89 lx convertible summer driver project.

[mustanggarage]

basically for me this is a hobby. I don't need this car. I have 2 pickups that I drive to work and I have my 65 mustang that I built years ago. so I have plenty of vehicles. I do this stuff because I enjoy it. yes I get aggravated when I mess something up, but when I do I just figure out what I did wrong and fix it. so far on this car everything that has gone wrong has cost me a grand total of 2.93 for the new thermostat gasket. other than that, just time, frustration, and a few scratched knuckles, buuuuuuuttttt,

Dad came over and we struggled with that h pipe, got it in, pulled the distributor spout jumper, cranked the starter and it fired on the first try. it took a bit of adjustment of the idle, and I had somehow knocked the number 7 plug wire off, but once we got those few things sorted, and it sounds awesome.

 

[mustanggarage]

Its out...all the way out.... not quite the mess I thought I'd run into...Floors look 100% ...ran into a few screws that LateModelResto didn't show on the how to video. Had some soft of small aluminum box bolted to a small black metal bracket that also had to screws from the radio sleeve screwed into it...all came out with out anything breaking. I did find one of the driver seat bolts (front closest to the door) is barely holding on. Have to figure out some sort of metal plate to go over it and rivet it in place.

good deal. floors look solid.





crowned the 331 stroker install today. I got the last bit of bling to cover up that windshield wiper motor that was looking so ugly. UPR windshield wiper motor cover.


before

after

 

[mustanggarage]

NIce , did you just power wash the engine bay when the engine was out??? I haven't done that yet, While I had the headers off and most of the plumbing for the intake out I used lots of clean rags and Simple Green where I could reach.. Not bad under the hood either, I never had great results with a power washer and the engine ruuning well afterwards. I did take a 50/50 mix of simple green and a one gallon vegtable sprayer to it a few year ago... covered up most everything with plastic bags that had a connector coming in or out of it.

yes I have a pretty decent pressure washer Dad and I bought at walmart a couple years ago. it works pretty decent and I just put some liquid laundry soap in it. it actually did a decent job, but there was a lot of places I thought I had cleaned better than I had once we started working on it again.

that is the first I had heard about UPR. I just googled windshield wiper cover and that was the one that came up. I will have to look into that more. but anyway It covered up my ugly mess so I will just have to leave it alone.

as far as the carpet one thing you can do is to get some of the interior paint that matches the car and just spray paint the carpet. once it dries use a stiff brush and rub it to get the pile back. it will make an old carpet look much better for little effort.

 

[FoxBodyMustangs]

wow, this look amazing thanks for posting...

 

[mustanggarage]

I sold the old engine, and a wiring harness and some other parts I had left over from this swap on craigslist yesterday so 400.00 to spend on new stuff. I already ordered the next modification. I know I should take it over and have it dyno'd before doing anything much else, but it is running and I am not going to drive it till spring anyway so I might as well start the next project while I am waiting right?

 

[mustanggarage]

ok next installment on finding new ways to toss money down the abyss that is my mustang habit.

I really like the look of a sportbar in a convertible and I had been wanting to find one for a while. I found out that latemodel restoration sells them now, but on there website they say that you have to buy the 90-93 interior quarter panels in order to make it work. So I found a set on ebay. I ordered them and when I got them they were broken up and just generally a mess so I sent them back and found another set. so I bought those. in the mean time the bar arrived and I opened the instructions and found instructions for installation in an 89 mustang. so I decided I would go ahead and install them using the stock 89 quarters just to show it can be done. and then I will probably send the new ones back also.

first I had to repair my quarters. one of the mounting corners was broken. I saw that plastic staple repair system from eastwood on a recent episode of trucks and decided I could do something similar.

I took a piece of wire from my mig welder and positioned as above.

then I used my soldering gun and held heat on the wire until the wire melted into the plastic.

that is of course under the panel. on the top I used the soldering iron to melt the plastic and merge the two pieces. then I sanded the plastic down and coated it with jb weld. once it hardens I will sand it down and paint it.

after that I cut the template out of the instructions and carefully marked it on the panel and drilled a 1 3/4 inch hole.

then make a slit in the vinyl and peel it back.

then you are supposed to cut a 3/4 inch strip to the edge of the panel after removing the dew wipes. I found it needs to be a bit bigger. at the end you are supposed to put that piece back and glue the vinyl back down. I found that it was easier if I riveted a small piece of plastic to the removed piece to hold it in place.

next you have to remove a couple bolts from the inside of the vehicle just behind the door latch. position the bar and loosely tighten the new bolts in place.

then comes the hard part. position the panel around the sport bar and put the previosly removed piece back in place after tightening the anchor bolts on the sports bar.

then you have to put the new dew wipes back in place. that is difficult. but once I got it into position and replace all the screws. put the seats back in and this is the result.

 

[broncojunkie]

That looks great!

 

[mustanggarage]

thanks. I have the dyno session scheduled for March 6th. in the mean time the troubles I had lining up the torque converter are biting me in the butt. the stupid front seal started leaking so I decided to pull the trans and clean it up and paint it before I put the new seal back in.

 

[mustanggarage]

well I finally got the new front seal, and I bought a new 2200 stall converter to go with it, and tonight I lifted it into place. I bought this little transmission jack off amazon for 110.00 and wow did that ever make the job easier.

it slid right in, no fuss no muss. I have about an 1/8 inch of play between the flex plate and torque converter and everything slipped together smoothly so I believe everything should work this time. I have used it for several things it helped to get the tank out for the fuel pump install. it also helps to hold the exhaust while we are lining it up. (I love cool tools). I will probably finish up getting everything hooked up on saturday. My Dad had to be out of town for a couple days and I know he is going to want to check it over and make sure I did it right lol so I will not tighten up the torque converter bolts yet. I will drop the pan tomorrow and put the new filter in. finish hooking everything up and set the tv valve so everything will be ready. I will also wait to put the starter back in so we can inspect the torque converter etc. seriously though that stupid starter is the hardest thing I have had to do on this car. is there a trick I am missing for putting those stupid starter bolts in and getting them out. that is a major pain in the butt lol.

 

[mustanggarage]

more news. this car has always made kind of a scraping noise when I pushed it in neutral. I always just put it off to the brakes. but once I got the transmission back in place I tried to put the driveshaft in and it would not turn even in neutral, so I pulled it back out and Dad and I decided to tear it apart and find out what the problem was. It turns out that I had a torrington bearing that grenaded. so I obviously am going to have to rebuild it now. In retrospect it looks like when I pulled the front pump to replace it, it allowed some pieces of the torrington bearing that had broken to wedge themselves in there. so I guess all in all I am glad that seal went out or I would be doing this in a month or two anyway with probably a lot more damage internally. anyway Dad and I have rebuilt one of these before and I have all the tools needed to do it so I ordered a tci super street rebuild kit and I will be doing that next week. I am still hoping to get this all done in time to get it dyno'd in march. I have to be gone 2 weeks in february to a conference though so I am getting pressed for time, and this car is fighting me every step of the way.

 

[Blown347]

Sorry to hear about the trans. It'll be much more reliable when it's done though. Car looks great!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[John2002]

Now thats not how its supposed to go...one noise leads to another then back to the first noise...Was the car ever hit in the rear....how is the rear axle? That did my Olds Cutlass in...got smacked in the rear and the drive shaft did a number in the trans... I heard some many clanks and creeks when I got it back from the body shop....I sold it about a week after later...

 

[mustanggarage]

no it was never hit as far as I know. and I did a rearend gear swap a couple years ago with a new limited slip diff with extra clutch plates and new wheel bearings so all that is new also.

btw here is a pic of what the trans looks like today.

 

[John2002]

Thats seems to be what I fear of when I get in over my head...parts everywhere!!!! LOL.. I haven't had either of our daily drivers in the garage since we put her dads car in it for the winter. 2012 Ford Fusion SE with 3,000 miles on it...he hasn't driven it in well over a year and just now told us to take the car if we want it... I have trouble getting in and out of it and my wife like her suv. I checked it out on KBB and its worth about 14,700 in excellent condition, I'm going to sell it, I'm asking 15,000 just because of the low milage...As for the mound of parts I have on my counter in the garage and all the boxes I have under the Mustang, I am approaching that time in the project to get it done and clean up my 3 month mess...Luckily I haven't needed to work on our other cars to the point I needed to get in out of the weather...

 

[mustanggarage]

Yeah. I hear you about the parts scattered everywhere. But I am really going to be pressed for time when I get the kit so I wanted to get as much of it done as I can before my kit gets here. Fortunately I have the space to leave it scattered like that and no one will mess with it till I am ready to reassemble it

 

[John2002]

We got about an inch of snow yesterday so I didn't want to drag out the carpet across the driveway. I like it neat but when I have to move 2 things to get 1 then I know it time to clean up....My snowblower sits between the two cars and my shovels are leaning on the counter. I didn't need the snowblower but by the time I got to the snow it had already turned to ice. I had to get a bag of salt so I had to move my shopvac and air compressor to get at my stack....Its hitting 40 degrees here by Thursday so I'm hoping to get the interior back in this weekend, then back on all fours....

 

[mustanggarage]

so is it really unusual for an aod to have a torrington bearing go out? I ordered a rebuild kit from summit. a tci super rebuild kit. but it does not have the torrington bearings in the kit, and in fact I looked online at a bunch of kits and almost none of them come with the bearings. the Monster in a box from monster trans has them but that kit is over 500.00 I did find a source for bearings from oregon transmissions but I found it really surprising that most of the kits don't come with bearings. I decided this must be a pretty unusual problem. but it seems crazy to me to go to all the trouble of rebuilding a transmission and not put in new bearings.

 

[John2002]

Just when I thought it safe to go back in the garage...now were going to get 5 to 7 inches of snow tomorrow and Sunday....

 

[mustanggarage]

I finally got my monster in a box kit on friday. it has all the correct seals, new bushings and bearings, clutches and steels. pretty much everything I needed. I am very happy with this kit. all the seals seem to fit and it looks like it will work. it also came with a shift kit and the parts to freshen the valve body, but I decided to put in a new TCI constant pressure valve body. it takes the concern of an improperly adjusted tv cable out of the equation plus it has a shift kit and a manual automatic option to increase durability and performance. and I don't have to take the time to tear the valve body down. double prizes!!

UPS didn't get there until about 6:00 and I had to leave for my conference saturday morning early, but we wanted to get started anyway.

a few years ago when we built the transmission for my daughter and I was still finishing my garage I built this table specifically to rebuild her transmission. I used it again this time it really works very well for my purposes.

I looked into buying one of those commercial transmission fixtures but they cost over 200.00 mine cost me a couple 2x4's and some screws. it is held onto the table buy a couple quick clamps and the face vice at the end of the table. it was very stable and did a great job.

the hole in the bench is for putting the output shaft or the input shaft through, again makes it easier and there is a pan underneath to catch the dripping atf so I can lube it thoroughly without making a mess.

I have my computer with my how to rebuild your AOD dvd in it to show me step by step what to do and it gives all the specs etc.

here is the center support from the transmission it was looking kind of beat up and rough so I got a new one from WIT transmission parts. we replaced all the bushings and all the torrington bearings during the build. since the planetary gear set is not really user serviceable I got a new one of those from WIT as well.

as I tore this thing down it was looking worse and worse. the clutches and steels were looking really bad, I am amazed I had not realized how bad the transmission was before I started building my engine. this should have been my first project. all the bushings were scored as well.

this is one of the tools I bought to rebuild sarah's transmission. I suppose you could use c clamps to do this but this tool works very well. I bought it from the same place I got the dvd.

and this is my lip seal installation set. this kit is pretty much essential for this job.

we got most of it done. we got the front pump installed I was tired and did not get a picture of that however, and at first we could not seem to get the total end-play adjusted properly. once we put it all together and inserted the small input shaft and checked that everything was turning right we rechecked it and everything was in spec. so the main rebuild is buttoned up. I still need to install the tci constant pressure valve body when I get back, and I have a new chrome pan from summit with a drain plug. we could have finished but it was after 1:00 am and I needed to get up at 6 to get to the airport so we decided to just stick the pan back on temporarily and finish when I get back. I won't be back until the 19th so I will have to button it back up then and get it installed and tested before my dyno session. things are getting tight.

 

[mustanggarage]

well I may not be able to finish my transmission rebuild for a week or so, but this is the view from my hotel today.

I am not missing that -13 degree temps and snow at all right now.