Show off the little stuff!

Topic: Show off the little stuff! (Read 75347 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #60 – September 28, 2005, 02:22:29 PM

Quote from: CougarSE

Chuck I see why you don't have time for our motor mounts! Your to busy building that f'n sweet looking bird!

Hell the motor mounts are part of the reason I can't get it finished :crazy: I should show you the piles of motor mount stuff I have in the garage waiting to be finished and to get to the plater. I was supposed to work on the cage last weekend, but of course it rained all day Sunday when I was planning on working on it. I'm going to try to get some time with it this weekend though.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #61 – September 28, 2005, 03:57:14 PM

chuck, that is one sweet looking bird.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #62 – September 28, 2005, 05:08:57 PM

Well, I promised some new trivial pictures after work today, so here goes. As always, my camera sucks.. this is the best I can do with it.

Got some fog lights put on the car awhile back, since neither of my Marks have the stock lights on them anymore. Hooray for $20 AutoHole gift certificates and rewards programs. The first two pics also show the grille I painted last night. Two hours of taping, four hours (off and on) of messing with paint, and I'm still not happy with it. Anyway, instead of going black with it, I went with the dark blue that is going to become the main trim color on the rest of the car. (which you'll see a little more of later)

Third pic is that same blue color again, although not a very good job of it. (it tends to show light unless I really pack it on there.. and I just did this to clean 'em up a little) Painted the air vent grilles underneath the wipers.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #63 – September 28, 2005, 05:16:09 PM

In the next pic, you can see I started on the mirrors. I painted the plastic trim rings, and eventually I am going to paint the middle plastic ring (where the mirror mounts to the body) on the mirrors from the '88 and swap them over.. or just tape these off and paint them on the car. Anyway, the mirrors were where I first got the idea to do dark blue trim vs. black.. and now it's taking off to include much of the car.

Last two pics are my new gauges. py SunPro gauges, but they serve their purpose. Unfortunately, the Mark's dash is so cramped for space, (without tearing something up) I had to mount the gauges facing upward toward the windshield. Not the most convenient thing, but it involved the least amount of dash mutilation. Someday I will go back and rework everything, if and when I find a better solution. I was thinking of some kind of raised metal frame that mounted over the top part of the dash without touching it. Since the top of the Mark dash appears to be a separate piece, I'm thinking I can just mount that frame at the seam you can't see when you're sitting in the seat. Hard to explain. I'll mock it up someday. Anyway..

Left two gauges are water temp. and volts.. the green switch on the cluster is the master power switch. If I shut that switch off, you can't light the extra gauges, and the voltmeter dies. There's a 5A fuse just below that cluster. You can also see a red toggle for the fog lights, to the right of the voltmeter.

Right two gauges are vac/boost and oil pressure. The blue switch (all these are lit, btw) controls the gauge lights. This is something I intend to eliminate eventually, when I put the gauge lights on the dimmer. (go fig.. these gauges are too bright, my others are too dim) For now, though, this was the solution that gave me the smallest headache to install.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #64 – September 28, 2005, 05:19:56 PM

Having posted that, let me remind everyone that this is not meant as a fishing-for-praise type thread, or anything like that. (at least, I don't mean it that way.. don't care if that's your motivation or not) It's meant to try to inspire other people, if they need inspiring. It's meant to give other people ideas, if they need or want ideas. Hell, if nothing else, you might be wondering if someone else did a mod you're considering and haven't seen mentioned before.. and might see it here.. and it might help you decide whether or not to continue.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #65 – September 28, 2005, 06:55:10 PM

Quote from: TurboCoupe50

My newly installed, but used, cold air setup. I've insulated it with some header wrap,(cool factor). No I don't know it it helps, car actully seems to run same as it did with the stock air box and a K&N filter.

It very well might help...I originally had my upper intercooler pipe as just bare steel, until I found out just how freaking hot it gets where it goes over the exhaust manifold (hot enough that you can't touch it, I know that much). I wrapped some thermo-tec heat shielding around it, and now you can put your hand on the outside of it even when the car is running. Much better. Of course, it probably also helps that before the pipes were black, and this insulation has reflective foil on the outside of it.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #66 – September 28, 2005, 10:45:46 PM

PLEASE sticky this post!!! This is the first time I've seen it and it gave me a ton of ideas. Great for quick reference!

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #67 – September 29, 2005, 11:41:03 AM

Wow, y'all listened to me? Don't do that too much, I might get a big ego inflation and try to start my own company or something :D

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #68 – September 29, 2005, 12:46:52 PM

i dont have much in the name of little things, other than my little "non-smoking" mod

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #69 – September 29, 2005, 06:31:31 PM

I think I have a few. Right now I'm thinking about what I did to the shifter, this may not be that uncommon: I've seen where people replaced the shifter bushings with solid bushings, but I didn't want to buy any parts so I simply took the upper shifter handle off and pulled the metal shoulders (sleeves) out of the bushing holes. You have options, I just threw one in the black holes somewhere and I cut the other sleeve in half. Now use the halves to go back in the bushing holes and put it all together and tighten the bolts down as much as you dare. This will take all the sloppiness out of the shifter but still dampen vibration. Or you could just shorten the shoulders the desired amount to tighten things up.

I may experiment with doing away with the rubber part and using nuts to bolt the shifter directly to the base bar, but it works great as is, much tighter feel. The only thing to do is replace the soft factory with a hard material for even better feel.

I have more, just can't think right now.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #70 – September 29, 2005, 06:33:56 PM

For the seatbelts, I thought about making some metal sleeves somehow or another to replace the factory plastic "thingy". Some stainless sheet metal would make a sweet sleeve, just need to mount it so it has some flex to it and doesn't bend.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #71 – September 30, 2005, 09:10:59 PM

That would be schweet, but you'd have to be sure it couldn't cut the belt in case of an accident

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #72 – September 30, 2005, 09:35:47 PM

Quote from: Aerobird Motorsports

PLEASE sticky this post!!! This is the first time I've seen it and it gave me a ton of ideas. Great for quick reference!

I'm glad that it's finding use under its intended purpose.

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #73 – October 07, 2005, 10:56:06 PM

5.0 badge :hick:

Re: Show off the little stuff!

Reply #74 – October 08, 2005, 12:22:13 AM

my turn!!!! heres a few things I have done

on the engine pic