I've been looking at something V8 to have some fun with doing car show type events and while looking one night, something caught my eye. 1985 Red Mustang GT with T Tops. AKA my high school ride. I think it's the fact I'm back in the town I went to HS in and having some memories of then, I said WTF, the price is good and it's not going to go down and pulled the trigger. It's a SE car that lived in ATL and Nashville area most of it's life and the underbody is really clean on it. It should be a lot of fun and to be honest, I haven't seen a clean one of these in a very long time.
The plan is not to go crazy with it. I'll upgrade the brakes to the later 11" and pair it with an 8.8" rear with 3.73 and an LSD in it. Then do a some clean up under the hood and put a nice sounding exhaust on it.
I was going to do a fly and drive but I've got too much going on for that so it'll be delivered in a few weeks. It'll give me enough time to see what is wrong with it and fix it before doing the Hot Rod Power Tour in late August with a good buddy of mine.
In reply to bmw88rider :
How high school?
i was a late 90s kid. Therefore billet wheels was the ultimate.
Hell yeah, baby. 4-eyes are the best-looking Mustangs, IMO, and you have a fine example of the breed there.
Wow that's insanely clean.
Thanks guys. I am super excited to have this one. It was always one I said in the back of my head if I saw a clean one, I would jump on it. Between that and doing power tour, It'll be a ton of fun. The interior is just about as clean. It has just enough to do so that I have some projects.
Patrick,
I was an early 90's kid. We bought my original one at woodhouse ford in Blair, NE in 91 for the princely sum of $5K. There was the GT and an intercooled SVO on the lot for the same price. I decided on the 5.0
Billet wheels was more when I was helping build DB drag cars later in the 90s.
Nice score! That looks great. I had a number of Fox body Mustangs and miss my '89 LX 5.0 convertible the most.
Oh man. So I was chatting with a buddy and what does he have on his shelf but the same Alpine unit I had in mine back in the day. He isn't going to use it for anything so it's on it's way here. A quick look on Ebay and found the same MTX thunder amp I put in later. This will be fun.
Beautiful car. Love the 4-eyes, you almost never see them anymore. My 90 GT hatch came with an Alpine HU too, but not as cool as yours.
If you decide to sell in 10 years.... I call dibs on first bid :p.
Jealous of the power tour. One of my summer goals is to do some drag racing . . . I'd totally do the power tour some day.
I wish I still had my 81. I was forced to sell it, along with some of the nos goodies I was storing up. I did keep the offy 4bbl intake for the 2.3, though.
While waiting for the car to get here, I did pick up something interesting, The YOM plate for the car so I can register it as a vintage car. I must say it is about the most boring plate I've seen in a long time. Big advantage is I only need one plate.
Dang. I had an 86 GT that I somewhat regretfully sold in a moment of financial strife. I've kept an eye out in hopes that MY car would pop back up for sale but neigh. For now I'll just live vicariously through you.
It showed up this morning. Very happy overall. It has a really nice sound to it. It's raining today....Of course....so I'll take it for a drive tomorrow. Overall looks really good for 36 years old. Quick system check shows that everything works as it should. Really the only issue I've seen is the rear hatch cylinder lock is not opening and the hatch is only able to be opened by the interior button which isn't a big thing and I need to smoke the tires down quickly so I can get some real tires on the thing. Other than that, the brake fluid is new. Oil is new. The interior is pretty darn clean. The rear is already tinted so that is good. Well worth the money so far.
bmw88rider said:
It showed up this morning. Very happy overall. It has a really nice sound to it. It's raining today....Of course....so I'll take it for a drive tomorrow. Overall looks really good for 36 years old. Quick system check shows that everything works as it should. Really the only issue I've seen is the rear hatch cylinder lock is not opening and the hatch is only able to be opened by the interior button which isn't a big thing and I need to smoke the tires down quickly so I can get some real tires on the thing. Other than that, the brake fluid is new. Oil is new. The interior is pretty darn clean. The rear is already tinted so that is good. Well worth the money so far.
Congrats - that sounds awesome. There is something so fulfilling ad exciting about the simpleness and fun factory of a foxbody.
Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to bmw88rider :
How high school?
i was a late 90s kid. Therefore billet wheels was the ultimate.
Oh God OP, please dont get those grotesque turds anywhere near your car.
Put some miles on it tonight. The carb needs gone through. It's a turd in the mid range. So need to look at the plugs and check through a few things to figure out if it's leaning out or going fat. My guess is leaning out but that will be something to figure out tomorrow. It's running on the warm side too so I'll need to figure that before power cruise.
It's got just enough projects to keep me busy without too much stuff being cut up. I bought it right and should be a lot of fun. It definitely makes all of the right noises.
Really went through it in detail today. The good. It's clean clean clean. Truly no rust and the body is straight as an arrow. The transmission and rear end are in great shape. It shifts smooth and the clutch engages clean. The brakes are good by '85 ford standards. It has the original radiator and it was running warm.
I'm going to go through and replace the cooling system as I know the power tour will stress the cooling system and I don't want any issues. I'll also take the chance to refresh the ignition (cap/rotor, plugs, wires)
The suspension is old. It probably isn't stock but it's been on there for awhile. So that will be a to do at some point. About the final thing is weatherstripping. It's pretty tore up and original so I'll probably go through that too.
Today just really told me I bought it right. I have plenty of room to add value here and enjoy it. No big surprises. I knew I would need to do some stuff to the car. Now I just have to decide the direction of the car. I'm leaning more towards a more stock arrangement but I'll see how I feel as I get the car to a baseline.
I'd keep it stock. Last year of carb was 85 and 86 was first year for FI that wasn't complete dog poo poo.
OR some nice OEM plus mods that are reversible. Tires, dampers, springs, and good brake pads/lines. Unfortunately stock brakes are barely adequate for anything other than street use at best.
OP,
I like the idea of keeping it pretty much OEM. One thing I do recommend very highly is to get a pair of Maximum Motorsports weld - in subframe connectors:
These are pretty low price but they ABSOLUTELY transform the feel of the car. The Fox platform is a pepsi-can and the rigidity and stability these provide is a big, big improvement. Your car will still look OEM but have a major upgrade from OEM stiffness and stability.
Well, It was a good news bad news kinda day.
Good news is I got all of the registration taken care of and we are all good there. The bad news is there was a puddle of oil under the front of the car when I went out there today. not just a few drops but Exxon valdez level of leakage. So something went south. I'll put it on the ramps after work and see what I can find. That has me a bit concerned.
Looking at the garage, I have the teenage dream car garage from different eras, the Fox Body mustang for the later 80's early 90's. The Integra GSR for the late 90's early half of the 2000's and the Golf R for the current generation.
So the interesting thing is nothing really stood out saying that level of leakage. I wiped down the underside of the chassis and did a visual and nothing jumped out. About the only thing I noticed was that there was no washer gasket on the oil drain plug. So I'll keep an eye on it and go from there. Good thing is that getting it on ramps is no big deal and only takes a couple minutes.
Check the oil pressure sending unit. Pretty sure it's on the driver side above the oil filter, been a bunch of years since I've had a Fox body.
