A few things I forgot to address...

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-The car is a 98.5 with 192K kilometers and the original clutch. That in itself doesn't bother me, but I test drove it and the friction point for the clutch is right above the floor. Besides making it difficult to make quick shifts, what else could this mean? Could the solution be to just bleed the clutch? How much is it for a clutch job on an SVT?




I've driven one or two SE's where the clutch engaged noticeably closer to the ground than my own. Besides this, they drove fine. The clutch disengaged fully - I did not detect any dragging, so I don't think the one I drove needed to be bled. I just thought it was an assembly variance thing. With the car at rest, no brakes, and clutch to the floor, does it go into 1st easily or is there some grinding? Does the car jerk or move when you put it in gear?

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-The secondaries are stuck either open or closed. When I drove it there wasn't much zip (nothing like my SVT), and no change in acceleration at ~3750 RPM where the secondaries should be opening. It apparently hasn't been driven much for the past 4 months or so. The most likely scenario is that it's just seized up, but worst-case scenario if the servo motor that opens and closes the secondaries is shot, how much would it cost to replace that assembly? And is that even the worst-case scenario? Could there be a bigger problem?




A new IMRC is around $400? You can probably find one for less at the wreckers. If the cats are clogged, this should show up in the e-test results.

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-Some missing paint/rust on the trunk lid, hood, and rear wheel wells. It appears to be surface rust, but the paint is completely missing in spots..could be from stone chips? A friend is telling me that even if I get this patched up, I'll probably have to spend like $300-$500 to refinish it every year it because it's like a cancer and will come back every year. Is that true?




How big are the rust spots? I had a stone chip at the base of the roof where it meets the windshield. I ignored it for a couple of years and it slowly spread to the point where the paint bubbled. I finally got around to fixing it recently. I did the repair myself - we'll see if it comes back in a year. Even if I have to partially redo it every year, as long as it doesn't rust through I'll be happy. The goal is to keep this car until it's at least 10yrs old.

I have stone chips on the hood that are to the metal but have not rusted. Cars today are more resistant to corrosion. When my Celebrity was the same age as my Contour (7.5yrs old) the rocker panels had already rusted through. Prior to it getting that bad I had sanded the rust and painted it, but it always came back in a matter of months. Though back then we didn't have "rust converter" products (or at least I didn't know about them). Anyways, that rust was really ugly. I hope I never see anything like that again.

'98 GL V6/MTX (Plenty of mods... in my basement) '88 ST165 (mild mods, stock 8psi)