Have you considered plasti dipping the whole exterior? Co worker just did a Lexus LS460 it looks pretty good and he claims it holds up for awhile. At the very least it wouldn't have sheets of paint missing, its amazing how much shooting some paint on the wheels brings up the whole exterior.
thedanimal wrote: Have you considered plasti dipping the whole exterior? Co worker just did a Lexus LS460 it looks pretty good and he claims it holds up for awhile. At the very least it wouldn't have sheets of paint missing, its amazing how much shooting some paint on the wheels brings up the whole exterior.
Never really understood the point. Its no cheaper or easier to shoot plasti dip than it is to shoot paint. So unless you think you might want to peel it off later and are trying to preserve the original paint then you might as well just paint.
I guess it strikes me as one of those things that people do because they've been led to thinking painting is hard, but its the same level of effort to shoot plasti dip.
Sorta like the guys who do 20 layers of wet sanded rustoleum rolled on and sanded out between layers to get a nice finish. Hell that's a LOT more work than spraying a car.
I'll be shooting it sooner or later, just a few too many other projects on my plate. I guess it needs to be sooner or in the fall, going to run out of coolish days for spraying very soon.
Cleaning up the wheels really helped, as did removing all the general grime of the exterior. Its still a scratched up mess but its at least a clean scratched up mess now :)
oooh, package on the porch when I got home...what could it be :)
In reply to JThw8:
If i may ask, what did those bilsteins set you back? Dads got a panther that needs new shocks and he loves the bilsteins i put on his expedition. Its those of they are cheap enough or Gabriel ultras
chiodos wrote: In reply to JThw8: If i may ask, what did those bilsteins set you back? Dads got a panther that needs new shocks and he loves the bilsteins i put on his expedition. Its those of they are cheap enough or Gabriel ultras
Mentioned it earlier, they are usually around $350-400 for the set and I wasnt about to put $400 shocks on a $500 car, I scored these lightly used on ebay for $80
In reply to JThw8: Good point, having no experience with actually painting a car I've heard plasti dip is the easy button, but it makes sense if you are able and have know how that actually painting the car would be the best option.
Got around to putting the new shocks on today. Seriously anyone who owns these things did I miss a trick to the rears? I assumed there would be access through the trunk but no, you are suppose to get a wrench in a 3 inch space between the frame and the trunk and get the top shock nuts off. And I have no idea how you'd get the allen key in the end of it if you cant stop the shock from spinning. Much cursing ensued. After fighting the rears I was in no mood for the fronts so I just cut them off.
Right rear was completely blown and soaked in its own oil, the rest were weak and could be moved through their range of motion by hand rather easily.
Only got a short test drive but its much stiffer now and the back end no longer feels like its loose so that's good. The HDs are a bit rough, but that's the price for stiffness I guess.
Gave the old girl an oil change as long as I was out there too.
For the rears on mine I cut the plastic "boot" and clamped some vice grips onto the shaft(the old ones). They definitely could have made them easier to access. The new ones had metal "boots" so I just held it as I turned the wrench.
I still haven't changed my fronts. 
Does the rear of yours jump to one side or the other when you hit a bump?
The_Jed wrote: For the rears on mine I cut the plastic "boot" and clamped some vice grips onto the shaft(the old ones). They definitely could have made them easier to access. The new ones had metal "boots" so I just held it as I turned the wrench. I still haven't changed my fronts.
Yeah, that's what I ended up doing too. The fronts are easy enough to get at the top nut with an angle grinder if needed.
The_Jed wrote: Does the rear of yours jump to one side or the other when you hit a bump?
sorta, but not violently or anything, it just feels unsettled. Seems to have gone away with the new shocks but we'll see after some further testing.
JThw8 wrote: Only got a short test drive but its much stiffer now and the back end no longer feels like its loose so that's good. The HDs are a bit rough, but that's the price for stiffness I guess
They are a little jarring at first but will smooth out after 10k or so. Good news is they last 100k+ miles. Also low speed dampning are notoriously bad on bilsteins but at higher speeds (freeway) they really shine.
In reply to JThw8:
I guess I may have to try some new rear shocks. Like actually new, not ones that look new in the junk yard on 1/2 price Wednesday. 
Finally swapped out my fronts. Just finished up a few minutes ago. I bought the coil-over "overload" type fronts. They raised it about an inch and firmed up the suspension a bit.
The_Jed wrote: In reply to JThw8: I guess I may have to try some new rear shocks. Like actually new, not ones that look new in the junk yard on 1/2 price Wednesday.
I'll update after some highway runs this week, that's where I really noticed it but in general the rest of the rear looked fairly good for its age so I'm hoping that was it.
Sigh....had to give a co-worker a ride to work, picked him up in the P71, having a nice chat about how well it runs, how reliable it should be long term etc and what does it do....breaks. Sudden onset of very loud noise from engine bay with loss of power. Feared catastrophe, luckily it just spit out a spark plug.
So after spending the day debating its fate with folks on FB and looking into the dreaded spark plug issues on ford V8s I came home to poke at it. Stopped on the way and bought a new plug, just in case.
Yeah, this thing was never quite put in to the head now was it?
The new plug, once aligned and inserted correctly threaded in fine and tightened down properly. The coil pack was shot out with such force by the old plug that it snapped its mounting ear but a little super glue seems to be holding it for now.
Oh, and lesson learned luckily via folklore and not real life, um if you think this has happened on your car pull over, stop, shut off the motor. Dont be like me. See at first I was pretty sure it was a blown out plug because I know the sound...but then there were these other pops and bangs and sounds I didn't recognize. Yeah that was the fuel being pushed out the spark plug hole and ignited by the now free range coil. Others have had mass engine fires from this it seems.
My only thought about what you should do with this car after your BABE rally, is 5.0 Coyote swap. Car-parts.com for a 2011 F150's 5.0 is around $2300 for 40k mile engine. It also looks like the computer would be about $180. Not sure about controlling a 4 speed auto with a 6 speed computer, or the 5.0 liter with a 4.6 computer, but hey this is my little bench build at the moment and your money! So you might just need the 6 speed too! 
Interesting concept but there are so many other things I'd do with a 5.0 Coyote and 6 speed if I had one, like drop it in my 66 F250 for starters :)
The joy of this car is its cheap and as such I don't have to care too much about it. There's something very liberating about that, especially when you drive 700+ miles a week.
i'd put the coyote in a 1990's tbird. but I'm crazy like that...
Since we're borrowing this nice man's thread to do a little bench racing, I too have been wondering about a Coyote/6-speed auto swap into a P71. I THINK you'd end up with most of the benefits of a 4.10 rear gear on the original 4.6 (as suggested somewhere on GRM recently), with no overall cruising rpm penalty, plus more power/torque. It's tough to think of downsides, besides money; what am I missing?
Stealthtercel wrote: Since we're borrowing this nice man's thread to do a little bench racing, I too have been wondering about a Coyote/6-speed auto swap into a P71. I THINK you'd end up with most of the benefits of a 4.10 rear gear on the original 4.6 (as suggested somewhere on GRM recently), with no overall cruising rpm penalty, plus more power/torque. It's tough to think of downsides, besides money; what am I missing?
Sounds good, someone send me the motor and trans and I'll give it a shot :)
Side note though. I have 4.10s in my Marauder and really I don't notice a cruising difference between it and the 3.27 in the P71. The launch is a hell of alot better but both cruise at 80+ mph without being wound out and both are getting around 22-24 mpg. Honestly I think the Marauder is getting a little better mpg than the P71 right now.
Minor update to say I've put 3000 miles on this thing in daily use now and well, it rocks. Best $500 I ever spent. I should really sell the Abarth, haven't driven it in forever, I'm quite happy between the 2 panthers now.
Wife had tickets to a concert last night, which means I get to drive...yay. Anyway we get ready to go and I head for the CV and she says "WTF, why are we taking that?"
Because dear the concert is in Camden NJ, at night. Aaand my foresight was correct. Stupid pre-concert tailgaters must have felt the need to take it something out on my car, dunno why.
At least now I have something I can do to the car to update here. So it turns out in the pile of parts that came in the trunk of the car there was a replacement mirror.
Step 1 remove the door panel. Despite what the online article I found says there are NOT 3 screws that hold the door panel on, there are 4. The 4th is marked by the yellow circle, you have to pop off the little cover behind the handle to get to it. This was broken previously as I found out when I got the panel off so no biggie I guess.
Then you need to pop the connector off the door and disconnect the power to the mirror.
Then its just 3 bolts to pull the mirror and pop the new one back on. Easy peasy. Installation is the reverse of removal.
Well since purchasing this ugly beast I have been daily driving it pretty much exclusively. I sold my Fiat and the Marauder is going to get put on the collectors policy for cheaper insurance.
With that in mind, as my daily 140 mile commuter and getting ready for the Back to the Big Easy rally a small upgrade was in order. The radio it came with kinda blew and I really like having bluetooth in my car for hands free operation and all. Bluetooth radios are cheap. So I went off to the big box store to find something as the rally starts friday. Well as long as I was there hey, cheap speakers, still better than the stock ford units.
Only 3 of the old speakers were working and they sounded like ass anyway. Eh, Im cheap but honestly I live in my car, so spending half of my old car payment on some creature comforts was good.
The old adapter harness put in by the PO. Twist and tape...sigh
It was hot out, so sitting insid and soldering up a new harness was a nice break
and its in, new speakers are in (nothing to see they are all hidden behind stock panels) sounds much better and I can take calls from the wife while out on the road, all I wanted out of the old POS
And now for today's "doh" Crown Vics have buttons on the drivers door for trunk release, and fuel door release. But on the police package they move the trunk release to the dash so either officer can quickly reach it, however the wires remain in the door. So when I put the door back together after speaker replacement it seems I hooked up the trunk release to the fuel door button on the door. Now I have 2 trunk releases and no fuel door release. Not the kind of thing you want to discover at the gas station at 5:30am when you are running on fumes. Sigh.
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