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Topic: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal. (Read 30607 times) previous topic - next topic

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #120
Milkdud and his Coyote!!!!!!!


I'm taking the copyrights to that name when you get your TV show!
-- 05 Mustang GT-Whipplecharged !!
--87 5.0 Trick Flow Heads & Intake - Custom Cam - Many other goodies...3100Lbs...Low12's!

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #121
Quote from: Aerocoupe;468507
Meah, my 331 is putting down 452 fwhp and 410 ft-lb of torque so its doesn't take a 351W based motor to make what the 5.0 Coyote is making.  Now if we want to talk about how much those motors love boost that is a whole other conversation and the reason why I am putting one in my '70 F100.


Does that come with a 36K mile warranty? ;)

Quote from: V8Demon;468522
Milkdud and his Coyote!!!!!!!


I'm taking the copyrights to that name when you get your TV show!


You want to copyright a name of a show when you got Milkdud from me?!
It's Gumby's fault.

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #122
Quote from: Mikey97D;468452
Now that's a commuter!!!  Congrats!

Any of those parts that don't have seals/bearings in them that are rusty I would suggest soaking in Evapo-Rust then painting.  I've used it quite a few times restoring old dirt bike parts and it works well, but you have to paint it afterwards or it flash rusts quickly.


I haven't tried Evapo-Rust yet. I was thinking of doing just an old fashion wire wheel and wire brush, but that may be worth a shot.
It's Gumby's fault.

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #123
I almost bought some Evapo-Rust to use on some smaller parts of my project(s), but I went ahead with some more Rust-911 stuff. It's worked pretty well before, and is concentrated (1 gal makes 16 gal), so it's a bit more cost-effective.

I'm going to be putting some parts through it this week, I think, so I can post up some results.
Long live the 4-eyes!  - '83 Tbird Turbo

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #124
Yeah, a crate motor warranty is nice but as soon as you change anything (tune, parts, fart on it) the warranty is null and void.

83 351W TKO'd T-Bird on the bottle


93 331 Mustang Coupe - 368 rwhp

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #125
Quote from: Aerocoupe;468580
Yeah, a crate motor warranty is nice but as soon as you change anything (tune, parts, fart on it) the warranty is null and void.

Not necessarily true. Typically, the dealership has to prove whatever you modified is what caused a failure. If you changed your intake, and then your rear blew, you're fine. If you put cams in it, and then you had a valve spring fail, then you're screwed.

The only thing I've seen that pretty much insta-voids the warranty is a tune. They consider the factory tune to be completely safe-guarded. Change the tune and warranty voided.
It's Gumby's fault.

Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #126
Been there. The dealership does discovery and diagnosis, the manufacturer ultimately determines warranty coverage in questionable/borderline cases where the claim is of a substantial amount.

If dealership sees evidence of abuse or neglect, they can and will dospoogeent it, again, for CYA. Rubber dust, compound in the wheel wells, inside the rear bumper cover from the burnout box at the dragstrip or mud and water up to the headlights, on top of the motor on trucks. If you race or abuse it, you're expected to pay for your own mechanical failures, modified or stock. 

The dealership may or may not have some potential influence in the manufacturer's decision, but what the manufacturer determines, goes. Noone is going to override it. You can sue if you like.

 If the dealership honors a questionable and or fraudulent claim without manufacturers knowledge, they WILL be backcharged for it, if discovered. Ten dollars or ten thousand, makes no difference. But if its $10K the service manager and warranty administrator should prepare themselves for payroll deductions, being fired, and possibly a lawsuit to recover losses incurred. Its happened, its real, they dont risk it.

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #127
Wow, has it really been almost 5 months since I've updated this thread?

Over the past few months, I've been dabbling in so many other hobbies and adult tasks that the poor TC has been on the back burner. I have been gathering some parts slowly. Some of which will be for the long term, some will be installed very shortly.

Long story short, I have a large portion of my suspension work, 5-lug and a bunch of random odds and ends to get done by the end of the month and have it solid for the drive up to the Ford Nationals at Carlisle. It's a lot of work, but it also isn't. I tend to work best under pressure anyways. With the amount of work I'm about to hammer out, updates should be rolling in pretty steadily. I'm also going to work up some pictures and some good information for tech in the process.

I'll leave this one little picture to show some of whats coming

It's Gumby's fault.

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #128
Fancy.

You're going to love the suspension rebuild.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #129
Today's progress wasn't as good as I would have liked.

Over the past day or two, I have been running a game plan through my head, and making a list of the supplies that I was going to need for this project. I came to realize that there were a lot of things that I needed that you never think of buying. I set out today and bought bearing grease, suspension grease and grease gun, anti-seize, paint, gloves, and a bunch of other consumables. Also has to buy some tools and other misc. . With that, along with other errands, my day was half over.

With that said, today's progress didn't go as well as I had hoped.

One of my tasks was to weld new ball joints into the front control arms. I'm not sure if I'm an idiot, or my welder just doesn't like me, but I couldn't get a weld going to save my life. My co-worker will weld them in for me come Monday, but I was hoping to have the suspension going back going tomorrow.

I did get the right-front torn most of the way down before it was time to eat and I ran out of momentum.



This is pretty much where I left it. I initially was going to pull the strut, spindle and rotor as a full assembly. I had forgotten that the dust shield basically captures the lower control arm when you try to pull the spindle off of the ball joint. That made me a little upset.



At this point, my butt hole was puckered. I've never enjoyed playing with these springs. It was highly uneventful which is a plus.



I put one of the camber/caster plates on loosely just to make me feel accomplished. These plates have been through hell. I bought them used from someone who didn't use the washers under the nuts and basically smashed the slots. I filed the slots smooth, and am using larger diameter grade 8 washers so the nuts and washers don't catch on the indents from the previous owner.



Also, this shows the size of my garage. I have about 3 inches between the rear bumper and the door. Luckily, I'm not that big of a guy. I am over weight, but not too overweight.

Tomorrow should be a better day. I'll get the rest of the right side torn down and get the left side torn down. Will also cut the k-member for the control arms. Hopefully, if I am ambitious, I can install the aluminum rack bushings and the SN95 inner and outer tie rod ends.


It's Gumby's fault.

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #130



At this point, my butt hole was puckered. I've never enjoyed playing with these springs. It was highly uneventful which is a plus.


Yeah, that's pretty much how we pulled them at KB, and any time I've removed them at home. Let it droop, pry the spring out of the seat (While you're off to the side, out of the way). *BANG* (Well, kinda) Doesn't do near what you're expecting.

Now, reinstalling stock-length springs requires a spring compressor, but that's not gonna be a problem for you.
Long live the 4-eyes!  - '83 Tbird Turbo

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #131
Yeah, that's pretty much how we pulled them at KB, and any time I've removed them at home. Let it droop, pry the spring out of the seat (While you're off to the side, out of the way). *BANG* (Well, kinda) Doesn't do near what you're expecting.

Now, reinstalling stock-length springs requires a spring compressor, but that's not gonna be a problem for you.

I sat and stared at it for probably 15 minutes trying to remember how I did it the last time. I eventually said grabbed my pry bar, popped it under the edge of the bottom coil and it broke the bond of the rubber isolator. It made the nicest "thunk" kinda sound. I laughed, did it again and popped it out of the spring perch. After that, I could just the control arm down and pull it out.

I was actually disappointed with how anti-climactic it was.

Progress today was pretty decent. I have both sides torn completely down minus the tie rods. I needed to order control arm bolts and rear spring isolators, so once I get the tie rods swapped and the rack bushings replaced, the front end will be at a stand still. I picked up another set of jack stands, so I can get started on the rear end.

As I'm typing this, I remembered that I need gear oil and friction modifier. It never ends!
It's Gumby's fault.

 

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #132
Progress has been pretty steady over the past few days. I've been working on the car for an hour or two before work. It hasn't been as fast as I would like, but it it still far better than no progress.

Since I was at an almost stand-still on the front end, I turned my efforts to the rear end.



I set out to install these bad boys. Maximum Motorsports quality never disappoints. I didn't take many pictures of the process because it really isn't much different than any other fox body. I got into a groove and really didn't want to stop

I also installed the Chuck W shock brackets. I forgot how badass and beefy they were.



This shows the height difference between the stock shock mount, and Chucks mount.



This is with the factory mount removed. The oval hole is the one that needed to be drilled out to 3/8".



Chuck's shock mount mounted.

I left off at this point because I was still waiting on the spring isolators.



This was the discard pile as of yesterday. I love seeing the pile of junk build up, and love seeing the parts stash diminish.

The following day, I received my control arm bolts and spring isolators from Jegs.

I installed the springs and isolators, and installed the shocks.



I did stop to take this picture to actually show the height difference between a stock shock, and a fox body shock. It really demonstrates why we need the shock brackets.

Once the springs and shocks were in, I moved on to start the 5-lug process in the rear.



This was by far the biggest sigh of relief that I had. That one little bolt can make that nice, easy job turn into a nightmare.

I pulled the axles out and pulled the caliper brackets off of the end of the rear. I pulled out the handy dandy grinder with a cutoff wheel and cut the welds on the anti-moan brackets the best that I could, and used a hammer and chisel to get them broken off. A flap disk on the grinder made short work of the remainder of the welds.





That's where I left off before I went to work.

When I wake up, I need to hit Auto Zone and pick up axle seals, gear oil and friction modifier. I'm hoping to have the rear back together and then start on replacing the park brake cables. I really HATE messing with park brake cables.
It's Gumby's fault.

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #133




Chuck's shock mount mounted.




This was by far the biggest sigh of relief that I had. That one little bolt can make that nice, easy job turn into a nightmare.



You've held onto those brackets for a while now. :toothless:

I've had that little bolt go badly before. Oh man, I hate that thing. :beatyoass:
Long live the 4-eyes!  - '83 Tbird Turbo

Re: Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.

Reply #134
Nice work so far. What springs are you running?

If you don't want the 11" brake front spindles let me know. I could use a spare pair.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.