No, not a Panther, but still a boxy Ford so maybe it will get some love here.
It's a 1982 Mercury Cougar GS, and it has a rowdy little freshly-rebuilt 302 with GT40 heads and BBK headers paired to a T5 transmission, with Cobra front brakes and '03 GT rear discs. And the interior is damn near spotless.
I wanted a clean Fox Body, wagon preferred, stick even more preferred, so...this one checked a lot of boxes, so I decided to buy it having never seen it in person and had it brought via truck from Arizona last month. I didn't have time to do a fly-n-buy and honestly, a fly-n-buy would've cost $500 more dollars than having it delivered.
Ran really great upon arrival but I believe I'm chasing a short as the car has developed a crank/no start condition. I've gone down a Fox Body no-start checklist I found online and ruled out tons of stuff (distributor, coil, ignition switch, etc etc etc etc) and have isolated it to the EEC and piggybacked tuner not getting power. I came to this conclusion when I jumped 12V right to it, and the LCD display on the tuner lit up. At that point, the car fired right up. Since the EEC relay tests good (and a new one was swapped in just to be double damn sure), it sure seems like I have a short somewhere and will just have to find it. NBD.
Anyway, I like it a lot. It spins the tires (surprising, with a 2.73 rear gear that I eventually will swap out for a 3.55 or 3.73) and it doesn't have Rust Belt problems. The only rust is on the hood, where one of the previous owners tried to sand it down and failed. But it's that sunbaked type of rust, not the cancer type. I can live with that. Maybe hit it with some linseed oil or something, IDK.
Don't worry, I still have my '91CS and two whales...
It's a 1982 Mercury Cougar GS, and it has a rowdy little freshly-rebuilt 302 with GT40 heads and BBK headers paired to a T5 transmission, with Cobra front brakes and '03 GT rear discs. And the interior is damn near spotless.
I wanted a clean Fox Body, wagon preferred, stick even more preferred, so...this one checked a lot of boxes, so I decided to buy it having never seen it in person and had it brought via truck from Arizona last month. I didn't have time to do a fly-n-buy and honestly, a fly-n-buy would've cost $500 more dollars than having it delivered.
Ran really great upon arrival but I believe I'm chasing a short as the car has developed a crank/no start condition. I've gone down a Fox Body no-start checklist I found online and ruled out tons of stuff (distributor, coil, ignition switch, etc etc etc etc) and have isolated it to the EEC and piggybacked tuner not getting power. I came to this conclusion when I jumped 12V right to it, and the LCD display on the tuner lit up. At that point, the car fired right up. Since the EEC relay tests good (and a new one was swapped in just to be double damn sure), it sure seems like I have a short somewhere and will just have to find it. NBD.
Anyway, I like it a lot. It spins the tires (surprising, with a 2.73 rear gear that I eventually will swap out for a 3.55 or 3.73) and it doesn't have Rust Belt problems. The only rust is on the hood, where one of the previous owners tried to sand it down and failed. But it's that sunbaked type of rust, not the cancer type. I can live with that. Maybe hit it with some linseed oil or something, IDK.
Don't worry, I still have my '91CS and two whales...
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