New SC owner in Ohio

Jroy000

Registered User
First time SC owner here,
The car was donated to my local Boyscout Troop for a scrap drive fundraiser that we do. Basically if you call us, we will come take your scrap metal as a donation. We will come inside to get it, or clean it from your yard/garage. You don't have to do a thing.
I'm an Eagle scout, have been for about 2 years but I've been slightly distant from scouting because Im a college student.
Anyways, I get a call that someone donated a whole car. Which doesn't happen often. The story is that the owner of the car passed away, the wife found a new man. The new guy wants the car out if the driveway so that they can sell the house. They have a title so we can scrap it. Seems like a routine job. I'm the only one with a car hauler, so they call me and ask me to go pick it up. No problem, I show up winch the car onto the trailer, and head for my house.
Now, I'm not a Ford guy, by any means, I've owned 4 or 5 Chevy pickup trucks, most of them 3/4 ton diesels, and a few small blocks. So this little car is way out of my realm. But I have been looking to buy a project car. And preferably something with a stick shift. That's why I looked into this car. I noticed the shifter, and got curious. I find out it's an SC with a 5 speed.
But the owner tells us that the car doesn't run, doesn't even have an engine. Well, I wasn't able to take it to the scrap because they are closed on Sundays, so I take it home and dump it in my yard because I'm hauling a friend's car the next day.
I got a little curious and decided to take a look at it off the trailer. I have the keys and everything, but for some reason I never looked inside the car. I just picked it up and left. (I know. Really dumb on my part)
Anyways I pop the hood, and wouldn't you know it the entire engine is under the hood and intact. Just the radiator lines are off, and the water is drained. So I charge up the battery, that's been sitting with the car for two years, check the oil, and try to crank it.
No luck, the car won't start on its own, so I come back with a can of ether, and wouldn't you know it. Fires right up. And idles on its own. It's a little rough, but it's a start.
Now I forgot to mention that the car came with a ton of extra parts, that's why I believed that it had no engine, oil pan, pulleys, a head, some odds and ends, so I pop the trunk, and wouldn't you know it, there is a block, crank, cam, another head, valves, rods, rockers, and pistons in the trunk. (Plus some other parts I'm probably forgetting while writing this)

I've been hauling cars for a while now, and I get lied to almost every time, but I've never had something like this happen. I have not one, but two engines, and one even runs.
At this point I contacted the boyscouts, and they were not interested in the car. They only wanted to scrap it, so I gave them what I believed it to be worth in scrap and everyone was happy.

I bought some radiator hoses, filled it with water, and it started running rough, steam coming from the exhaust. So I drained it and started tearing it down to change a head gasket.
It's been a rough job considering I'm not very experienced, but I've been bagging every bolt and labeling them, and I'm following a guide posted to this forum. So it's going well I would say. Hopefully the car will run again when I'm finished.

Tl:dr
Car donated to boyscouts turns out to be a SC, purchased at scrap price. Told it had no engine, turns out it has 2.
Chevy ape attempts to replace head gaskets on Ford engine.

Any tips about these cars would be great, things I should buy before I put it back together, and things I should avoid putting back on when I assemble the engine.
Lastly I have a question about the second engine, is there any way to determine what year SC that engine came out of? I have read that the injectors are bigger on the later model years, and I'm wondering if i should pop the ones that are with the other engine in while im doing this rebuild. But I can't determine their year because I don't know anything about them.
My car is a 1989
Thanks for your help, if you stuck around this long.
Glad to be a part of this forum.
😎
 
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Hey,
I’m an Eagle Scout too and my first car was a 1991 SC. It had some problems, so I bought a 1990 SC and drove that to college. I love these cars and I recently bought a 3rd. Manual supercoupes are kind of rare, but theyre the most fun. It’s excellent you got spare parts for it.

You came to the right place for advice on these cars. I will warn you that two things to keep a close eye on are 1989-1992 Brake boosters (accumulator balls go bad eventually) and to keep an eye out for head gasket failures. White smoke out the exhaust, milky oil, and exhaust gases being present in the coolant (there’s a $30 block test kit for this). Obviously if you have any concerns or issues, you can try reading old threads and/or starting a new one. These cars do require some work but they are super fun to drive.

-Rick Leuce
 
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Good luck with the project! Sounds like you are on the right path with bagging and labeling everything. As far as what not to put back on, the only thing that comes to mind is the bracket that goes from the accessory bracket behind the power steering pump to the front of the water pump. That bracket does nothing except make it much more difficult to do a number of things on the car, so definitely leave that one off. For identifying the other engine, there are a few tell-tale signs. First off, the injectors as you said are different. 89-93 cars have 30# injectors, which have a red top. 94/95 cars have 36# injectors, which have a dark blue almost purple color top. If the injectors aren't there, the valve covers are another indication. Early style had a flat flange where the valve cover meets to the head, and the gasket is also flat. Newer ones had a groove in the valve cover that the gasket clips into. Another difference is the 94/95 engines don't have the oil level sensor in the side of the pan. The timing cover and harmonic balancer are another indication as 94/95 used a different style, but that is hard to describe the difference, you just have to look at the 2 side by side to see it. Lastly, if you pull the motor apart, 94/95 motors had full floating pistons while 89-93 cars had pressed in wrist-pins.
 
New SC Owner in Ohio

I'm also an Eagle scout from Ohio and I've had 2 head gasket experiences. When I turned 16 my aunt had an lx model that hadn't ran in years, but long story short my dad and I started wrenching around until we were able to replace the gaskets and eventually we had it together and purring again.

These engines commonly blew the factory head gaskets, and the boost sure didn't help any, but it might be worth keeping an eye the radiator fan once you get it rebuilt. The fan control module was bad on my first car and I'm fairly confident that's what caused my aunt to park it.

Fast forward a few years and I'm looking up parts for my lx, lo and behold there's a supercoupe up for sale just a couple of minutes from my house. I ended up buying it for scrap prices and I had the pleasure of tearing another thunderbird apart.

I don't know how much experience you have tearing a car down to the heads, and I don't have a whole lot aside from the experiences I listed, but make sure you don't reuse the head bolts. There are aftermarket stud sets where you can reuse them but regular head bolts flex a little when they're tightened down and reusing them could cause a gasket to blow again. It's worth getting a gasket kit to just replace all of them when you reassemble it.

Supercoupeperformance.com is your friend for a lot of parts performance or otherwise, some things are a little more expensive, but everything I've seen is great quality. When the intercooler goes back together it may not seal completely, I didn't have a problem with mine the first time I reassembled it, but I had to take the intercooler off to replace the fuel pressure regulator and when I put it back together I had a small boost leak through the intercooler, I could tell through the boost gauge and the overall feel of the car. SCP sells resealing tape but I haven't used it.

Oh, with the intercooler, when you take it off it's normal for some of the supercharger fluid to be in the pipes, not a lot, but some from blow-by, so don't panic. Honestly, I know I did, don't be me lol.

If you found higher pressure injectors I don't believe they'd be plug and play, I think you would need a retune but it would be safer to hear someone else.

It would be wise to change the oil just in case any coolant found its way in. When you change gaskets be sure that there isn't any gasket material on any of the surfaces just to be sure that they seal properly. I used permatex to reseal the supercharger top but using too much can get really messy.

Congratulations on the new car, I also have a 5 speed and they're a blast to drive. I'm hoping in the future to get a handful of performance parts as I get the budget. If you have any questions just send me a message and I'll try my best to help. I tried to touch on everything from my experience, yours may be different, but I hope I wasn't too late. Let me know how it goes!
 
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