Restoring a 1993 MTX

[Macgyver]

Hello all! Longtime lurker, first time poster. I bought a 93 SHO MTX in January that I planned to flip. It had just turned 100k miles. I've had a couple of these cars, and really like them. This car turned out to be super clean and almost 100% rot free. The only thing I thought it needed was some minor interior work. It has the half/half gray upholstery that had some minor cracking on the driver seat, and the seat valances were cracked and pieces were missing.

I purchased a 95 MTX as a parts car and took the passenger upholstery and put it on the drivers seat. I scrubbed the carpet, got valances from a 95 non SHO and painted them to match my car and replaced the head liner. The car looked great, but I wanted to fix some peeling clear coat. I work at a body shop and have now decided to restore this car.

Here is a pic of it when I got it.

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Here is a shot cleaned up after the ice melted:

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I'll post more pics of the progress soon!

BTW. What's the best way to post photos? These look small when I preview them. Can I link to my Google+ album?

 

[Art5]

use photobucket.com for photos.
Take those sideskirts off and see, how's the metal under it.
My car was very nice, except for small rust spot under the gas tank door. delayed the whole repair procedure for almost 2 years. Finally started doing it this year and turned out small spot was a huge one. had to cut up a lot of crap off my quater panel, then went on to rocker panels and untill I started getting close to bare metal, wouldn't tell, that this car had any rust.
These damn cars rust on the inside, so watch out. Parts on my car felt like they were out of foil.

 

[Macgyver]

Thanks for the heads up about Photobucket. I've had an account for years but I tend to use Google Picasa instead.
I searched for quite a while before I purchased this car. It didn't come cheap, but it is an excellent starting point. Here is a better shot of it.


I had planned to flip this car, but I'm enjoying working on it with my oldest son.
The first thing I did to it when I got it was to look for a parts car. I found this:

This car cost me $300. I took the passenger upholstery from it an put it on the drivers seat of my car. I had hoped to use it for more, but this car was pretty rough. I managed to sell it for $500. Here are some shots of the seat being done.



You can see in the last image there are no valances on the seats. I found it very difficult to find gray valances that weren't smashed to bits. I found a 95 Taurus in a boneyard that had a mocha Bucket seat/console interior. The seats were SHO style, so I grabbed both valances and repainted them.

I used Ford gray engine paint after I cleaned and thorougly prepped them. The final appearance is fantastic. These late model valances have more ribbing in them. I think they'll hold up nicely.
More to come...

 

[Art5]

these parts of the seat are getting smashed , no matter what, unless you reinforce lower cushion like I did. The only difference is that I use my seat in my room now instead of arm-chair and bucket seats in my car.

 

[Macgyver]

I did add some extra padding to the seats, but the original ones were so brittle from age that they didn't stand a chance. The second I went near them with a screwdriver to remove the switches they disintegrated. I have considered upgrading the seats, but that'll have to wait until the body is done. This is a stock resto with the possibility of a slight performance twist.

I think if I tried to bring the seats in the house as lounge chairs my wife would shoot me.

Back to my story...

While the seats were out I had a chance to really clean everything inside. I pulled out the carpet and cleaned it. I actually disassembled almost the entire interior because I needed to re-do the headliner. Here are some pix:


The original headliner never sagged, but was at the point that if it was touched it would turn to dust. I've never seen one do that. When I went to remove the foam from the backing, it was still stuck to it very firmly. I got it all off, but damaged the shell in the process. I tried to locate another shell, but had little luck. I decided to try to fix the one I have. Once all of the foam was removed, I painted it with Kilz primer to "tighten" it back up. After I let it dry, it seemed pretty sound. I applied the new headliner as usual and so far it seems OK.


Here are some shots of the interior during the cleaning process:






I don't have any shots of the interior completely disassembled. These show it nearly done with just the seats needing to go back. It will all be coming back out as I plan to move forward with new paint work and floor repairs.

Speaking of floor repair here are some shots of the only rust I found in the car:


I noticed that when I power washed the cowl vent area, this area was getting wet from the inside. I know many Tauruses do this, I've seen newer ones that are much worse. Is there a problem with the HVAC drain? I'd like some advice here. I got a small section of roof panel from an 03 Tahoe that I plan to patch this area with. The driver side has it too, but to a lesser extent.


The rest of the car is positively rust free. here are some shots of key areas:










There is some minor clean up in here due to some critters building a nest:





Behind the fenders were full of junk too:




...but everything cleaned up well with no damage.


This car must have sat for quite a while to have the amount of nests it had in it.

I need to get some shots of the bumper covers. I have them cleaned up and nearly ready for paint. Here is a before shot of the front cover:


Here are some shots during disassembly:


Let me know what you guys think and what you'd like to see.

 

[kevinspann]

Lookin' good man. Not sure how to tackle that rust...I wonder if it even needs to be patched? Hard to tell.

I'm surprised you couldn't find another headliner board...should be the same as every other non-moonroof Taurus 92-95.

Looks like you need a hard-button EATC.

Did you have the whole car painted?

 

[Macgyver]

I do need a hard button EATC. It's on the agenda. I called some local yards looking for a headliner, but most around me only have 96 and up cars. I didn't look too long after I thought of this method to repair the board.

The car hasn't been painted yet. It looks OK in the pictures, but all of the top surfaces look purple and the clear is lifting off. There are some dings I'm going to fix in the doors too. I'm going to need to do something with the floors. The passenger side is bulging up under the sound deadener due to the rust. I'll take some pix and post them soon. Rust never sleeps and since I'm putting all of this effort into this car I'm gonna make it right. My 14 year old son is getting in on the action, so that is what is motivating me to take my time and do it right. I can see us taking it to car shows and displaying it in the unloved cars section.

Here he is running the pin stripe eraser.

 

[SHOdded]

Car's coming along great!

Offtopic, is that a CTS I spy in one of the shots in the background?

 

[Macgyver]

Yup. That's an 05 CTS V. It's my daily driver.

 

[SHOdded]

Very nice!

 

[rubydist]

Welcome to our addiction. It is rarely fatal, except to your wallet.

The car looks like a good starting point. Do not neglect the mechanical maintenance and/or upgrades, especially to the engine and suspension. If you want to improve the handling and ride, do the Gen3 subframe swap along with the 96+ front brake upgrade.

I sure miss my red Gen2.....

 

[kevinspann]

Also, switch to the body colored door handles of a 94/95 Taurus.

 

[Macgyver]

Just my opinion, but I think for the sake of originality I'm gonna stick with the black handles. That is easy enough to change later and I don't want to waste time tearing cars apart in junk yards just for the handles.

I will be pulling the engine and trans to replace gaskets and seals as well as throw a crank kit in it. It doesn't have a rod knock, but it has the early tell of a bottom end rattle on cold starts. I wanted to take the brake parts from my 95, but I never took the time. They were already upgraded to the 96+.

 

[kevinspann]

Fair enough. Working in a body shop, I guess you can do it easier than I can. I found it to be a pain in the ass. I did get really good at removing lock cylinders in the junkyard though.

The later brake parts are easy to find, since the rotors and caliper brackets were standard on the Taurus/Sable from 01+

 

[Macgyver]

There was a time when I didn't have 3 kids, a wife and a busy life. I used to love scouring the yards. I actually did it recently to find a good set of window belt mouldings. However, the belt mouldings are super easy to unbolt, so I was able to look at a bunch of cars to get what I needed. The door handles are a PIA to remove because of the rivets and door panel removal.

 

[rubydist]

and the locks are different, so you have to deal with that... cause the 93 door locks will not fit in the 94+ handles.

 

[Macgyver]

and the locks are different, so you have to deal with that... cause the 93 door locks will not fit in the 94+ handles.

I didn't know that at all. I would have been severely disappointed if I had to change the locks too. I'm now seriously considering sanding and spraying the black handles, so I have to ask... What do you all think my son and I should do? A stock resto, or a resto-mod with little changes like the door handles? These cars are getting older now and I think preservation is in order.

Years ago I had an 88 turbo coupe that only had slight mods to the body but had a nasty 2.3 turbo in it. I love the stock look with performance mods. Here's my old TC:

The only body mods were stripe delete, body side moulding delete, the draglites, and custom but small blue Ford Motorsport decals.

 

[intimdatr]

With these cars spending a lot of $$$$$$ of the motor really isn't worth it. If you make a lot of power you start to break stuff ALL the time and you never get to use the extra power. Sucks. Personally i would just do a UDP High flow Y-pipe and some intake/head porting and call it a day. Spend your money in the Suspension and fall in love the curves.

Happiness is not around the corner but through it.

 

[Macgyver]

With these cars spending a lot of $$$$$$ of the motor really isn't worth it. If you make a lot of power you start to break stuff ALL the time and you never get to use the extra power. Sucks. Personally i would just do a UDP High flow Y-pipe and some intake/head porting and call it a day. Spend your money in the Suspension and fall in love the curves.

Happiness is not around the corner but through it.

You guys rock! Thanks for all of the input.

That T-bird above was my example of that. I broke stuff All. The. Time. Transmissions, clutches, connecting rods...

The Y pipe is on the short list. I'd really like this to be a fun driveable car. I don't want something to monopolize all of my limited time. My daily driver is fast and reliable except for motor mounts. Oh and differentials...

 

[kevinspann]

Y-pipe and suspension.

Skip the UDP for now, and messing with the intake/heads.


For the door handles, the lock cylinder itself is the same, but the trim molded around it is different. I swapped the trim (Eventually, as the SHO has Illuminated entry, and the first pair of trims I got did not) and glued it in place on the cylinder.

I could do it better a second time.

If you like the black handles, stick with it. They body colored ones gave my silver car a much cleaner look. Plus, I paid someone else to (mostly) pull them and send them to me.