Off to a rough start with 2016 GT

[Johnny Rockit]

Glad your girl is okay. Big suv is safer I think and aside from fuel I think she will be better off in it. Insurance will get her a new ride but she may want to keep Mom's ride.

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[Canuckican]

We've located and purchased my daughter's replacement car. We're just waiting for the title and other paperwork to catch up so the car can be shipped. The PPI showed the car to be in very good mechanical condition and just needs a good detailing. That was supposed to take place yesterday. Now to find a reliable shipping company to get the car the 430 miles to me. I have an F150 that I have used multiple times to hauls cars from one place to another. The problem now is that will leave just one vehicle at home for two working people to use for two days. And of course they work different hours so car-pooling is a hassle. And we live out in the boonies so Ubers are $$$$. And I don't want either of them driving Oliver on these cold roads.

In the meantime, the weather here in northern Wisconsin has been decent enough most days for me to drive Oliver. So far, so good with no new major issues.

I do have what sounds like a slight exhaust leak where the collector flange on the BBK LTHs connect to the BBK hi flow mid pipe. I had a brief look at trying to tighten things up but the bolts that connect the mid-pipe to the collector look like they are in no mood to be tightened or removed even after a long soak in PB Blaster. Very heavy corrosion may require a grinder or a torch to get them off. I don't know if the holes in the collector flange are threaded or not but I think they must be because I don't recall seeing a bolt on the upstream side of the bolt (which may technically make these studs, not bolts). I've seen this play out before... can't get the stuff unbolted so it has to be cut or melted out, which damages the threads in the collector flange, but there is no room to re-tap the holes without removing the headers, which takes 3 weeks to do... So I am just ignoring the exhaust leak for now.

I was out in Oliver yesterday morning when it was 5 degrees F. It was a real tip-toe act to keep the car straight and poised. The tires on it really, really hate cold pavement.

 

[Canuckican]

My daughter's replacement car is supposed to arrive within the next week. Other than a few days, it's been just fine driving Oliver. The roads have been clear and dry, but obviously a bit slick when cold.

I got the P1450 Unable to Bleed Up Fuel Tank Vacuum code again today. It does not cause any noticeable issues in how Oliver runs.I don't see anything obviously disconnected or leaking, but I'm not sure yet what it is I should even be looking at. More learning, nice!! I have had the same error come up with the original purge valve and with a new replacement one.

And there's definitely a rattle in the exhaust on the passenger side between about 1600-2000 RPM until things warm up and also an exhaust leak somewhere on the passenger side. I figure the rattle and leak are related.

I will see if I can get to the bottom of these things after my daughter's car arrives. The last thing I need to do is get mucking about trying to fix these things and end up breaking a collector bolt leaving the car undrivable.

I will also be replacing the blown speakers to start the sound system upgrade. The lower door speakers and rear speakers all seem to be bad. The after saving a bit longer, I plan on replacing the factory amp with a DSP and aftermarket amp. It turned out great in my F150, but was definitely challenging due to my partial color blindness. Good thing I have lots of female family members that a) have great color vision and b) love teasing me when I hook stuff up wrong.

Ah yes, I have also officially been told the window tint that came on the car from Florida is much to dark to meet Wisconsin laws so I will have the adjusted accordingly.

 

[Johnny Rockit]

Rattles, for me, usually end up being a loose heat shield or a cat is coming apart.

 

[GR1MxREAPER]

Man… that was a long long read… first off glad you got the car running and some people Helped you with the heads etc. hopefully you have good luck with the car in the future. It’s scary buying cars that far away when used all The time. I bought my 2019 GT from Mississippi and I’m in MN. Turned out to be great but it is nerve wrecking..

 

[Johnny Rockit]

It is hard for me personally to take seriously folks who name a vehicle. No offense, I just cannot imagine doing it myself.

 

[Canuckican]

It is hard for me personally to take seriously folks who name a vehicle. No offense, I just cannot imagine doing it myself.

No worries. Calling this car "Oliver" after Richard Hammond's car in one Top Gear episode is much more polite than what I was calling it for the first months after buying it!

It's just something silly we've passed down from my grandfather to my father to me. The kids work together and come up with suggested names for family cars, then votes are cast. My last Mustang was named "Crisis" because one of my daughters said I got it because I was having a mid-life crisis. It was the 6th Mustang I'd owned since I was 17 and I was way past mid-life age, but the name stuck. They even bought a custom license plate frame for it.

 

[Canuckican]

I had a bit of a surprise the other day when I noticed my car was sporting a new rear license plate bracket. I knew "Oliver" was voted as the car's "official" name but "Problem Child" was a close second given how much a PITA this car has been so it was given an honorary mention. Democracy in action. I was surprised how strongly some friends of my kids felt about car names even though they've never seen the car. They only know about it by my kids sharing stories and pictures. I hope they did not share the most descriptive parts of my opinions with their friends, although I doubt it's nothing they haven't heard before.

 

[furdfan2018]

Glad she's a runner. And really sorry to hear about how you were treated by the glorious Mint Auto Sales.

 

[Canuckican]

Now that my daughter has her own car again and my wife's SUV has had all of the warranty repairs completed, I can finally get back to addressing the problems and upgrades I am making to my GT.

First thing was to try to get the passenger window to behave. It would go down a bit like it was supposed to when I opened that door but it was a real crap shoot on whether or not it would close again when the door was closed. At times it would also start partially opening and closing when I was driving along. My daughter thinks the car is possessed by an evil spirit. In lieu of an exorcism, I did all the basic stuff to have it relearn the open and closed positions but then it turns out at times the window switch on the passenger door would not even control the window at all. I never sit in the passenger seat so I was unaware of this issue. And winter in Wisconsin rarely has me opening the windows. I cleaned the contacts on the power window switch in the passenger door with the corrosion cleaning spray but no change. I figured for $20 I'd try a new power window switch and that at least had the window opening and closing via the button. But it would still not automatically close when the door closed and would still randomly open and close when I was driving.

I read somewhere else on here that there are a few wiring harnesses in the door that are prone to corrosion and can lead to the bizarre behavior I was seeing. I figured now is as good a time as any to have at those because I still needed to install the replacement speakers and already have the door cards/panels off. I disconnected those harnesses (general area indicated in picture), gave them a good squirt with the contact cleaner, let it dry out, used a tiny bit of dielectric grease and reconnected the harnesses. I tried it closing the door a few times in the garage and the window is now going up and down as expected. I won't know if it's really "fixed" until I am done the speaker install. Maybe I'll have a minor win and can cross this one off my list. Time will tell.

It's down to 42F and raining here today in NE Wisconsin. I've been sick with a @##@ing chest cold for the past week so I am taking a pass in working in the cold garage today.

Next up is the speaker installs.

 

[Canuckican]

Like many other parts of this car (named Oliver, sorry to those that cringe when I say it. ), the majority of the speakers are trashed. I've posted pictures elsewhere in this thread. Trust me, they're ugly.

I have a pair of Infinity Reference REF607FSL for the rear deck (at first they were temporarily in the lower door location in place of the destroyed woofers), Kicker KSC270 for the upper door mid-range location and a Focal RSE-165 woofer/tweeter component setup for the lower door and A-pillar locations. I may do an amp at some point but for now my goal is just to have a stereo that sounds tolerable i.e. not broken!

The rear deck and woofer installs should be fine. It'll probably be a PITA to actually get the rear seat trim out of the way to swap out the rear deck speakers but that's life.

The mid-range installs are okay. I used the existing mid-range speaker mounts as my starting point and with a bit of chicanery I was able to reuse the existing wiring harness and plugs.

This leaves the tweeters as the ones I am least looking forward to doing. I know getting the A-pillar trim out can be a minor misery and reinstalling it can be a major misery, so there's that to look forward to. But my bigger concern is if I am going to be able to fit the large crossovers that come with the RSE-165 component setup in the A-pillar and have it fit and not interfere in any way with the airbag up there. I have not researched this step yet to see what all the clever folks on this site did and also learned what not to do. I hope to get to this stage in the speaker replacement project by mid-week, depending on how much nonsense I have to catch up on after being on PTO last week.

After I have this speaker stuff buttoned up, it's on to the cold rattle and slight exhaust leak. The studs connecting the BBK LTH to the BBK catted mid-pipe look particulary rusty / gnarly and are just itching at the chance to break on me and cause a few weeks additional pain. I'm going to leave tightening those bolts until I've eliminated all other potential sources. Why go stirring up trouble in you don't have to?

 

[Canuckican]

I finished installing the new woofers and midrange speakers in the doors and got and the door wiring harnesses I sprayed with the magic corrosion removing sauce hooked up again. In the few times I tried, the passenger door window behaved itself just like its stern father was watching it.

Then it was time to replace the rear deck speakers. The only hard part is getting my creaky, 6' 2" bulky frame in the back seat where I can reach things. As expected with the rest of this mint Mustang I purchased from "Mint" Auto Sales in Orlando, Florida, the pictures below speak for themselves. More like crackle and zap and humm, anything but make any type of musical note.

This only leaves installing the new tweeters that came with the Focal component set (assuming I can fit the crossovers in there somewhere) and finally disconnecting the center speaker and having at it with Forscan to whack the EQ.

 

[Canuckican]

Stereo wiring is always more interesting when you add some color blindness to the mix. Yet another reason why I was not able to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a pilot. Probably all for the best for passenger safety though. A friend of mine did graduate with a degree in aeronautical engineering and became a pilot of corporate jets for some very large companies. This guy drove multiple golf carts into buildings and ponds, rolled a tractor chasing a Cushman three wheel utility vehicle, hit a tree with a 3 wheel Red Rider maintenance cart, etc. He'd just say that there's a lot less stuff to hit at 36,000 feet. He must be a very good pilot because he did this for 35+ years. Anyway, back to the driver-side A-pillar tweeter. Ah yes, looks like green/burgundy is positive and grey/burgundy is negative. Probably also good I'm not a bomb disposal bloke either.

 

[Highvolts]

I finished installing the new woofers and midrange speakers in the doors and got and the door wiring harnesses I sprayed with the magic corrosion removing sauce hooked up again. In the few times I tried, the passenger door window behaved itself just like its stern father was watching it.

Then it was time to replace the rear deck speakers. The only hard part is getting my creaky, 6' 2" bulky frame in the back seat where I can reach things. As expected with the rest of this mint Mustang I purchased from "Mint" Auto Sales in Orlando, Florida, the pictures below speak for themselves. More like crackle and zap and humm, anything but make any type of musical note.

This only leaves installing the new tweeters that came with the Focal component set (assuming I can fit the crossovers in there somewhere) and finally disconnecting the center speaker and having at it with Forscan to whack the EQ.

Those are pathetic, but not surprised. I replaced the subwoofer inside the subwoofer box with the B&O system and it was just as terrible looking in quality. Mostly paper and thin foam.

 

[Canuckican]

The Focal tweeters have now been installed. Other than tweaking the EQ setting with Forscan, I'm calling the stereo good enough, for now. At least it functions well enough to use for the first time since I got this gem from "Mint" Auto Sales in Orlando, Florida. Have I mentioned before that this is where I got this car? ;) Please please please!!! Don't be a dumb-ass like me and trust the people selling you the car to be remotely ethical and capable of telling you anything resembling the truth.

I have two emission-related codes that keep popping up and annoying me. The P1450 code is now permanent and the P0456 just started. There are no other obvious symptoms than the codes so I'll just keep an eye on them for now. I'm sure my wife would say that I have a much more apparent personal P0456 code than this Mustang.

Next up on the hit list is the 1500-2000 RPM cold rattle and small exhaust leak (the Mustang's, not mine).

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