...leather seats, 5 speed manual, 4.7L SOHC V8 and only has 66,242 miles on it! It spent most its time in California and there is not a speck of rust anywhere I could see. It drives and handles like a new car.
I'm still going to have my mechanic give it a full physical next week. I bought it "as is" but I'm not worried. I can afford to fix it if it needs it. There is a hole in the side of the seat bottom that looks like a cigar burn ( guessed that because the ashtray is gone and I get a faint whiff of cigar smoke with the top up, no problem) which I won't fix. This is not a show car.
My other car is a '14 Cadillac CTS-V Sedan with the supercharged LSA all aluminum engine and is wicked fast and handles like a race car. That's because CTS-Vs are raced on European Road Tracks and like US stock cars needs to have sold enough to the public to qualify.
Wicked quick is the problem. Driving it around town is like taking a racehorse to a petting zoo. I keep fighting the urge to floor it around town. However there are plenty of mountain twisties here and a few multi-mile straightaways to keep the Caddy happy. I also have a 4WD pickup that I drive in the snow. You might see them in my driveway in the picture I posted.
The Mustang is great about town. It handles traffic like a champ. I don't get mad when I'm stuck behind a slowpoke. I just enjoy the experience of driving with the top down. Don't get me wrong, after my mechanic gives it a green light I intend to take this car, top down, on those mountain roads and straightaways and have more fun than I deserve.
The west door has a woodshop and where I used to park the Harley (The other bike is in parts scattered throughout the garage), the center door has two flathead V8s that I probably should give away and a bunch of junk and stuff from my mother's house (she now lives in a nursing home). The east door houses a homemade lumber cart that's almost as big as a car and yet another flathead engine.
The wife is resisting me trashing all of it to again have a real garage. I'm going to see about at least getting rid of enough to park the Mustang indoors this winter. we had 26" of snow over three days. My Cadillac w s parked for over two months.
its cool you were/are a wood worker. what do you do? I built cabinets for a carpenter from 14-16 in Amarillo texas. never done wood work before when id started & by the time I left I was building stuff on the side for my wife lol im barely a beginner id say but it was cool to learn the few things I learned
Nice! Love the SN95s, most underrated Mustang there is IMO. Can't say it'll be anything compared to how fast your CTS-V is but that is most cars lol.
With only 66k miles that bottom end does have a ton of life left and the trans should still be ok. I'd very much consider a PI swap and a good tune if I were you, solid 40-50hp bump on the NPI bottom end and its cheap, labor costs more than the parts do if you need a mechanic to do it.
Only real "issue" with those years 96-98 is the transmission. They used paper blocker rings and there is an issue with the 5-R slider, it can get stuck in reverse or be hard to get into reverse. The paper blocker rings can fail early but if its still shifting great don't worry about it till if/when it happens. The good news is transmissions for these are not expensive at all really.
Also, the tires are brand new and they are Z rated.
Let me replace the missing parts of the first post.
Back in the Saddle Again
I had an Harley Davidson Road King Classic that I no longer ride. I used to own an '85 Mustang GT that I had to sell after 15 years of fun driving. I asked the wife if I could buy another GT and CarGurus showed me this Mustang. I went to look, took a test drive and negotiated a trade-in of the Road King. I got a 1996 Mustang GT Deluxe Convertible and a check!
The first thing I did was try to get along with that idiot $500 do everything aftermarket radio. It played CDs and DVDs (There is a TV screen on the back of the passenger headrest). It had a full blown Bluetooth setup that answers the phone as a hands free along with several other features I already have in my Cadillac and don't want or need in a Mustang. I went to the Aspen Sound and got a plain old AM/FM radio installed. Now the question is what do I do with half dozen weird speakers, a couple of crossovers, miles of wire and some leftover buttons and lights. Then I get the fun of scouring junkyards to replace all the panels that have extra holes in them and a headrest. There is also a weird dohicky attached to the back of the center console whose whole purpose is a place for back seat passenger knees to get injured. Next time I'm in the car I will take a picture and post it here.
The car itself, ah, look at the picture so I don't have to repeat myself.
That's the first part of my post that went missing.
Nice! Welcome to the saddle again, I am sure it missed your back side too! Seriously tho, welcome, and good clean find! Like Scotty said the 94-98 are underrated cars IMO too, you can make them look really good with just a few things (depending on your tastes/wants/needs/etc). I have had my 96 GT for almost 7 years now, doing upgrades very slowly each season (Michigan seasonal life!). I liked my 96 so much I bought an 03 too, the New Edge has always been my favorite body style (but now I dunno? Think I like my 96 more now having both?)
Anyway will look forward to more posts and see how she does for you! These things run like tanks, do required maintenance (even if not they still go 160k+, lol). You will be happy with it I am sure!
Here are a couple pics of mine, has had a few different wheel looks over the years, too many options and cheap! You will find this forum to be awesome if you have questions, need correct tech info, advice, great build pages, etc. Great people on here, not like other forums that do not accept new comers well, or put down your car for making it the way you want it, or if it doesn't suit their tastes, very respectful to all! I have learned so much from these guys on ME. May not always be the most exciting place, but it serves it purpose very well, IMHO.
Happy Mustanging!
Sent from my SM-N920P using Mustang Evolution mobile app
Yep, ppl do love the New Edge and its aggressive looking and really nice but a SN95 with a Cobra front, a nice hood, lowered and a S281 wing looks like sex on wheels as well. Had that combo on my 98 and it turned heads like crazy. Having cars in good condition helps too...
I'm retired from everything, woodworking, machining, welding, HD building, flipping houses, computer programming, electronics and yes modifying my vehicles. I drove my '85 for 15 years and all I ever changed were tires and wipers. If I'm happy with a car the way it is then I tend to leave it alone. For brute power, speed and handling I have my 560hp Cadillac (0-60 3.8 Seconds, top speed 190mph). For cruising around town (mostly) I have the Mustang. When it gets snowy I have my GMC 4x4 pickup.
After 50 years of working, including 5 years as a Navy Photographer, and hobbying I think I've earned a few years off.
Whaaaaaat?! They are excellent cars and need nothing IMO. I'd do exhaust and that's about it for me. You just like to do every little thing to your cars, but CTS-V's don't "need" anything lol.
Do you know how much my CTS-V cost??? I still have 2 more years of payments and another 4 years on my factory warranty! I'm not going to spend more thousands losing my warranty coverage for a quicker and faster Cadillac. Low 11's are fine with me plus there is no one I know in any speed crowd. My mechanic runs a top fuel Harley on weekends but he is the only person I know that can go faster than me, at least on the 1/4 mile.
Just got the latest Firebird Raceway flier. I might go on one of the test and tune days and make a couple of passes with the Mustang, then the Cadillac on another. I know the book says the CTS-V will do low 11's, but we are a half mile up and summer days are hot. I'm expecting low 12's.
I have no idea what the Mustang will do, but I sure hope to find out. Anybody have an idea?
Thanks, everybody. I'll let you know. I just have to wait till the 100+ temps go away. Between the black interior and black top the Mustang's A/C on max can't keep up.
Official 0-60 mph time for the second-generation CTS-V is 3.9 seconds, while the quarter mile is run at 12.0 seconds at 118 mph (190 km/h).[11] These numbers were duplicated by Road and Track magazine (0-60 in 3.9 seconds for the automatic and 4.1 seconds for the manual).
Nice car for an old school pushrod engine stolen from the 'Vette, just cannot get behind the styling. The newer ones with 640hp vs 556 hp can go 200 mph, definitely not your Mom's Caddy!
I forgot one special add-on to my '85; A receiver for a trailer hitch. Unusual? Yes.
My biker buddy moved to Boise while I was living in Ventura county so I needed to haul one or two bikes back and forth while we were building them. I rented trailers from U-Haul when needed.
I built a wooden box that held a battery, car alarm system and a siren. I screwed the box to the wood floor of the trailer. If I spent the night at a motel I would open the box, arm the system, then lock it up. If anybody touched any part of the bikes or trailer the siren would sound, I would leap out of bed and confront the perps. The only time the alarm sounded I confronted a 9 year girl that had bumped the trailer with her suitcase, standing frozen in terror. I quickly reset the alarm and apologized to her and all the people standing in their room's door wondering what the hell was going on.
When driving back and forth I could use 5th gear when I had only one bike aboard, shifting to 4th to go uphill. Two bikes required 4th gear back and forth, shifting to 3rd for uphill climbs.
My father was raised in Idaho and I had a lot of relatives in and around Boise. Every time I was in Boise I would send out job applications. I interviewed at Hewlett-Packard and was offered a job programming laser printers and much higher pay than what I was earning programming digital cameras. HP paid for the relocation but I rented a covered trailer to move my bike and a few other objects. Janis and the three cats followed in her Z28.
Everything was great, The GT fit right in with the light Boise traffic. Several streets had 55 mph speed limits. At that time Idaho had 175,000 people living here. Today it is just a little over 3 million! Idaho is now the fastest growing state in the nation. Imagine the traffic today!
11 inches of snow overnight required that I put chains on the car to get to work. Chains on a GT? Shameful. I parked away from my office where no one would see it. I took the chains off before driving home. Later that week I bought a '93 GMC Sierra 4x4 longbed that I still have. Janis bought a 4x4 oldsmobile SUV.
Six cars were too many. That spring I sold the Mustang to a guy that somebody who's cousin knew a guy that wanted to buy it. He gave me a sob story and I agreed to finance it for him. He made a down payment and only one monthly payment. Bummer. A year later the Mustang pulled up to the house and the the guy told us that his father found out he was not making payments he told the guy to either give back the car or pay off the balance for cash. He paid the balance and I told him to thank his dad for us. We parted on good terms. I might add we ended up giving away the '89 Z28 after it sat in the garage for three years. We hired a local moving company to clean out my mother's house and we gave the Camero to the one mover who was drooling over it and we gave the other mover all of Mom's patio furniture. We got told we were the best tippers they ever worked for. BTW Mom was moving to a nursing home and we did not want another patio set and we needed to clear out one bay of the garage.
I still missed the '85 even today and that's why I traded an unused Harley for a '96 GT Deluxe Convertible. I'm still getting used to a manual trans and clutch. I mistaking thought that because I was a wizard shifting Harleys I could still handle shifting the Mustang. Wrong.
I am happy to report I'm driving the Mustang much better now.
The new headlights and front turn signal lights are here. The ones on my '96 are too hazy and I don't feel like trying to buff them out. And I have not driven the GT in the dark yet.
Oh, yea, the question. Anybody got a link to some instructions on how to change these out? Being an engineer I could probably figure it out but I'm one of those weird guys that always read the instructions before starting a project that has instructions attached. I did download the Mustang's owner's manual.
All else fails I can take it to Bob's Auto and have his crew swap them out for a bucket full of money.
Thanks in advance.
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