I decided that after 50,000 fun-filled miles my baby deserved a minor refresh. These are small things that I have been wanting to do since day one, but never seemed to have the time to get them accomplished.

1. I removed another full coil from the rear springs and one full coil from the front springs to drop her approximately 1-1/2” in the rear and 1” in the front. I also added camber bolts up front to insure correct alignment.

2. I bought some UPR billet pedal covers at the Fun Ford Weekend in Orlando this past weekend for $45 and installed them today. They look great and the quality is very good.

3. I replaced the GT badges on the front fenders with custom pony emblems. I used silver vinyl to cover the red and blue for a monochromatic look.

4. I replaced my ‘already coming loose’ GT rear medallion with the pony version also.

5. And finally, I enabled the inboard brake lights so that all six now illuminate. Someone jokingly told me this past weekend that ‘two of my brake lights were out’ so I had to ‘fix’ them. Maybe I’m actually a little safer now.

Not that the romance was fading, but you have to keep things fresh and my baby deserves it!

 

How did you enable the extra brake light bulbs? I always thought that was odd the way only 2 light up.

 

Looks great Phil! Good to see you got those brake lights fixed too

 

Thanks, now you have to fix your door handle!

 

Here's a link with some good info:

http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showth...t=light+socket

This is not how I did it, and I don't recommend my method as it is kind of 'backwoods'. It involves flattened nails, soldering, etc. It was free and it works so far, but there is a better way explained in the linked post. Good luck if you decide to make the change, you may even be safer!

 

The easiest way to do this is to buy some sequential taillights.

 

Well, you are on the other side of I4 from me, so that sounds about right

 

The reason for the only two lighting up is becasue when your headlights are on and all are lit the people behind you can tell if you are braking or not. I know that you have the center one but if thats out the only way to tell is the brightness which is a lot harder to tell then to see th contrast of the normal and brake.

 

I see what your saying, guess it kinda makes sense...but the brake bulbs are bright enough that I would think it would be hard to confuse brake and running lights.

 

I did the 3-light mod to my '05, and pretty soon might be doing that again to an '07. I think it adds a little bit more safety to the rear of the car, and looks much better too.

 

I was following another s197 today and it just looks to have only four of the six lights illuminated.

 

I wired my '96 that way, and now my '05. Works just fine. All three (or six if you will) act as parking lights, directionals and brake lights. No confusion there in my opinion. With or without the headlights on, folks behind me will definitely know that I am on the brake, or that the directional is indicating a turn coming up.

What I did with the '05 was to get a light socket set for one side. It comes with all the wires and three sockets. Use the two sockets with three pins. Connect one on the right side, one on the left, in place of the inboard sockets. Use the same two wires in the same places from the old inboard lights (parking light filaments), and splice the third wire from the new sockets to the lines that run to your outboard brake/directional wires. I recommend soldering them in and using shrink tubing or good electrical tape to seal them up.

The hardest parts are getting the trunk lining out of the way, and getting the main connectors un-connected so you can remove the taillight assemblies and put them on the bench. Every year, Ford seems to dream up new electrical connectors with some kind of hidden release.

 

Car looks good but is the side pony as crooked as it appears in the picture?

 

Congratulations! You now have a V6!!

(just kidding!)

 

No, and I spent a lot of time getting it positioned how I wanted. Some of the emblems that I've seen that use the alignment holes don't look right to me, so correct positioning may be "in the eye of the beholder". If it is crooked, I'll just have to keep moving so it won't be as noticeable.

 

Looks GREAT Phil!

And after seeing in person, I can attest to how cool those side badges look up close -

 

http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...t=MVI_0256.flv

Here's two of my fav spoiler delete Ponies
MTAS and LimeGT

You can see a good shot of Phil's 'refreshed' LL cruise by in this vid from Fun Ford weekend

 

Thanks buddy. That means a lot coming from someone with a car a nice as yours.

 

I'm thinking of changing to a single exhaust to complete the 'sleeper' look.