No need to swap doors (or door guts) at all.


Here, I will include some vintage pics of my prior 1986 GT w/ T-tops (mind you there were no digital cameras when these pics were taken). These pics are from roughly 1991 - the complete interior was converted over to that of a 1990 GT (unfortunately the nearly new 90 GT was turned into donor vehicle w/ very low miles due to an accident). I don't have any other interior pics, but, you can see the changes.

Mind you, I did this "conversion" when it was basically unheard of at that time... No one was interested in doing such "swaps", because the 87-93's were fairly new and the 79-86's were still quite "young" as well. I guess I was a Pioneer of sorts... LOL!!

From what I remember -

The 87-93 door panels will mount directly to the 86 GT T-top doors (all pushpins on back of panels go into same holes on door, nothing changed). The (2) main bolts of the armrest of the newer (87-93) door panel should also bolt right up to the existing 86 door, as well as the single screw found at the top of the armrest. The interior mirror mounts are the same and you can use the 87-93 mirror mounts if you wish.

Obviously - if you plan on using the newer 87-93 door panel, it does have the speaker revision, while the 79-86 Mustangs never had speakers in the doors. You can certainly cut out the needed speaker hole. With that in mind, yes, you will also have to run separate speaker wires to the new speaker locations within the doors, as they did not exist previously. I cut the correct sized speaker holes, ran proper wiring and mounted aftermarket speakers in the 86's doors.

When I did my conversion, my 86 GT had pwr window/lock features, so I wanted my 90 GT door panels to retain the same functions as well - and work and look like factory. Again, if I remember correctly, the wiring colors for the switch harnesses between the 86 and 90 were almost identical, so swapping the connectors from the 86 GT door wiring over to accept the 90 GT door switch panels, was a small task with cutting/splicing, but, everything went smoothly (and everything worked 100%).

Remember, when I did this, I was exploring completely new grounds!! NO ONE back then attempted such a swap, nor was there ANY such related tech out in ANY Mustang magazines - and the internet back in 1991 - well, it was pretty much non-existent.

There are many ways you can get the 87-93 door switches to work in a 79-86, you can cut/splice wires, or merge harnesses, etc. Each person seems to do it a little different.

My swap contained the entire 90 GT interior (pwr leather front seats, rear leather seats, door panels, rear cargo shade, A-pillar plastics, top metal trim for windshield, rear metal trim at top of hatch, pwr lighted sunvisors, kick panels, all rear interior plastics except for center console & dash). I also incorporated the 87-93 rear 1/4 glass as well - again, another 1st w/ absolutely no tech available for such a swap - nor did anyone even know if such a swap was direct back then. I wired up the front seats so the pwr lumbar and pwr seat track would work too. I also used the 90 GT's pwr lighted sunvisors - which did not exist in any 86 GT, so I had to be creative and tap into the 86 GT's headliner map light (and they too worked 100% just as if when then were in the 90 GT).

When I did the swap, I wanted to retain the original 86 GT dash & center console. At the time, I used genuine Ford interior dye and dyed the bottom half of the dash to match the 1990 lighter gray of the interior panels, and the upper part of the dash (dash pad) was dyed the darker 1990 ebony color to match the tops of the doors and A-pillar plastics (just like the 87-93 interior cues). The center console was dyed the same lighter gray to match the rest of the interior.

One more note to mention - the donor parts all came from a standard 1990 GT - to make the rear interior 1/4 plastics work AND the front A-pillar plastics, I had to modify the tops of those parts @ the A and B-pillar so that the original 1986 GT T-top caps would fit correctly over the newer interior pieces.

I can't tell you how many compliments and "double takes" that car got when I had it out and about daily or taking it to any local events. The changes, although subtle enough, was something very "new" at that point in time. Nowadays, to swap 87-93 parts onto an early 79-86 Fox is commonplace AND there's so much available tech/info online to do such swaps now, compared to 21 years ago.

Enjoy!

Here's the pics:

(oh yea... those Pony rims - were BRAND NEW back then... and cost me $1k just for the rims... LMAO. They were not easy to come by at the time, but today are found anywhere for cheap.)

 

OP - The stuff from hatchback doors will NOT fit as far as inside guts. You will need either T top insides or Vert stuff, they are the exact same, but the windows are different and you will need t top specific windows, I was able to pull all the stuff out of 86 T top doors and use them on hatcback doors after hours of adjusting and lining up

The regulator is the same and doesnt need to be changed

 

so wait, now I'm confused. cobra jet is saying I can take stuff from a regular gt car and you're saying I cant??

I'm going to convert the car over to a complete 88 gray interior from a donor I have including all wiring, etc. I'm guessing I'll need to keep certain pieces of the overhead trim from the t-top to merge with the hatchback's inside quarter plastics.

but I've got one guy saying the inner guts will work, and one saying no.

I'm still about 2 months from getting started on this while I sell a couple other projects off which is why I'm asking now lol. kinda glad due to conflicting answers.

 

TO clarify -

1nasy03snake is referring to a NON-T-top GT. His response is correct of which that IF using the guts/glass from a NON-T-top GT, they will NOT work in "T-top" (or convertible) doors.

~~

I never changed the doors on my 86 GT - the doors and guts were original 86 stuff.


What I have posted above is - yes, if you have a complete interior from an 87-93 GT (or LX) and wish to swap over into an 86 T-top vehicle, as I did, - it WILL work, I did it 21 yrs ago and many others since then have done it many times as well.

IF the 87-93 GT donor was a NON-T-top GT, yes, you WILL have to modify the tops of the later model A-pillar and rear 1/4 interior plastics so that they will fit correctly into a T-top vehicle due to the T-top design.

IF you are using T-TOP specific interior pieces from an 87-88 GT T-top into an 86 T-top, all pieces should fit w/ no mods needed.

IF you are wishing to convert JUST THE DOOR PANELS in your 86 over to the later model 87-93's - YES, the 87-93 DOOR PANELS will bolt right up to the 86 door SHELL. However, the mods you will need to do are to the switch wiring and cutting a speaker hole into the 86 door shell. IF you have a set of 87-88 T-top doors (and they already have the factory speaker cut out AND wiring AND guts) - then you swap doors and deal w/ the door wiring to main dash harness...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a question for you:

Are you planning on also using the 87-93 dash in your swap, but keeping the 4-eyed front end? If so, you will need to research the wiring harnesses - because the 1986 Mustang 5.0 was a 1 YEAR ONLY wiring harness due to it being the 1st year for EFI, last year for "4-eye" headlamps w/ separate marker lamps AND the fact that in 1987, Ford revamped the Mustang entirely, which affected the dash/headlight harnesses.

IF you are converting the entire car over to the later model 87-93 stuff - including complete front to rear wiring harnesses AND front aero headlamp assemblies - then YES, if you have all the 88 wiring, it will all fall into the same places within the 86 body shell (doors, dash area & engine bay). Again, providing you're using ALL 88 stuff and removing ALL 86 stuff.

If merging between 86-88 wiring, then you need to research the differences of the harnesses.

~~~~

I hope that made it slightly easier to understand. These Fox Mustangs are simple to work on and simple to convert one way or another.

 

the basic rundown on my plans.

88 4-cyl converted to 5.0 and the roof rusted out. regular hatchback. no t-tops, no moonroof.

came across the 86 t-top hatchback which is a v6/auto that is perfectly straight and not rusted. gutting it down to the shell, painting it color of choice and ripping EVERYTHING out of the 88 and tossing into the 86...including front end. it'll basically be a titled 86 v6/auto that without breaking the VIN, you'd think was a 87-88 t-top 5.0 hatchback.

so, I need to keep the 86 glass and get proper 87-88 t-top window regulators as I cant use the regular 88 regulators? the regulators are what I'm calling the "guts" by the way.

 

It seems to me that you would do what Cobra Jet NJ said and swap everything from the 88, body parts(f&r bumpers), Complete interior (modify the a pillar and quarter trim to fit the t-top trim caps), and complete wiring (dash, engine, lighting). As far as the window regulators I'd say you keep everything in the 86 doors and splice the plug into the 88 wiring if necessary.

 

Yep - best bet and the easiest way to "convert", especially if you have the donor vehicle.

Personally, *I* would keep the exterior shell of the 86 and leave it as is, only because the 4-eye Mustang (and more so, 85-86 front bumper cover) was a 2 year only body design, pretty unique and they are becoming harder to locate today (in good shape).

When I did my conversion, at the time, it was never done by anyone and it just made the car really unique, when at that same time, 87-93's were very new and there were TONS out and about. Today, if I had to do a conversion again, I'd definitely would not convert the rear 1/4 glass either.

(oh, I also did a MAF conversion at that time as well, using the donor 90's A9L, MAF setup and re-pinning the 86's main EEC harness to work w/ the A9L and MAF... talk about fun - again done in a time frame when no one was interested in converting 86 5.0 Mustangs to Mass Air).

 

Ugh...go to page 2 on the link below for your soon to be door gut debacle. All the stuff will swap over, if you have everything. I pieced parts together, then got a donor car, parked it next to mine and did 1 wire at a time. My interior is Opal grey, and had to trim the rear quarters to fit, just hack off a piece here and there, but youll need t top specific or vert might work a pillars
As far as the doors, pick your poison...change all the guts or change the side mouldings.

Read all my posts on the T Top specific stuff, be carefull with your weatherstripping, it is a nightmare. email me for any other tips/tricks or general info you need to do this as I cant guarentee i'll remember to check this thread...wickedstang03@hotmail.com

http://forums.corral.net/forums/mem...ber-build-up-projects/1335047-87-ttop-4-banger-complete-restore-swap-5-0-a.html

 

that actually makes me wonder if I need to keep all the rear seat bracketry as well since the whole 88 interior is going into this 86. looks like I'll be completely gutting this thing lol.