Bessie Boss
Specs & Mods
- Ownership Status
- Currently Own
- Year
- 2012
- S197 Model
- Boss 302
- Boss 302 #
- 100
- Transmission
- Manual
- Mods - Handling
- Ford Motorsport Boss 302 lowering springs. PowerStop Rotors and Z26 ceramic pads front and rear. Stainless braided lines. Stock wheels, General Tires.
- Mods - Power
- Stock. MGW Shifter.
- Mods - Exterior
- Stock. Side pipe baffles removed.
- Mods - Interior
- Leather (real) custom front seat re-upholster.
- Background & Plans
- We found Bessie Boss as a DD. She was originally delivered in Michigan living there until 2020 racking up only 21K miles. In 2020 she came to Tennessee. She was purchased in 2020 primarily as the wife's car and boy did she drive it. But they did not realize what they owned. The track key was never used.
We purchased her in 2025 with 119K miles with an interior in terrible shape and several other problems.
Apparently the wife in the 2020 purchase was addicted to Dr. Pepper and was lets stay "careless" when consuming them in the car causing multiple soda explosions according to her husband. The interior had to be gutted to clean it of all the Dr. Pepper. We even found it in the dome light lenses, headliner and behind most of the interior panels. The carpet was a gooey mess. That was cured by removing it and washing it thoroughly. The seats are not Recaro's and were trashed. Worn and splitting. The center console panel was scratched and discolored and all the radio and dash bezels were scratched. And it smelled wonderful!
When we purchased her in August, they had just had a new clutch installed, two weeks before selling it to us. It was the first clutch! A hint into how it was driven. The installing shop only installed one of the four driveshaft bolts and "almost" reinstalled the exhaust. A mess. It was hanging, crooked and leaking. One side pipe was hanging as the mounting bolt was missing and the bushing was gone. And the day before we went to look at her the A/C quit. They assured me the oil had been changed religiously and even brought the father in law to attest to it along with their records. I used my scope to inspect the engine before buying it to verify as best I could that the engine was in good shape. It was very clean much to my surprise. I guess they just didn't care how clean the rest of the car was or what it looked like. But they maintained it mechanically. There is more but you get the sense of things. Obviously the price was below market, but once she came home, I realized we still probably paid too much. But there is only 1 number 100 Boss 302.
Today, after months of work on her in our spare time, she looks and smells like new. We re-upholstered the seats by ordering a leather seat kit from leatherseats.com. (high quality) Then had the seat backs embordered locally with the Boss 302 logo and refreshed/repaired the foam. The key dash elements were removed, cleaned, polished, painted. Most of the rest of the interior was removed and cleaned to be like new. New Kicker speakers were installed (actually sounds great with the stock system) along with a selection of new clips, bezels and so forth to make it all fit right and tight. The A/C problem was a leaking condenser and an intermittent compressor clutch. The front bumper damage was cured with a new pre-painted part. The side pipe and exhaust were fixed and adjusted properly and I ditched the Flowmaster Outlaw mufflers for the Ford Racing mufflers to be kind to the neighbors. I went through all the calipers, installed braided stainless lines, PowerStop rotors and ceramic pads. Replaced the broken antenna, missing hood stripe and missing floor mats. Installed a new steering wheel from LMR, and a clutch pedal extender. I have found those just make it easier to bottom the clutch and shift quickly.
I changed the coolant, oil, transmission fluid (synchro shift) and rear gear lube. While the rear end cover was off, I drilled and tapped the cover for another drain plug and installed a rare earth magnetic plug. More on this in a minute.
While the front was apart to install the new front bumper, I cut out the fog light blanks (upper and lower) and fabricated and installed stainless wire mesh to improve cooling and detailed the engine. Then I spent almost 50 hours very carefully color sanding and buffing her out before applying the ceramic coat.
Within 25 miles of her return to the road, I noticed the rear end making noise. Bearing noise, not gear noise. Since it had been months since I drove her home and straight into the garage, I began questioning if she made noise when I brought her home and I didn't hear it because the exhaust was such a mess and the A/C was not working. I concluded it was quiet and changing out the very old fluid dissolved caked debris. 400+ miles later, making ever more noise, I pulled the new drain plug in preparation for replacing the axle bearings. Remember, this gear lube had only 500 miles on it. With the drain plug came a large glob of black glitter! Ugh! I then removed the entire rear end and disassembled it to find one carrier bearing was eating itself and spreading the love around the rear end. I forged ahead and properly rebuilt the entire rear end. Pinion bearings, carrier bearings, axle bearings, new carbon clutches and so on. Put it back together (properly) setting pinion depth and backlash to spec. I had measured the pinion depth and backlash before disassembly for reference. I know what you are thinking, and I was thinking it too. What about the gears? Did they get harmed? While they were polished shinny I did not find any pitting. So I gambled. That was the right choice. This rear end is one of the quietest I have experienced in an S197 chassis. So the gears are fine. Here we are not some 2,000 miles (as I write this) after the rebuild and all is well.
This is my second Boss. Makes me smile every time I drive her. And that is what I shall do.
