Resurrecting my 91!

Hey I'm finally getting my 91 back on the road. It hasnt been drivin since 04. I have started it every 6 months or so, and as always it never fails to start on the first crank even with green gas. Its going to take some work to get her road worthy again. New tires, the timing belt has never been done so thats a first. It has an exhaust leak at the manifold which sucks and is not going to be fun to fix because its on the fire wall side. Its going to need a respray, and the front seats redone, and she should be like new.
Afew years back I did do the upper 60, and all the valves were in spec. One was just barely off by less than a fraction, so I didnt worry about it.
Here's my sad looking 91

Hers the 92 with only 80K miles

Here's the 98

Here's the 2011

 

Sweet lookin' cars! And no rust on the 91? Wow! Looking forward to progress on this resto ...

 

Rust free. The body is perfect. It has no dings or anything, so it should be easy to repaint.
It also has the plastic SHO plus hood.

 

Paint that baby black!

 

Good luck and keep us updated on your progress. Oh, and by the way, GEN1s ROCK!

 

Ok guys tomorrow I'm getting started. First thing is to fix the exhaust leak which is going to make or break the whole deal. Keep fingers crossed that I dont break a bolt off in the head, which I read is common. If everything goes well there then i'll start on timing belt, waterpump, crank sensor which has been replaced in the mid 90s, but might as well knock it out. I did an upper 60k on it a few years back, and every valve seemed to be in spec. Is this common? After all thats done new tires and get the tag up to date, and she'll be ready to go.
Wish me luck on fixing the exhaust leak at the manifold

 

Good luck, and looking forward to your progress logs!

 

Soak EVERYTHING in PB Blaster or the likes TODAY. Let it soak all night, then spray it again when your starting.

Even on my Explorer with 200k that has no rockers and more rust than pain, when I did a transmission swap and I only broke one bolt and it was on the cat flange.. and thats 200k of driving in New England winters.

Good luck and I love the Fleet you have.. Also, I forgot how silly gen 2's looked with factory ride hight!

 

Yes! Whats up with that? Me and my dad were wondering if all of them were that way. The 92 I bought for nothing. It had 56k miles on it when I bought it 7 years ago, but half the windows were busted out and the clutch was tooast. I bought it for $700:woo-hoo:

 

Very nice. Im jealous.

But yeah, stock ride high is the equivalent of a 4X4 most of the time.

 

Well theres some good news and bad. Good news is the exhaust leak is not at the manifold its at the donut. Bad news is the throw out bearing is making a little noise which I hope will go away, but my luck probably wont. The motor purrs like a kitten. So we are going to do the lower 60 on it next weekend, and get it tagged and some new tires and shes ready to go. The interior is kinda ruff. Its gonna need new carpet, and the front seats are gonna need to be redone.
Does anyone have a set of front seats that are in good shape they would like to sell?

Heres a few pics of it after we washed it off. She cleans up nice, I should have taken a pic before we power washed it.

 

Looks like a completely different car!

 

Ya the only place the paint is bad is on the hood and on the roof. The rest of the body work and paint is nearly flawless. ZERO rust. The interior is not so good. I'm gonna order new carpet, and the seats might be too far gone. I'm soo excited to get to drive my 91 again, it was always my favorite.

I bought the timing belt, water pump, and cranksensor today so i'll get started on that asap.

Thanks for the kind replies.:thankyou:

 

Awesome pics! The seats, I think if you troll thru the classifieds there are a few people who can get stuff from JYs for you. But front seats ARE an in-demand commodity ...

 

I drove it around my neighborhood today, and it runs ok, but at around 3-4k rpms it falls on its face. At first I thought the secondaries were not opening, but checked that and they were opening. Then I thought maybe a fuel problem, but it holds great fuel pressure, so it comes down to the old original timing belt with 190k miles on it, and a bad exhaust leak. all getting fixed this week so after that it should run strong. I checked compression all cylinders were good. Valves are with in spec, so after the lower 60k is done it should fingers crossed scream again.

You guys with 200k on your SHOs does yours still run close to as good as it did new?

 

I thought my white '89 with 158K ran decent.

Took the 10K '89 out a few days ago. Damn!! It runs GOOD!!

Dunno the diff, but the original 10K car would kick the crap out of the 158K car!!

 

I'll tell you what Ron my 92 with 80k miles has never ran as good as my 91 did in its hay day. Me and my dad have never figured out why. The 92 runs great dont get me wrong but that 91 when we first got it would scream! It smoked my 88 mustang Gt. The 92 has had a lower 60k done but not an upper 60k. We didnt bother because when we did the upper on the 91 at 180k all the valves were all in spec, so we figured the 92 would be in spec also. we are gonna check it this winter because the plug wells are filling with oil, so we might as well check it when we fix that.

Oh btw I would give my leftie for your 89.lol

 

My white 94 when I parted it with 185k ran better than most SHO's ive been in witha stock motor. That car pulled on a gutted 90 and i was a full interior car with just a y-pipe.

My current SHO with a full exhaust and when it had the BBB intake still didnt have the punch the white cars motor had.

These motors have awesome personalities from car to car.

As far as making yours scream, just use the right parts and take your time and it will be nice in return!

 

Guys I'm also going to go ahead and replace my rod bearings. How hard of a job is it to do? I'm scared to death to do it, but I know it needs to be done.

 

How To Do Rod Bearings