Sunday, April 27, 2008

Wow - Work - Plus a new-old car

Wow.. spent the whole weekend cleaning up cars. That's a lot of work. Washed both the old van and the F150, vacuumed them both out, waxed the truck, armor all'd both of them and more. That's the bi-annual cleaning I guess.

On the other side we picked up yet another vehicle to add to the mess. A beat up 1988 Turbo Coupe Thunderbird. I had a 1986 TC back in 1986 and loved that car. The 87/88 version came out and it was even cooler. I never could afford an 87/88 but drove the 86 for over 10 years until it was crunched in two accidents within three months, neither of which was my fault. Recently I noticed 87/88 TC's showing up on ebay and other places and one appeared in the local Craigslist so I thought I would check it out. It is much rougher than I wanted BUT it does have a pretty much unmolested engine/tranny which are the hardest parts to find. My son and I spent most of the day Saturday doing a complete clean up of the interior since it was quite dirty.

I had hoped for a driver that I could detail and eventually rebuild but this one is going to require much more work than that. First up is a freeze plug replacement BUT it's the plug between the block and the flywheel so I guess the whole engine/trans is coming out and being rebuilt which is way more up front than I planned.

In the mean time we did take it down the block and back slipping clutch and no boost included. At least the brakes worked well!