Pace Car #2

[broncojunkie]

I'm just now getting around to posting this. I came across this 79 pace car online. It was located in the Minneapolis area. Price was fair but it definitely needs work. I went ahead and purchased it after a few conversations with the seller, who had a couple other nice foxes.

After trying to pull teeth for a couple months, I gave up on transport companies. It's a 14 hr drive for me and had been very busy with some family matters and work. I coaxed a buddy from work into going up north with me. Here's a pic from the trip home.

 

[broncojunkie]

The car is pretty much stock, other than the engine and transmission. Originally a 2.3 turbo car, it has already been swapped to 302. It had no brakes, steering was not hooked up, and hadn't been running in several yrs, according to the seller. The front coil springs were missing, which made it a joy to get on the trailer lol! The trip home was a mess. 2.5 hrs worth of Chicago rush hour traffic while pulling a trailer in the rain. In fact, it rained most of the way back. Return trip took over 16 hrs. We got us a room in MN, otherwise, I don't think we could have driven straight back.

 

[broncojunkie]

The last pic of it on the trailer was taken before I installed the new front springs, a new driver's side tie rod end (mia), and connected the steering shaft to the rack. I decided it would be easier to do that before trying to take off the trailer. While working on the front end, I noticed several new parts, including control arms, ball joints, spindles, hardware, rotors, motor mounts, and even a new factory k-member. I don't know where one would purchase a new oem k-member. Is that a thing? The car came with a new set of 4 Eibach Sportline lowering springs, spring isolators, new brake lines, some new (off brand?) Upper and lower rear control arms, offroad x-pipe, and a few other parts.

 

[broncojunkie]

Finally off the trailer and sitting in the garage with the rest of the clunkers. I'm hoping to make this one a running, driving project car. I have enough junk sitting around the shop inoperable, so this will be a welcomed change.

This car is definitely going to need some work. The seats, in normal fox Recaro fashion, are trashed. I'll be biting the bullet and redoing them. The upholstery and foam set for these have gone through the roof. I believe prices are around $600 more than the last ones I did. Materials alone are $2500(ish). I'll save that for last.

The rest of the interior is decent. It will need a carpet and headliner. Dash just has a couple small bad places around the speaker grills, otherwise very nice. Plastics are in great shape and it's all there.

I don't have pics, but most of the car is solid. Front frame rails and sunroof area look great. Floor pans look good, from what I have seen. I haven't pulled carpet yet, but I've been underneath. There is some heavy scale and surface rust toward the rear end and fuel tank. The lower rear apron has some small areas that will need patched. The only really bad places I could find is under the rear seat where the sheet metal meets the inner wheel well. I can just about stick my fist through the drivers side. For the most part, it looks like an easy fix. The only thing that really concerns me is the rust around the seat belt bolts. The threaded areas for the bolts are welded in to this section. I'm sure I can figure it out, once I get a better look at it.

This section is right above the torque boxes. From what I can see, the torque boxes themselves are ok. It's just the thin metal under the seat that needs cut out. I'll get a better look at this stuff once I start opening it up.

 

[broncojunkie]

Once in the garage, I had a chance to start messing around under the hood. I pulled off the intake to see what I was working with. Casting date is C9 (1969) and the accessories look the part. Old style power steering pump (not hooked up), v-belts, mechanical fuel pump. Alternator is old, but I'm guessing from a late 70's? I'm not 100% on that. That stuff will be coming out. I ordered some serpentine pulleys and 3g alternator. The C9 casting was a pleasant surprise, though. Better heads than what would have come in 1979 and higher-compression. I have a couple other c9 and D0 casting heads that I can swap over later. They've had hardened exhaust seats installed, extensive port work, screw-in rocker studs, and all that junk. For now, she should be a good runner. I'm not crazy about the flat tappet cam, but I can fix that later.

 

[broncojunkie]

I did some cleaning up. Painted the intake and put some different valve covers on it that I painted a couple yrs ago. The engine had a really nice old Carter AFB carb on it. I didn't feel much like doing a rebuild, so I slapped on a new carb i had for the other pace car. I had to drill out, weld, and re-tap a valve cover bolt that had broken off. I also fixed some wiring issues, replaced the clutch cable (it had the 4 cyl cable which was too short and had melted on the headers), rigged up my throttle cable (new one on order) and several other small things I'm forgetting. She fired right up. I haven't tuned the carburetor or even touched the timing yet. I just wanted to get it running.

 

[broncojunkie]

Next, I moved onto the front brakes. It was missing a driver's side caliper and both front hoses had been cut. The threaded ends were completely frozen to the hard lines. The hard lines looked pretty rough, so I used some of the new brake lines that came with the car. They were not meant for the 79, since the 79-80 cars were a beast of their own. I was able to tweak one side to work. The driver's side, I just ended up making a new one. I had some new hoses lying around. The front brakes (spindles and rotors) were for, I believe, an 87-93 v8 car, which came with 11" brakes. At least, that's what I'm assuming. I purchased new calipers and hoses for that model and everything seemed to fit. This spindle/brake swap is common on the older foxes, but the early cars had a couple different setups. Either way, I think I'm in business. I had a new master cylinder lying around already (early stye). I'm leaving the original booster in, too. I know these aren't a good match for the upgraded brakes, but they'll work for now.

 

[broncojunkie]

She still hasn't moved under her own power, but that will have to wait. The original tank (10+ gallon) was toast. It had a lot of rust, a pinhole leak, and about 5 gallons of turpentine-like substance that used to be gasoline. I had started the car and ran it from a glass jar filled with fresh gas. Didn't want to suck that crud into the new carb!

After some research, a new stock 79-80 tank is still available, but a little spendy at around $250. The matching sending unit is not being reproduced. Mine was in really bad condition. Some more research, and I see that a larger 15 gal 82-8? tank will work fine with slight modification to the mounting straps. Same with the sending unit. Readily available aftermarket units. The best part is that a new tank was $150 and $50 for the sending unit. So I ordered both and have them on standby.

The fuel system will have to wait, though. I plan on addressing the rust first, and then go ahead and replace the rear end with an 8.8 (I have a couple rear ends, one of which came with the car). It will probably take me at least a week to do all of that work....rust, rear end, fuel system. I'm working out of town till the 23rd, so it'll probably be December if I'm lucky.

 

[broncojunkie]

Here's another thing I scored in the deal. The car came with its original metric TRX wheels, but tires are old and dry rotted. Last I checked, new metric tires to fit them cost around $650 each through Coker. The new wheels are aftermarket and in a standard 16" size. The old ones will go to the scrap bin. I don't know how many of the original TRX's have been scrapped over the years, but I know for a fact I've probably sent 20 of them to rest. Good job, Ford. I hope you learned your lesson lol!

 

[broncojunkie]

No pics of exhaust, but it's all coming off. It has some smaller rusty long tubes and some cobbled-together piping and mufflers. I plan to get a new set of shorties. I think I have a stock h-pipe with cats that may or may not have been "cleaned out" lol! We just have to pass a visual here for state inspection. We'll see, though. I may spring for some high-flow cats.

I haven't mentioned anything about the transmission yet. From what I can tell, it's an early fox 4 speed SROD (single rail overdrive). They were notorious for being problematic and no one really bothered trying to make them better because the gearing is awful. Ford basically altered the design of the old 4 speed toploader. To make it an overdrive transmission, they made 3rd gear an o/d and left 1, 2, and 4 the same. That means there's a huge gap between 2nd and 4th (4th being a 1:1).

I thought about switching to a 4 spd toploader, which would be cool. But I have a lot of t5 parts already and I don't think I could ditch the o/d, seeing as how this will probably just be a cruiser. Also, I may eventually end up with a t5 I can use. I'm seriously considering going to a TKX on my other pace car. I think the t5 that's in there is on borrowed time behind that warmed 331.

But for now, I'm hopin to keep the ol SROD. I'm assuming it works, but to be honest, the shifter feels like stirring a bowl of turkey gizzards. I did some more research (it's been slow here at work) and found a new shifter bushing that is supposed to fix shifter slop in these things. There's almost zero aftermarket support for them. I'll eventually replace it and toss this thing on a shelf as a conversation piece.

 

[broncojunkie]

I think that just about brings me up to date. I have the fuel tank out. I plan to start working on rust repair in a week or two. I'll also be swapping over to serpentine belt and installing the new 3g alternator. Along with that, a 3-row aluminum radiator, e-fan, and associated wiring. I have this stuff already on-hand.

The 8.8 rear end I got with the car has disc brakes and 3.73 gear. I do have another one with drum brakes and 3.55. I believe that would suit this a little better.

The rear bumper cover is damaged pretty badly, but I found another one from a member over at foureyedpride and he's getting it shipped out Monday (along with some pulleys).

I have some headlight housings on order too. A great alternative to the old sealed beam 4x6 headlights, you can use these housings with H4 lamps. With good led's the difference is unreal.

 

[broncojunkie]

Covid and deer season put me behind, but I managed to repair one side of the major rust. It was under the rear seat where the sheet metal meets the wheel tub. Driver's side is done. Last night, I spent a couple hours stripping the passenger side interior and exposing the same area to be repaired. This side doesn't appear quite as bad, but I'll know for sure once I start grinding and cutting.

 

[Blueknights75]

Glad to see you are getting back at it brother!

 

[broncojunkie]

Glad to see you are getting back at it brother!

Thanks! I didn't get any work done tonight. I went with my stepson to a local auto auction. Some good prices, but nothing there that interested me. Some rusted out pickups and random 4 door sedans. Not a single mustang. I was hoping to see an 80's t-bird or maybe some classics (old torinos, Dodge Dart, f100's).

 

[broncojunkie]

Passenger side all patched up! I'll need to reapply all the seam sealer I scraped off and then clean and reinstall the interior plastic. I believe I'll go ahead and strip the carpet, since the front seats are out. Actually, the rear seat (seat bottom and back) are removed too. I need to inspect the floor pan and make sure there isn't any rust needing repaired, other than the standard surface rust. If not, I can start working underneath so I can get the 8.8 rear and new fuel tank installed.

That'll be some dirty work. Wire brush, rust converter, undercoating, etc.

 

[broncojunkie]

Got the carpet stripped out. I was pleasantly surprised to find the floor pan was in much better shape than I expected. No real rust to speak of, other than a few spots of really light surface rust. There was one spot that was previously repaired near a driver's side rear seat bolt. I'm guessing it ripped out at one point and the tear continued for a few inches in a few different directions. I'd say a previous owner neglected his loose seat until it got bad enough. They welded it all back up nicely, except for a 1 inch section that went under the plastic wire run channel near the door. It took me about 2 minutes to remove the plastic piece and stitch it up.

I thought about ordering carpet and seat upholstery, but I believe I'm better off just waiting till after paint. For now, I'm going to concentrate on making this car a runner. Running project cars are so much easier to deal with!

 

[DudeStang]

This is an awesome project. Looking forward to seeing how it comes together. I don't think I even knew about the four-eyed pace car until I read an article on one in Mustang Hub magazine a couple of months ago.

 

[broncojunkie]

This is an awesome project. Looking forward to seeing how it comes together. I don't think I even knew about the four-eyed pace car until I read an article on one in Mustang Hub magazine a couple of months ago.

They are, by far, the flashiest of the fox mustangs lol! Unfortunately, they were produced during a time when the new emissions laws and gas shortage basically killed any chance of performance... at least, in factory form. They still had a platform and basic engine/driveline that could be modified easily. The lethargic 302, in 1979, put out a whopping 140hp. Torque was noticeably better, but still very lame. In 1980 and 1981, the cobras were the sporty models, but Ford dropped the 302 for those years altogether. There was a smaller (255ci?) v8 available, but it was even worse!
With the 302 engine, a fella could slap an older set of heads on it, along with a 4-barrel carb/intake, a cam, and lower gear and be back in the performance business. Still lacking in today's standards, but pretty good for back then. My cousin's 79 pace car was 351 Cleveland swapped and was a terror. Too bad they hadn't quite figured out traction in these cars yet lol! As a matter of fact, I recall being about 10 yrs old and sitting in the passenger seat of that car...no seat belt. We ended up in a ditch after he lost control. It had a built c4 and 9inch rear.

 

[broncojunkie]

I haven't updated this in a while! Still working on the car. I've been in the middle of some motorcycle projects, but I've made some progress on the car. I ended up rebuilding one of the 8.8 rears I had. I got the undercarriage cleaned up from the torque boxes back. The control arms were an absolute pain to remove, but a buddy helped me with them. I put new rubber upper control arm bushings in and I scored a nice set of factory lowers from another buddy. I had trouble finding new bolts for the control arms, but it turns out McMaster-Carr had what I need. I bought some extras for the other cars I have sitting around.

 

[broncojunkie]

I am back to work now for another 4 weeks, but I believe this may be my last one. I took a job shoreside and will be working mon-fri not too awfully far from the house. No more excuses. I'm getting some of these projects caught up!

I'll be ordering me a new set of rear shocks today. That's the last piece of the puzzle for the rear, I think...well, other than brake drums, shoes, and hardware.

One more issue I'll have to deal with is some rust patching on the outer rear quarter panel skirts. I managed to find someone who cut them off of a clean car and shipped them. I could have fabbed it, but this will save me a lot of time.