Yes really. Well here goes nothing. First a short background on the car. It is a 1996 Taurus station wagon that belonged to my grandmother. She passed away last year and left the car to me. Me being the sentimental bastard I am, I couldn't see just putting it up for sale on craigslist. Besides blue book is only like 3500 bucks. The car just hit 70 thousand on the odo-meter and has lots of service life left in it. But the question must be asked, what can be done to worlds most notorious church/grocery cruiser? Well I hope to explore those possibilities with this build.
First, the basics, a simple shave of unnecessary badgery. Well when an audi all road hits your moms parked range rover at about 50mph and pushes it into the front end your car... guess who gets to pay for this first "mod". I replaced the front bumper with an SHO bumper that I first had to repair. The Ford emblem was removed as was the front license plate tray.
You cant be debaged on the front and not the back, cause that would be lame , soooo badges came off I welded up the holes and repainted the hatch...aaand color matched a license plate frame, because I'm a baller. I also put on a set of 2000 model all red tails.
Then It lived that way. For far to long. Now begs the question what to do to make a Taurus cool? I guess more unnecessary part removal. I never liked the rear side profile of the hatch on this car because it has a big random handle hanging off of the back window, so I decided that would be a good place to start the more aggressive tumor removal. That handle holds the latch for the glass so I casted up a new low profile unit that serves the factory purpose without sticking out 4 f**king inches.
why go through all the trouble of doing that and then leave the rear wiper?
Its slowly getting cleaner and cleaner, but enough of the little stuff. I fell in love with exexpat's jag wheels, sooo afew messages later we struck up a deal and I drove up to Everett to get them. Wheel specs 18x8.5 on 225 40zr18 tires. 2.5 inches wider than the stock wheels. Not a lot to some of you I know but its a tight fit on this thing. Let the fitting begin. The backs wouldn't go on without about 10mm of spacing and the front clears the strut by about 2mm with an 8mm spacer.
I got the tires all mounted up and ready to go on. Now I just need to order my spacers up. 24mm rear 9mm front.
Once I have the spacer situation handled I will bolt them all up and start taking further measurements.
I know I know, it sits like a dump truck. Thats next. I don't know how many of you have ever tried to find and acquire any thing to do with lowering a gen3 taurus wagon but there is not much out there and what is out there is ungodly expensive and of a terrible quality. So... bags it is. I bout a complete bag setup off a guy. I needed some of the parts for another project and ended up with a set of bag struts, rear air cans, and a viare 400c compressor left over. I still need to buy management, but in the mean time I plan to do the install of the struts and cans and shrader valve them, to get the car set it at a more appropriate hight.
Well thats it for now. Let the thrashing begin, but please be gentle.
First, the basics, a simple shave of unnecessary badgery. Well when an audi all road hits your moms parked range rover at about 50mph and pushes it into the front end your car... guess who gets to pay for this first "mod". I replaced the front bumper with an SHO bumper that I first had to repair. The Ford emblem was removed as was the front license plate tray.
You cant be debaged on the front and not the back, cause that would be lame , soooo badges came off I welded up the holes and repainted the hatch...aaand color matched a license plate frame, because I'm a baller. I also put on a set of 2000 model all red tails.
Then It lived that way. For far to long. Now begs the question what to do to make a Taurus cool? I guess more unnecessary part removal. I never liked the rear side profile of the hatch on this car because it has a big random handle hanging off of the back window, so I decided that would be a good place to start the more aggressive tumor removal. That handle holds the latch for the glass so I casted up a new low profile unit that serves the factory purpose without sticking out 4 f**king inches.
why go through all the trouble of doing that and then leave the rear wiper?
Its slowly getting cleaner and cleaner, but enough of the little stuff. I fell in love with exexpat's jag wheels, sooo afew messages later we struck up a deal and I drove up to Everett to get them. Wheel specs 18x8.5 on 225 40zr18 tires. 2.5 inches wider than the stock wheels. Not a lot to some of you I know but its a tight fit on this thing. Let the fitting begin. The backs wouldn't go on without about 10mm of spacing and the front clears the strut by about 2mm with an 8mm spacer.
I got the tires all mounted up and ready to go on. Now I just need to order my spacers up. 24mm rear 9mm front.
Once I have the spacer situation handled I will bolt them all up and start taking further measurements.
I know I know, it sits like a dump truck. Thats next. I don't know how many of you have ever tried to find and acquire any thing to do with lowering a gen3 taurus wagon but there is not much out there and what is out there is ungodly expensive and of a terrible quality. So... bags it is. I bout a complete bag setup off a guy. I needed some of the parts for another project and ended up with a set of bag struts, rear air cans, and a viare 400c compressor left over. I still need to buy management, but in the mean time I plan to do the install of the struts and cans and shrader valve them, to get the car set it at a more appropriate hight.
Well thats it for now. Let the thrashing begin, but please be gentle.
Comment