New Member hello, barn/field find, fixing it
08-17-2013, 08:30 AM
#1
New Member hello, barn/field find, fixing it
Hello all. This is my first 'stang but I'm not new to cars. I always wanted one of these.
I was running a new friend home one day, and while going up his 3/4 mile long driveway, hiding under 5 foot of grass, I see a glimmer of silver paint. It's a '91 GT stang. He tells me she's been sitting there for 3 years and he thinks the engine is blown. My brain reminds me I got a 4.6 sitting in my shop and I ask him if he knows who owns it? Ya, he says. The kid of the parents next door. Keep in mind, my friend is pushing 60+ and "kid" is in his late 30's, like myself.
So he leaves a message with the parents, and the "kid" calls me. Car aint moved in 3 years, he's only put 300 miles on it since he bought it. Engine is fine, she's a stick, and only has 68k miles on her. So I go look at her.....
Eibach lowering springs, Eibach pro-dampner shocks, looks like Johnny ends for outer tie-rods, urethane engine mount and trans mounts, 4.11 gears, billet camber plates, and a poor weight reduction of no rear seat, radio, speakers, a cone air filter. and a snake skin across the firewall. Garden snake was still living under the intake and left upon start up.
He goes to start it and nothing. I jump the solenoid and she fires right up. She's a got a huge vibration, a hard miss. "how much?" $1k. OK why not. No rust, low mileage. I hand him the grand and drive her home.
Took me 3 hours to wash the roof, hood, and deck lid alone. Covered in tree sap. Again, no rust, small ding in roof. cracked rear bumper, it's got little love marks here and there but pretty clean otherwise.
So I take her to my shop and pick up my daughter from school on the way, she loves stangs too, big surprise for her. On the way I give the stang some head and she decides to leave the fan and clutch on the side of the road, not before throwing it threw the radiator. Nice one.
New fan, new fan clutch, new radiator. Drive 7 miles home. Walk to front of house and pick up new fan and clutch from street where it fell off again! New fan clutch failed. This thing don't like fan clutches. Tow to shop, parts store gets me another new radiator, but I opt out for an electric fan kit from proform. Ya, it's cheap but I got it for nothing for my trouble with the fan clutch.
Following weekend I put accel wires, new plugs, cap, rotor, oil change, coolant flush, and in general try cleaning everything. Compression checks at 160-180 except for slug #7, 25lbs. Great. I'm thinking burnt valve. Next weekend I start to tear her down. She's got H-pipe no cats on her, after market tube headers, looks like a summit racing system, no axle pipes. Thermostat is in backwards, missing a header bolt, 1/8 inch gap under two of the center lower intake bolts, all lower intake bolts hand tight, took them out with a spinner ratchet. Every vacuum line cracked or broken, leaking oil hardcore on the valve covers and intake. Find a broke rocker arm on intake valve #7 and a blown out lifter. Hmmm, hopefully not a bad valve. I leave the heads on and cross my fingers. Valve seems to move OK. New rocker, lifter, gaskets etc.... Someone threw a cam in this thing.... Ending up setting base timing at 18 degrees, runs smoother there, got 175 compression on #7 now. Eliminated EGR spacer, trick flow spacer for the throttle cable bracket, road tube for the PCV, plugged a bunch of vacuum ports, and coolant ports, got rid of the coolant to the throttle body too. Put a small sheet metal block on the heat riser and mr. gasket lower intake gaskets to keep the exhaust in the head.
Darned if she don't run a whole lot smoother now! The oil dip stick tube is really loose in the block, so I got a new one coming today. So I'm a bit excited to finally have my first stang on the road.
Hmmmm, I need a tremec.
I was running a new friend home one day, and while going up his 3/4 mile long driveway, hiding under 5 foot of grass, I see a glimmer of silver paint. It's a '91 GT stang. He tells me she's been sitting there for 3 years and he thinks the engine is blown. My brain reminds me I got a 4.6 sitting in my shop and I ask him if he knows who owns it? Ya, he says. The kid of the parents next door. Keep in mind, my friend is pushing 60+ and "kid" is in his late 30's, like myself.
So he leaves a message with the parents, and the "kid" calls me. Car aint moved in 3 years, he's only put 300 miles on it since he bought it. Engine is fine, she's a stick, and only has 68k miles on her. So I go look at her.....
Eibach lowering springs, Eibach pro-dampner shocks, looks like Johnny ends for outer tie-rods, urethane engine mount and trans mounts, 4.11 gears, billet camber plates, and a poor weight reduction of no rear seat, radio, speakers, a cone air filter. and a snake skin across the firewall. Garden snake was still living under the intake and left upon start up.
He goes to start it and nothing. I jump the solenoid and she fires right up. She's a got a huge vibration, a hard miss. "how much?" $1k. OK why not. No rust, low mileage. I hand him the grand and drive her home.
Took me 3 hours to wash the roof, hood, and deck lid alone. Covered in tree sap. Again, no rust, small ding in roof. cracked rear bumper, it's got little love marks here and there but pretty clean otherwise.
So I take her to my shop and pick up my daughter from school on the way, she loves stangs too, big surprise for her. On the way I give the stang some head and she decides to leave the fan and clutch on the side of the road, not before throwing it threw the radiator. Nice one.
New fan, new fan clutch, new radiator. Drive 7 miles home. Walk to front of house and pick up new fan and clutch from street where it fell off again! New fan clutch failed. This thing don't like fan clutches. Tow to shop, parts store gets me another new radiator, but I opt out for an electric fan kit from proform. Ya, it's cheap but I got it for nothing for my trouble with the fan clutch.
Following weekend I put accel wires, new plugs, cap, rotor, oil change, coolant flush, and in general try cleaning everything. Compression checks at 160-180 except for slug #7, 25lbs. Great. I'm thinking burnt valve. Next weekend I start to tear her down. She's got H-pipe no cats on her, after market tube headers, looks like a summit racing system, no axle pipes. Thermostat is in backwards, missing a header bolt, 1/8 inch gap under two of the center lower intake bolts, all lower intake bolts hand tight, took them out with a spinner ratchet. Every vacuum line cracked or broken, leaking oil hardcore on the valve covers and intake. Find a broke rocker arm on intake valve #7 and a blown out lifter. Hmmm, hopefully not a bad valve. I leave the heads on and cross my fingers. Valve seems to move OK. New rocker, lifter, gaskets etc.... Someone threw a cam in this thing.... Ending up setting base timing at 18 degrees, runs smoother there, got 175 compression on #7 now. Eliminated EGR spacer, trick flow spacer for the throttle cable bracket, road tube for the PCV, plugged a bunch of vacuum ports, and coolant ports, got rid of the coolant to the throttle body too. Put a small sheet metal block on the heat riser and mr. gasket lower intake gaskets to keep the exhaust in the head.
Darned if she don't run a whole lot smoother now! The oil dip stick tube is really loose in the block, so I got a new one coming today. So I'm a bit excited to finally have my first stang on the road.
Hmmmm, I need a tremec.
08-24-2013, 07:08 AM
#9
SO.....the pro's, Oil leaks are gone, has a wicked lope, burns them through 3rd gear.
Cons, spits the serpentine belt at 6k, bad output shaft leak, little mushy through the gears after a few minutes of driving even when the trans is full, whole car vibrates hard between 1500 and 1800, needs an alignment.
Serp belt thing I think I got. A/C delete and no air pump, but the tensioner feels pretty good. I can't read the belt size on it and I'm questioning that. Also I found a crack in the PS pump bracket and the pump sits not quiet in-line for the belt. So I think that's the problem, anyone know the proper size belt?
The mushy gear box....welll... it is a T-5, tremec time! I put a quart of mercon in it to top it back off and it didn't change the feel of anything, I'll just have to drive her easy till I can get the tremec, I'm looking at the TKO-600 Hurst conversion. I'll do that through the winter.
The vibration worries me. IDK what has been done to this, but I'm thinking that someone may have put a 28oz flywheel on her thinking they were going to a lighter flywheel and not knowing about the imbalance. Only thing I can think of for the heavy vibration. I know for a fact now that she's running on all 8 cylinders now. Anyone else ever run into something like this?
Cons, spits the serpentine belt at 6k, bad output shaft leak, little mushy through the gears after a few minutes of driving even when the trans is full, whole car vibrates hard between 1500 and 1800, needs an alignment.
Serp belt thing I think I got. A/C delete and no air pump, but the tensioner feels pretty good. I can't read the belt size on it and I'm questioning that. Also I found a crack in the PS pump bracket and the pump sits not quiet in-line for the belt. So I think that's the problem, anyone know the proper size belt?
The mushy gear box....welll... it is a T-5, tremec time!
I put a quart of mercon in it to top it back off and it didn't change the feel of anything, I'll just have to drive her easy till I can get the tremec, I'm looking at the TKO-600 Hurst conversion. I'll do that through the winter.The vibration worries me. IDK what has been done to this, but I'm thinking that someone may have put a 28oz flywheel on her thinking they were going to a lighter flywheel and not knowing about the imbalance. Only thing I can think of for the heavy vibration. I know for a fact now that she's running on all 8 cylinders now. Anyone else ever run into something like this?
