1994 Ford Probes - updates!

[andyw]

I've never created a thread on my Ford Probe on this board simply because I wasn't sure it would be worthy so blame Vulgalour as he asked for it!

I guess the story first starts back in 2000 when I bought my other 16v Probe, a very tidy rio red example which after two years ownership became a weekend only/show car. I did a few bits to it and took it as far as I wanted to go and enjoyed taking it to club events and shows. It was always modified to my taste and I avoided the whole Fast & the Furious style that so many got ruined with.

It looks like this and has looked pretty much the same since about 2004!


In 2008/9 I then decided if I could find a cheap Probe then I would buy another one - there were plenty about and prices were on the floor so now was the time to buy. I fancied building something with a hot rod/ rat rod vibe and I always wanted a satin black car and didn't fancy ruining the red one and cheap vehicle wrapping didn't exist!

I set my budget at £150 for a car, missed out on two until one day I was browsing e-bay on a break at work. There in parts was a white 16v with short tax and test with a few hours to run and only one bid of £100 on it.

There was one photo and a very brief description.


I decided I could get my money back in parts so stuck a cheeky bit of £102 in with five minutes to go and watched it count down. Bloody hell I'd won then realised I'd have to explain to the wife that I now owned another Probe. The only other issue was it was in Manchester and I'm in Durham....

[recarouk]

is that where the story ends because she cut off your man sausage?

[andyw]

Part 2 - what have I done!

Ok so now I own this thing, I've not seen it and only have the sellers word that it runs and drives. My mate Dave was up for a road trip to collect it but luckily I'm in one of the best owners clubs in the world - UKPOC. We all like to help each other out where we can and this was a prime example, one of our North West members lived not too far away and offered to collect the car and store it at his until we could sort out transport, in the end he offered to deliver it to my house if I covered his fuel as he was visiting relatives in the North East - result!

He even washed it for me - the car doesn't look too bad in these pics but if you notice the damage to the front bumper and the dent in the wing, the wing had actually bent over so it caught to pop up light every time you raised the lamps.

Underneath the lack of care was a bit of a concern - drop links were one example!

[Mercdan68]

I like these, and so rare now a bit like the ford classic back in the sixties, not a car built in huge numbers, and will become sort after, like yours great to see a thread about them on here

[andyw]

Economically it wasn't worth restoring so I decided whatever I did to it couldn't hurt it. Once I got it onto the drive I started to have a look to see what was needed. The budget to get it back on the road was £500 and I decided to nickname it white trash.

It needed a new wing - I had one of those in my shed (£5 off e-bay)
new bumper - managed to source one through the club for 4 cans of 1664.
The passenger wing mirror was broken but a local club member gave me a pair for free.
New drop links
A cv boot.
a set of door locks - again these came through ukpoc for beer!

The worst part was it was going to need some welding and I can't weld so I relied on my good mate Dave to do that for me, but I'd have to wait a while until he could fit me in.

In the meantime I cracked on with the wing replacement:

[luckyseven]

I love a nice Probe. Still miss my old one. Have to say though, the wheels on the 16-valvers are no less hilarious now than they were twenty years ago Your red one looks a lovely example

[andyw]

I got given a K&N filter originally for a Rover 216 - but after I removed the sleeve it fitted the Probe - I like free parts!

Not so good were the headlamp frames - they sit behind covers and because most people forget to was the lamps in winter they sit covered in salt - this is what happens.




The other thing I wanted to change were the wheels - these were dodgy as they had chunks missing from the rims. The three spokes are about as popular as herpes so selling them was out of the question in fact the centre covers are worth more than the wheel itself! The tyres were good and to fit with my 'hot rod/rat rod' theme steels were the only way to go. I found a set of Mazda 626 15" steels for £20 in Redcar which wasn't too far away so bought those.

[andyw]

Thanks for the positive comments so far - the wife was suprisingly calm about it and let me store this pile next to the house for a year and a half!

Mercdan - less than 900 left on the roads! about the same number On Sorn.

Luckyseven - 16v wheels are an acquired taste all right, I have kept the set that came off the red one just incase I ever want to put it back to standard.

[luckyseven]

I had aftermarket wheels on my 24v when I sold it, so I advertised the stock wheels separately. A couple of Russian dudes scored them on eBay, drove down the 60 miles in their 16v... complete with windscreen cracked right across, two different kinds of wheel (two 16v wheels and one that looked like it was off an early MR2 - completely different size and offset) AND one spacesaver! Apparently the spacesaver was good for a solid eighty on the motorway . We talked at length about "Probe-bees" as they called them, they borrowed a jack and bunged the wheels on, chucked their precious miss-matched old ones in the back and headed into the sunset. I didn't read about them in the papers next day so I assume they made it back OK

Probe owners ...hardcore

[andyw]

Nice! Eastern Europeans love them - one of our local lads sold his bodykitted car to a Polish guy who came up from Norfolk to buy it, paid decent money too. We had a Polish chap hassling us to sell him one of the three cars we had at the show at the weekend.

[andyw]

The First Makeover

Original plans for the mazda steels were to do them 'hot rod' red and the car satin black. Whilst on e-bay I came across 2 tins of lime green brushing enamel for £7 delivered - I can't resist a bargain so this happened.




Once I got the welding done it was time to re-assemble the car, it was the middle of summer 2010 but this time! Yes in hindsight I could have taught myself to weld in the time I waited.

Summer was kind so plenty of time to work outside on the car and so the bodywork - bump strips came off (eventually, ditched the rear wash wipe and the car didn't have a stereo so the ariel was removed and smoothed over. some of the badges were missing so the remaining ones came off and the holes were filled.


Someone needed a rear centre reflector (between the rear lights)so I sold that on for a fiver.

£30 got me 12x500mls of Simoniz satin Black aerosols delivered to my door - I still have some in the shed! A couple of nice sunny evenings saw the car change from patchy primed Probe to satin black beauty (if only in my eyes).

[andyw]

One other modification was the Maltese Cross tail light from a chopper wired in to be a third brake light!



I decided to stickerbomb the roof (it was the height of 'rat-look' ater all) - whilst it looked good some of the stickers didn't last and peeling the things off the 18 months later was a complete pain.

It still wasn't finished in September and we moved house 5 miles away - the car got stored in a local garage where the red one used to live and I took the good one to my new house as it had a garage. With the car 5 miles away it meant progress ground to a halt over winter.

By spring I was determined to get it on the road. I few checks over and it went for an MOT which it passed with no advisories!


Some ABS chrome trim rings were bought to finish the wheels off and a set of -35mm springs got the arch gaps down a bit.

I took the car to the UKPOC national event where I won Best Personalised 16v - it was bitter sweet as it took me years to win that with the red one and I won it with a car that at the time had cost around £370 to get back on the road including the purchase price.

So that is it for the first part of the story.

[andyw]

Whilst the car was great at getting people to look at our cars at events I got bored with the look (and the looks).

I decided for the next year to tone it down.

All satin black with black steel wheels (household gloss black from Asda - £4 a tin!)



I was quite happy with the black on black look and when I got offered some slightly worn black leather front seats I decided to ditch the grey 'sackcloth' originals.

A quick patch with some vinyl and they were much improved, a matching rear seat cost me £20 from a club member. So that was a leather interior for £20! I added a Vectra B arm rest, another under £5 mod from e-bay - much cheaper than having to import and original armrest from Australia. Still today I think it is one of the best additions to the car.

[andyw]

2013 and it was time for a makeover again. Decided to go for a different colour scheme and different paint application method.

This time I painted it Extra Dark Sea Grey (5 litres delivered for £30) with a roller. Locals were a bit bemused and despite the weather being a little too hot the paint came out ok. The roof and bonnet were done in Wilkinson's metal paint again painted with a roller.




I also collected some ICE - all stuff found on the cheap, sub box was £10, amp was about £8 off e-bay, and I swapped the front and rear speakers for cheapo brand ones - a pair of new 6x9s for the rear were 99p + £8.00 postage even if I'd never heard of the brand. A JVC head unit came from Dave for £10 when he puthis old Rover 200 in for scrappage (boo) aganist a Golf. The wood for the install was salvaged ply from my step-daughter's house. Like everything with this car it was done on a budget, costing me less than £70 all in.

[79cord]

Wow, don't think I've ever seen a frt bumper mounting bracket that huge before. No rear spoiler really shows off the length of that tail and the 3spiral spoke wheels look much better without those ctr caps, might be interesting to see them experimented upon.
The simpler look/ colour scheme suits it so much better.

[shin2chin]

Love the rollered dark sea grey, same colour as my Defender.

[andyw]

So picking up the story once more, my good friend Josh in the 'States sent me over some US spec headlamp covers which improve the front end look getting rid of the fillet panels infront of the lights - strangely the Yanks want all our european spac stuff! They were a pain to fit and I had to chop them about a bit and drill new holes to fit the UK frames!

Eyes were a temporary measure until I got the roller out again!


The tyres were getting a bit old and starting to crack so I wanted to replace them. The way I see it, if you are going to replace something then if you can upgrade it for more or less the same money then you might as well.

In this case cheap 15" tyres didn't seem much cheaper than cheap 17" tyres so I started to look out for some bigger rims. 15" wheels look a bit small on a Probe so I started to reaearch other manufacturers who did large diameter steel rims.

I did see some chrysler/dodge winter steels adertised new but they were £300+ for a set. They were the same bolt pattern and only 1mm difference in offset, even the centre bore matched. So they were what I needed but not at that price.

After some careful watching on e-bay as set of Dodge Avenger steels came up - 99p start but collection only, in Guilford! After checking with a club mate to see if they would collect and store them I put in a bid! And won them for 99p! They also came with some brake pads and a set of trims. I managed to sell the trims on e-bay and got my 99p back! A local club member collected them at a show at Beaulieu and brought them up to the North East for me.



Just checking them against the car I knew they would be a big improvement!

[andyw]

I gave them a coat of smoothrite and bought some tyres off Asda tyres who seemed to have the best price on some budget tyres in the correct size.



one final touch for last summer was to have a go at doing something different with the roof. One old lace curtain, 1 can of gloss black aerosol and some fine line masking tape and this happened.

[Xenocide]

Hah love it. I've always fancied a probe. One was parked down the road when I was a kid. Thought it was so cool. Never understood the stigma around them. New wheels look lovely!

[andyw]

They aren't a bad car, heavy so no roadburner especially in 2.0 form, great on motorways and not bad on twisty roads, I recently had the grey one out on a trip to the Tan Hill Inn through the yorkshire dales - still managed to negotiate the narrow lanes and hairpin bends.

They'll never be cheaper, good very low mileage ones are picking up in price but cheap and free cars are still out there if you don't mind a project.