Project "Save-A-Fox". Long post, pic heavy.

FISHTAIL

Will Work For Mods
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Well guys, this post has been a few months in the making, and is going to be a looong one, with lots of pictures.

So, as some of you know (especially the ones that I'm friends with on FB) I bought a fox convertible last summer as a
project car that I intended to flip after completion to fund parts for the GT. But...for multiple reasons, we have decided to keep it.

That's the basic jyst of it, but the interesting part is the project itself, and thus, story time;

As with most trashed project cars, this story starts with craigslist. Originally, the seller was asking 2k for this car, and
in all of the pictures he had posted, there were none of the interior and in all the exterior shots, the car was wet.

I knew these were red flags, but since the seller was so close (15 minutes away) I decided to go have a look anyway. He'd mentioned in the ad that the car had a tap, so I brought my stethoscope with me when I went to check the car out. As the man said, the car DID have a nasty tap, but I was able to determine pretty quickly that the issue was in the top end. When I told him that, he informed me that he'd recently replaced the main bearings, himself, in the driveway, without pulling the motor, because he thought that *might* be where the noise was...and was surprised when that didn't work. uh oh. lol. Even in the rain, i could tell the paint was severely oxidized, and after glancing inside, I immediately decided the car wasn't worth anywhere close to 2k.

He asked if I wanted to make an offer, I told him no, but to contact me later after he'd had a few, or none..knowing damn well that he was going to end up with the latter. After a couple of weeks, he emailed me back and negotiations started. For reasons I won't post publicly, the guy was able to appeal to my softer side and I agreed to give him 800 for the car..which, as I even told him, was still more than the car was worth.

Still, at the time I was hopeful that I could salvage most of it and make a decent profit so I went ahead and bought the car.

And that is where the fun started. The fellow I got this car from was a very, very kind man, but is one of those people that should be barred for life from ever attempting to turn a wrench again. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING this guy touched on this car, he screwed up.

First, he'd told me that he was "restoring" the interior. If what I got was restored, I'm horrified to think what it looked
like to start with. When i got this thing, the interior was so disgusting i wouldn't even sit in it with clean clothes on.
The carpet had mushrooms growing out of it, the door panels were white, the map pockets were grey, and the door handles were red. The front seats were brown (SN95), and the rear were destroyed original white leather. The center arm rest was gone, the passenger rear interior panel was broken in half (which I didn't notice right away because of how he had it sitting), the radio was half out, and there were pepboys "accessories" screwed into the dash, center console and random shit everywhere. In short, it was an unmitigated disaster. I don't have any pictures of this because it stayed like that for all of a couple hours before I started ripping shit out and throwing in the garbage. I never really intended to document it..just fix it. The paint was so badly oxidized that the car had a white hue to it, the paint was flaking off the wheels, and the top was covered in mildew.

WTF i was thinking..I'll never really know. I like a challenge I guess.

This post is already getting long in the tooth, so rather than explain how I came to find everything, I'll just list what I found (andcan remember) offhand for everyones amusement;
The passenger rear 1/4 window had broken the torque pins in the motor and was stuck (regulator rusted in place) about 3/4 of the way up. This is how water got in, the mushrooms grew, and how the rear panel was broken in half. The guy couldn't find the screws apparently, so he just broke the panel to remove it. Then when he couldn't figure out what was wrong, he reassembled the window guide upside down and left it like that.

I replaced the torque pins in the motor and was able to work the regulator free..window works great now. 2.95 to fix. And he ruined half the interior because of it.

The mildew on the top I was able to remove with a good scrub and some dawn dish detergent. It's still not perfect, but it's not bad either..although the car could use a black top now. The paint I was able to partially salvage, but was so far gone in places that we ended up just painting the car. Even with a PC, I still burned clean through to primer on the first pass in 2 spots, and in others the clear was pitted so badly that polishing the oxidation out almost made it look worse. After about 12-16 hours of working the oxidation out, I threw in the towel and owned up to having to pay for paint.

The engine, as it turned out, was almost totally sludged up. The tapping was the sound of at least 4 broken rockers. Given the other things this guy did (that I'm about to share), and knowing that he'd replaced some bearings in the bottom end (likely only half of them), I wrote the engine off and grabbed another from CL for 400 bucks.

The driveshaft had 3 of the 4 bolts at least halfway out. All finger tight. The speedo sensor was shoved so far into the trans that the gear got held in place and stripped. Then they put the hold down bracket on upside down and broke the bolt off in the transmission. To prevent a leak, the spedo sensor was held in with a coat hanger.

There were 3, yes 3, sets of foglights on the car. All wired horribly. The drivers door hinge pins were shot, but instead of fixing those he adjusted the window stops so the window would "shut". This caused some issues...

The brakes were all new, but the rears were installed backwards and as a result, the self adjusters stripped themselves out and the car made terrible, terrible sounds when the brakes where hit.

The radio was wired incorrectly and didn't work, the car had "light up flame" pep boys pedals on it, and he also managed to destroy the rear view mirror base because he couldn't figure out how to get it off the button.

The passenger front seat was NOT bolted down tightly, at all, and the left front bolt didn't even catch a thread. The drivers front was worse and even had a broken corner, so it was only actually attached to the floor in 3 places rather than 4. Thank god I didn't drive it home, getting in an accident would have been a guaranteed ejection from the vehicle.

And that's just the stuff that comes to mind right away...there was more..much more. I ended up putting far more time into fixing some of the most ignorant stuff I've ever seen someone try than I barganed for. But, it's fixed..mostly. I still have a few little things left to button up, but for the most part, the car is salvaged.

So, in short, here is what I did:
Replaced the engine
Spent about 12-16 hours or so buffing the paint before giving up and getting the entire car painted (Redfire)
Painted the wheels/trim
Gutted the entire interior. Fixed the wiring, re-dyed all the panels, replaced the two rear panels, installed a light bar, and got "new" seats/carpet.

This entire process took probably around 4 months of working in the evenings.

And with that...I shall present you with pictures!

Arrival day after it's first extensive dawn bath:
arrival4_zps170d91f4.jpg

arrival3_zps3dbc68d3.jpg

arrival1_zpsb641c287.jpg

arrival2_zps74e29707.jpg



Attempting to clean up the paint:
pre_buff1_zps4f7b5848.jpg

oxidation2_zps1b707abc.jpg

test_section_zps0b165be1.jpg

pitted_paint2_zpsba32aa38.jpg

oxidation_zps1ee00623.jpg

pitted_paint_zps1e3853fb.jpg

mid_buff7_zps3d96f115.jpg

mid_buff4_zps73d098a5.jpg

mid_buff5_zps2838773e.jpg

mid_buff3_zps1b30f747.jpg

mid_buff2_zps9ae6a277.jpg

mid_buff1_zps84745aaa.jpg

bad_paint_zpsfb1aa01f.jpg

dent_zpsfffddf75.jpg


Engine Replacement:
original_engine_trashed1_zpsa3b7ac2e.jpg

original_engine_trashed2_zps4644673c.jpg

engine_swap_zps5c4cbd57.jpg


What pics I have of the interior when I started:
mushrooms_zpsac9f3f41.jpg

interior_disassembly6_zps6e4660d6.jpg

interior_disassembly5_zpse342b28b.jpg

interior_disassembly2_zpscd8af355.jpg

interior_disassembly3_zps86fcaaff.jpg

interior_disassembly_zps25dd0ada.jpg

interior_disassembly4_zps0cf00eef.jpg

interior_assembly6_zps6e43b038.jpg

floor_rusted_zpsa101483b.jpg



Trashed wheels:
wheel_before2_zps863edbdc.jpg

wheel_before_zpsdc1e497b.jpg


So..as you can see, the car was, well, rough.

I have basically zero pictures of the actual refinishing process, but I have a few of it going back together:
dash_after_zps58e069e1.jpg

console_after_zps5976ddf6.jpg

interior_assembly5_zpsb8afa322.jpg

interior_assembly4_zps36396817.jpg

interior_assembly3_zps5233e985.jpg

inteior_assembly2_zpsdbc823a8.jpg

interior_assembly1_zps56ea7de2.jpg

interior_after2_zps90f3f5d6.jpg

light_bar_zps0e9df3ec.jpg

vert_interior1_zpsfb0af1c5.jpg


How it looked when I dropped it off for paint:
pre_paint3_zpsa9a215c0.jpg

pre_paint2_zps3a9be6a4.jpg

pre_paint1_zpsf3503029.jpg

pre_paint4_zps285fb3b0.jpg



Back from paint:
first_day_back_zps43f4452e.jpg


Repainting the wheels:
caps_before_zps20a8eb26.jpg

caps_inprogress_zps203b9e34.jpg

caps_after_zpse42dba97.jpg

wheelsafter_zpse7e36d1e.jpg


Sanded the rust out of the tails..the un-finished area is how the whole pipe looked:
exhaust_before_zpsca6452e0.jpg

exhaust_after_zpsdd07c225.jpg


How she looks now:
vert_topuprear_zpscaec49fd.jpg

vert_rearqtr_zps2338936a.jpg

vert_topup2_zpsb402eee8.jpg

vert_topup_zps8a6a827c.jpg

vert_passfront_zps07e66d68.jpg



At home:
vert_overall_zps72074294.jpg


First ride:
jon_wave2_zps3cbbdf94.jpg

jon_wave_zps8c203f8a.jpg
 

deadernie

is my name
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Looks great. At least it looked like it came with some good tires. And "sludge" is an understatement. How many miles were on that thing?
 

Bonefish

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Wow Mike....I followed this on FB but, seeing it this way you can really see the difference. I mean it's hard to believe that's the same car! You should take it by the guy and show it to him. I bet he won't even recognize it. Pretty cool...and very nice work.

By the way...that guy sounds like me with a wrench. I'd like to think I'm a little better but perhaps not alot. LOL!
 

FISHTAIL

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Looks great. At least it looked like it came with some good tires. And "sludge" is an understatement. How many miles were on that thing?
It actually came with new tires (Pilots), brakes (though the rears were installed backwards), radiator, shocks/struts, and a recent top. Mileage..not sure, 150k? The spedo was broken, so hard to say how many miles they put on it after that...but considering my other car was north of 200k and had zero sludge, this guy wasn't maintaining it properly. Plus the original engine had 4 different kinds of plugs in it, the wires literally disintegrated when touched, and he was wondering why it wasn't running right..

What a transformation - Excellent work

Thanks.


Wow Mike....I followed this on FB but, seeing it this way you can really see the difference. I mean it's hard to believe that's the same car! You should take it by the guy and show it to him. I bet he won't even recognize it. Pretty cool...and very nice work.

By the way...that guy sounds like me with a wrench. I'd like to think I'm a little better but perhaps not alot. LOL!

Yeah, my Mom is the best in this regard. When I got it, she was scolding me for buying a piece of crap that belonged in the junk yard. Now she loves the car and wants to go for a ride..lol. She lacks vision!

I've been considering going to visit him..he's really close by.

And I doubt your this bad. I've never seen anyone do so much goofy stuff before.
 

FISHTAIL

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92. Stock dash setup, it's the original dash, just re-dyed black. No, it's not difficult to wire..just a couple of plugs. Although, the voltmeter gauge is acting up, but I think thats because the printed board on the back of the cluster wasn't in the best shape and probably isn't getting a good connection.

Dash's looked like that from 90-93. Pre 90' cars didn't have the airbag, so they had an optional tilt column, idiot lights in the lower right corner of the cluster housing, and a slightly different instrument cluster.
 

Nutty 5.0

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Awesome Mike! Love to see that you can look beyond the POS that most would have thought it was (And perhaps was!) and spend the time and effort to bring it back.

Definitely casually stop by and show the guy. He'd probably appreciate the work you've done.

Dave
 

FISHTAIL

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Awesome Mike! Love to see that you can look beyond the POS that most would have thought it was (And perhaps was!) and spend the time and effort to bring it back.

Definitely casually stop by and show the guy. He'd probably appreciate the work you've done.

Dave

Thanks! It was definitely a POS when I started, and I'm pretty sure that had I not bought it, it would have hit the junkyard. Other than the minor body damage on the right rear 1/4 from what P/O said was a parking lot incident, the car was all original, straight, and rust free. It would have been a shame to trash it. I thought it might be fun to resurrect a car like that, but I was a little bit surprised at just how much resurrection was required. I knew there was a good chance I was in for an engine replacement, and I went into the project planning to gut/re-finish the interior, but there were a whole pile of little things that ended up adding lots of time to the project.


I really should stop by..I have some errands to run this weekend, perhaps I'll just swing on over.
 

FISHTAIL

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Nice work, I hope you replaced the heater core while you had the dash out.

Nah, I did this on a shoestring budget and the wife was already hounding me so I didn't bother. I know that would have been convenient, but it only takes me a little over an hour to pull the dash from one of these things anymore so I'm not worried about it.

When I should have done it was when I had the motor pulled and the coolant system was drained..but oh well.

nice, that turned out great

Thanks. Next up is getting the lightbar re-covered, new floor mats, new pads for the pedals, and a bunch of other little misc crap that wasn't needed to get the car road worthy.
 

FISHTAIL

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You know, I just realized I didn't mention this in the original post, but folks may have noticed already. The car is no longer wild strawberry (the original color). It's now redfire, just without all the usual metallic. Since it was a budget paint job, all the jams and such weren't done, and in an effort to make that less obvious, they left out most of the metallic that typically goes with that paint.

The result actually looks very close in the jams, and makes for a pretty slick looking paint IMO. Not sure how many redfire fox's are running around, but I'm betting it's not many.
 

wheelhopper

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Looks good Mike. Glad to see you got rid of that stupid luggage rack. Now take out the fake roll bar and install a real one and bring it to the track.
 

IronTerp

Mid-Atlantic Cobra Assoc.
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Wow Mike, really great job! Know you enjoyed resurrecting this one. Good feeling....

Have any pictures of the final engine bay?
 

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