ronmanfredi

I bought mine from here: Shock Absorbers & Bumpers - Avanti Parts & Restorations, Inc.

I am currently at a standstill with the project until John is able to locate his 2003-2005 records and send them to me. Then he will have to search for the 2006-2007 records which he does not have but may know who might. He is also involved with a couple of other projects that preceded this, so he will get to it when he can. In the meantime, we have identified the 3 AVX cars, fourteen 2001 cars based on production run with body type and color, thirty three 2002 cars, four 2003 cars with owners, four 2004 Firebird based cars with owners, two 2004 SN95 Mustang cars with owners, two 2005 SN95 Mustang based cars with owners, 13 2006 S197 Mustang based cars with owners (I'm one) and nine 2007 S197 Mustang based cars with owners. I have also learned that when Avanti was selling off the last few cars before shutting down the business, that they retitled those few 2007s to 2006 for some unknown reason. The last car made was a 2006 Dusty Rose Convertible. For your 2001 records, there were 4 T-Tops: Black, Diamond Pearl White, Navy Blue Metallic and Light Bronze Metallic, 4 Coupes: Turquoise, Laguna Green, Navy Blue, Navy Pearl and 6 Convertibles: (2)Torch Red, Scarlett Red, White, Red, Corvette Black made.

If you brought me your car and told be the problems that you were having, I would forget your current diagnosis and start with one problem at a time using a volt/ohm meter. First are the running/head lights. The rocker switch on the left side on the ceiling turns the power on to the headlight/running light circuit. The next switch turns on or off the headlights with the running lights on. If it isn't doing anything, then you need to pull those switches to inspect their operation and wiring. Previous owners/mechanics may have done who knows what to the switches. If everything looks good and the switches are working, then look at the wiring harness at the driver's side upper kick panel and inspect the wires with the same color codes as at the switches to see what has happened. You need to solve this problem first. (note, you need to use an ohm meter on the switches to verify that they are actually working) Grounds (white wires from Avanti), Black wires on GM supplied harnesses/components. On all park, side marker, and tail lights, remove the bulbs. Get an 8-10' length of 12 volt wire and connect one end to the negative side of the battery. Run it close to each light fixture one at a time. Take the volt/ohm meter and set it on ohms or continuity setting. Now connect one lead to the 8' wiring and the other lead to the ground wire "at the light fixture body". It should show continuity. If not, then you have a ground problem with that light. It could be the ground wire to its grounding point, or its connection at the light body. Once you have fixed or determined that all grounds are good, then you have eliminated that being a problem. Be sure to note that most bulbs ground through the bulb base body, so the inside of the socket must be clean. You can get a small wire brush made for this at an auto parts store if you don't have one. There is no need to go any further until the grounds are good. For rear lights, the harnesses run under the fuel tank, under the rear seat and up the rocker panels. I've had all of those interior parts out tracing down a ground problem before. On the upper driver's side kick panel are a couple of relays and there is a ground bar there where a few wires connect for grounding purposes, plus the gauges use the dash support frame above the steering column to ground to. Once you have all known issues with the park/head/tail lights fixed, then you can attack the turn signals. You have to remember that the turn signals/hazard flasher switch are all electronically combined, so sometimes you have to check each turn signal circuit independently of the rest to find the problem. If each circuit is good, then the turn signal/emergency flasher switch is most likely the problem. I've found that 1/2 of the time, that a lot of problems are caused by connections or poor grounds. I've also seen a lot of "previous" repairs that were the root cause of the problems too. Here are some 1980 diagrams which should be good to help you sort this out.

As I continue to customize our 2006 Conv to our liking, the next change I wanted to make was with the Audio speakers. From the factory, the car came with the Shaker 500 system, which included a 6 changer CD/AM/FM radio, along with two 6x8” co-axial speakers and two 8” subwoofers at the bottom of the door panels plus two 6x8” co-axial Speakers in the rear side panels. The subwoofers each have their own amplifier to power them as well. Research revealed that the radio only puts out about 20 watts per channel to the speakers and the amps pump up the signal for the subwoofers. So, when one looks for speakers to work with the radio, you want to get speakers that are close in range to what the radio puts out. In other words, you don’t want to buy speakers with an RMS rating of 100 watts when the radio only puts out 20 watts. The other thing that you want to look for is the sensitivity rating. With a low powered signal coming from the radio, you want the speakers to have the highest sensitivity rating possible. A rating of 93 is about the highest you’ll find. Anything in the 80’s isn’t good for a stock radio. The last thing you want if you like base sound like I do, is to get a speaker with the lowest possible frequency response “low” Hz number. The average 5x7” or 6x8” co-axial speaker runs 60-25,000Hz. 60 is base, 25,000 is the highest pitch sound the speaker can process. The speaker that I chose, has a range of 40-24,000Hz which has the best base sound possible, a sensitivity rating of 93 which is great, it is the JL Audio C1-570x. I’ve used JL Audio speakers in other vehicles with good success. The only thing that I dislike about them is the trademark yellow color but for the sound, I’ll live with it. Lastly, there is a need for a grille for the speaker and I found the Morel 210MESH57 fit the bill nicely. (everything came from Crutchfield) Now I want to take you through the installation of the door speakers and subwoofer enhancements. (I also replaced the rear panel speakers) For the subwoofers, you’ll need to get some speaker poly fill. Poly fill placed loosely in the subwoofer “box” smooths out the low base sounds a lot and is definitely worth doing. Now, the door panels need to come off and there are a lot of u-tube videos on how to do this on a 2006-7 Ford Mustang so I’ll skip that part. If you buy the speakers from Crutchfield, they will send easy to read instructions on how to replace the front and back speakers. Picture 1 below shows the new speakers and the grille. The base of the grille goes between the speaker and the factory speaker mount, then the speaker is attached with screws through the grille base. To start with, you have to remove the factory speaker mounts off the door. Each mount has a marking that says left/right and Top to help you when reinstalling. Picture 2 shows the factory speaker mount with a Dremel tool next to it and the 4 places that the “ears” need to be removed from the mount. I use the Dremel tool, you can use whatever works for you, you just have to remove the 4 ears and leave a level surface for the speaker grill base to mount. Picture 3 shows the “ears” removed and the grille base. Picture 4 shows the speaker mount reinstalled on the door. Note that the speaker lead wire is installed between the mount and the door body. You have to do it this way in order to connect it to the speaker and car wiring harness. Picture 5 shows the speaker grille base and speaker mounted to the factory speaker mount. Picture 6 shows the speaker grille installed. Picture 7 shows the back of the door panel with the subwoofer panel removed and the poly fill laid into the sound channel. The panel, which is above it, is also recessed but you don’t want to fill it. The poly fill isn’t supposed to be packed in the area, just loosely set in, so doing half of the area is sufficient. Picture 8 shows the other door panel and the red silicon adhesive that I used to seal off the subwoofer channel from the rest of the door panel. Picture 9 shows the subwoofer panel reinstalled. Picture 10 shows the ½” x ½” foam gasket that I used to fill in the area between the speaker grille and the door panel. What I didn’t show was that the door panel had an extra plastic edge there that I removed where the gasket is now. I was afraid it would hit the speaker grille so I pulled the leather back and trimmed it off and reglued the leather back around it. Picture 11 shows the door panel on and the foam gasket. Picture 12 shows the completed job and the sound is absolutely great. The subwoofer sound is much louder, smoother and the speaker sound is much better than stock. Sitting in the car, I can’t really see the yellow color because of the grille which is good also. Hope you liked this!

All cars were built to order based on the buyers request unless the car was for inventory. The Kuwait purchaser ordered it in this color for his car collection, which makes some sense since he lived in a desert atmosphere of influence. J Hull remembers the car when it was being shipped.

Sold today for $44,000 on Mecum Kissemmee Auction

He originally started at $50K months ago with no action, so he lowered it to $40K on eBay and put it on Hemmings, Classic Cars and ran it through the GCC auction with poor results. He has an upcoming Mecham auction this Sunday, so he relisted the eBay at $50K, most likely thinking it would get potential buyers to bid higher, we will see.

The glue they used back then to glue the leather to the plastic panels must have had some problems since I've seen the same problem on a couple of other 04-05 cars. There is an area on the right side of the dash where the leather is also coming loose. Door panels would be an easy fix, the dash would be another story. The car was stored in a climate controlled car dealership building so I don't think it wasn't abused.

How could that be MFG? The car was shipped to Kuwait Oct 2004 and never left the owners dealership showroom until early 2024.

Yes, that is the car.

The main thing that I have seen in the photos of this car is the leather on the passenger side of the dash and both door panels coming loose. I'm sure the glue has given out, which wouldn't be a problem to fix on the door panels, but the dash would be a different story. Supposedly it was kept in a climate controlled building, which would help keep the condition better. The concerns would be the seals on the engine and transmission. I was interested in the car before I bought my 2006, but the seller wouldn't budge off the $40K price, so I moved on. The first thing I would have done beside all fluid and tire changes was to repaint the entire car.

The seller is into the car for right at $40K. He's been offered as much as $36K and turned it down. It's been listed in 4 places for $50K and $40K. It's been on GCC Auction where the high bid was $25K with a reserve of $40K, and on Hemmings where the current high bid is $33K. Next Sunday, 1/19, it's up on Mecum Kissimmee auction with a reserve, I'm betting is $40K. It was the #3 car made/shipped on the SN95 Mustang chassis in Desert Coral color. Mr J Hull from Avanti motors at the time remembered shipping it to Kuwait to a car collector back in 2004. Late 2004-2005s car were built on the SN95 Mustang chassis and then Ford discontinued the car and introduced the S197 model, which Avanti used until it closed in 2007. The SN95 car is the smallest Avanti ever made, has a nose heavy look, which the donor car has. It had a unique front end look due to that as well.

The production run for 2002 included 29 known convertibles. There were 2 Jade Poly Green (Emerald Dark Green) car #30 and #47.

Bruce, your car shows to be #20 of the production run..

I bought 32oz and used almost 1/2 on the seats. I'm doing the door panels next and I'm sure I'll have around 12 OZ left over. It's water based, easy clean up, easy to store in their bottle. 20 minutes apart for each coat, dries to touch in about an hour in 65+F I always let it sit overnight before getting on. It has not rubbed off on any leather surface I have put it on (done 2 cars so far). You can use it on vinyl BUT you must scuff the vinyl with 400-600 grit paper completely so the dye can penetrate the vinyl material, otherwise it will peel off in areas that you rub a lot.

Bottom, added new image as well. The difference is more noticable in real life. The new color is brighter and all the pink tint is gone.

Our 06 model has a black interior with red seat inserts and red door panel inserts. The color has some pink in it and doesn't look good to me nor matches the red car body at all. So, I contacted Seat Doctor, who makes leather seat dyes and who I have used before, to make some dye that would match the red body of the car. Next I removed the seats, cleaned them thoroughly then masked and papered them off (the most time consuming part of doing the job). Harbor freight sells a $29 touch up paint gun with regulator that works great with this water based dye. I sprayed 2 coats of dye, 20 minutes apart at 40psi. As you can see, then job turned out really nice.

Not if you have good clamps and the pipe fit well. If not, don't mess with JB weld, there is a muffler pipe sealer made by permatex that Oreilly auto parts sells, which would be much easier to use. (no mixing needed)

If you have a Blaupunk cassette radio, there will be 2 inline fuses, both accessabile underneath the dash cup holder or blank panel. The radio would most likely have a small square amp sitting on top of it which then means that there are 2 inline fuses to check. The fusebox is where Gunslinger said it would be.

It's epoxy so you can try and scrape it off the roof panel with a putty knife first (use a light duty hammer and see if it will pop off. If not, try the same thing on the frame side of the roof) If either works, then you'll just have to grind off what's left on the roof. If not, then an oscillating tool might work or a hacksaw blade if it will fit in between the roof and frame.

Yes, don't be surprised to see headliner material and other junk in there. The headliner edges on the top side of the sliding piece may have come loose as well.

While the painted valve covers were cool, I still was looking for more and found it in a intake manifold cover made by California Pony Cars. Once installed, I figured out that the hood wouldn't close since the hood latch arm was hitting the cover. So I cut a notch out of the back side and lowered the hood again only to find out that the entire cover sat too tall for the hood to close. My computations and stubborness led me to believe that I could make it work, so I began cutting out the center section, notching the front mounting bolt holes, etc, etc. (I won't bore you with the story line of the modification since it went on for a few days LOL) Eventually, I got the cover lowered enough that I did acheive about 1/2" clearance between the front of the cover and the hood when all the way shut. Now the center of the cover was really cut down and didn't look good at all, and the notched section at the back side for the latch arm went completely through the back, eliminating all structural support. As I looked at it, it occured to me that I needed to make a top cover section to attach all the way around the top, which would make the cover solid and strong and cover up the cut out center section. I remembered that I had some 1/4" thick clear plexiglass, so I made a template and then made the top plate. Next I got some small brackets that I had laying around and used 5 of them to screw the top plate in place. ( I notched the plate for the hood latch arm before installing it) I decided to paint the cover to match the engine valve covers in red and semi gloss black. During the process, I went to a local sign shop and had a couple of decals made for the cover in Silver and installed them. Then I added some pin stripe in silver where the red and black met. Now at this stage, the cover was looking pretty good except you could see the cut out center section underneath the plexiglass top plate. So I painted a 1" border around the top plate which covered that up, plus the mounting brackets. NOW THIS IS GETTING PRETTY COOL! As I looked at the flat black intake manifold runners, it struck me that I could take some of the carbon fiber wrap that I had left over from the dash project and place 8 strips of it on the top surface of the intake manifold runners. And then I decided to add a couple of 1" tall strips along the bottom sides of the new intake cover. (It's important to know that the angles of the carbon fiber pattern are a perfect match over all of the strips and side panels). Now it was time to install the cover and MAN THIS LOOKS AWESOME to me and the wife!! Here are some photos of the journey plus if you ever want to have the decals made locally, I have the VECTOR file that I can send you!

John's production numbers are correct. The Firebird/Mustang Vins tell you of the OEM chassis build/options, but the Avanti add-ons are missing. The only perfect way to know is to have the Production Sheet which all original owners had (some passed them on to the next owners). The second way is the window sticker. I'm finding that there are Avanti Body #s on most Mustang based cars that tell us the production run # of that car. 2004-2005s used one AVxxxx 4 digit number location on the door tag. 2006-2007 used a 17 digit Avanti Body Vin and the last 2 digits are the production run of those models (mine is #11 which means that there should be a minumum of 11 cars made that year IF the first one was actually #1) John is working on trying to get together more documentation to help with this project and I still have dozens of owners to attempt to contact to get their car info as well.

Once the glass is out, the sliding portion of the head liner will lift right out. You'll find some corrosion, pieces of extra headliner material that has fallen down into it's tracks, etc. Before you do anything else, get some plastic, etc, and some tape and block off the interior so no trash falls into the inside of the car. I had to reglue all of the headliners overlapping edges around the sunroof frame once everything was out, which wasn't a big deal. I used a scotch brite pad to clean the metal tracks, etc. There was a lot of small trash on top of the headliner base, below the roof panel, so I took my air compressor and a vacuum cleaner to get all the trash out. I placed the a compressor hand held air nozzel on one side of the gap (passengers side) and the vacuum on the drivers side so as I blew the stuff around, it hit the vacuum cleaner as it exited the gap. My frame had come loose from the roof panel. If yours has too, then I know exactly how to fix that too. The attached photo shows you what to look for.