Alright so here is the story for this car.
Originally this 88 tc was supposed to be the donor car for my red 88 tc. My dad bought this of intentions of it going that way. Well after doing some digging in the snow one day. I realized that this car has a better body then the red car, all it needed was to be put back together. So I bought the car from him and the work began. Well I have the interior done with all new black and grey leather, and also a repainted crack free dash that came from my dads 86 parts car. Witch is now gone.
Before I started putting the interior back together it was a mess. The original owner was in the middle of pulling all of the electrical out to swap over to a 5.0 well i didnt wanna go that direction so i put everything back the way it should be. There was wires all over on the passenger floor bored. I wished i would of taken pictures of it before i went to cleaning it out to show you how much of a cluster the wires where. Well after about a week the interior was done and then it sat till I had some more money saved up to do the engine.
Well now im working on getting the motor working again and learning from the story of the original owner he had blown a head gasket. Keeping I mind that this car only has 90k miles on the clock I wanted to keep the Same motor in, and once again all of the engine wire harnes has been unplugged from everything for the 5.0 swap. Well I have everything out of the way to pull the head out and get the head rebuilt.
Thats as far as I've gotten on the project so far and im hoping here soon with In the week that I can pull the head and possible the motor to get it cleaned up and repainted.
Still can't decide wat it will look like when its final but im thinking of keeping the black them and have everything blacked out to have a murdered 88 turbo coupe. But who knows I might throw some red on it somewhere. But still a decision to be made down the road.
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Also forgot the mention this is a southern car so no rust anywhere that I could find.
The mess of wires that it took me 2 days to figure out what went where and labeled everything.
New air box witch was a pain to put in after trying to find and the nuts and bolts for it.
Repainted 86 dash installed. And dont worry I didnt just throw the wires behind it. Everything has wire tubing around it and the single strands are zipstriped.
Trunk wires organized and I also wired up new alpine deck speakers.
Carpet vacuumed, and shampoo
New leather put in. Leather has been treated with Black Majic leather care.
Looking good :).
Nice job!
Thanks. I found a set of tinted tail lights in the pile of parts so those will be getting put on, along with tinted head light covers.
Well ganna try and work on removing the head this weekend to get it in and rebuilt. Hoping all goes well.
Looks like a solid car! Keep up the good work and keep us updated.
Well no progress on removing the head but I did find out that one of my friends has a 2 drag radial tires wraped in mustang wheels. Just cant figure out what year of wheels they are so I can buy 2 more. If I get them I'll post a picture to see if y'all could help me.
BlackBirds forever!
Keep up the good work on that beauty.
Ron
Got some drag wheels. And im starting to like the rims. Just need help to find another 2 for the front to have them match. I know they came off an 83 mustang just can't find any for sale.
Search for 10 hole wheels. Very common wheels. Also came on TCs and XR7s.
Edit: I think they started using 10 holes around 1985.
PM sent
The one tire looks pretty cracked?
Looking good. I have a triple black bird as well. I am fitting some Crager soft 8's on mine. You know you can get OEM carpet in black right?
yes the one tire is cracked, I dont really plan on actually driving long ways with these tires on, there more for just my entertainment. I put them on the car to see if I would even like the style or if i just waisted $50, and well I actually like the style of having drags on the car. I thought about later on down the road getting my enkei rims raped in nitto drags radials. I don't want slicks I'll prolly go a step above slicks, but oh well back to reality on the motor. The head is in the shop and trying to get my hands on a valve cover from jangus.
Just love getting told from the upholstery shop that they cant recover my sun visors just because of there being a mirror on them. So now I have a redun headliner and sun shade but shiznitty sun visors ya that's going to piss me off.
Well starting to work on the motor. Just droped the head off at the shop to get cleaned. But the only problem I found today was I think the motor is locked up from sitting so long. I have the cylinders soaking in oil right now hopeing tomorrow ill be able to turn the motor. If not looks like im ganna be doing an engine swap. Fingers crossed.
Rebuilt head. Ported and polished .30 over. Roller cam, high compression springs. Can't wait to put it on.
Find another upholstery shop. I had a local seat cover/upholstery shop do my visors when I changed to a black headliner. I did the headliner myself and it turned out pretty nice but was a royal pain with the moonroof. They charged me $80 to do the visors with my leftover headliner material and I sprayed the red mirror covers with a black plastic paint. Turned out pretty nice changing a lot of the red to black on the interior.
1990-1994 Explorer visors are a direct swap and have the large mirrors like our cars fwiw.....