Project Back-to-Life: 84.5 GT350 20th Anniversary Fox !!

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

Alright guys.. heres a fun little project I picked up. Incase any of you know about my other mustang (Joker's old coupe) I still have it and plan to keep it forever. I found this little booger in someones garage in a nice little subdivision in a neighboring city. I picked up the car, the cobra wheels with brand new tires, the stock wheels, an extra roller block suran wrapped on an engine stand and other bits and pieces for only $1400. The paint is old and needs to be resprayed but the body doesn't even have as much as a door ding. The interior is immaculant minus the driver seat has two small tears. I was going to have both reupholstered for about $100 each and get a dash pad for the cracked dash. Carpet and all the paneling and rear seats/hatch area look brand new.

Car is a 5 speed car and the underbody looked clean. A little but of rust under the hatch (I'm told thats usual) and some surface here and there from sitting in his garage for about a year and a half.

Negative Side: MOTOR LOCKED!!! I have it at my mechanics now. The old owner showed me the factory intake manifold where he said he put way too much silicone on it and it didn't seal right and water got into the motor and locked it up. We're gonna find out what happened for sure within the next few days.

Positive Side: Brand new 4-lug cobra wheels with tires that look like they have about 500 miles on them. Motor has MSD billet distributor, MSD 6al box, MSD blaster coil, Edelbrock intake, Holley 650 electric choke carb with carb spacer, Long tube headers, brand new alternator, brand new clutch and fan assembly a long with a few other odds and ends.

Car also came with a clean title, and two important pieces of information: The original sale sheet, and the original FACTORY BUILD SHEET!!! Its a moon-roof car also which made it worth a little more.

Here are some pictures of the car in his garage, the motor, and then some pictures with all four wheels on and my cowl hood I bought just laying on top of it for the time being.

Plan is to rip the motor out today or tommorrow and go from there. Once the motor is fixed and running the car will be re-sprayed white with new gt350 graphic, and at which point then the car will go to the upholstery shop to get the seats recovered and a piece of the headliner fixed. Then she'll be driven on weekends and to local car shows and put in storage when not in use. I plan to hold on to this one for a long time.

Pictures coming soon! A bit too large to upload here.

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

Heres the current pictures. I hope he starts yanking the motor today so I can take some photos.

http://imajr.com/th/garage1_166623.jpg (http://imajr.com/garage1_166623)

http://imajr.com/th/garage2_166624.jpg (http://imajr.com/garage2_166624)

http://imajr.com/th/interior_166628.jpg (http://imajr.com/interior_166628)

http://imajr.com/th/rearhatch_166629.jpg (http://imajr.com/rearhatch_166629)

http://imajr.com/th/enginebay_166622.jpg (http://imajr.com/enginebay_166622)

http://imajr.com/th/hood1_166625.jpg (http://imajr.com/hood1_166625)

http://imajr.com/th/hood2_166626.jpg (http://imajr.com/hood2_166626)

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

Heres an update. When we checked the dip stick the oil looked fine. Then he drained it!!

http://imajr.com/th/onthelift1_166918.jpg (http://imajr.com/onthelift1_166918)

http://imajr.com/th/onthelift2_166919.jpg (http://imajr.com/onthelift2_166919)

http://imajr.com/th/milkshake_166920.jpg (http://imajr.com/milkshake_166920)

[ujslost]

Man what a nice project. I hope your gonna try and keep it restored to original specs.

[TheJeanyus]

http://imajr.com/th/milkshake_166920.jpg
:puke: That's not good.

[QWKSNKE]

Man what a nice project. I hope your gonna try and keep it restored to original specs.

+1

That includes ditching those ground effects. Have you verified that it is an original GT 350 anniversary car?

I always liked those. Haven't seen one in a long time

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

It is an original and it came from greenville, TN with the body kit. It's factory and urethane, not a fiberglass kit that was added. Also yes the factory build sheet and sale sheet list it as a gt350 and a 20th anniversary edition. Also around the key holes it has Limited Edition little plate around it. Car also has paper work of the lady who bought it registering it for the gt350 shelby club register or something like that.

BTW. Motor is F*CKED!! Previous owner definately lied about it "locking up at idle." The block isn't even usable. It broke a water jacket in the black, snapped a coupe rods and broke a piston, broke the crank shaft, and the cam shaft. Top end still seems fine though.. so im in the process of finding a short block...damn..can't really afford a short block for this project.

[QWKSNKE]

It is an original and it came from greenville, TN with the body kit. It's factory and urethane, not a fiberglass kit that was added. Also yes the factory build sheet and sale sheet list it as a gt350 and a 20th anniversary edition. Also around the key holes it has Limited Edition little plate around it. Car also has paper work of the lady who bought it registering it for the gt350 shelby club register or something like that.

.

The body kit is not OEM. Looks like a Saleen kit. All of the body kits for mustangs are made of urethane from what I have seen.

If you don't have it already, here is a website that may help you in your restoration of the car :nice:
http://www.gt350mustang.com/

[coupe]

Wow, that's a great restoration project.

If you can swing it, put it back to original factory specs, those cars are too cool to hack into a strip racer.

Use the other car for that.

And search everywhere to see if those GFX might have been installed at a dealership. That's around the time of Saleen mustang's birth, so who knows?

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

I'm going to go ahead and take pictures tonight of the paper work so I can try to track down everything about the car. I haven't heard of many of the gt350 20th anniversary cars having moon-roofs so I think its a little more rare. I'm restoring the car to factory visual specs but it will have a different motor (ouch) not my fault.. previous owner grendaded it soo bad I can't use it. Going to swap in a stock roller motor and bolt-on all those nice goodies. Motor is out and I found a complete roller motor that needs to be freshened for a mere $100!! YAY!! Hoping to pick it up in about a week to get this damn project going again.

[Italian LX]

I'm restoring the car to factory visual specs but it will have a different motor (ouch) not my fault.. previous owner grendaded it soo bad I can't use it.
It's too bad you can't atleast use the block. Since you plan on restoring it, it would be nice to have the matching numbers in place.

What is the extent of the water jacket damage? Got any piucs? Are you sure the can't be repaired?

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

Theres like a fist punch into the cylinder wall.. pieces of two of the pistons fell out of the pan when we took it off a long with some rods..broke the cam shaft, etc. Block cannot be used. It is a shame but I have to deal with it.

[Craig K.]

Theres like a fist punch into the cylinder wall.. pieces of two of the pistons fell out of the pan when we took it off a long with some rods..broke the cam shaft, etc. Block cannot be used. It is a shame but I have to deal with it.

Keep that block, it sounds like you could maybe sleeve it, is cost some money, but when done right there will be nothing wrong with it.

Go with the $100 cheapy for now, save the original block in a plastic bag in the garage, then down the road have it done.

By the way, cool resto car!!!

[88 Sleeper Coupe]

I don't think its worth sleeving honestly. I'm going to go look at a motor tonight I beleive that I may be using for the swap. I'm going to pinks all out in bristol this weekend if anyones going. I was considering taking the red coupe but might play it safe by taking the supercharged honda daily driver lol...