1989 NHP SSP
 

I starting this thread because my intro was getting longer and longer in the "New Member/ Vistors" area and I plan on keeping everyone involved and updated on the resto of my car. So here is a little history of my car and how I acquired it. So here goes....

My car was found by Mike (NHPcars.com) back in the early part of June of this year. He told me about the car and sent some pics. I knew when I saw it in the pics this is the condition of vehicle I wanted. As Mike put it this car, "was lost in time (auction fresh) and in perfect shape for a restoration". When I went to look at the car it was Thursday 7/21/11. That is also the day bought it.

Nobody had done any types of mods to it. The body is straight. No rust seen. Buck tags are in place. It has the original blue rims and full size spare with the Goodyear Eagle M/S. The original exhaust was replaced with what is on there now because the OEM exhaust was falling off. This is exactly what I was looking for. I am looking forward to many years with this car.

I was told by the family that they owned the car for the last 10 years. The wife would drive it to work, they'd all get in it and drive down to Mexico where they have a family vacation home, and the hubby would drive it to Reno occasionally. They parked it about a year ago because their 16 year old son was at driving age and they didn't want him to get any ideas. From what it sounds like the family I bought it from were the second owners, the first owner being a guy that bought it from the auction. The family picked it up in Reno.

I did a little work on the rear bumper with a mild paint remover to try and decipher the unit number. I think it is Unit 262. Other than that all I have done so far is vacuum it(which helped alot:D ), Simple Green the engine bay(also helped a lot), and wash the outside and windows. I have it parked at my buddies auto shop right now and I am putting together a laundry list of things I want to do. The paint you see in the pics is the faded government paint job it received prior to auction. In some of my other pics you can see where this paint is wearing and chipping off to reveal the medium color blue it will wear again(someday).

Here are some more pics.

Here is an example of Fords 1989 Medium Shadow Blue Metallic which is the color code of my car.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...mustang-gt.jpg

Paint flaking and chipping off.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...P/IMG_3092.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...P/IMG_3091.jpg

160MPH Speedometer
http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/DSC01362.jpg

Whats left of the 2 stripes in the door jambs.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...P/IMG_2864.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...P/IMG_3100.jpg

Very cool:thumbsup:
I wonder how many were ordered in that blue.

I have been told NHP ordered 9 SSP's in 1989. I assume those 9 were this color. I've seen a 1988 it was dark blue under the auction paint job and I've seen a 1990 fully restored in dark blue.

That's going to look great when you are finished. Do you know of any other 89's that have surfaced yet?

I don't know of any other 89's for Nevada yet. I am sooooo looking forward to the day she is finished. Till then I will also enjoy every minute of her resto.

I'm bringing this thread back from the dead because some progress is being made. It has been a long time. My car has been resting comfortably in my garage and covered. On Wednesday I took her in to to have the clutch replaced and the tranny rebuilt(if needed). I was called to today with good news. Other than a header stud having to be fixed she's pretty much done and ready to go. The shop did open up the tranny, they said everything was looking good and no need for anything to be corrected. The owner of the shop was surprised and he said the car didn't look like it had been abused like a lot of other Mustangs they get in there. That was great news!! I'll pick her up the beginning of next week. Then on to the next task.

Great great news everyone check this out!!
 

We are moving forward(no pun intended). Some items of good news(and a couple of bad) I wanted to share with all of you.

First off the new clutch was installed and the car drives really nice now. The gear shop that did the work looked into the tranny and said it looked fine and there was no need to tear it down. Awesome. Unfortunately the speedo still doesn't work. :o(

Secondly- I took my car to a more general mechanics shop and while up on the lift look at what was found next to the drivers side muffler.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps4f34c3aa.jpg

At the second shop they found some things that will need to be addressed rather soon. The exhaust is rotting off from the rear cats back, my shocks have all seen better days(most of the shocks are leaking fluid), the water pump is leaking, I need to do valve cover and an oil pan gasket. Anyone have any input on the oil pan gasket? Is it hard to do? I don't have a lift at home. Also I was told I will need to find a timing chain cover for when the water pump is replaced. Does this sound legit?

I took my car into the mechanic today. He's going to pull the motor and go through it so it will be mechanically sound. (timing chain, oil pump, gaskets all around, water pump, timing chain cover, freeze plugs, etc, etc...) I want to make the Ripon show in October.

That's great hope you make the show.

Awesome...Hope to see it again, in Ripon.

Solid progress, we can always use another SSP at Ripon. Keep it coming! :thumbsup:

Progress...
 

Hello Everyone!!

So moving right along here. I picked up my car from the mechanic 2 days ago. WOW. Now she starts with a purpose. I had as much done to the engine without actually having it rebuilt. The reason I decided not to do a full rebuild was because the compression check produced great numbers, no oil was burning and there was just no negative signs. I did tell the mechanic to advise me if he felt something may need to be changed or if and when they did get in there it looked bad then to let me know and we'd do the full rebuild. Heres a list of things changed.

Every gasket, timing chain & cover, water pump, all bolts around the water pump and timing chain cover, serpentine belt, freeze plugs, motor mounts, radiator, clutch on the A/C pump, A/C pump changed over to new freon stuff, oil and filter(of course), oil cooler lines, Negative battery cable, a new oil pan because mine had a dent and had rust on it, and there may be other thing I'm forgetting.

There still is some road dirt and grime around the engine bay. I'll take care of that soon.

Today I pulled my speedo. No, not a tiny pair of swim shorts but the speedometer out of my car. Lol... I pulled it out because it wasn't working. When I turn the mechanism on the back the needle moves for a brief time but then there seems to be a bind which prevents the mechanism from moving. Has anyone heard of this? Is this common with Mustangs? Anyways my speedo will be off to get fixed ASAP.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps9a6648ce.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps546133f7.jpg

more progress....
 

Time has been on my side lately so I've been trying to get some more things done on my car. The heater core was original, to my knowledge, so I felt it was a strategic move to pull it prior to installing new carpet. I recently pulled the seats, carpet and dash to replace the heater core. I'm not in a rush so the project has not been to bad. I actually enjoy these tedious processes like pulling a dash in a Mustang. I did find a gremlin that will need to be fixed. Check out the pictures.

The new heater core doesn't have this nice brace like the old one does.

OLD
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps76dfb0b5.jpg
NEW
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps7bb188af.jpg

This disaster was found under my drivers seat. Any ideas? I've done a lot of sheet metal repair work on other vehicle bodies and I'm confident I can repair this with some 16ga sheet steel. The affected areas about the size of an iPhone. What do you guys think? Whatever I end up doing it will be better than the hack job someone else has already done.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps25db2961.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps1d5e100f.jpg

I left the original padding for the time being. I remember reading that other members reused some of the old padding to make their new carpet fit better.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps3db560a5.jpg

Progress is progress. You should be able to patch that area fairly easily. 'Just another example of how hard these cars were used and abused...

I picked up some great parts out of an 89 4cyl that was getting parted out close to my house. Talk about lucky! I picked up the dash, seat belts as well as some other little parts. The dash and seat belts are both in excellent condition for their age.

My old ones.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps3bb07dc4.jpg

The new ones.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psabc909fd.jpg

Here's the dash. The dash in my car isn't too bad but this new one is just a little bit better. You can see there are little squares or rectangles patches on this dash. I assume these are from where the PO had the Velcro strips for the dash cover.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pse09d3dbd.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pse0789817.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psc3f2cd71.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps82e4dd8a.jpg

Hey what's up everyone? I can't believe it has been two years since I've posted about my car. Wow. Time flies. In the time since I last posted a lot has happened to my car. How do I begin to get all of this adventure down here? I guess I'll just start throwing things down and see how it lays out.

2015

• I removed the interior of my car.
• March of 2015 my seats went for new upholstery.
• the heater core was replaced
• picked up my front seats sometime here in 2015
• had my local auto paint store hand mix a blue color for my interior
• I built a paint booth in my garage(incl. exhaust fan) and painted my interior parts
• Dec 28, 2015 my car was taken for body work and paint

2016

• picked up my rear seat(Nov)
• took pictures of my cars progress at the paint shop
• patiently waiting

Sounds great!!! But we need pictures:thumbsup:

Ok. I'm at work(yesterday and today). When I have a chance I'll load some up to photobucket and post some.

So, in taking the interior out I was hoping for something neat like most of you have found. You know something like some spent ammo, sunflower seeds, change, a cigarette butt or two.....something. Literally all I found was a rock. :headscratch: I still have not located a build sheet.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pspgwvanba.jpg

Maybe it was the Troopers worry stone;)

So here are some pics of my temporary paint booth and painting of the interior parts. I'm showing this mainly because this was a cheap way to paint the interior pieces indoors. With the fan set up the overspray was almost non-existent. The boxes were from 2 garden sheds we had purchased for our side yard. Everything was taped together. It all worked perfectly for the time it was up.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps82fr8vgw.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps3g8wrwks.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psog5hm1xf.jpghttp://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psxhfjulzf.jpg

Some more pics of my interior parts.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps7xjuedfc.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pshjo1bb74.jpg

Enroute to the paint/body shop 12/28/2015.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psltwdehfo.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pssuksuopn.jpg

01/28/2016- Body work.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psjb2jwcrz.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pskn6fcgoi.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps7wfd5kwv.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps5enjp7jh.jpg

Primed- 03/24/2016

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps8ahpi8mi.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psfbhyr2xr.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psy5uioocn.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psc16lsyyx.jpg

04/19/2016Between primes and hand sandings.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps0tficxue.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps6kgqjive.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps123iffjf.jpg

07/28/2016 The bumpers were sent out to a separate company for restoration and a prime. I had them leave the holes for the Buddy Bumpers though. I couldn't see any reason to patch the holes when I was going to reinstall the bumpers anyways.

The shop made a template for the roof line paint too.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psvwc2nkgb.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psifjeqsul.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pslkfxbbpo.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...psu9jjbnvt.jpg

Thanks for the pics! I actually like the small booth you made pretty smart:cool: Nice to see progress it gives us all motivation... I cant wait to see more:2thumbs:

10/26/16 Waiting to be wet sanded.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ps3dbmkoq3.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pshstxxi8b.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pseqay2uzn.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...pshyxsn599.jpg

Came out beautiful! :2thumbs:

I'm not going to lie Michael when I first saw it a tear came to my eye.

Then I remembered I still had to reinstall the interior and many tears came to my eyes. lol.....

Where did you locate windows for your car? Or did you use your originals?

That looks so nice!

LOOKS BEAUTIFUL :cool:

Nice!!!!

spraying the interior is a tedious task but really makes a car "pop" especially when it has brand new paint. Glad to see you taking the time to do it. The progress on your car makes me want to jump into the 86 car.

What color silver did you use for the roof?

The interior reinstall isn't all that bad, just hope you took notes/photos on the correct sequence to follow.

The glass shop located an original Carlite windshield for me, which was not at all easy a dozen years ago. The quarter windows came from eBay at a time they were expensive but not astronomical. All the other glass is original.

It is always a great feeling when you get one out of "Paint Jail" It really looks sharp, well done.:2thumbs: