1997 Pewter Gray Progress Thread

[fordguy]

Well here we go the thread I have been wanting to do ever since I got her. It will start off fast and probaly get slower as time and money permit I will try to go in as much detail as my do it now and take pictures later personality can but will answer any questions if anyone needs em. To start I found my car in Oct/2012 after looking on craigslist, autotrader, ebay and many other forums/classifieds in the entire country for 4 months. I knew the car I wanted and was pumped when I found it about 6hrs away. It started off as a company car for a CEO and he owned it untill about 77,000 mi when it was purchased for a 15yo girl who drove it for 5 years untill I got it at 115,000 mi. It is a 1997 Pewter Gray/Ebony with heated seats and sunroof. I bought my first Mark VIII 12 yrs ago as a birthday present for myself at 21. It was a 1997 Deep Navy Blue/Gray loaded with chrome 10 spokes. I was hooked from the beginning and looked to get another one everytime I bought a car after I sold her. Well enough of me rambling on lets start this thread!!!!

 

[fordguy]

To start here are the pics off of the Craigslist ad and when I got her home

She is finally home!!!

Between the jacked up headlights, water infested neon and peeling chrome she was a solid well maintained car that just needed someone to treat her right and give her some TLC (and $ )

 

[fordguy]

First thing done was a new neon. While I knew I was going to paint her upfront I think the base chrome neon looked great with this color so base I went. Next up was to take care of the backward painted 10 spokes. Found a great deal on some 17x9 Chrome Cobra R's with Bridgestone Potenza RE750's 255/50/17's.

They made a huge difference in the apperance but still needed something. Here we go

 

[fordguy]

Outside looking better now I needed to enjoy the inside a bit more. Sony bluetooth head unit, Rockford Fosgate "Punch" 3 way 6x8's in front and back joined to a Sony 12" sub in the trunk.

 

[fordguy]

Now back to the outside. Sensor lower out of the question at this time because of a worn out suspension so next best apperance mod = Tinted windows. I went with the precut kit from Snaptint.com. Used them before on my Mustang and Bronco (in the background) and the panels were a perfect fit. Went with the True Gray 20% + 15% mirrored. This combo ended up looking great with the Pewter Gray paint.

 

[Right on the Mark]

Very good looking car.How come 90% of time when someone buy a car the wheels are on wrong? LOL The sig shot the paint looks real nice and wet and deep. Good luck with her.

 

[fordguy]

Thanks! I was thinking the same thing when I picked it up just started laughing and shook my head didn't see it in the pics before I got there.

 

[fordguy]

After that she went into hibernation for the winter. During that time I realized that the heat didn't come out of the vents. Traced it down to an actuator arm for the panel/defrost door that is controlled by a vacuum motor fed by the all to familar Yellow vacuum line coming out the back of the EATC. I was so happy to find out I was going to have to pull the dash out (not) but figured out what a perfect time to convert the dash to blue led's and white face gauges.

Dosen't this look like fun!

Here is the arm that was broken:

While the dash was out left me a perfect time to reiforce the blend door actuator arm and slot the metal connecting arm to prevent ever taking the dash out again.

Nail and expoxy:

Slotted arm:

Ready to go back in:

Am I done Yet!!! Beer break!

 

[fordguy]

Thats all I got in me tonight. More to come tommorrow!

 

[slowmkviii]

Very nice
But why did you disconnect all the wires from the dash instead of the fire wall?

 

[Markviiiedrea]

Looks like great progress, love that color.

 

[fordguy]

Very nice
But why did you disconnect all the wires from the dash instead of the fire wall?

At first I was hoping I would only have to pull the drivers side out a little to change the arm so I was going a little at a time. But altogether just a mixture of jumping in without using the search button to learn form the headaches of others.:Bang

 

[fordguy]

After getting the dash installed I had a 2 week wait for my Hong Kong leds to arrive so I found a few things to take up my time. I needed a makeover for my frontend and my seats were getting wrinkled, faded and worn down in a few spots.
First off the hunt for LSC moldings, grill and headlights with trim.

Found and prepped for paint:

Time to put them in my professional paint booth

I used automotivetouchup.com for the paint and can't stress enough how good their products are. They came out perfect and it only took 2 12oz basecoat cans and 1 12oz can of the clearcoat.

First off a few pics of the old trim and headlights:

New grill, headlights and moldings:

 

[fordguy]

Now on to the seats. I used leatherrepairkits.com for the products. You can select your interior color code and it also comes with repair compound and everything else you need to get the job done. I was very happy with the results and the color matched perfectly.

Some problems i was dealing with:

Repair compound done and ready for the color:

Done! The seats came out way better than I expected:

 

[Epwillis]

:eek2: Those seats look awesome, have you used this product before these seats??

Does it wear off at all? Easy process?

 

[ford nut]

Now on to the seats. I used leatherrepairkits.com for the products. You can select your interior color code and it also comes with repair compound and everything else you need to get the job done. I was very happy with the results and the color matched perfectly.


Done! The seats came out way better than I expected:

They sure did, MarkVIII is not listed.
Did you use 6505 Ebony?
Impressive I might try it on my back seat.

Car looks nice, good job

 

[Lownslowlsc]

Beautiful car. Thanks for all the pics too.

 

[fordguy]

:eek2: Those seats look awesome, have you used this product before these seats??

Does it wear off at all? Easy process?

No first time using it. I did do a lot of research on it and although i doubt it will last forever I've heard people having it for years and they say it still looks good! Wasn't hard just time comsuming to make sure it is done right. Took me about 5 hours start to finish with drying time inbetween.

They sure did, MarkVIII is not listed.
Did you use 6505 Ebony?
Impressive I might try it on my back seat.

Car looks nice, good job

Yep 6505 is what I used matched up great!

 

[fordguy]

Time for the fun part..Led's!
This was by for the logest process to get everything to work the way I wanted to. My goal was to get every dash light and cruise control buttons to become blue. Pretty much every bulb is either a T5, T4 or a T3 with only a few others needing to be different (EATC being the biggest PITA). I'll give pics of it all and a little info bout each piece. Here we go!

First is the heated seats and defrost button. The 4 white ones are T4 and the 2 gray ones are T4 tall. Defrost is 1 T4 (no pic but it is on the side you can't miss it.

T4 tall

Next is the Warning lights and lights for the buttons. They are all T4. The warning lights don't need to be changed but I did change the trac off, overdrive off and check engine to red. The buttons only use 2 T4's which you cant see in the pic but you cant miss them.

Next is the Cluster. Almost all are T5 with the PRND12 being T3's. I believe there are either 8 or 9 T5's for the cluster lights (pic is darker that I hoped). The blinker bulbs are T5 as well. The gray warning lights are T5 also and don't need to be changed but I changed the cruise to blue and the trac slip to red. I also changed the T3's for the PD12 to blue and the RN to red.

Next is the EATC and for me it sucked. They look like T4 but the contact is on the underside of the circuit board not the top like all the rest. On top of that the bulb for the wheel is hard wired in. Now I dont know if they make the T4's with an underside contact but I couldn't find them. I didnt take any pics but with time a few beers and a razor blade you can modify the regular t4's to work (I'll get pics soon). As for the wheel bulb i found some leds with resistor and wires that I spliced in.

underside contact:

Next was to make the digital displays blue. I used a blue filter gel to make ths happen. I also used this on the inside of the cruise control buttons and the shifter benzel for the PRND12. While it makes the cruise and shift lights look bluish I will be redoing the actual bulbs later on to make it look perfect not just blueish along with the door panel lights.

 

[fordguy]

Time for the white face gauge install, interior lights, puddle lamps and night pics to see it all in action.

Scrape the old white paint off of the needles with a razor blade and repaint with a flourescent red paint. I used the white face gauges form Temple Performance and they are awesome. They are a true replacement not just stickers and are of equal to better qualiy then OEM. Just peel off the old decal remove the double sided tape and stick on the new one.

Interior lights: dome, glove box, ashtray, quarter panel and under dash are all T10. I used white in the dome, quarter and glove box and blue in ashtray and under dash. The doors are 36 mm festoon bulbs and I used blue. The puddle lamps are T10 as well.

And now time to see the night shots!!

 

[fordguy]

With that I am up to date! Next on the list is full front and rear suspension redo then a sensor lower. Then it is fun time with driveline, exhaust and engine.

Hope I was helpful to some and you enjoyed the pics!!

I leave with some exterior shots of her as of yesterday!

 

[Travisg32v]

Awesome to see another person on the forums with a Pewter Gray Base 97, i think counting myself and you that is a total of 3 of us on here. i also bought mine with about 114,000 miles for 2500$, that automotive touch up paint looks like it did fantastic, i need to do this myself on my front and rear bumper, and also on my roof as the clearcoat has begun fading, if you are looking at your car upclose can you see any visual diffrences in the new paint vs. the old existing paint? i literally had the exact same idea to do the lsc moldings since no pewter's came as LSC's, i just wouldnt want anyone to be able to tell the newer paint is new due to shading or the age of the older existing paint, thanks for sharing and hope i didnt hijack the thread here, awesome work !!!

 

[mark0101]

Awesome work, looks really good. I am loving the gauges.

 

[Hot*Mk8]

:gr_hail: Your car drives me crazy.

 

[97MarkJA]

Nice job on the Led's and seats. I did a CE wheel as well as my door panels last summer.