Hello all, I finally got around to signing up on this site, I've been a member on LVC and .org for a while now and keep hearing people referring to this site so I figured I'd make a username..most of you probably recognize my car from the other sites but for those of you who are "exclusive" to LOD here goes.
I've had my mark for almost a year now, I bought it in june of 2011 as a quick cheap replacement car for my 04 Impala which was totaled. I owned a 97 thunderbird from 04-08 so I already had a good knowledge about these cars..not to mention I wanted a Mark VIII ever since I bought the tbird years back, so I figured it would be a good time to buy one. Looked at a few 2nd gens which were either beat to death or they wanted way too much for them, and then came across the 95 which was being sold by a private seller a few miles from home. I checked it out and was surpised how rust free it was for it living in the chicago area all of it's life. Turns out the owner was the daughter of the original owner. She inherited the car after her mothers passing 6 years back and it pretty much sat in her garage for that long, occasionally taking it to the store and back every week or so. There were a few minor issues with the car, but the price wasn't bad, it had low mileage (70K) and it was rust free so we made a deal and I drove off with it.
The issues with it included door dings out the ass all up and down the rear 1/4s and a few random ones throughout the car..they must have parked it in the same spot in the garage and repeatedly oepened the door in the same spot to get that many. The second issue was the lady bumped something with the front end and cracked the very edge of the hood and grille. The last issue was the air ride which she said had some kind of problem which she was unaware of according to her "mechanic". Aside from the cosmetic stuff and the air ride, the car ran and drove perfect, no trans issues what so ever and idled smooth.
Well here we are almost a year later, and she's still running great, and I've taken care of most of the problems I talked about. Here's the list of what I've done so far:
-Replaced Idler pulley and belt
-Replaced radiator
-Replaced drivers side corner lense, chrome trim above headlights and grille
-LSC headlights
-DLF adapters and VVME 35W HIDs, 4300K bulbs
-fixed door dings (paintless dent repair)
-LSC bumpers/trim painted to match
-cleaned and buffed the whole car to restore the paint (now looks shiny and damn near new)
Soon I hope to get the american air lowered conversion kit..but for now it's fine, I havent had any problems with the air ride, it never leaks or slams to the ground over night..the only thing I can think of that's wrong is the front bags might have developed hairline cracks because I tried sensor lowering it and it leaked down lower than normal after a day of sitting, so I put the sensors back and now it's back to normal..so I'm leaving it that way. I'd also like to do a true dual set up with magnaflow mufflers and Jmod the trans. Another member from LVC is going to hook me up with a W3Z2 computer from a 93 so hopefully that will do a little something for performance.
Anyways enough talk heres pics of the car over the course of a year.
the day I brought it home, so dirty you could hardly tell the chrome 20 spokes were chrome
cleaned it up and buffed it all (rims were a pain in the ass to get all that baked on brake dust off)
door dings before they were fixed (now looks perfect, the guy did an awsome job)
LSC lights with aftermarked HIDs
pinstripe removed
painted the trunk lock cover green to match
LSC bumpers and trim in paint booth, with hood getting fixed and resprayed
bumpers getting put on
guys from LVC lending me a hand
bumper ready to go on with new grille
arrow straight 1/4s, doors and fenders
and thats where I'm at so far..
I've had my mark for almost a year now, I bought it in june of 2011 as a quick cheap replacement car for my 04 Impala which was totaled. I owned a 97 thunderbird from 04-08 so I already had a good knowledge about these cars..not to mention I wanted a Mark VIII ever since I bought the tbird years back, so I figured it would be a good time to buy one. Looked at a few 2nd gens which were either beat to death or they wanted way too much for them, and then came across the 95 which was being sold by a private seller a few miles from home. I checked it out and was surpised how rust free it was for it living in the chicago area all of it's life. Turns out the owner was the daughter of the original owner. She inherited the car after her mothers passing 6 years back and it pretty much sat in her garage for that long, occasionally taking it to the store and back every week or so. There were a few minor issues with the car, but the price wasn't bad, it had low mileage (70K) and it was rust free so we made a deal and I drove off with it.
The issues with it included door dings out the ass all up and down the rear 1/4s and a few random ones throughout the car..they must have parked it in the same spot in the garage and repeatedly oepened the door in the same spot to get that many. The second issue was the lady bumped something with the front end and cracked the very edge of the hood and grille. The last issue was the air ride which she said had some kind of problem which she was unaware of according to her "mechanic". Aside from the cosmetic stuff and the air ride, the car ran and drove perfect, no trans issues what so ever and idled smooth.
Well here we are almost a year later, and she's still running great, and I've taken care of most of the problems I talked about. Here's the list of what I've done so far:
-Replaced Idler pulley and belt
-Replaced radiator
-Replaced drivers side corner lense, chrome trim above headlights and grille
-LSC headlights
-DLF adapters and VVME 35W HIDs, 4300K bulbs
-fixed door dings (paintless dent repair)
-LSC bumpers/trim painted to match
-cleaned and buffed the whole car to restore the paint (now looks shiny and damn near new)
Soon I hope to get the american air lowered conversion kit..but for now it's fine, I havent had any problems with the air ride, it never leaks or slams to the ground over night..the only thing I can think of that's wrong is the front bags might have developed hairline cracks because I tried sensor lowering it and it leaked down lower than normal after a day of sitting, so I put the sensors back and now it's back to normal..so I'm leaving it that way. I'd also like to do a true dual set up with magnaflow mufflers and Jmod the trans. Another member from LVC is going to hook me up with a W3Z2 computer from a 93 so hopefully that will do a little something for performance.
Anyways enough talk heres pics of the car over the course of a year.
the day I brought it home, so dirty you could hardly tell the chrome 20 spokes were chrome
cleaned it up and buffed it all (rims were a pain in the ass to get all that baked on brake dust off)
door dings before they were fixed (now looks perfect, the guy did an awsome job)
LSC lights with aftermarked HIDs
pinstripe removed
painted the trunk lock cover green to match
LSC bumpers and trim in paint booth, with hood getting fixed and resprayed
bumpers getting put on
guys from LVC lending me a hand
bumper ready to go on with new grille
arrow straight 1/4s, doors and fenders
and thats where I'm at so far..
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