Jumping In Blind: The Story of My '73

Finally got my new leaf springs painted. I used Eastwood's rust encapsulator. Hopefully ill be able to put them on by the end of this week. I also took a trip out to my secret (not really) junkyard and found an almost perfect set of 72' Torino GT tail lights. These will be an awesome replacement. If anybodys interested I'm considering writing a tech article on installing them. we'll see how how it goes.

 

Oh almost forgot... I'm going to try and modify the tail lights to make them sequential.

 

Today I picked up a rear axle from an 89 turbo coupe for $100. It has posi traction and disk brakes. Also I picked up a hood for $15. Its got some dents but is still usable, I'm going to use it until I can get my grabber hood fixed up. Lastly I got a set of headers for $50. I know that they probably wont fit, but hey, I bet that I can sell them for $80-$100.

 

I started on installing the Torino GT tail lights today, and they look awesome! havn't finished yet, but they are installed and functional. I still have to do some trimming so that they sit flush and arnt crooked. Took lots of pictures an will finish the tech article soon.

 

that turbo coup rear end should be a 7.5 diff. it would be a down grade from the 8" that is stock on your car. sorry to be the bearer of bad news. does it have a tag on one of the cover bolts? or can you post a pic of the cover?

 

A member here is associated with that yard...

http://mmb.maverick.to/member.php?u=13178

 

Sorry its an 88' TC not an 89'.The standard T-birds came with the 7.5 dif. The T-bird turbo coupe came with the 8.8.

more on it here: http://www.coolcats.net/tech/advanced/tcaxle.html

 

Theres a turbo coupe T-bird in the local J/Y here in ocala, complete car turbo 2.3 with a 5 spd...

 

Put the new leafs on yesterday, they went on without a hitch, except for the old bolts being rusted together. Nothing a can of WD40 and an air drill cant fix.
The car now sits 4" higher and I can go around corners faster than 5 mph.

 

where did you order your leaf springs from?

 

I ordered them from General Spring. I would definitely recommend them, their prices were good and the shipping was fast. Heres the link: http://www.generalspringkc.com/index.php

 

Haven't posted anything for a while but that dosnt mean that I havnt done anything. I installed a new fuel pump because the old one was starting to crap out on me. A board member and I went out to the yard to grab some bits and pieces whenit happened. Fortunately the pump still ran, it was just really weak. We raised the idle to 2000 rpm so I could drive it home. (that was fun, the car would go 20mph without any gas) After I changed out the pump I installed new Front shocks and what a difference!

 

Shortly after I changed out the shocks the transmission started to act funny, it would slip and it was really jerky. Shortly after I bought the car I bought a B&M shift kit. So I figured it was time to install it hoping to liven up the tranny a little bit. I pulled the oil pan and found the factory plug that they stick in the dipstick tube during assembly. Thats right, after 38 years of service and 150,000 miles the transmission had never ever had its oil or filter replaced. After trying to install the shift kit and getting oil everywhere I took it to our local auto shop where they cleaned everything up and installed a tranny cooler (for some reason it was missing). I just got it back this morning and it runs like a dream. I would definitely recommend putting in a shift kit, but make sure a shop installs it.