Finally a Fox Body Owner - 1988 GT acquired!

DudeStang

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I see you signed up over at corral too. Lots of good knowledgeable people there. Realitivly decent traffic lately too. There's one dude, indy2000 I think, that can come across totally helpful and in the next post sound like a complete asshole. But he's knowledgeable. He has ZERO "bed side manor". He's like the Dr. House of the corral.
Lol, I think I've heard about that guy....but haven't encountered him yet. Thanks for the warning. I've actually been getting a ton of input on the StangNet forums for the past couple of months. The Fox Body sub-forums seem to be the most active car forums I've seen in years. Tons of projects ongoing and they are regularly updated.
 

DudeStang

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Latest on the fox body - battery (brand new) has died on me a couple of times. Now completely dead. Ordered a trickle charger and am now patiently waiting for it to arrive....probably won't be here until middle of next week. I've also ordered a heat gun so I can replace the center molding stripe.
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Got a few things in the mail this week. Got the plastic clips for the fuel filter and some sway bar end links (I've had some noises at low speed/tight turns).
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In the meanwhile, I pulled out the battery and I'm taking the drill/wire brush to the rust on the frame. Also have a POR-15 kit on the way.
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Juice

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Check key off draw. I just took my 91 out, been sitting 6 months, started right up. I had a charging system problem with this car, and it was the alternator field staying energized. (Bad regulator)
It was drawing about 1 Amp with the key off!
 

tjm73

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Yeah I was going to say check the system and make sure it's charging and also that there aren't any phantom draws.
 

Juice

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Mine was charging fine, but would kill battery if not driven.
 

DudeStang

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Check key off draw. I just took my 91 out, been sitting 6 months, started right up. I had a charging system problem with this car, and it was the alternator field staying energized. (Bad regulator)
It was drawing about 1 Amp with the key off!

How do you check key off draw? I'm a noob to a lot of this stuff, more so with anything that involves electricity, lol.

Yeah I was going to say check the system and make sure it's charging and also that there aren't any phantom draws.

Is this something I would do with the multimeter?
 

Juice

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To check key off draw:
Make sure everything is off inside, dome lights, etc. Key out of ignition.
Disconnect negative battery cable.
Connect a dc amp meter between battery terminal and negative cable.

You need a dvom that can measure atleast up to 10 amps.
Quick and dirty check, just touch the battery cable to the terminal on the battery momenteraly. (Just tap) You should NOT see any sparks.
 

tjm73

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I gotta do the same to my own now. I tried to start it tonight and move it to a garage I can work in and it started after some foolery then quit and won't start no matter what. Gonna have to tow it out of the side yard tomorrow and start chasing out the problem. I think I have a bad connection some place.

Battery is good. The starter doesn't sound like it is working as it should.

Had to jump it to start it. Once I backed out it quit. Now all it will do is turn about 1 or 2 rpm (no exaggeration) and stop. Or it will just click, click, click, click, click like the starter won't engage. jumping won't work again no matter what I try. YEAH!!! Old cars!!!
 
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Juice

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I gotta do the same to my own now. I tried to start it tonight and move it to a garage I can work in and it started after some foolery then quit and won't start no matter what. Gonna have to tow it out of the side yard tomorrow and start chasing out the problem. I think I have a bad connection some place.

Battery is good. The starter doesn't sound like it is working as it should.

Had to jump it to start it. Once I backed out it quit. Now all it will do is turn about 1 or 2 rpm (no exaggeration) and stop. Or it will just click, click, click, click, click like the starter won't engage. jumping won't work again no matter what I try. YEAH!!! Old cars!!!
That sounds like a discharged battery.
Charge it fully before any testing. I would disconnect the batt for charging, so if you do have a draw it wont "fight" your charger.
A 1 amp trickle charger can take 12 hours or more to reach full charge.
 

tjm73

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I don't want to hijack DudeStang's thread, but I pulled the battery, charged it over night, cleaned the terminals, put it in the car, cleaned the cable ends, hooked it up, turned the key on, fuel pump noise (good sign), push in the clutch, hit the key. No whir whir, just WHOOMP idle idle idle idle idle. Shove it in gear and head straight to the other garage.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.....
 

DudeStang

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A viewer commented on a video of mine today that he noticed clips on the sun visor (from my first video on the fox) and said that I should check the vanity mirror lights. He said his were staying on and draining his battery and once he fixed that, he didn't have an issue any longer.

Obviously I can't check at the moment but I went back and was looking through some pics I took of the interior and one of the lights on the passenger side vanity mirror was on. I suppose that could be a possibility but can't really check just yet. I'd really like to replace the sun visors anyways.
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In other news, I finally managed to get rid of the old yellow stickers on the inside of the quarter windows.....took a long time though.

Before:
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After:
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Got a new video up of some of this small progress:
 

DudeStang

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Interesting update on the Fox. So I had that person comment on YouTube that I should check the lights on the vanity mirrors to see if they are draining the battery... Battery was out of the car, attached to trickle charger that just arrived so I couldn't see if the lights were functioning. So I pulled the sun visors out (and disconnected the vanity mirror lights. That update can be partially seen in my newest video (just skip to the 9:00 minute mark):


So after this video...I hooked the battery back up to the trickle charger and let it charge over night. Yesterday, I threw the battery back in and the Fox started right up. I ran voltage test on the battery and it appeared normal. Even took the Fox for a little spin around the block.

This morning I checked the voltage again and it appears the battery is still holding a charge. I have some work to do but will try to start it again around lunch time and confirm that it's still holding enough juice to start the car.

Also, I ordered a PA Performance Premium Battery Cable kit that is supposed to be arriving today, so I'll be getting that installed as soon as possible.
 

DudeStang

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Got the Fox to crank yesterday and the battery seems to be doing find holding a charge since being on the trickle charger over night and with the sun visors/vanity mirror lights removed.


Also, my PA Performance battery cable kit did arrive yesterday. Good stuff. :)

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DudeStang

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Last night I replaced the old battery cables, which were in even worse condition than I thought, with the PA Performance kit. I couldn't figure out the alternator cable yet because I couldn't see where it was routed exactly...but I will try to get that installed sometime in the next few days.

Old:



New:



 

DudeStang

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Got a new video up with the fuel filter replacement, arrival of some more parts, and installing/testing out the Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter Handle (just the handle, not the actual replacement shifter):


Plans for this week include tracing the alternator cable to see if I can figure out if there's already a mega fuse or something similar somewhere hidden in there. Also going to remove the air intake silencer since I'm probably going to have to remove the air box anyways while I'm tracing the alternator cable. Also got some additional wire brushes for the drill so I want to pull the battery and tray again and get back to working on the rust.

Also thinking about maybe draining and fully replacing the power steering fluid or just replacing the power steering pump since I have an extra one that came in the box of parts that came with the car. The loud whining noise has become worse than the Flowmaster drone the last few times I've driven the car.
 

tjm73

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Almost all Ford power steering pumps whine. It's like a calling card it seems. I may go to manual steering to get rid of it if it's a problem on my car. I've handled a couple shifters over the years but the Tri-Ax shifter was my favorite for the T5.
 

DudeStang

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Heat gun finally arrived..along with some other random stuff. On Friday evening, something else arrived. Our foster dog, Lady, gave birth to one puppy at our house and then was having trouble delivering the next one. We ended up having to take her to the clinic and she got an emergency c-section. An little over an hour later we were driving home with Lady and six tiny puppies. Hell of a Friday, lol.

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Once things settled down, I managed to get some garage time. Took advantage of the heat gun and started removing the body molding stripe.

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I need to look a little bit closer but it seems like the stripe on the door moldings is possibly a different material or might even be painted on. I didn't want to melt the door moldings so I didn't mess with those much longer while removing the rest of the stripe around the car. I also got the front driver side wheel off again and started doing some more work on the rust. I need some spray bottles for the degreaser and metal treatment from the POR-15 kit. I had initially ordered them from Chemical Guys but the order got cancelled due to lack of inventory. Fortunately I was able to pick up a couple of alternatives with my grocery pick-up at Wal-Mart today. Hopefully these will work fine and I can get at least one side of the apron done with POR-15.

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On the alternator power cable situation, I finally just sucked it up and ordered the SR performance cable which already has the 200 amp in-line fuse. I figured between everything else I'd need to order to do it myself, I'd only be saving 15 bucks and at least with this kit I have everything already put together. That should be here in a day or two.

Anyways, I got a new video up documenting some of these things.

 

OX1

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Almost all Ford power steering pumps whine. It's like a calling card it seems. I may go to manual steering to get rid of it if it's a problem on my car. I've handled a couple shifters over the years but the Tri-Ax shifter was my favorite for the T5.

If you get the bracket bits off an early CFI car (or maybe carbed serp V-8) for the AC pump, you can use an early bronco sag pump bracket from Wild Horses. I had to mod bracket a bit to fit oversized sag pump that I am using with 2000 stang hydroboost, but a std sag should fit no issue.

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tjm73

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Luckily mine is quiet. They seem to be sensitive to the fluid used and the fluid level.
 

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