Bull Geek's 1997 Taurus SHO V8

[Dschinghis Kahn]

Congrats! Great looking car too.

I had heard of the mythical cloth SHO seats, but never seen them. It just seems... odd.

[QuinnSHO]

Call this odd, but I have only noticed them in RED SHO's. There's a red sho that runs around here occasionally with them. Thought I saw it at the junkyard bout 4 months ago. Then to find out I saw it about a month ago again. Then this makes 3.

[Bull Geek]

Mine is a "stripper" SHO for the 97 MY. No chrome wheels, no leather seats, no power passenger seat, no cell phone. I honestly like the SHO Cloth seats more than the leather.

And yes I did add chrome wheels. I like the look on a red car Guilty.

Trans shifts like a Taurus trans: smooth and unrefined lol. It shifts better once it has warmed up a tad bit.

[Bull Geek]

I changed out the ball joints yesterday with help from a mechanic friend. Had to use a torch and bfh and pry bar. The ball joints were so bad, they had been hammered into the lower control arm. Levering down on the control arm with force caused the ball joint to press out of the knuckle Yea that stuck.

Heated the lower control arm up red hot, twice, then levered down on it and it finally popped loose. Now need to get a couple of end links, they are both shot up front.

[Bull Geek]

Replaced the IAC on the 24th as well with one I had grabbed at the JY a few years ago that was brand new on a car that had been scrapped. That fixed a couple of issues I had noticed.

[soundu]

Curious, when you had the cams welded, you just took the valve covers
off and had them welded in place still attached? Were they welded on
one side only or a tack weld 180degree apart?

[TaurusSHO]

Congrats on finishing one of my dream cars! Always good to hear someone bringing a SHO back to life.


Also, how can you tell if a ball joint needs replaced? Our mechanic says it needs replaced, but we just had the one on now replaced 2-3 years ago, and my dad doesn't think it needs to be replaced.

[Bull Geek]

Just removed the cam covers, left everything in tact. Hooked battery up, bumped starter, removed battery cables while welding, to rotate engine. Welding was done on 3 spots per camshaft, evenly spaced apart.

TIG welding, if area properly cleaned up from what I'm told, does not produce splatter/slag. MIG, even when area cleaned up, will produce splatter/slag.

My operating temps appear to be a bit high for this car from what I'm told (200-208F) so I will be having to probably yank the radiator out and clean it. Hopefully it's just clogged with debris. Temp gauge indicator shows it dead in the middle (pointing at 25mph) even when the low speed cooling fan kicks on. No idea if high speed works since it never gets that warm.

The way I found out about ball joints was having a friend grab the wheel at 3 and 9 then push and pull the wheel while putting my hand on the inner tie rod, then outer tie rod, then on the ball joint. Also had the friend watching what was happening. Originally I thought I needed tie rods based on the wheel movement. It was actually the ball joint slop. Now it's nice and tight.

[Lgbpop]

I hear ya about the cloth seats over the leather. Not only are they more comfy in high humidity, they don't scream "SHO" while you're getting ready to run someone.

Good-looking car, Nick, you should have some fun with that!

[98SilverSable]

looks great man! always a little TLC to get a car going again!

And I didn't think those model SHOs had cloth seats. I thought all Gen 3 SHOs had full leather interior.