I had sold my 1969 Dodge Charger, and my 1985 Honda was developing a clicking halfshaft and a slipping clutch that foretold expensive repairs in the near future. As I nursed my Honda along, I weighed whether to sink money into it or to replace it with another car. At the time I didn’t have a garage, and my experiences parking two cars on the streets of San Francisco had made me think that perhaps I should stick to one vehicle at a time. A number of interesting 80s performance cars were starting to depreciate downward into my budget, and I wondered if I could find something that combined the power and enjoyable driving experience of my Charger with the usability and reliability of my Honda. “One car to rule them all” so to speak.
I’d vaguely considered a 3rd gen Camaro or Firebird, though looking into them, the build quality and overall design didn’t appeal to me. The Monte Carlo SS seemed like a prospect in theory, but used examples were rare and expensive and the actual performance didn’t seem all that impressive. I’d been aware that the Fox-body Mustang had been through a dramatic transformation in the mid-1980s, and I began to look into them as a possible next car.
The California Highway Patrol has for many years run a weekly vehicle auction out of Sacramento. At the time (the late 1990s) you could phone a recorded message ran down what cars were coming up for auction that week. Back then the CHP still ran a few Fox-body Special Service Mustangs, and I would call the line periodically to check if there were any retired ones being sold that week, but only tired Crown Vics or Caprices seemed to be on offer.
Riding my bicycle home from work down San Francisco’s Market Street one day, I caught a glimpse of a white 1986 Mustang GT in very nice shape with a For Sale sign in the window. I didn’t, initially, get the number off the sign, but the car definitely appealed to me. A week or so later, I saw the Mustang again, and this time I was able to copy down the phone number from the sign – and also saw that the sign mentioned it had a 5-speed. I was intrigued.
While I had initially set my sights on a 1987-1993 Fox Body Mustang, the 86 was visually more appealing to me. The Mustang had been through a restyle in 1987 that had grafted on a Taurus-inspired aero front end onto a car with otherwise boxy and sharp-edged design language and it never looked right to me. The GT package also was much more garish on the 87-up cars, with lower-body cladding and an odd cheese-grater-like taillight treatment. Below is a comparison of the 1986 Mustang GT with the 1987 one.
The 86 5.0 was mechanically very similar to the 87-up cars. It had the sequential fuel-injected 5-liter V8 with the same roller cam and tubular headers, exiting through dual exhaust, though slightly different heads meant advertised horsepower was 200 rather than 225 as on the 87-up cars. It also had the same T-5 transmission and 8.8 limited-slip rear ends, and largely similar underpinnings. A huge aftermarket for the Fox Mustangs was developing, and many of the same upgrades and bolt-ons for 87-up cars would work on the 86. I went back and forth a bit on whether I should hold out to find an 87-up car in my price range, but the clean styling of the “four-eyed” Mustang did appeal to me. I do remember being aware that Fox-body Mustangs were frequently stolen, and thought that the older body style might be less of a target to car thieves.
I phoned the seller – he was a supermarket employee who had bought the Mustang new and had taken very good care of it. It had somewhat over 90 thousand miles on the odometer, and a test drive convinced me that the 200-HP engine in the 1986 GT was more than adequate for my purposes. In the past, cars tended to take a nosedive in resale value right around 100,000 miles due to a general public perception that they were worn out once the odometer turned over. My Mustang may have been the last car I bought where I was able to take advantage of this 100k depreciation. I can’t recall the exact purchase price but I believe I negotiated a few hundred down from the asking price of $4,000.00.
The Mustang GT came in two versions that year – mine was the lower of the two packages, which meant it had manual door locks, hand-crank windows, and a “standard” rather than “premium” sound system. For a car that small, I actually preferred hand-crank windows.
At the time, I worked managing international distribution for a small book publisher in San Francisco, and my job had recently been through some remarkable transformations. The computer terminal on my desk was replaced by a PC with email and internet access, and orders, customs documents, and shipping paperwork that were formerly sent to and from my office via fax, mail, or overnight courier could now be filed electronically.
How I researched and worked on cars also went through a similar transformation. Before, I’d relied on shop manuals, advice from friends, and accumulated experience. Access to the internet now gave me a wealth of information and advice — some good, some less so.
The Fox-body Mustang community seemed to be an early adapter of going online – having tackled EFI, they clearly weren’t afraid of engaging with new and unfamiliar technology. I’d frequently browse sites like Corral.net on lunch breaks, reading discussions about shifters, dyno tests of different components, and assorted general discussions of how to get the most out of the cars.
One of my first modifications, which I learned about online, was to pull the airbox silencer which lived inside the fender. This was supposed to free up a few horsepower at the cost of a bit more intake noise. I can’t say I felt any difference in seat of the pants performance but the intake now had a throatier sound.
Pulling this silencer from a 5.0 Mustang was supposed to free up a few horsepower.
I also removed the 5.0 badges from the fender, figuring it made the car less of a theft magnet. I still have them somewhere in my garage.
The Mustang was a relatively new car, in good shape, and proved quite reliable. I probably spent more time than necessary taking care of various routine maintenance tasks such as changing plugs, putting in new belts and hoses, and changing the fuel filter. The last task required depressurizing the fuel system, and I apparently didn’t relieve all the pressure, as I was sprayed with a face full of gas as I disconnected the old filter.
About the only issue that presented itself was the car’s thirst for oil. It would use a quart of oil around every 2000 miles – sometimes more if it was used hard or on shorter trips. I was initially concerned, thinking the engine was worn, but it was apparently normal for this era of 5.0 V8 which, like mine, had forged pistons. Ford put out a Technical Service Bulletin stating that it wasn’t a problem unless oil consumption reached some ridiculous level (I think it was a quart every 500 miles?), and online research showed high oil use was a common issue. 5.0 Mustangs came stock with a “Check Oil” light on dash which lit when the oil level was low which apparently alarmed some owners who thought that it was an oil pressure warning light.
For 1993, the final year of the Fox Mustang, Ford switched to hypereutectic cast pistons to address the oil consumption issue, but many Fox owners preferred the sturdier forged pistons. Having owned older cars I was used to checking and topping up my oil, and I got in the habit of carrying a spare quart with me. I did sometimes remind myself that the 5.0 V8 was a descendant of Ford’s original 221 small block introduced in the 1962 Fairlane, and perhaps should be judged by the standards of an older era.
I took my Mustang to the Wednesday night bracket drags at Sears Point to see what it could do. I arrived in late afternoon and was able to run a few practice rounds before the elimination rounds. Sears Point is now known as Sonoma Raceway, but the run-what-you-brung weeknight drag races are still a regular event there.
In basically stock form, and despite being a neophyte at launching on a dragstrip, I got the car to run mid-15 second quarter miles. The picture below is taken out of my windshield as I was in the staging lanes heading to the starting line, and you can see my 15.60 dial-in in white shoe polish on my windshield from my first attempt at bracket racing.
Over the next year or so, I made a number of changes aimed both at improving my quarter-mile time and making the car more enjoyable to drive.
First, I upgraded the shifter — there were several aftermarket ones available, and after reading online forums discussing the pros and cons of each, I ordered a Pro 5.0 shifter. The stock Mustang shifter was mounted in a set of rubber bushings (it seemed like Ford’s solution to any noise/vibration/harshness issue was to insulate the offending component with rubber) and had a fairly long throw. The Pro 5.0 shifter was a solidly built mechanism made of billet aluminum, with shorter, more direct throws, and adjustable stops so you could slam it from gear to gear without overstressing the transmission. I topped the shifter with a T-handle shifter and the T5 transmission now could be flicked from gear to gear.
I also drove the car to Rearend Specialties in Santa Clara to have the stock 2.73:1 rear axle gears changed out for a set of 3:73:1 gears. I had picked up the correct speedometer gear for the new ratio, and they performed the gear swap in an afternoon. As they dropped the car from the lift, the service writer gave me a photocopied sheet explaining the break-in procedure for the rear gears. One of the key points was that after driving the first 15 to 20 miles, I should stop and let the differential cool for at least 30 minutes before proceeding, and that I should limit my speeds to 55mph or less during this initial period. The rear end shop was about 45 miles from my home, so I realized I had a longer drive back than I had anticipated. I decided to drive the car up El Camino Real (a former Spanish road that is now a surface street that runs much of the length of California) and as I neared the 20-mile mark on my trip odometer, I came across The Oasis – a beer and burger place in Menlo Park. This establishment has since closed, but many years before, my father had proposed to my mother there, so it has a special place in my family history. I pulled over and let my gears cool as I enjoyed a relaxed lunch.
Changing the rear end gears was by far the biggest bang-for-the-buck upgrade that I made to the Mustang and transformed the feel of the car. The overdrive 5th gear became far more usable. I assume that the relatively stock tall gears were installed with an eye to improving the fuel economy ratings of the car rather than for driveability. And as the first gear was now lowered, the car launched much more decisively both on the street or on the dragstrip.
The lowered first gear and the resultant torque multiplication also made the car even more prone to snap oversteer and unexpectedly kicking the rear end out. Fox Mustangs (and Mustangs for several generations following) have a 4-link rear suspension which is prone to binding under hard launches, and the lower gears magnified this effect. There are countless online videos of Mustangs leaving car shows that dramatically demonstrate this tendency, and I became adept at sensing when the rear end was breaking loose and quickly countersteering it back into line. If there was even a tiny bit of rain on the pavement, it could break loose even on fairly gentle starts – there was an uphill left turn getting onto Skyline Boulevard that seemed especially prone to this.
The stock mufflers were in perfect shape, but I had a set of Dynomax mufflers welded in as some tests I had read said they could free up a few horsepower. I noticed no difference in performance, but the car now had an agreeable throatier tone, and it was thankfully not all that much louder. At the time, Flowmasters seemed more popular among 5.0 Mustang owners, but the exhaust tone never appealed to me — it always reminded me of a truck driving through a tunnel.
I returned to Sears Point a few times, and managed to get my quarter mile down to 15.3. My car wasn’t all that “quick” by dragstrip standards, but for a street car I never found it wanting.
I also addressed some aesthetic issues. Although the car was generally in good shape, the matte black decal on the hood had faded to the color of a charcoal briquette and developed a network of cracks. In the photo below, also taken at Sears Point, the cracked and faded decal on my hood is just visible on the lower left.
An autobody supply shop suggested Woodgrain and Stripe remover, cautioning me it was nasty stuff and to use it outside. Donning gloves and old clothing, I sprayed it on and watched as the decal curled and puckered. I scraped off the remover and chunks of decal, leaving behind bits of adhesive on the hood.
Some followup work with acetone and a plastic scraper, followed by a clay bar, finally got the remaining residue removed. I was glad I had a white car, as there was no “shadow” of the decal produced by paint fading on the hood but not under the decal. Reproduction decals were available and I briefly considered putting a new one on, but ultimately decided to leave the hood in the decal-less state you can see on the lead picture. When researching replacement decals online, I did briefly contemplate putting on a decal kit from an older Fox Mustang.
It was out of this same somewhat odd impulse that I “backdated” a few things in the interior. My 86 Mustang had the same basic interior as 1979-up Fox Mustangs (the interior was redesigned for 1987), and poking around the then-plentiful supply of older Fox Mustangs at local pick & pull salvage yards, I noticed that many of the components had changed in design over the years but would interchange. I swapped in a few components like armrests, door panels, and climate control knobs. The effect was subtle, and I’m probably the only one that noticed, but I enjoyed it. If I’d had to spend my time working on actual mechanical issues, I doubt I would have found time to do things like swap out armrests. I never came across a full houndstooth interior as shown below, but if I had, I do wonder if I’d have been moved to take my project to the logical extreme. I hung onto my original interior pieces for a while but ended up selling them to someone who was in the process of restoring a Saleen Mustang of a similar vintage.
My Mustang continued to be a reliable and enjoyable daily driver, and it made the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles a number of times without a hitch. It was a good road trip car with one passenger, but the back seat was relatively small and it seemed a bit crowded with four adults on board.
I probably would have continued to slowly upgrade my Mustang, as the aftermarket presented a dizzying array of possibilities and the old adage of “speed costs money, how fast do you want to go” held especially true for the Fox Mustang, but several years into my ownership of the Mustang, I picked up at almost the same time a non-running 1965 Falcon and a rental garage near my apartment. The Falcon began to consume my free time and attention and the Mustang was relegated to secondary status. My pleasant experiences with the 5.0 motor in my Mustang made me want to try swapping one into the little Ford, which I’ll detail my next COAL installment.
After getting my Falcon running, a friend asked if I’d be at all interested in selling him my Mustang. He had initially asked me for advice on finding a 5.0, and the conversation turned to whether I’d care to let mine go. I hadn’t, up until then, thought about selling it, but he made me an attractive offer and my Mustang ended up changing hands. I’ve definitely owned cars that I’d be hesitant to sell to a friend, but my Mustang was one that I felt I could pass on to someone with confidence.
As the buyer and I were friends and ran in the same circles, I’d still see the car occasionally after I sold it. As far as I know, it continued to provide reliable transportation, though I never asked him what he thought of the somewhat retro interior details I’d put in. It did suffer an unsuccessful theft attempt at one point — the thief apparently had some difficulty getting it out of the parking spot and inflicted some front-end damage before giving up on their attempt. My friend eventually left town and sold the Mustang and the car passed out of my life.
Quite a few years after I sold my Mustang, I came across the covers for its Marchal foglights in a drawer – I’d removed them not long after buying the car as I didn’t want to have to pull over & remove the covers whenever I used my foglights. I listed them on eBay and was surprised at how they were quickly bid to over $100.00.
Ahh, the Oasis! That strip of El Camino between Mountain View and Redwood City could supply almost every human need, from furniture to mattresses to tires and transmission repair, not to mention tacos or tofu and some very questionable lodging options. But it’s been cleaned up a lot in the last few years. Along with the Oasis, the Old Pro bar which was housed in a Quonset Hut, and Antonio’s Nut House (just off EC on California Ave) are gone. Not sure about the Glass Slipper. The Ford store switched to McLaren and the only GM dealer that survived the nineties became a Tesla showroom.
As to Fox Mustangs, I drove a new ‘86 GT before buying my Ranger. It was very nice but I wanted a truck. In 1999, I decided to treat myself to my first “toy” vehicle in several years after focusing on career and kids. I checked out a used Fox 5.0 LX 5 speed convertible, the post-86 refresh without the GT plastic. That may have been a low point in value for those cars as I recall the asking price for the clean ten year old example, in San Jose, with around 100K and clean and well-maintained, was around $3500. But I ended up getting a motorcycle instead. Which I still have; not sure I’d still be driving the 5.0 after 20+ years.
That’s in my neck of the woods! The Glass Slipper is still there.
Without the hood decal and 5.0 badges, your car did look similar to a 5.0 LX. The wheels give it away, but that was a clean looking car; someone would love to come across something so nice today. My parents’ ’88 GT convertible has an AOD and a 2.73 gear, and it is a dog off the line. They’ve had it for 32 years, and they would let me drive it around when I was a kid; people would challenge me at red lights all the time, but I usually declined, knowing that it was all bark, no bite. Every once in a while, I offer to install a set of 4.10 gears for my dad when he talks about how much faster his new Ecoboost Mustang is, but he barely drives the convertible now anyway.
Either way, there weren’t many cars back then that were cooler than a Fox Mustang (at least where I live).
RE: Oil Consumption
I can still see the look of bemusement on my Father’s face when the “factory rep” assured him that using a quart of oil every 500 miles was considered “normal and acceptable” for the FE390 engine in Mom’s year old Ford Country Sedan station wagon.
Toyota told me that 750 miles or more per quart was considered acceptable oil usage for my 2000 Celica GT with 40,000 miles. They only agreed to fix my engine when an oil consumption test showed I was using a quart every 700. After they rebuilt it, my oil consumption was now 800 per quart and was considered normal usage. This was in 2003.
I never seriously shopped Toyota again.
Ahhh, you lived my almost-alternate life. An 85 Mustang GT had the inside track at one point when contemplating my first new car. The ultimate dealbreaker? That damned matte black decal that covered 2/3 of the hood. I knew what those looked like after a few years on cars from the 70s, and it being on the only part of the car you could see from the drivers seat, I knew it would be a grating irritant. I wish I had thought about/known about decal remover.
The bad gearing was par for the course in those years, but that car at least had enough grunt to keep that axle ratio from being completely intolerable as on many larger cars of the period.
I have never forgotten how surprisingly old-school that brand-new 80s car felt on my first test drive. The feel of the shifter and the sounds that came from outside the cabin made me feel like I was back in 1966 – which was not a bad thing!
The 86s in my opinion were a great year and I too like the lines on these fat better the more bloated 87+. My childhood friend and I had different paths. He stayed home for college, never spent money and was focused on work/school. I went away to college and was penniless until my mid 40s more or less.
His strict immigrant father made him and his three sibs buy new cars at age 18, all stripper versions of GM workaday cars, no air, as a conveyance to school/work, for cash. Cars were washed regardless of season, every week or two in the driveway He had a black used 78 Mustang 2 coupe w opera window and it was time for him to get a hew car.
His dad was not part of the shopping process or transaction but Mike told his Dad he was getting a Mustang with a nicer wheels and some decals. Dad said OK, thinking it was like his Mustang 2 w/ 4 of 6 banger, only a current model. Dad could get behind that.
What showed up was a beautiful red GT 5 speed with black accents, top of the line. He didn’t know how to drive a stick , but got it home. His dad proclaimed “You lied to me”! As Mike stood there with a sh*t eating grin. Surprisingly he didn’t make him try to take it back. I was happy for Mike because growing up in such a strict house he didn’t get to spread his wings too much.
He took amazing care of it and sold it and got a workaday Dodge Shadow. He’s wealthy now and could easily afford whatever he’d like but since that GT he’s only driven basic cars and now has a leased Traxx.
Sounds like his dad’s values took over afterall. :/
What an awesome story, very well done IMO. I felt like I was right there watching you in the 90s. Probably very similar to what I’d have been doing had I been an adult and not a kid, haha.
Gearing makes a huge difference. It can turn a sub-100 HP car into a rocket. Case in point, I had a 1991 Ford Tempo GLS with 3.73 final drive. It was far quicker than a Tempo with the “economy” 5 speed, even though the H.O. engine wasnt up by much over the stock HSC. Those engines had great low-end torque, like an OHV 5.0L, so the gearing really took advantage of that.
Re. Removing the intake silencer. Standard procedure for any Ford I get from that era, haha! You should hear how the 3.0L Vulcan in my 1995 Taurus sounds like with it removed. It has a little growl that brings a smile to my face.
You are right, the gearing can definitely make a big difference. I know exactly what you’re talking about comparing the Tempo GLS 3.73s with the regular gears in the Tempo.
I had to replace my fog lights a few times. I just gave up and put the covers on.
Years ago (around 1989) when I was still selling at the Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Honda store, there was an older farmer who was driving a 1983 Cadillac Brougham. He would drop his wife off at the mall and then come to visit me. He was a short fella and always dressed like he was going to a wedding, but in a cheap but still nice suit. He would come in and always walk up to the back of the cars, put his knee on the rear bumper, push down and then jump back to “see how the shocks were”. There were brand new cars mind you! haha. Anyhow, we got to talking one time and he told me that an engine that doesn’t use a little oil is an engine he would be afraid of. I questioned him more on this as I had always heard an engine using some oil was bad. He simply explained that the oil has a purpose to lubricate and help keep the engine parts cool. His theory was that if an engine didn’t use some oil, it wasn’t properly lubricating or cooling. I then asked him how much was “normal”, and he said about 1 quart per 2000 miles or so. Anything more was excessive. Anything less was not properly doing it’s job.
From that day on, I never thought twice about an engine using a quart for every 2-30000 miles. By the time the level was low, it was time to change the oil anyhow.
Just noticed I put one too many “0” in the miles. Should say 2 to 3,000 miles. Not 2-30000 miles.
One of the popular junkyard upgrades for these in the old days of the internet was to pull the whole rear axle out of an 87-88 Tbird turbo coupe, which also netted 3.73 gears and disc brakes.
Of all the foxbody facelifts I think the 85-86 was the only one that was about as good as the original design, when I was a kid I remember seeing a lot of them fitted with clear acrylic aero covers which with the mail slot grille opening reminded me of the front end of the interceptor in the Mad Max movies, so count me in as a fan. There’s white a T-top 85 or 86 local to me still running around, has the original paint and stripe by the look of it with the same fading and checks, I prefer it without the decal, the subtle embossed GT in the side moldings is all this design needed, Foxbodies look their best decluttered
Great post, always like to read about another Mustang lover. For years I drove higher spec more expensive cars, but I found that I now value the reliability and relative simplicity of a car like a Mustang. I had a ’97 Explorer with the 5.0 which also had the cool tubular headers. I can see why such a mystique grew around this motor. I thought it was great except for the gas mileage, which I’m sure was better in the lighter Mustang.
What great post. I loved reading about all of your time with the Mustang, and reminds me of times that I have spent with my own Mustangs and other Ford cars. I especially like how you mix and matched parts on the interior to suit your liking, I did similar with my own Topaz. It had front and rear seats from an 87 Tbird TurboCoupe. A steering wheel from the same car. I replaced the automatic seat belts and interior side panels from an older Tempo 2-door. I also had a 120mph speedo from a 1992 Tempo GLS.
Thanks for sharing the story.