to check that out.

I got the rear mounting flanges and the front brakes on the same day, a Saturday so was able to get both installed that weekend. The mount to the axel tube was slightly bent in the bottom right corner for the flange mount and with the new flange it was easy to tell. So I beat on it with a sledge, got it closer and then used a washer as a shim to bolt up the new caliper flange bracket. It's not perfect but now the rear brake has clearance on the rotor so I can turn the wheel by hand easily.



So now car was drivable and took it down to my neighbors shop, we put it on the alignment rack to see how far off it was and to adjust the new drivers side tie rod( Original was bent from crash) . The alignment machine said that caster/ camber was within spec, so all we did is adjust the toe. Full alignment will happen next spring after I hopefully have lowering springs, struts in and adjustable caster/camber plates. The alignment rack would not check the rear thrust angle because it is car specific and the rear is not adjustable so no read out. So having it up on the rack allowed me to look over the underside real good, looked in really good shape overall. Hindsight always being 20/20 I wish I had taken a tape measure to check overall squareness, along with a few other things.



The clutch pedal has not felt right since I got the car, very stiff and gritty, so I detached the clutch cable at both ends and lubed it with a bunch of silicone lube, way better now. Also when taking the clutch fork cover off it was filled with mouse nest material along with some fuzz balls up in the bellhousing. Sprayed some lube into the throwout bearing area too. Bought new rear downstream O2 sensors because mice had chewed the wires up, installed them and decided I should take the car for a rip, after driving around my neighbor hood to check things out with the clutch I took off from the corner onto the highway behind my shop and lite up the tires in first gear, 2nd gear rubber and a chirp into 3rd, was doing 80 before I knew it. So the car does go pretty good. Decided last Monday to drive the car to work because it was going to be 50+ degrees and we were getting snow buy the end of the week.

  

I ordered a new drivers side rear ABS wheel speed sensor because I had to cut off the old one in order to change the rear axel, it was seized into the flange. So hopefully the ABS light goes out on the dash and the traction control switch works after I install that. Car is going to sit in my shop for the winter so I can work on it.

The next big thing coming up Dec. 16th is I have to drive the car about 40 mins from my house to get a VIN check before I can finish getting the title changed to me. They are checking to make sure there are no stolen parts, this makes sense on a newer car or high value car that is salvage rebuild but a car that is 21 years old and worth maybe 5K is ridiculous. Sure hope the weather corporates and the roads are clear and no snow in my yard to get it out of the shop. 


 

I've been ordering a few things for the car while I'm still working and this is one of the bigger items, new coilover suspension. I also got a new short shifter assembly.

All the parts for the rear are not in this picture, just the shock.

I guess since I'm nearly done with the car I should post a couple of pics if you haven't seen them on Facebook. There are a few more things I have left to do and we all know these projects are never "Done". With the coil over suspension in the car it is low, not slammed and it handles great. Just got the exhaust done today. I'm hoping to do a little photoshoot with the car and my wifes Mustang this weekend. Oh and I should add, it is a BLAST to drive!!