1989 NHP SSP

[05pwrstrk]

I starting this thread because my intro was getting longer and longer in the "New Member/ Vistors" area and I plan on keeping everyone involved and updated on the resto of my car. So here is a little history of my car and how I acquired it. So here goes....

My car was found by Mike (NHPcars.com) back in the early part of June of this year. He told me about the car and sent some pics. I knew when I saw it in the pics this is the condition of vehicle I wanted. As Mike put it this car, "was lost in time (auction fresh) and in perfect shape for a restoration". When I went to look at the car it was Thursday 7/21/11. That is also the day bought it.

Nobody had done any types of mods to it. The body is straight. No rust seen. Buck tags are in place. It has the original blue rims and full size spare with the Goodyear Eagle M/S. The original exhaust was replaced with what is on there now because the OEM exhaust was falling off. This is exactly what I was looking for. I am looking forward to many years with this car.

I was told by the family that they owned the car for the last 10 years. The wife would drive it to work, they'd all get in it and drive down to Mexico where they have a family vacation home, and the hubby would drive it to Reno occasionally. They parked it about a year ago because their 16 year old son was at driving age and they didn't want him to get any ideas. From what it sounds like the family I bought it from were the second owners, the first owner being a guy that bought it from the auction. The family picked it up in Reno.

I did a little work on the rear bumper with a mild paint remover to try and decipher the unit number. I think it is Unit 262. Other than that all I have done so far is vacuum it(which helped alot ), Simple Green the engine bay(also helped a lot), and wash the outside and windows. I have it parked at my buddies auto shop right now and I am putting together a laundry list of things I want to do. The paint you see in the pics is the faded government paint job it received prior to auction. In some of my other pics you can see where this paint is wearing and chipping off to reveal the medium color blue it will wear again(someday).

Here are some more pics.

[05pwrstrk]

Here is an example of Fords 1989 Medium Shadow Blue Metallic which is the color code of my car.


Paint flaking and chipping off.




160MPH Speedometer


Whats left of the 2 stripes in the door jambs.

[Mustang Kid]

Very cool
I wonder how many were ordered in that blue.

[05pwrstrk]

I have been told NHP ordered 9 SSP's in 1989. I assume those 9 were this color. I've seen a 1988 it was dark blue under the auction paint job and I've seen a 1990 fully restored in dark blue.

[28HopUp]

That's going to look great when you are finished. Do you know of any other 89's that have surfaced yet?

[05pwrstrk]

Originally Posted by 28HopUp

That's going to look great when you are finished. Do you know of any other 89's that have surfaced yet?

I don't know of any other 89's for Nevada yet. I am sooooo looking forward to the day she is finished. Till then I will also enjoy every minute of her resto.

[05pwrstrk]

Time has been on my side lately so I've been trying to get some more things done on my car. The heater core was original, to my knowledge, so I felt it was a strategic move to pull it prior to installing new carpet. I recently pulled the seats, carpet and dash to replace the heater core. I'm not in a rush so the project has not been to bad. I actually enjoy these tedious processes like pulling a dash in a Mustang. I did find a gremlin that will need to be fixed. Check out the pictures.

The new heater core doesn't have this nice brace like the old one does.

OLD

NEW


This disaster was found under my drivers seat. Any ideas? I've done a lot of sheet metal repair work on other vehicle bodies and I'm confident I can repair this with some 16ga sheet steel. The affected areas about the size of an iPhone. What do you guys think? Whatever I end up doing it will be better than the hack job someone else has already done.

[05pwrstrk]

I left the original padding for the time being. I remember reading that other members reused some of the old padding to make their new carpet fit better.

[28HopUp]

Progress is progress. You should be able to patch that area fairly easily. 'Just another example of how hard these cars were used and abused...

[05pwrstrk]

I picked up some great parts out of an 89 4cyl that was getting parted out close to my house. Talk about lucky! I picked up the dash, seat belts as well as some other little parts. The dash and seat belts are both in excellent condition for their age.

My old ones.



The new ones.