Looks like the driver's side might be missing from the photo. I looked at it a few months ago and don't recall. He had a black '85 TC parts car that came with it when he bought it ... that's the car I pulled the charcoal interior from in one of my older posts.
You're welcome to the snowflakes if that's the direction you want to go. If I can fit them in the car, I could bring them to you at Carlisle this year.
Sounds good, thanks for the offer. I'll let you know ... wheels are on the list, but it's a long list ... ha!
Looks like you aren't messing around with getting it cleaned up.
Want a set of snowflakes for it? I have a set just sitting and collecting dust.
Thank you. Yeah, not messing around ... it will be gone through in detail. Thanks for the offer on the snowflakes. Besides knowing that the hubcaps have to go, I haven't made any wheel decisions just yet.
The biggest issue is probably the trim panels around the rear seat. You're going to have to recover those if you want to change the color.
Is the car remaining a 3.8?
Yeah, the back trim panels would be the only thing that I would really need to alter ... everything else can come off, go into storage, and be replaced with other stock parts.
The drive-train will remain stock ... at least until it would give me some mechanical reason otherwise. If down the road it gets to the point where I have to pull the motor or trans ... well .. then I would be hard pressed to put a 3.8 back in. I have no plans to do that though, just want a nice driver to enjoy.
Looks like she's cleaning up nicely What company did the convertible conversion on these? Did they strengthen the underbody at all, any added cross braces?
Eric's the true historian on these, but as he mentioned, this particular car is a "Car Craft" conversion. The underbody is strengthened with some pretty beefy subframe connectors ... definitely more substantial than anything you would buy aftermarket. The interior backseat area of the car is quite the hack job when you start digging into it. There is some square channel added but it's more for framing out the assemblies for the rear power windows than it is for bracing.
That's a tough one ... I'm not a big fan of red interior personally, no offense to those who have it, just not my thing per se. Other than a cleaning and needing to replace the covering on the consolette, the seating material is surprising good with no rips or tears. The door armrests show the usual breaks and attempted repair jobs. I've been collecting parts over the years and have the better part of two interiors ... a complete charcoal one for any replacements needed on my '85 and then a partial of the darker smoke/raven interior as well. I may try to do some type of combo where I use the stock red in combination with the raven. I can kind of tone down all the red that way while keeping some of the originality. I don't plan to go too crazy with modifying the car, that's what the '85 is for. Anything I change up on the car will hopefully be plug and plug for the most part.
Unfortunately, no. It's kind of hard to check off all the boxes with so few of these out there and available for sale. She's solid having been in Arizona and Texas, runs (although not road worthy), and is pretty complete ... that was the most important thing.
Spent the past few days on detailing. I've made the first polishing pass to about 60% of the exterior. I think the photos make it look a lot better than it really is, but she's cleaning up pretty nicely all things considered. Gutted the interior for cleaning and need to test/replace some stuff ... rear passenger window doesn't work, rear passenger top cylinder is leaking, weather stripping is probably gonna be an adventure to solve for.
Well, the long search is over. I've been on the look out for a Cougar convertible for 2+ years and have finally purchased one. There were several other opportunities along the way that just never panned out for one reason or another ... but "Blanche" (80's Golden Girls inspired) is finally a member of the family. She was an Arizona car for most/all of her "productive" life and was then purchased by a Texas family who collects Cougars (all generations and rare ones at that) in 2001. Since that time, she has only had about 1,000 miles put on her and has spent most of her time stored on a lift collecting dust. She's not much to look at right now, but we'll get her cleaned up and back in action in time. This is a shot of her as delivered in our driveway this past Thursday.
Just got back from a vacation and working on buttoning things back up. Just need to clean up the 3G wiring and attach the fan shroud ... it's just loosely sitting there in the photo and that's why it's right against the tensioner. Decided on putting in a "Contour" electric fan (actually pulled one from a Cougar ... because why not?). Putting the regular fan set up back in for the time being while I acquire the fan controller/relays/misc. and clean up the actual fan assembly itself.
So ... question for those that have done the 3G upgrade ... hoping you can help me. I unplugged the two connectors from the stock alternator and then per the instructions, out of these two connectors, I cut off the black rectangular one. I was going to clean up the wiring a little and upon removing some wire loom and electrical tape, I found that the two black/orange wires from this connector go back into a single black/orange wire. The instructions want you to put ring terminals on each of these wires and then connect them to the back of the alternator. I have enough length in the harness, so my question is ... can I just cut this wire before it splits into two and then put a single ring terminal to the back of the alternator? I don't see how this would hurt anything, but figured I would ask in the event anyone has experience with this or has wired their 3G up the same way.
I don't see why you can't cut the two wires off where they merge into one and just put a ring terminal on that one wire. I did that when I swapped to a 3G without issue.
Thanks. That's what I ended up doing ... just wanted to see if anyone else had done the same without issue. I don't see how it could cause an issue, but I get a little nervous when dealing with the charging system and making modifications. I still haven't finished the wiring, hoping to wrap that up this weekend and start her back up.
What company did the convertible conversion on these? Did they strengthen the underbody at all, any added cross braces?