the slow white guy build.

[mustanggarage]

I decided to do a build thread, I am on several forums so I may know some of you from other places. As I said in my Intro post this car belonged to my Dad. He recently decided to move to the nursing home and so I bought his cars from him. this is a pretty low mileage convertible only 78,000 miles on it, it runs great. there is no real problems with it. but I can't just leave things alone. I have 3 other mustangs, a 65, an 89, and my Dad's 94 coupe. Both my 65 and my 89 I have built up as hot rods and my dads coupe is as well. So this car I want to keep the drivetrain pretty much stock so this may be a boring thread for most of you. but I like to keep track of what I do on my cars and this seems to be the best way. So without further adieu, the slow white guy thread begins.:laughing5:

ok here is what it looked like when Dad got it. This is not the best picture, because it was Dad's car, and I was just taking a picture of my garage stuffed with mustangs lol.




so after Dad got it we put new brakes on it, and Dad drove it that way off and on until this year. He decided he wanted to put some stripes on it. so he ordered a stripe kit and I put it on for him.



Then he had another really bad episode of congestive heart failure and wound up in the hospital and from there to the nursing home. he never drove it. Anyway after I bought it from him I wanted to drive it. I had never liked the wheels that were on it, and the front drivers side had been damaged and it had a slow persistent leak so the first thing I did was to get a new set of wheels and tires for it.









that made the car look really nice in my opinion. the stripes were supposed to be red. they turned out more of an orange, but they still look good and I have had a lot of compliments on the car since I started driving it. so from there I did a few little things. I cleaned the carpet of all the stains and put some gt floor mats in there to make the interior look nicer. someone has replaced the front seats at some time in the past and they do not match the back seats so that is something I am going to have to address at some point. it doesn't look as bad in person as it does in the picture, but it is bad enough.



I also spent some time with some convertible top cleaner and managed to make the top look relatively presentable.

 

[mustanggarage]

So after that I was looking under the hood and it was pretty ugly. I don't have any before pictures, but it was ugly. so I cleaned it up, about two cans of degreaser and an hour with the pressure washer, painted some parts. polished painted and cleared the intake cover plate. Dad had me put the cold air intake on it when he still owned it.

and it looks alot better.

 

[mustanggarage]

I still have a lot of work to do on the engine. I have some plans for it, but I will leave that for future installments.

this weekend, I addressed the instrument cluster.

it was very scratched up and had a lot of dust inside it.



I initially just planned to take it apart and clean it and see if I could polish the lens up a bit, but I found a white gauge overlay kit from american muscle I liked for 19 bucks. then I found a replacement lens and decided to do it right.

My wife repainted the needles traffic cone orange for me.
and I put the new gauge overlay and lens on it.

much better





then I struggled with the directions. it said there was supposed to be a large grey wire that was the switched on power wire in the headlight switch. well mine was brown, it was not large it was the same as the other wires except the large power feed constant on wire and I read it as key on power. so I struggled and actually posted on here for help before I realized my mistake. anyway I got it wired up finally and I am pleased with the results.

 

[SOHC_Foodblister]

This is a great thread.

I know I speak for everyone here when I say we wish the best for your Dad.

Bless you for rescuing that Mustang from those wheels. Im sorry but those wheels are ugly.

 

[mustanggarage]

This is a great thread.

I know I speak for everyone here when I say we wish the best for your Dad.

Bless you for rescuing that Mustang from those wheels. Im sorry but those wheels are ugly.

no argument here lol. some young guy in Omaha had it before Dad bought it.

and thanks for the good wishes.

 

[g36 monkey]

I really like this man! Hope you're father is doing well

 

[ttocs]

I saw the title and at first I was confused as to if I started another build post Then I just wondered if you could actually be slower builder then me.....

 

[96blak54]

Talk to your pops much as you can, cause it wont be long. My dad went off to looney land when his congestive heart failure neared its last years. Became a real monster to deal with! Great guy before.

Love the build dood! Keep it going man and as always...we are here to help. Car or dad...if youre feeling it, post up. We'll carry the weight.

 

[Nighttrain]

Nice looking ride!! Alot of people go with cobra or mach1 seats. They look good too! Black would go well imo. Good luck with everything, and like blak said if you need to talk let her rip!

 

[mustanggarage]

I saw the title and at first I was confused as to if I started another build post Then I just wondered if you could actually be slower builder then me.....

lol. Sorry I just saw this. I have been out of town for a week. I just took my baby girl to college all the way over in Idaho. Actually I chose the name of this thread because the car is white and I do not intend to mess with the engine much. I said this on my 89 and ended up building a 331 stroker with all the additional stuff, but I really want to keep the drivetrain on this car stock. I like the way it runs and everything. I may add some gears at some point, but honestly the car performs well enough the way it is for me. I am planning more cosmetic work for it than anything. so the car is white, and lets face it a stock 94 5.0 is a bit underwhelming in the performance category so it is slow, so it's the slow white car build but that sounded stupid so I made it the slow white guy thread. I figured that would attract at least a quick look by some people. anyway. I plan to get back on it when I get some time off work. I also work some really weird hours so my hobby kind of goes in spurts.

 

[Tally_4.6]

Rear tires on backwards?

 

[mustanggarage]

huh, you know what I think you are right. I will have to take a look at that when I get home tonight lol. thanks

 

[mustanggarage]

My computer crashed on me so I had to reload everything. but I finally got some time to work on the 94 this weekend. Harison, Sarah's boyfriend offered to weld my maximum motorsports subframe connectors in. I gave him a dual voltage powder coating kit and some accessories because he wanted to start powder coating also. anyway. anyway he offered and I gladly accepted. So he came over and we worked on it Saturday. the hard part about it is that you have to weld them in with the suspension weighted. so we positioned everything, dropped it down on jackstands to weight the suspension, then tacked it in really well. then we raised it back up and welded it in.

the original mufflers were long since gone, and the new ones were too close to the passenger side subframe to weld around, besides they looked like this.

so a little reciprocating saw action was called for. hacked those out of there, then I managed to get the tailpipe un bolted from the catalytic converter without breaking the studs. un believable.

I ordered a catback exhaust system yesterday so it should be here some time in the next couple weeks.
anyway after that Harison finished welding everything up.

 

[mustanggarage]

we ran out of welding wire and Harison had to help his Mom last night so he came back today and finished welding it.
since he had to leave I decided to get to work on the engine again. the valve covers on this car were looking pretty sad. they were rusting and kind of ugly. I had swapped a fox set onto my Dad's blue coupe and that was a pain so I decided to keep the stock stamped steel ones for now but make them look better so last week I bought a set of used ones from prestige mustangs and stripped and powder coated them,


then I swapped the valve covers using ARP chrome valve cover studs. then I put everything back together. I only had one day off call so I stayed up until I finished at about 0300 this morning. and of course I got called in to work at 0800 this morning. but I did get it done.




I also put a new serpentine belt on while I had the alternator off.
I have not decided what I want to do with the export brace yet. I am torn between keeping it black, powdercoating it chrome, or red like the valve covers. anyway I will figure that out one of these days.

 

[mustanggarage]

ok, so once I got home from work, Harison came back and finished welding the subframe connectors in. after that I spent some time with a wire wheel and knocked down a bunch of rust, then I sprayed the whole underbody with eastwood rust convertor. left it dry while I had supper and came back and sprayed on some eastwood rust encapsulator to protect everything.





I still need to replace the fuel filter, but I will do that some other time. I am tired tonight.
anyway a productive weekend. once my new exhaust gets here I will get this baby back on the road probably for about a week before it starts snowing lol.

 

[g36 monkey]

Really good job with the subframes and the valve covers dude!

 

[Nighttrain]

Nice work!

 

[Mustanger]

VERY nice job going on here! This is going to be a good memorial to your dad. I like what you are doing to the car, the subframes were my first mods too & I was surprised what a difference they made. I also can recommend the MM LCA's as another great improvement to your car. I did get the adjustable ones for my coupe but the standards are the same for results...all wheel hop is gone! On spirited launches and going around corners & hitting the throttle it just plants & goes, I absolutely love the improvement!

If you like driving the car with the 2:73's (I was satisfied too) wait til you get the gears in! You probably already know from your other cars but that will be day & night difference...and for the better! I chose 3:55's and they are perfect for me...about 2350 RPM at 70 MPH. This improved every aspect of driving my car it made it so much easier around town! It pulls in every gear now even 5th going up hills around my area, I can drive in fourth around town if I want to cool it, I drive in 3rd or second if I want more noise & excitement & instant response. LOL, I know our cars are slow but I like to drive mine slow...HARD!

I love the looks of your car as it is but for me I'd like a little drop anything like this in your plans? I went Eibach Prokit Plus suspension for the 1.5" drop but if I were doing it over I'd not use their shocks & struts...Probably go with Koni Yellow adjustables or Bilsteins, they ride so much better. I am converting mine over to Konis as we speak, need the front struts still. Anyway you go it will look good you have such a clean car to start with! Have fun.

 

[mustanggarage]

VERY nice job going on here! This is going to be a good memorial to your dad. I like what you are doing to the car, the subframes were my first mods too & I was surprised what a difference they made. I also can recommend the MM LCA's as another great improvement to your car. I did get the adjustable ones for my coupe but the standards are the same for results...all wheel hop is gone! On spirited launches and going around corners & hitting the throttle it just plants & goes, I absolutely love the improvement!

If you like driving the car with the 2:73's (I was satisfied too) wait til you get the gears in! You probably already know from your other cars but that will be day & night difference...and for the better! I chose 3:55's and they are perfect for me...about 2350 RPM at 70 MPH. This improved every aspect of driving my car it made it so much easier around town! It pulls in every gear now even 5th going up hills around my area, I can drive in fourth around town if I want to cool it, I drive in 3rd or second if I want more noise & excitement & instant response. LOL, I know our cars are slow but I like to drive mine slow...HARD!

I love the looks of your car as it is but for me I'd like a little drop anything like this in your plans? I went Eibach Prokit Plus suspension for the 1.5" drop but if I were doing it over I'd not use their shocks & struts...Probably go with Koni Yellow adjustables or Bilsteins, they ride so much better. I am converting mine over to Konis as we speak, need the front struts still. Anyway you go it will look good you have such a clean car to start with! Have fun.

thanks guys. Yeah the first thing I did on my 89 convertible after the tires was to put on the subframe connectors. I also put them on my 65 so I definitely know how much difference it makes. also when I go around a corner and there is a little hill or something I hear a weird nose in back end. I think it is the rear control arms binding. at first I thought it was the new tires because it never did it before. but I think since I removed the quad shocks for the tires that it is allowing the lower control arms to bind. hopefully the subframe connectors will fix that otherwise I may be going with the new lower control arms. I don't want to lower it until I fix that problem. then I may. I like the way it looks now, and I really like the way it rides. I don't really want to sacrifice the ride, but I do like the look of your car, and others that I have seen with about a 1 inch lowering coil. anyway I have other priorities at the moment. my first priority now is to get my new 3 inch magnaflow polished cat back exhaust installed. I ordered it saturday. I don't know how long it will take to get here.



but seriously is that sexy or what?

then after the exhaust I will turn my attention to the interior. I found a set of seats on craigslist, I emailed and called but have not received a call back yet. if I can't get these I will have to upholster the ones I have. No big deal really I have done it many times before, but it would be a lot cheaper just to get these seats if he would just call me back lol.

then I may lower it, or go with the new gears. I put 3.73's in my 89 and I like the way it feels, but I think 3.55 would be fine for this car. I do know it could use a little help in the grunt department.

 

[mustanggarage]

Rear tires on backwards?

well I finally got around to putting the tires on right. I did not realize they were directional when I put them on, and with a 50 50 chance wouldn't you know it, I got both the front and back on backwards.

anyway fixed now, thanks again.