Skip to main content

Topics

This section allows you to view all Topics made by this member. Note that you can only see Topics made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - Tbird232ci

1
Lounge / Post your Christmas loot.
I know I'm late as hell with this. I'm actually amazed that out of the 6.21 active members we have, no one has beaten me to this.

As I've gone into my 30's, and become an actual adult, the gifts stop being as much fun as they are useful.

Anyways. Most of the stuff I got:

-Grilling seasonings
-Buffet serving trey
-Bunch of higher quality disposable dishes (We host a lot of small parties)
-Fight Club based painting
-Mustang key chains

I know I'm forgetting some stuff, but that's the majority of what I got.

I purchased a bunch of stuff for myself, but that's a totally different story.
2
Lounge / So what can we do...
...to drum up some more traffic over here?

I've been back on the forum for roughly a year now. Even in that year, I have seen activity decline. I have been making an effort to visit here every few days, and somewhat post w.

A lot of us, just because of our age and scene, are not very good with social media. I have an Instagram account that I'm hardly active on, primarily because I have no clue what the hell I'm doing with it. I started the account with the intention of trying to bring awareness to these cars, and this forum again. I do follow a couple people who I know are/were members of this forum, and they post much more regularly.

While Facebook certainly hurt the forums, I do try to link people back here from time to time.

I know our numbers are dwindling, but do you guys have any ideas on how to maybe reach out, and find some more members to bring in here, or to get people coming back once again? Maybe something to help make the forum more appealing?
4
Lounge / Vintage audio gear
My girlfriends parents had a moisture issue in their basp00get, and I "rescued" their vintage audio gear. Most of the stuff has something wrong with it, but I'm hoping it can be repaired.

Her father was in the army in the 70's, and that is when the receiver, tape HK tape deck and turn table was purchased.

The receiver is a Kenwood Eleven. Apparently these were only available on military bases. I didn't spend much time trying to mess with it, but it does power up, the dials all seem to work, but there is no backlighting. This thing is HEAVY.







The tape deck is a Harmon/Kardon HK2000. He told me that it was top of the line when he bought it. As far as I know, it works. I do know the dials illuminated but I didn't hook anything up to test. It desperately needs to be cleaned.



The turn table is a Dual 701. After a little research, it appears to be a very nice unit. The issue that it has was that it was hard to get the motor to start. He would have to spin it multiple times to get it to work.





The lesser tape deck is a Montgomery Wards Airline tape deck. It's just a cheap take deck, but I included it in the post as it's just neat to see.



For now, I'm just going to clean the stuff up and find a place to store it until I have some extra time and/or money to get it fixed.

I do think I know of an old feller on this forum that may know a thing or two about these old electronics.
6
Lounge / Want a fun trip down memory lane?
Go into your control panel. I go through my PM inbox, and then the menu on the left had "Attachments".

Click that and it lists every attachment you've uploaded to the forum.

Since I've lost 90% of the pictures I've ever had since I was a kid on these forums, this was an awesome blast from the past. Brought back a lot of memories.
7
Engine Tech / TFI modules
Now that Motorcraft TFI modules seem to be outsourced , what TFI modules are you guys having the best success with?
8
User Rides / Back in a fox. 1988 Turbo Coupe. The life journal.
Well, it's been over 10 years since I've had my last Thunderbird.

To sum it all up, I sold off and got rid of all of my cars to be able to move out of my parents house. I moved into an apartment. I had my Trans Am as my daily driver and picked up an 87 Shelby Charger as a project/money pit/backup driver. I changed jobs. I ran both cars into the ground for the most part and sold the Shelby to a co-worker. I picked up my 2013 Scion FRS as my daily driver and it has been an awesome car. Girlfriend and I bought a house with a garage. I got a wild hair, decided I wanted a badass exotic car...and then ended up with a Turbo Coupe.

You may have noticed that I tossed in "The life journal" into the title. The main reason for that is because everything I'm doing in life tends to change what I'm doing automotively. For example, I had some money saved up in an automotive fund. My initial plan was to put money into this fund every week until my Scion was paid off so I could put a hefty down payment on something more exotic. I ended up joining a garage forum, which made me realize that I really should get my garage in a place where I'm happy with it before getting another car. I was getting close to buying some flooring for the garage, and then the TC bug bit. Also, I was planning on buying new tool boxes for the garage, so I sold one of mine to a new guy at work to help him out, and that money slid right into buying the TC. So now that the TC bug bit, I have to hold off on the garage work. In addition to that, I have to get the Trans Am back together before the TC comes in because of the size of my garage. So really, this thread will dospoogeent most of my automotive happenings, along with some of the home projects, garage projects, and any other nifty stuff I see fit.

I'm also going to apologize for any py photo quality up front. My current phone (OnePlus Three) has been dropped a few times and now the camera can't focus anymore. It was an awesome camera up until that point. Now I have to use my OnePlus One camera, upload the photos to Google Drive via WiFi, then put them onto my computer and then upload to a host.
9
Lounge / On the fence.
So these days, I'm at a better point in life to where I started planning on buying another toy. I still have my Trans Am, and love it, but have been looking to get into something different. If any of you know me, you will all know I have automotive A.D.D. My attention span is short, and I'm often directed by opportunity.

So one day, I was in my Scion heading to work, and I heard the unmistakable sound of a V10. Mind you, the area I live in is an odd blend of white trash and high rollers. I searched my mirrors and only saw a bit of the roof. The car finally passes me and I see that it was an Audi R8 with a V10. This sparked the desire for something a bit more unique. This sparked weeks of "Affordable Exotics" searches on Google and reading terrible articles and blog posts. Am I the only one that noticed that journalism and writing these days is just horrid? At this point, this is where my A.D.D got rolling.

So because of the distinctive sound of the R8, I started thinking of what car I could get to have that "Look at me" sound. Most V8 cars within the price range I was looking at sounded generic regardless of whatever exhaust you put on it. That brought me to a second generation Viper. I spend a few weeks digging and reading and honestly falling in love with the car. The cars end up being fairly affordable if you are able to get financing. Because of needing financing, I intended on paying off my Scion before purchasing a Viper. This actually led to the turn-off for me. Now that the Viper is discontinued, the values are projected to go up roughly 50% by the time that I'm ready to purchase.

Another car I was digging into was the Lotus Esprit. The Twin Turbo V8 cars made pretty good power, and had a unique sound that I was looking for. The 5-speed transmission was really the weakest link in the car, which I wasn't overly concerned with. The fit and finish of the car is...mediocre at best, being as it is a Lotus, but man is it a good looking car. With any car I intend on buying, I start to look at auto parts sites including Rock Auto. The issue I ran into was that there was so little parts availability. Once you found parts, the costs were outrageous. If I recall correctly, a front brake job, without calipers, would still cost roughly 1000 bucks. It's an affordable car to buy, but not to own.

After the sticker shock of the Esprit, I started digging into the Exige. In all honesty, the Exige is a car I really want. They are a bit of a hardcore car. Parts are obtainable, and relatively affordable. There is a large aftermarket, and a lot of performance to be had. The community is very active and helpful. It is honestly what I want in a car. The problem lies in the fact that I have to wait until the Scion is paid off, and finance another car. My lack of patience, automotice A.D.D. and not wanting to add much more to my debt means that I'll likely not get the Exige.

So the pace of this story changes a little bit here. While I not only have automotive A.D.D., I have a bit of hobby A.D.D. in general. I took a bit of a break from researching and shopping for cars, and dug into some other hobbies. I also started getting working on the Trans Am since I've had parts for it sitting for years. It was a well needed break because I started feeling that I needed to make a decision. It's almost when you're dating, and you're talking to a few people, and they all start trying to force you to make a choice. It makes you not want anything.

Last week, I was BS'ing with a good friend of mine over Facebook. He has a first generation Neon with an SRT4 swap. He was talking about purchasing a Turbo, and I reminded him that I offered him a hybrid that I have had for a few years that required a rebuild. He declined for something else he already had a lead on, but then said "You should get another TC". What I failed to mention was earlier that day, I was thinking about a TC and what I would like to do with one on my ride to work. On my lunch break, I decided to search for Turbo Coupes on eBay and other various sites. I eventually found on within a few hours of me for 2500 bucks. It had one picture and a bunch of parts to go with it. Unfortunately, the owner hasn't responded to me as of yet.

So for the moment, I am passively looking for a TC. I'm not sure if I will buy one right away, or hold off for something very specific, but that's where I'm at...for the moment.
10
Lounge / So lets catch up
Well, I haven't been around much since probably 2008. Back then, this forum was bustling with new members and a majority of the anchor members were still around. I do recall that a lot of the senior members were getting frustrated with the younger demographic coming into the forums and essentially spamming, but that was just how it was.

So, in that 8 or so years, a lot has happened.

In probably 2009, I had some things happen that made me step back and look at my life. I was, living with my parents, and chained down with car projects. All of my money was going into my cars. I ended up parting out my 5.0 project car, gave away my TC, had a Shelby Charger that I sold, but I still had the Trans Am. Somewhere in 2010, I moved out of my parents house and into my apartment. I lived there for a total of 6 years.

While I lived there, I got a new job as a mechanic for UPS, which ended up being a significant pay raise. I was hired as an apprentice (primarily for cost savings on their part) which had a four year progression to journeymen. I got my CDL, met all of the requirements, and got promoted to journeymen earlier this year.

In the mean time, I picked up another Shelby Charger with the idea to have a fun daily driver while I let my Trans Am sit. It ended up becoming another project. I had tons of parts and broke tons of . I ended up flip/flopping which car was used as a daily depending on which broke. Eventually, the Trans Am broke, and the Shelby Charger broke more. At this point, my co-worker bought the Charger, and I bought my Scion FRS.

As of September of this year, I bought my first house.

As to what brought me back here: I've been contemplating another fox bird. I have a few years until I pull the trigger, but I'm trying to rebuild my knowledge and get back into the community. I have to get my Trans Am road worthy again, fix my fathers Mark 8 as he is giving it to me needing a lot of work, and probably get my Scion paid off before I make any moves.

So those are the big things that have gone on in the past 8ish years. What have I missed?
11
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars FOR SALE / 88 TC parts car.
The body is shot, but the car is mostly complete. The interior is in pretty good condition, the motor is almost complete, but it does not run. I can get pics as requested.

Asking 300. Come and trailer it home.
12
User Rides / The Trans Am
Well, not much news about the Trans Am, haven't told many the story yet.

I got the car, it needed lifters and a pushrod. I did the lifters and new pushrod and drove the car for a while. I was driving around and the car overheated pretty bad. I get it home with no issues so I refill, pressure test, and find a hose leak. Replace the hose, refill and go to drive it again. Turns out I get left stranded about 30 miles from home. Got it trailer'd home. Come to find I blew a headgasket.

Now for those of you who know me, I can't tear anything down, and just replace parts. I did rebuilt heads, 1.6 roller rockers and a full valvetrain, long tube headers and full exhaust, and a bunch of odd's and ends. Took me a while, but it's finally back together.

Here are the pics:









13
User Rides / The Daily Driver Shuffle.
So I haven't posted too much here. Figured I'd get everyone up to day as to what I've been daily driving and the like.

I'm sure everyone remembers my black TC, so I wont post pics.

Anyways, this was the LX that took place of the TC as far as daily driver duties:



And thankfully I kept the TC around because of this:





So after this, the TC was put back on the road, until I blew the rear. So thats two clutches, a transmission, two turbos, an engine, and a rear. I gave the car away as it was because of my frustration, and replaced it with this:



This was the worst mistake I made. Overpaid, put in far too much money, broke it many times over, and had it running correctly for maybe 20 minutes before I broke it. Worst of all, no one will buy it. I have more money in parts than I'm asking for the whole thing. It's going to the junkyard.

Now the current driver:



Got the car for a steal. Needs lifters, and luckily for me, a buddy of mine has a hookup. As long as nothing too bad happens, I'll be keeping this one for a long time.
14
Lounge / Deer arn't to be messed with.
I found this story a long time ago, decided to copy and paste it here:

As I sit here behind this laptop, I now realize that this definitely wasn’t the brightest idea I have ever had. I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.

The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out.. ..a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw.. ..my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step towards it…took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A deer– no chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature
off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere.

At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn’t want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand…kind of like a squeeze chute.

I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist.

Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head –almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.

It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.

While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.

I learned a long time ago that, when an animal — like a horse — strikes at you with their hooves and you can’t get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.

I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head.

Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the prey.
15
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars FOR SALE / My 88 TC up for sale.
It's time for me to move on to bigger and better things in life. The 2.3T ride has been run, but I had a lot of things go on in my life as of recently, and it's time for some changes.

I'm selling the car, and my stash of 2.3T parts. Everything is going, other than a few odds and ends, and my Tri-ax and .

The run down of mods/parts:
-SC50 turbo (needs wastegate actuator)
-Bobs log with no EGR.
-RR cam
-Race engineering cam pulley
-Under drive pulleys
-Custom cold air intake
-HKS SSQV blow off valve
-3G alternator (soon to be installed)
-Catch can setup.
-2-core aluminum radiator with 1" thick cores, aluminum shroud and 14" fan
-Chuck W motor mounts
-Poly transmission mount
-Aluminum transmission crossmember bushings
-Walbro GSS340 fuel pump.
-Custom clutch, chatters a little if you don't give it a good amount of gas
-New flywheel
-Stinger exhaust, custom hung, with a magnaflow cat, hooker maxflow ler, and a DMH performance cutout.
-5-lug conversion using Mark VII rotors, axles, and caliper brackets.
-Cross drilled/slotted rotors.
-Poly swaybar bushings and endlinks.
-Spearco 20psi boost gauge on the pillar.
-Hallman Pro boost controller.

Parts included, but that wont be installed.
-FMIC setup. I have a 25x12x3" FMIC, four 2.5" U-bends, four 2.5" 90* bends, and four 2.5" 45* bends. I also have a weld on  for the blow off valve.
-SVO T3 with ATP adapter .
-Spare E6 manifold.
-Motorsport C-springs for the front, and SN95 springs for the rear.
-Almost new, stock fog lights.
-Aluminum 5-lug spare. Needs a different tire put on, but the spares are hard to find.
-I have tons and tons of spare parts, and stuff. My friends have dibs on some of it, but I can dig up what I have.

The bad stuff.
-The car needs shocks and struts. I intended on putting Koni's on it when I did the springs, but time/money hasn't gone my way.
-The car needs tires.
-The door bottoms are rotten out
-Needs paint
-Interior is a little rough. It wouldn't be hard to take care of if you have some time.
-Transmission whines a bit. It goes in and out of gear beautifully, shifts great, it just whines a bit.
-Rear end has a little vibration. I drove it like this for a few thousand miles with no issue other than a little annoyance here and there.
-I have no trunk key. This is no real big deal considering the car has keyless entry, and has the electric trunk release in the glove box.
-Rubber brake lines.
-Rear brake work (I have the parts)
-No A/C. It didn't work, so I chopped the lines, pulled the compressor, and condensor. I have the compressor and bracket, so if you were to get lines, a dryer, and condensor, it would be made to work.
-Needs valve stem seals (I have them also)

This car is fully loaded, it has everything but the automatic, which is worth not having. It has red leather interior thats a bit rough, and has a cracked dash, but what bird doesn't these days? I have a few pictures of the car on here, and of the exhaust setup. I'll get more once I clean all of my junk out of it.

http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/Tbird232ci/TC/

The car is very solid, never been in an accident that caused actual structural damage. I've had it on a lift, and looked for evidence of a bad accident, and there is none. The radiator support is bent upwards, but that's because it was pulled out of a ditch by a knucklehead.

I'm trying to get 3,000 for the car, and everything included. If the car doesn't sell with everything, I'd consider selling just the car, with the SVO T3 on it, intercooler without the BOV, and none of the other performance parts that I have sitting around.

I am a bit negotiable, and may or may not be willing to do some work on the car. This car is not getting parted out, and I'm not selling off any parts until the car is sold.