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I had a local shop weld in Flowmaster high flow cats to the offroad x pipe (it was on the car when I bought it). The car definitely seems a bit quieter and I think the cats helped get rid of most of the gas smell but I'll need to drive more to confirm.
I still have the drone, I assume due to the Flowmaster mufflers, so at some point I'm going to see about adding a new cat-back or swapping the Flowmasters for a different muffler design.
Anyways, I uploaded a new vlog with a bit more on the cats and other things, a few days ago:
I've been lazy about updating my various threads but I have a few updates on the Fox from the last month or so. After getting the double din with apple car play, adding cupholders felt like a natural next step:
I wish I had more substantial updates to report on the Fox but work has been really busy and lower temperatures have kept me out of the garage. I did get the body moulding stripe back on though, so the car is finally looking a bit more civilized, at least from 10-15 feet away.
I also got the other light fixture installed in the garage and did a little comparison video:
It actually did end up taking longer than I expected (shocker) because I didn’t realize I would have to take the inner door panel off to access the connector for the mirror. I'm pretty happy with the quality on the new mirror though. I didn’t replace the driver side but will do that too eventually.
I also discovered that I did have a door speaker on the passenger side but the wiring had broken off right at the speaker. I guess I misunderstood the guy who installed my new head unit a couple months back.
If I had known earlier that yesterday was going to be a warm day, I would have taken it off from work and tried to get the steering shaft assembly installed. Missed opportunity.
Still haven’t found a good/affordable option for having rear end gears installed. All of the shops I've called either don't do gears or have quoted me over $1,200. Trying to determine what else I can make progress on while the weather is mostly cold.
Update since then - a Fox owner on another forum that I frequent gave me the name of a shop. I got a much more reasonable quote from them. I dropped the Fox off at that shop the week before last, to have the 4.10s installed. It seemed the shop was a little behind because they didn't get to it until this week. They gave me a call a couple of days ago to update me that the gears were done but that one of the axles looked like it needed to be replaced. I asked them to go ahead and replace both of them while they have the car and I am hoping I might be able to go pick it up tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
Almost a month later, I finally picked the Fox back up yesterday. The 4.10 gears are installed…..along with new 31 spline rear axles, a new rear main seal, a new clutch, a new clutch cable, and the speedometer gear kit. Long story but I think most of you know how it goes. I wasn’t thrilled to spend more money but I am happy that some things I knew the car needed (or would need not too far down the line) are fixed or replaced.
I didn’t drive it too hard right after picking it up. From driving it just a couple times, I can say that it feels a bit more like my 2014 Mustang, in that there is enough torque/power regardless of what gear you're in. Less downshifting required it seems. We'll see if I continue to feel this way in a few weeks or months. Also, the clutch feels lighter, which is nice. I hadn't driven the car in almost a month though. Will need to drive it more.
I was hoping that the RMS being replaced would reduce the oil dripping from the car but it already seems like that isn't the case. I've got more oil dripping from around where the transmission meets the engine and there's oil getting onto the X pipe that's creating a little bit of smoke and giving off a burning smell. From scrolling through search results, I understand the RMS is apparently never an easy fix and that it might not even be the RMS that is leaking. The joys of a project car.
Upon further inspection, it looks like I've got an exhaust leak in addition to the oil leak that was not resolved by the RMS being replaced. I tried a quick fix on the exhaust hardware but it didn't do the trick so I'll have to get under the car for a closer look.
A couple of days ago , I did confirm that the car doesn't seem to be leaking significantly more oil than previously. It doesn't seem to be leaking oil at all while parked/not running. I checked the oil before and after taking it for a 20+ minute drive and it didn't seem to be significantly down.
I still didn't drive it too hard but the few times that I did give it a little more gas, the gears felt pretty good. I am hoping we'll get some slightly warmer weather sometime soon so I can spend a little bit of time in the garage getting a closer look at things underneath the car.
We recently had carpet replaced with hardwood floors in part of our house and I managed to keep a decent enough sized piece of carpet to give me some temporary padding/sort of insulation.
That car brings back fond memories. I has a roommate that had an 89 and I had a 90 Probe GT. He also had a T-Bird Suoercoupe, and I had a 66 Corvair coupe.
So I finally got behind the intake manifold and saw that the PCV valve was super loose. It seemed like it was still in the hose but was disconnected completely from the grommet and the grommet itself came out really easily. I was also able to remove the screen pretty easily with a magnet:
I replaced the screen, grommet, and PCV valve and everything new seemed to fit pretty decently. These are the new pieces:
It was pretty late when I finished it so I didn’t start the car yet but will do that today and see how the oil leak situation is looking. I didn’t take a ton of pics but recorded some of that process for my next video.
On a non Fox Body related note, I took a new GT for a drive a couple of days ago. This was my first time driving a 2018+ S550. There’s a lot to love about these new Mustangs. I didn't buy one (yet) but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't extremely tempting.
My latest attempt to get the exhaust leak sorted didn't work. I have not been able to get the hardware on the driver side to tighten down correctly so thanks to a recommendation from another Fox owner, I stopped by Tractor Supply and picked up some new hardware that hopefully will do the trick.
I ordered a replacement hardware kit from LMR and the bolts are too narrow and too short. The bolt on the far right is one of the bolts from that kit. The others are what I picked up today. Will try to see if I can get this sorted out tomorrow, since the weather is supposed to be semi-decent.
I finished editing and uploading my latest Vlog on the PCV valve replacement process:
Since then, I've made a few small updates to the Fox, documented in more recent videos but hoping to have more time in the garage as it gets warmer and as the new addition sleeps for longer periods of time.
10/5/21, 09:59 AM
I didn’t take a ton of pics but recorded some of that process for my next video.
