hey all Quick question here. Just wanted to know how much it cost you guys to rebuild your maverick to reliability status and your liking. And how many of you guys use them as daily drivers I'd like to hear your story and what you go through. Thanks
Mines not a daily, but if I get another one it might be. The way I would build mine it'd probably cost around 3k.
Mine was a daily all through high school, paid 800 bucks for it, and over the course of 3 years, put about 1000 bucks in it. Bushings tires and gaskets. But now it's my street toy but if need be, it can act as a dd.
I'm 14 and I just bought my 75 maverick in February and it's going to be my daily. I got it for 800 then put a new fuel pump, RF lower control arm, swaybarend links, strut rods, RF outer tierod, and front brakes hoses. Before that I ripped out the wet carpet and got rid of the surface rust underneath then sprayed the floors with self etching primer and bedlinner. Now I'm putting in New leaf spring bushings, shackles, and rear brake hose and rear shocks. Also I got rid of the old cracked heater box and leaky heater core and replaced it with a summit racing unervasal heater.
My 71 Mav is my daily driver, and after 20 years I am slowly reworking it when I can on the weekends. Haven't done anything lately, but still driving it daily.
The most important thing you can do, if you want to share the road with modern cars, is to put front disc brakes on it. Newer cars stop so much better than anything that came with 4 drum brakes. You would be at a serious disadvantage in a panic situation. If you run through a deep puddle and get the brakes wet, with drums you have NO brakes until you dry them out, which can be done by riding the brake pedal. The later Mavs/Comets had front discs and power brakes available, but up to 72, all you got were drums. Another safety item ... 3 point retractable seat belts. In general, do you want to trust 40 year old belts? Another thing I would do is an electronic ignition conversion, like Pertronix. Point ignitions are good the moment you put new points in the distributor, and the degrade from that point on. Electronic ignition will make the car start easier and driveability is better overall. It made a world of difference in my cold-blooded motor that has had some performance mods. After that, other improvements like fuel injection to replace the carb, better power steering, and power brakes are choices you might consider, but are not totally necessary. The bottom line is that they do not drive like new cars. So much engineering has evolved in 40 years. If you can live with that, great. I put 90,000 miles on mine between 1992 and 2005.
agreed, discs are a must. My wife has the 72 that we converted to disc (v8 car). she drives it to work 2-3 times a week in a corp office. othe rcars are a new Honda hybrid and a 350 z, hers. she loves her maverick and we built it to be daily driven. suspension, etc. we prob have 5k on top of buying the car. no ac though, which shes regretting but may get a unit next year. mines a 75 250 6 I actually hot rodded as well, but did a lot of suspension upgrades and is very livable daily. it can be done but if your commute involves a lot of stop and go, they suck.
Me and the wife we just discussing this. I paid $300 for my car, and have about $8K into it so far. It is reliable. I still need to put about $4-6K into it to finish it.
