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88 Fifth Avenue

Stock Fifth Avenue with some wear and tear.

General Information

[Updates] I recently did a spray paint job on the hood of this car, and it got rid of my problems with the burns in the hood, even though the paint doesn't look that great, it's rust protection to me that matters right now. I literally just noticed some rust on the front doors, on the bottom corners, and I need to fix that fast, before it becomes a problem. Currently, I'm just trying to work out the rest of the issues. There's new images for the resprayed hood. I did my best possible work under a streetlight at night, since I ran out of daylight, and there's no more good weather days soon, so it looks pretty bad, but it protects the car.

I also found some issues with the suspension, and I am going to need to replace my tie rods, ball joints, etc. I'll probably just get a bunch of crap to basically rebuild the whole thing, just for future proofing. There's 150K miles on the car before I owned it, and I might as well replace all the worn out stuff.

[Original Post]

This is my '88 Fifth Avenue that I picked up. I've had it since September, and it runs nice, despite some small issues.

It's still original - and for the most part I intend to keep it that way. So far, I've fixed the front brakes (new caliper on right side, new pads on both wheels), the windshield wipers (bushings needed to be replaced... old ones dry rotted) and my rear lights (Just took a bit of sandpaper to the corrosion of the sockets).

Preventative maintenance so far has just been an oil change (using 10W-30, conventional), brake fluid (the old stuff was this brownish, milky and watered down looking fluid. Almost like someone dropped dirt into the master cylinder), and then a new set of spark plugs and distributor.

The only issues left now are that my A/c and heat don't work (nothing happens when I press the buttons), and alignment is off, since I have to hold the wheel about 10 degrees to the left to keep the car straight.

I'm planning on driving it a lot, so in terms of mods, I'm just looking into stuff I can do for MPG mostly. Possibly an economy tuned turbo? (Sounds odd, but just looking into possible routes.)

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Comments

I think a nice modern 350cfm 2 barrel would be great on these cars. Like a little Holley street avenger. Would give enough tunability to probably get a little bit better MPG. Doing a A518 transmission swap would likely help out even more
 
I think a nice modern 350cfm 2 barrel would be great on these cars. Like a little Holley street avenger. Would give enough tunability to probably get a little bit better MPG. Doing a A518 transmission swap would likely help out even more
Those look like good ideas. The transmission sounds like it would really help at freeway speeds. Thank you!
 
Looks a lot like mine!

Where in NJ are you?
You got a nice one! (That paint shines nicely) I'm pretty sure the only differences between '88 and '89 are that '89s have airbags in all of them. There may be more, but that's all I know of. Also, I'm in Central NJ.
 
i like the Halloween decorations! never seen a fifth with pancake hubcaps but i like it.
have you gotten anywhere with the fuel economy? my car still has lean burn but that doesn't do much. my fury i my only car so i need that mpg more than anyone.
 
i like the Halloween decorations! never seen a fifth with pancake hubcaps but i like it.
I'm with you on the daily driving aspect. I measured a tank at about 67% highway, and I had about 15.66 mpg, according to my math. That's still running rich. A guy I know who has experience with these told me that lean burns should be eliminated for an electronic ignition control. He said to look for a chrysler one that has an "orange box." Apparently they were terrible from the get go. I think the reason for my bad economy is from a misfire that I discovered, and a potential vacuum leak.
 
i like the Halloween decorations! never seen a fifth with pancake hubcaps but i like it.
I was going to, since it looked like my situation was going to change, but now I decided to hold on. I can't any longer justify getting rid of it. I'm just going to make 'er perfect.
 
i like the Halloween decorations! never seen a fifth with pancake hubcaps but i like it.
thats good! glad to hear your're keeping her. just wondering, you thinking about taking her to radwood philly on April 5th? it'd be cool getting some M's together from the northeast.
 
i like the Halloween decorations! never seen a fifth with pancake hubcaps but i like it.
I've just heard of this event now, since you mentioned it. If some northeast M's are going to be together, then I'm definitely going to try to make that. I'll do a bunch of work on my car until then, just so it's a lot nicer to drive and more to talk about.
 

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