I've been working like crazy on my '88 for the past few days trying to get it done for Carlisle. I was planning on revealing it there but since it won't make an appearence, here it is...
wait for it....
just a teaser... wait until I get back from Carlisle ;)
(http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1905/undercoveree6.jpg)
Not cool. At least you get to go, good thing there. You better supply pics, or out come the pitchforks.
That ain't right. :disappoin
pen 15tease :P
Haha, you guys are funny.
Well, here she is....
(http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/6738/finallookxz7.jpg)
(http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8074/fl2oa8.jpg)
I have to work on that hood gap though.
Since I bought this car in Sept 2001, it has had the bra on it. The same bra has been there since then so certainly almost 6 years later, the decision came to replace it or remove it completely.
I have been asked on the street why the bra was there in the first place. Actually when I bought the car, paint was chipped badly off the front bumper and it was missing it's "Mercury" badge. The rest of the car looked so nice that I figured the best way to get around it temporarily would be to put a bra on it. For some reason though, I got used to the bra and liked the look a lot until I felt the urge to put a TC hood on.
I bought this TC hood during my Senior year of high school (2002-03) and promptly put it on the car. It was off a silver TC so that is what I went with. Yes, I drove this car for several months with a silver TC hood and a bra. When I graduated high school, I decided I wanted to put the stock hood back on and there it has been until now.
By removing the bra, the car looked so 'white' that I wanted to put the TC hood back on so that started all of this.
So what work was involved? I repainted the front bumper and painted the TC hood. Due to rust issues, I did some heavy patching work on the lower part of the drivers door and the fender lip on the drivers side. Due to the use of the bra, I now had a nice tan line on the fenders and to rid the car of that, I resprayed both.
On top of all this, I have a set of rust free doors that I plan to install as well as rust free fenders. So rather than pay a body shop to paint the front of the car, I just spray bombed it. I must say, it doesn't look bad at all. The entire car will eventually get a professional repaint once I'm ready for it but for now, this works just fine.
Here's what I started with...
(http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/2337/oldxx9.jpg)
Looks nice man!
good job looks nice!
Thanks guys!
I forgot to mention too. Sometime ago some a$$hatt broke my front license plate bracket. So I removed it and just mounted the tag directly to the bumper. I think it looks better anyway since I have a white tag and a white bumper.
Did you meet up with any of the guy sfrom TSTACC?
If I did, I really didn't know. First time I've heard of the Tri State T-Bird Cougar Club.
Lookin' sharp, man. If I had to choose from any color '88 XR7 (with body-color turbines), I would go with white. It just looks great.
That looks a LOT better, Fred. Excellent! It's nice to see the payoff after all your hard work.
Thanks Zach and Eric.
Now you see why I didn't have enough money left for a brake job. ;)
All this was done on Saturday and Sunday last weekend as well as Thursday and Friday morning. So all in less than a weeks time, I transformed it into it's new look.
The rust I had to contend with was just incredible. I had a hole in the front fender right on the lip about the length of an unsharpened pencil and the entire center bottom of the door was gone.
She isn't perfect by any means but just looks sooo much better now.
These are for anyone who thinks my car is rust free.
(http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8049/fenderrustqi1.jpg)
(http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/9765/doorrustpz4.jpg)
I always liked the white on the 87-88's. Car look great.
did you take out the duct work? mine sat like that when i still had the ducting in there, now it sits lower on the pass. side rear
Looking good Fred.
Looks much better :D
Beautiful car.I usually don't like white cars,but that's great.There's a 20th anniversary cat around the corner from my dad's house here.After really looking at the pic of your car,do one thing,loosen the hood and slide it forward a tiny bit and fill the hood gap.It looks too far back.The hood is above the rear of the front fender line,and too far back at the leading edge.Great car,hands down.
Thanks guys!
Yep. I removed all the duct work and put in new under hood insulation. I'll try to add pics later.
I know about the hood gap, it's something I will be working on. If you really look at the pics, you can see that my header panel sits a little low. Since it's not quite lined up correctly it makes the hood look even more off. Don't worry though, I can't stand the way the hood sits, especially as you said on the passenger rear how it sits up and doesn't line up with the fender. It will all be adjusted ;)
I have a red 88 xr7 and have always loved the white ones. I don't see many white ones anymore. It seems red and black 88's are more common in my area. Your car is awesome
Thanks Matt. It's funny, I haven't seen many red ones compared to white and black so the red is the rare color around me. That's cool.
You need to update your sig now ;)
lol, yeah I do.
I started a new job on the 4th and have been working at least 8 hours a day every day since (12 hour days at one job, and 8 hour days at the other one).
Pulling 120 hours of work in 12 days isn't fun.
I'm finally off Saturday so I'll be getting the two cars together for some photos.
New pics coming soon!