LTDMan's '87 Ford LTD Crown Victoria LX (The Blue Beast) *DUW*

[87gtVIC]

the car is naked. it looks good, not much rust at all. I am in the prosess of swapping a door as well, but not to your extent (4 doors, you are crazy lol). Man this is a great project to watch. I love how the car still looks so good even without the entire front clip. It must be the nice turbines with the center caps still on it.

[Dave84]

Very cool man comming along nicely

[Lincolnmania]

keep up the good work! it will pay off!
finding the same nasty spots on project 79.....took a propane torch and a scraper and started removing the tar goo from the inside of the floors today

[LTDMan83]

Thanks Guys, more updates are coming soon.

I got the doors swapped over this weekend with the help of my friend, they fit like a glove, and have already made the car look 10X better, imo. It's still quite an extreme color contrast between the two though, pastel beige vs gloss metallic blue, lol.


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keep up the good work! it will pay off!
finding the same nasty spots on project 79.....took a propane torch and a scraper and started removing the tar goo from the inside of the floors today

Thanks scott. Hopefully the Tar mats on p79 give you an easier time than these gave me. The ones on this car were pretty much perma-bonded to the floor in the front and rear areas.

[Tiggie]

I'm glad she's a solid as I thought she was! Looking great man!

PS: The key that fit the trunk was a copy of the key to my mom's '87 T-Bird!

[86VickyLX]

Thanks Guys, more updates are coming soon.

I got the doors swapped over this weekend with the help of my friend, they fit like a glove, and have already made the car look 10X better, imo. It's still quite an extreme color contrast between the two though, pastel beige vs gloss metallic blue, lol.

pics? And what color are you painting it?

[LTDMan83]

I'm glad she's a solid as I thought she was! Looking great man!

PS: The key that fit the trunk was a copy of the key to my mom's '87 T-Bird!

They must have used the exact same type of round lock cylinder, and they just happened to have the same key. Wonder what the odds of that are, lol.

pics? And what color are you painting it?

More pics are coming soon mang, I still have a little more work to do before I take more pics. I will probibly be re-painting it the stock color, which is Midnight Blue Metallic, or possibly High Gloss Black, I haven't decided for sure yet. Eather way I will be having to disassemble the entire car again to re-paint all the Jambs, which will be the biggest PITA of all.

[LTDMan83]

Also more related news:

The guy I rent my house from, and myself, have been talking about opening up a Body and Paint Shop together, in the Shop that is next to my house. It has 2 nice size rooms, and enough space to accommodate and work on at least 3 cars at once. I'm very excited about it, and I think I'm gonna give him the go ahead in the next few days to start buying equipment, and also start diverting some of my funds to getting the shop up and going as well. This is going to be awesome if it pans out, I REALLY want to be working for myself.

[Lincolnmania]

gonna let me help paint my lincoln? good luck mang!

[LTDMan83]

gonna let me help paint my lincoln? good luck mang!

Thanks mang, I've been working for other people for too long IMO, it's time to see if I can make my own way.

Sure mang, you could help at what ever point of the job that you wanted to. Some help during the sanding and masking phases would be the most appreciated, hehe

[LTDMan83]

Body Progress...

Finished up the rest of the work on the doors today, and took a few pics.


The doors fit the body of the car excellently, and are for the most part correctly aligned, but I need to be able to hang the Fenders on there before I can make the fine adjustments, and make it perfectly straight. I also swapped over all the upper Brightwork from the other car, as it is in much better condition. All the dew wipes, (including the ones stapled to the trim on the B-pillar, just in front of the rear door), are hard as a rock and about to crack, so I will need to replace them all, I'm sure that will be a fun process. Everything in these doors are fully functional.






I decided to keep the original PS Rear Door, as it was a Straighter piece than what was on the parts car. I still have to swap my working Power Window and Lock motors into this door though. Still lots of bodywork to do on all these doors before Paint.




Swapped over all the good, soft weatherstripping from the other car as well. Still more work to do stopping leaks here, and I am thinking of using the smoke trick to detect exactly where the leaks are at.








My Por15 Resto kit also arrived here today, so next I'm gonna be working on eliminating all the rust that was pictured in my last update. This will be my first experience with Por15, and I'm interested to see if this stuff is as good as all the Car Restorers out there make it out to be.



Stay Tuned.

[LTDMan83]

Rust Elimination Progress...

Rust Elimination is mostly completed on the front Frame and Body areas.

Rust Doesn't stand a chance, when I'm fighting it.


Keep in mind that I'm not trying to make anything pretty yet, this is just basic Rust Repair right now. I will be coming back to this part of the project later on, and completely Coating the frame in Por15, as well as undercoating on top of the Por.






Por15 Rust Elimination kit. These products Definitely lived up to all the hype people had been feeding me about them. Marine Clean is one of the best and quickest Water-Based degreasers I have ever seen, and has Purple Power beaten hands down. The Metal Ready product quickly Chemically Neutralized all the rust, and etched the metal, leaving the perfect surface for the Por15 coating to adhere to. The Por15 coating laid down excellent, even when brushing it on, and left a damn near Glass-Smooth & Bulletproof finish once it had cured. I'm now a believer, and Por15 will have my business from now on, over Eastwood's rust elimination products.




All the rusty areas were first Wire Brushed, and then Sandblasted with Walnut Shell Blasting media. The rust under the bottom of the Front Windshield went all the way to the top of the Windshield Seal, and was a massive PITA to completely remove. I managed to get all of it though, and throughly Etch and then Coat it with Por15. Here, I applied the second coat of Por15 too soon, which caused a few small bubbles to form under the second coating. I will need to take these bubbles back down with the Dremel, and lay down more Por15. I learned from my mistake though, and it didn't happen again on the rest of the areas.






Frame Core Support mounts, and surrounding frame. After I pull the engine, I will be coming back here to completely Degrease and Coat the front section of Frame in Por15.






The frame area Near the battery tray.




Previously heavily rusted Upper Control Arm frame mount weld seam.




Slightly Rusted area under the bottom of the PS floorpan, through the firewall body mount access hole.






The only rust left now in the Front Section of the frame/body, is inside the Frame rails, and will not be easy to get at, but it is only light surface rust, and is nothing to worry about anytime soon.






It's starting to get cold here, and the days are getting shorter. I really wish I had a garage to work in at this point, as it is becoming harder and harder to get any work done outside. Still the work will press on slowly.....Stay Tuned.

[P72Ford]

Are you going to take the body off the frame?

Frame off resto FTW!

[p71towny]

To get in hard to reach areas, I used braided steel cable and frayed it at one end at put the other end in a high speed drill. It spun around and beat the rust out of small areas otherwise unaccesable.

[LTDMan83]

Are you going to take the body off the frame?

Frame off resto FTW!

I will be taking the Body off the Frame, to replace all the Body Mounts, as well as sandblasting and Por'ing all the areas of the Body and Frame which aren't accessible otherwise. So I guess it could be considered a "Frame Off Resto".

To get in hard to reach areas, I used braided steel cable and frayed it at one end at put the other end in a high speed drill. It spun around and beat the rust out of small areas otherwise unaccesable.

That's a good tip. I've seen it done before but I have never tried it myself. I would need a piece of cable around 3 feet long to get to some of the areas inside the frame rails, going through the front holes in the frame, where the bumper shocks go into. I may give it a try sometime soon.