New to Mark III's

kustomizingkid

kustomizingkid

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Hello, I just got my first real car, a 94 Mark III. I'm fed up with my little Honda and four cylinder front wheel drive cars in general. The car is not currently drivable due to some damage but will be roadworthy soon, cross my fingers. I've been reading and trying to learn everything I can about these cars.

All I know is after driving it two miles down the road, and wasting my friends camaro with the car running on maybe 7 cylinders and bad gas in the tank I'm hooked and loving it.

So hello to everyone.
 
Welcome to the site... Don't worry you'll have lots of fun...

Good to see that you have grown up...

Just remember don't get fustrated if something goes wrong. These cars have a lot of technology and a lot of age on them. Every now and then you need to keep them up and repair old worn out parts.

Engine will last you forever.....

Take care of it and it will keep you happy for a long time.
 
...my Mark VIII is a sadist and intent upon bleeding me dry.

I say, "o.k. I'm not going to replace her with a Honda. I've just spent another $1000, I'm done....right?"

No. then some other $90 part with an afternoon of labor :q:q:q:qs the bed.
So I get that and say....OK...NOW I am REALLY all caught up. NOW I can sit back and enjoy my car for a while. Payment free.

Then the seat will fail.
Then the damn power window craps out...

Age, technology, and Ford tough......

Engine with 190k miles is great though. I have to give it that.
 
Let's not scare this guy off he's excited on his purchase....

I would not trade any of my 3 Mark VIII's for any ricer crap... It would have to take something of a classic to pull me away.

They are great cars.. but they are old... parts will wear out... Then you replace them.

A lot cheaper than making payments.... you just need to make sure you have money set aside to pay for repairs.

Also, it's a lot cheaper if you can do the repairs yourself.. Important point to make.
 
mespock said:
Also, it's a lot cheaper if you can do the repairs yourself.. Important point to make.
Click to expand...

It's absolute crucial that you do as much as possible.

And, fortunately, the engine is the link that doesn't fail. Which is good, because the 32V DOHC isn't a shade tree mechanic friendly engine. As mentioned 190k with no engine problems at all.
 
I will be doing all repairs myslef, I'm a "mechanic" of sorts. I haven't had anything I couldn't fix yet so hopefully this car doesn't have my first one of those.

It was lat last night and I forgot my V, sorry.

This car has a number of issues, the kid who owned it before me took semi decent care of it as far as general maintinece like oil changes and filter changes. It was the mechanical issues that put it off the road. He stopped driving when he slid of the road last winter and broke the grill and cracked a hole in the radiator.

I've made a list of all the problems, there are more than I would like but I didn't pay much for the car.

All the things Ive found wrong,
Exauhst leak, thinking headers and duals to solve that one
Broken door handle, still opens but hangs down
Air suspension issue, thinking of a coil swap, not sure yet see how much it cost to fix the air ride
rear shock clunks due to deteriorated rubber bushing
a tear in the window tint
broken grill, making a stainless grill
Radiator, Uncle works for modine getting one for cheap
needs a tune up, filters fluids, plugs and wires, etc

the car has issues for sure, but i think I can get it going for under $1500.
 
kustomizingkid said:
All the things Ive found wrong,
Exauhst leak, thinking headers and duals to solve that one
Click to expand...
Hopefully it's just the EGR tube. Headers are a tough one on this car.

Otherwise, everything else sounds like cake.
 
From what I've been reading hearders are a bitch, I was just thinking headers and duals so that I would get a better preforming sounding looking and not leaking exaust in one.

Everything seems like they should be easy fixes, everything just costs money.

A few more things come to mind, less important but just kind of anoying.
The hood is cracked so a custom one is in order I was thinking a louvered hood would look pretty good.

The only other thing is the hearter/air conditioning contol module. It works fine but half the buttons are broken, like someone puched it or something.
 
kustomizingkid said:
The only other thing is the hearter/air conditioning contol module. It works fine but half the buttons are broken, like someone puched it or something.
Click to expand...

Go to ebay and look for "Mark VIII Hard Button EATC," Get a module out of a 95-96 if you want the same look with solid buttons. Get the 97-98 model if you don't give a damn about keeping the same look. Whatever you do, make sure its out of a Mark VIII and not a Taurus/Sable/Towncar/Continental because no matter what they say, those don't work PROPERLY in the mark.
 
kustomizingkid said:
From what I've been reading hearders are a bitch, I was just thinking headers and duals so that I would get a better preforming sounding looking and not leaking exaust in one.
Click to expand...
Price wise, you can do either order or have a custom, dual 2 1/2" set up installed, and it does have a pretty exhaust note. There are some video/audio examples on this page.


A few more things come to mind, less important but just kind of anoying.
The hood is cracked so a custom one is in order I was thinking a louvered hood would look pretty good.
Click to expand...
Not sure where'd you find that. The only "custom" hood I've seen for Gen1s is the "Cobra-R" style, with the slightly larger cowl..

The only other thing is the hearter/air conditioning contol module. It works fine but half the buttons are broken, like someone puched it or something.
Click to expand...
They didn't build those too well, especially the first couple years. Cracked A/C buttons are commonplace on 93-94s.
 
Lugi20 said:
Go to ebay and look for "Mark VIII Hard Button EATC," Get a module out of a 95-96 if you want the same look with solid buttons. Get the 97-98 model if you don't give a damn about keeping the same look. Whatever you do, make sure its out of a Mark VIII and not a Taurus/Sable/Towncar/Continental because no matter what they say, those don't work PROPERLY in the mark.
Click to expand...

What do you mean "don't work PROPERLY?" Do they work at all, or??
 
Not sure where'd you find that. The only "custom" hood I've seen for Gen1s is the "Cobra-R" style, with the slightly larger cowl..
Click to expand...

i was thinking of making one myself, I've got most of the tools to build a hood, I just don't have a louver press if I made a louvered hood

I got some pics too.

Mark VII.JPG


Interior.JPG


In My Garage.JPG
 
Well the mark viii hood is fiberglass so I am not sure if a press would work unless you were starting from scratch. If you have any good luck let us know im sure some others might be intrested.

Congrats on your first mark.
 
the hood will be from scratch. i'm learning to shape metal and hve been aquiring tools to do that kind of work. like my name says i like kustomizing, and more than just bolt on mods.
 
I've been reading and reading and have started to get an idea of where to go with my Mark.

I've decided to drive the honda for the rest of the winter so I can get everything done right on the Mark. After reading everything I'm kind of seeing that these cars can be money pits when things start breaking.

I've secided to start by giving the car a complete tune up, filters, fluids, spark plugs, ect. Is there anything in particular I should check that wouldn't be obvious?

My next question is about the air suspension, the front bags on my car are leaking. I'm not sure what to do, repair the air suspension or swap to coils? It seem like some people are very happy with there coils and some swear by the air ride.

The last thing is I need a few parts, I've looked for a mark in a junkyars around my area with no luck. I will try ebay but if anyone here has any of these parts I would be interested

Passenger side turn signal assembly
trim above the passenger turn signal
trim above the grill
hood latch
black plastic interior trim, the piece that goes across the door opening on the floor
 
there is a guy in florida that I have bought parts off of. All he does is part out Mark VIII's. He usually sells the parts on ebay, try to shoot him an email to see if he has the parts you need
 
04SSHD said:
there is a guy in florida that I have bought parts off of. All he does is part out Mark VIII's. He usually sells the parts on ebay, try to shoot him an email to see if he has the parts you need
Click to expand...

Id also like that guys email, due u know were in florida hes located? I live in FL and find it very hard to c a mark 8 in a junk yard, I need drivers side panel left parking light and chrome trim above, trunk lock cover, and some little things hear and there in the interior. Also different topic is it just me or when u pull out into traffic at wot the car doesent shift hard into second? Maybe its something mental with me but idk it seems not to shift hard? Oh yeah lmao, I know y some of u rag on advance auto parts and what not, Im in the attempt for the 3rd time to get 2 1 in 1 out center in center out 2.25 both ways 40 series flowmasters. How u like this the 1st time center in offset out, 2nd time center in 2 out the back, lets c if they finally get it right.
 
Welcome to the club... That Mark isn't too bad, with a little time she'll look great. I'm kind of partial to the color also! One interesting thing I noticed was the interior color, never really seen that combo; looks nice...

Calabrio, your first post cracked me up... so true...
 
I got a chance to work on my car for the first time in a while. I spent some time finding the exauhst leak which is very odd. The leak is comeing out of the cat on the passenger side the exauhst is just coming out from under the cover of the cat.

To fix this I think I'm going to just do a completley new exauhst starting at the manifolds. No emmissions testing gotta love MN.
 
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