This is Tripany's first Mark VIII, and my first Mark also, that I was lucky enough to become the next owner and in essence do what she originally wanted to do.
Here's to keeping alegend alive }(
Well here we go.........
As most of you already know I have a grey Lincoln Mark VIII, with some 237,000 miles on the ticker and a long history of being raced, and hard at that.
Well a few weeks ago while at the track to pick up an air ride compressor from my buddy Tom and the Ghost's previous owner Tiff, they told me about a guy whom had another Mark VIII for $600, that had been hit in the front end.
So after talking with him and discovering that this $600 Mark VIII has only 69,000 miles and that the poor lil Ghost was getting tired in more than one way, I sent Stang Girl over to look at it for me and make the final decision about the purchace.
After a short look over and using her best judgement she knew this was not to be passed up and paid for the car, took pictures and call me to let me know what was the scoop.
Well after a few weeks of doing other things around the house, and then finally the transmission going out in the Ghost it was time to make arrangments to bring the donar Mark VIII home for it second to last journey.
Mind you I have never ever seen this car in person, I have only seen this car in pictures.
So at 11:00pm lastnight it came home on a roll back and was dropped off in the street, with a jump box attached, she jumped right to life and was ready to go to it's new lounging spot, and me off to bed (4am comes around pretty early)
So after work today I decided I would knock the 1 1/2 years of dust and dirt of of her and she what was really to be had.
Mmmmmm Here's that tasty good stuff, 32 valves of screaming terror
Although you'll say it doesn't look to bad, it did take a pretty smart hit diagonally to the front end and tweeked the forward section of the frame rails pretty good.
All the interior (steering wheel, door panels, carpet, seats, console, misc trim, dash trim) except for the headliner, phone and dash assy will be used, the headliner can't be used as this car doesn't have a hole in the roof.
So the idea here is that I am also going to remove ALL of the drivetrain and put it in the Ghost, that includes the rear to.
So to do it in a so called easy fashion, I'm going to drop the whole K-member with the motor/tranny/front suspension at once and out from the bottom of the car.
I did a similar repair New Years night to Tom's Mark VIII, but only to the K-member, the problem was that the hoist legs got in the way and hampered a little bit, the hoist was used to hold the engine and tranny in place while I did the service.
This time I brought home a piece of "C" Channel iron and I'm going into the attic and placing it accross the rafters and punching two holes in the celing and dropping a chain through it, and then attaching a Chain Fall (block and tackle).
Similar to a tree saver, a heavy duty short strap around the front frame rails, while setting the engine and tranny with complete K-member still attached onto some funriture dollys for easy mobility.
then taking 2 short pieces of pipe and welding them to the frame rails with casters on them to move the car out of the garage, the rear section of the car will be the last part done.
Removing 19 gallons of fuel, must suck filling you car up and then crashing it.
Yep, that's right folks....the Ghost has his new heart!!!
Well, well, well, took a little trip lastnight to Lonestar Raceway Park to do some shake down passes.
Remeber other than a pair of 3 chamber Blowmaster mufflers, this 4000lbs. land missle is bone stock!
I averaged 28.6 mpg on my 82 mile jaunt to the track with the A/C.
Launching with an IRS, street tires, and no LSD is something a little new to me but none the less......
Well prolly the best run of the night was after I hot lapped the Grey Ghost with the UFO (Danny) about 4 times in a row, then Tiffany came up dangling her keys at me, wanting me to drive the Dark Mark while she piloted the newly rivived Grey Ghost.
Dark Mark: 93'PMC w/chip
Grey Ghost: 3 chamber Blowaster's
With the Grey Ghost and the Tiffany mod and me (and my fat a$$) in the Dark Mark we rolled to the staging lanes as everybody watched in anticipation, she was back in the original saddle that she first started out racing in.
We did our burnouts and proceeded to the tree.........
In two previous races this night, in our own cars, she treed me both times.
The tension was high the lights came down an BANGI blasted the Dark Mark out of the hole, looked down the track at the board I saw that I had nailed her ass to the wall on the tree, you knew the crowd was Ooooooing and Awwwwwwing!
Tiff an I were foot to the wood while we looked over at each other wondering who was gonna pull ahead, the Ghost creaping on the Dark Mark, door handle to door handle we kept starring at each other through the window with huge smiles on our faces in amazement as these barges were nearing the end of thier parade lap at WFO.
As we blasted across the line it was waaaay too close for anyone of to tell who won, the only people who knew at this time were the spectators.
As we approced the timeslip stand even the lady handing out the tickets was amazed, not only for the fact that Tiff was in her old car but that the times were almost too close to call.
As I obsevered, Tiff was handed the yellow slip and I was graciously handed the white slip and we rolled back to the paddock's with joyious 2nd gear scartches echoing throughout.
Upon arrival we gave each other a huge hug and compared timeslips to find that the marginal of differance between the two was only close enough to be told by the timing equipment. minus the reaction times.
Thanx to Tiff for letting me flogg the Dark Mark and for the one an only time I'll ever prolly get a chance to beat her at the tree.
I hope you had as much fun piloting your old sted down the track again.
Thanx, for prolly the most stunning "Wide Open Throttle" parade lap that LSR has ever seen and the chance to have a hot topic at the post race breakfast aside from the hotest topic at the track for the evening.
I know this was great fun for I as for everyone else that attended lastnight, it was funny to see people stop in mid conversation as the Ghost reapeared at the track after more than year long sabatical, it was more than funny to see people rubbing on the Ghost to get some of the most wanted mojo that so graciouly made you the hottest contender/most feared driver at LSR.
I passed along the hug you wanted Lori to have and she was bound an determined to be at the track with me this coming friday, looks as though my rien of glory has come to an end, as I will happily turn over the keys to let yet another young lady start her bracket racing history in the ever popular Grey Ghost, till I get the Ghost's old heart put into a Fox body with it's new driveline, dubbed.......................... The Grim Reaper!
And here's a few pic of our other toys:
2004 GT W/mods:
1985 F150 all original w/92k miles:
1992 Mazda Navajo (Ford Explorer):
Actually this is the shortened summary of how it all came to be, as the original is about 10 pages long.
This has been a fun and exciting project to say the least, I also know that Tom, Tiff, Johnstone and Danny (Ndoghouse) have been following along very closely, not just on the net but by making several trips to the house to check it out as it had been progressing along.
It should have been completed quicker than it should have but between rebuilding Tiff's complete front end, and multiple small repairs on Tom's car, doing several engine jobs, suspension jobs, and installing some mods on some Mudstains, plus working a fulltime job 5 days a week and closing on a house, it kind of got pushed around a lil bit, but the final out come was well worth all the work involved.
Because this whole Mark project was posted on a few other boards this has also lent it's self to bringing more work this way and will/is causing some of my other personal projects to be but on a tempoary hold (my Navajo rock crawler and F150 Flareside restoration).
It's all good though as I love what I do and couldn't think of having it any other way.
Bottom line is I cut all the wording out except for some relivent stuff and basically just gave you a picture show of what happened.
If you all think this is a lot of pics, mabey even too many, let me stress that because I live in the sticks, Lori and I did all this on a 26.4kbs dial-up connection, that's all we can get out here for the time being till other venus are aquired/offered.
If you have any questions reguarding anything you have seen please feel free to inquire as I'll be happy to let you know.
Jeff - :9
Here's to keeping alegend alive }(
Well here we go.........
As most of you already know I have a grey Lincoln Mark VIII, with some 237,000 miles on the ticker and a long history of being raced, and hard at that.
Well a few weeks ago while at the track to pick up an air ride compressor from my buddy Tom and the Ghost's previous owner Tiff, they told me about a guy whom had another Mark VIII for $600, that had been hit in the front end.
So after talking with him and discovering that this $600 Mark VIII has only 69,000 miles and that the poor lil Ghost was getting tired in more than one way, I sent Stang Girl over to look at it for me and make the final decision about the purchace.
After a short look over and using her best judgement she knew this was not to be passed up and paid for the car, took pictures and call me to let me know what was the scoop.
Well after a few weeks of doing other things around the house, and then finally the transmission going out in the Ghost it was time to make arrangments to bring the donar Mark VIII home for it second to last journey.
Mind you I have never ever seen this car in person, I have only seen this car in pictures.
So at 11:00pm lastnight it came home on a roll back and was dropped off in the street, with a jump box attached, she jumped right to life and was ready to go to it's new lounging spot, and me off to bed (4am comes around pretty early)
So after work today I decided I would knock the 1 1/2 years of dust and dirt of of her and she what was really to be had.
Mmmmmm Here's that tasty good stuff, 32 valves of screaming terror
Although you'll say it doesn't look to bad, it did take a pretty smart hit diagonally to the front end and tweeked the forward section of the frame rails pretty good.
All the interior (steering wheel, door panels, carpet, seats, console, misc trim, dash trim) except for the headliner, phone and dash assy will be used, the headliner can't be used as this car doesn't have a hole in the roof.
So the idea here is that I am also going to remove ALL of the drivetrain and put it in the Ghost, that includes the rear to.
So to do it in a so called easy fashion, I'm going to drop the whole K-member with the motor/tranny/front suspension at once and out from the bottom of the car.
I did a similar repair New Years night to Tom's Mark VIII, but only to the K-member, the problem was that the hoist legs got in the way and hampered a little bit, the hoist was used to hold the engine and tranny in place while I did the service.
This time I brought home a piece of "C" Channel iron and I'm going into the attic and placing it accross the rafters and punching two holes in the celing and dropping a chain through it, and then attaching a Chain Fall (block and tackle).
Similar to a tree saver, a heavy duty short strap around the front frame rails, while setting the engine and tranny with complete K-member still attached onto some funriture dollys for easy mobility.
then taking 2 short pieces of pipe and welding them to the frame rails with casters on them to move the car out of the garage, the rear section of the car will be the last part done.
Removing 19 gallons of fuel, must suck filling you car up and then crashing it.
Yep, that's right folks....the Ghost has his new heart!!!
Well, well, well, took a little trip lastnight to Lonestar Raceway Park to do some shake down passes.
Remeber other than a pair of 3 chamber Blowmaster mufflers, this 4000lbs. land missle is bone stock!
I averaged 28.6 mpg on my 82 mile jaunt to the track with the A/C.
Launching with an IRS, street tires, and no LSD is something a little new to me but none the less......
Well prolly the best run of the night was after I hot lapped the Grey Ghost with the UFO (Danny) about 4 times in a row, then Tiffany came up dangling her keys at me, wanting me to drive the Dark Mark while she piloted the newly rivived Grey Ghost.
Dark Mark: 93'PMC w/chip
Grey Ghost: 3 chamber Blowaster's
With the Grey Ghost and the Tiffany mod and me (and my fat a$$) in the Dark Mark we rolled to the staging lanes as everybody watched in anticipation, she was back in the original saddle that she first started out racing in.
We did our burnouts and proceeded to the tree.........
In two previous races this night, in our own cars, she treed me both times.
The tension was high the lights came down an BANGI blasted the Dark Mark out of the hole, looked down the track at the board I saw that I had nailed her ass to the wall on the tree, you knew the crowd was Ooooooing and Awwwwwwing!
Tiff an I were foot to the wood while we looked over at each other wondering who was gonna pull ahead, the Ghost creaping on the Dark Mark, door handle to door handle we kept starring at each other through the window with huge smiles on our faces in amazement as these barges were nearing the end of thier parade lap at WFO.
As we blasted across the line it was waaaay too close for anyone of to tell who won, the only people who knew at this time were the spectators.
As we approced the timeslip stand even the lady handing out the tickets was amazed, not only for the fact that Tiff was in her old car but that the times were almost too close to call.
As I obsevered, Tiff was handed the yellow slip and I was graciously handed the white slip and we rolled back to the paddock's with joyious 2nd gear scartches echoing throughout.
Upon arrival we gave each other a huge hug and compared timeslips to find that the marginal of differance between the two was only close enough to be told by the timing equipment. minus the reaction times.
Thanx to Tiff for letting me flogg the Dark Mark and for the one an only time I'll ever prolly get a chance to beat her at the tree.
I hope you had as much fun piloting your old sted down the track again.
Thanx, for prolly the most stunning "Wide Open Throttle" parade lap that LSR has ever seen and the chance to have a hot topic at the post race breakfast aside from the hotest topic at the track for the evening.
I know this was great fun for I as for everyone else that attended lastnight, it was funny to see people stop in mid conversation as the Ghost reapeared at the track after more than year long sabatical, it was more than funny to see people rubbing on the Ghost to get some of the most wanted mojo that so graciouly made you the hottest contender/most feared driver at LSR.
I passed along the hug you wanted Lori to have and she was bound an determined to be at the track with me this coming friday, looks as though my rien of glory has come to an end, as I will happily turn over the keys to let yet another young lady start her bracket racing history in the ever popular Grey Ghost, till I get the Ghost's old heart put into a Fox body with it's new driveline, dubbed.......................... The Grim Reaper!
And here's a few pic of our other toys:
2004 GT W/mods:
1985 F150 all original w/92k miles:
1992 Mazda Navajo (Ford Explorer):
Actually this is the shortened summary of how it all came to be, as the original is about 10 pages long.
This has been a fun and exciting project to say the least, I also know that Tom, Tiff, Johnstone and Danny (Ndoghouse) have been following along very closely, not just on the net but by making several trips to the house to check it out as it had been progressing along.
It should have been completed quicker than it should have but between rebuilding Tiff's complete front end, and multiple small repairs on Tom's car, doing several engine jobs, suspension jobs, and installing some mods on some Mudstains, plus working a fulltime job 5 days a week and closing on a house, it kind of got pushed around a lil bit, but the final out come was well worth all the work involved.
Because this whole Mark project was posted on a few other boards this has also lent it's self to bringing more work this way and will/is causing some of my other personal projects to be but on a tempoary hold (my Navajo rock crawler and F150 Flareside restoration).
It's all good though as I love what I do and couldn't think of having it any other way.
Bottom line is I cut all the wording out except for some relivent stuff and basically just gave you a picture show of what happened.
If you all think this is a lot of pics, mabey even too many, let me stress that because I live in the sticks, Lori and I did all this on a 26.4kbs dial-up connection, that's all we can get out here for the time being till other venus are aquired/offered.
If you have any questions reguarding anything you have seen please feel free to inquire as I'll be happy to let you know.
Jeff - :9
