New parts, used parts from the scrap yard, or a donor car

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Once we made the decision on the Factory Five Kit and building a Sunday cruiser, and a 4.6L 32V DOHC modular Ford engine - how would we procure the engine, trans and independent rear end. We always thought we would be like Gas Monkee Garage, Overhaulin, all the vehicle amazing transformation TV shows and just order us up a crate engine, trans and rear end and that would be that. So we started there and found out both on the web and at a local racing show that just the engine could range from $10 thousand to as high as $25 thousand, let alone the trans and rear suspension - We saw a really nifty independent rear suspension kit with the brake rotors right next to the pumpkin - $10K

So before we knew it we were well over $50K for a fun project. We took a step back and really questioned what was our motivation to do this, and what were the strengths we brought to the build. It opened our eyes to a few things.  First, we can rebuild engines, we- especially the boys really like and are good at doing it, and when we are done we can understand an engine we have no experience with, a great learning opportunity. This led us to a list of cars which were originally manufactured by Ford with the 4.6L DOHC engine. That along with a Craig's List search led us to donor cars. We found we could get the engine, trans and rear end for less than a few thousand bucks. The more we searched and looked at the donor list of possible cars, we started to find that Mustangs were overpriced and that Lincoln Mark VIIIs were underpriced. Before we knew it we went out that afternoon and bought a 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII. 

Jake drove it back to the shop - it ran great, has an oil leak, but that will be fixed when we rebuild it and we already started to plan out how we could sell a few items and maybe get the engine, trans and rear end for free. We figure the tires and wheels will get us, at least, $400 back and we are finding out that when looking at eBay the sum is much less than the whole - so we have a fighting chance to recapture some budget. That evening and next day Jacob and David started the deconstruction. More on that next post.