Mikey's new four-door

[1987cp]

/begin{annoyance}

How about you guys quit telling me to spend more money, okay? I hadn't actually planned on doing ANYTHING to this car for quite some time, it's lucky I've now got a suspension rebuild in the plans at all!
/end{annoyance}


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


But yes, I do plan on attempting to find out how Blaze went about tightening his uppers. I don't suppose it's as simple as just turning the big greasable nut things on the ends with a wrench ......

So far this afternoon I've managed to dig up my old 302 A/C brackets I took off the wagon about a decade ago. Lucky I still had the things, really. And it turned out the stripped water pump bolt hole must have only been stripped a little way in, because I ran a longer regular bolt into it (instead of the special water pump stud), and it tightened right down!

Also temporarily solved the throttle bracket problem with just a longish bolt and a stack of nuts. It seems to be sufficient to allow acceptable throttle operation, but I'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure it stays tight.

Finally, the charging setup I'd been using on this car seems to have gone missing ... but, I won't be needing the one from the wagon, so I'm looking at making a small change to that harness so I again have a convenient power source for the Hi-6S box.

[P72Ford]

But yes, I do plan on attempting to find out how Blaze went about tightening his uppers. I don't suppose it's as simple as just turning the big greasable nut things on the ends with a wrench ......

It is, actually. You'll need some extra leverage though. I tried to tighten mine once, just because. I assumed they were tight, because there was no way I could get them any tighter.

[torquelover]

I remember him mentioning that the lower a-arm had to be jacked up to relieve pressure on the upper a-arm.

[gadget73]

/begin{annoyance}

How about you guys quit telling me to spend more money, okay? I hadn't actually planned on doing ANYTHING to this car for quite some time, it's lucky I've now got a suspension rebuild in the plans at all!
/end{annoyance}

I suspect it was mentioned more as a safety concern than anything else. Ball joints are cheaper than a car wreck. They can and will come apart if they are really bad. If you're not replacing them, just be damn sure they aren't a safety hazard for yourself and others. Your kid doesn't want to grow up without a daddy because a $35 ball joint blew apart. I don't mean to sound like an ass, but I don't want to see anyone hurt either.


Interesting tidbit on the early style AC brackets though. So what brackets and compressor do you have on the car exactly? Just would like to nail down what year 302 AC brackets will sit on a 351. It would make for easier harvesting since 351 cars almost never appear in the junkyards. Early 302 cars are also not common but they do show up from time to time.

[1987cp]

Interesting tidbit on the early style AC brackets though. So what brackets and compressor do you have on the car exactly? Just would like to nail down what year 302 AC brackets will sit on a 351. It would make for easier harvesting since 351 cars almost never appear in the junkyards. Early 302 cars are also not common but they do show up from time to time.

All I know for sure is that the brackets I had on my '79 fit both engines. This car used the stock '87 351 brackets, and only the one that bolts to the head was able to be reused with the 302.

[Lincolnmania]

you dont need an alignment if you replace just lower bushings and ball joints

[1987cp]

No shit.

[1987cp]

Sooo .... apologies to Thain, but my tangentially-directed persuasion on the torque converter has definitely failed to break the transmission.

I also remembered that ignition boxes work better when the little black wire is connected to a chassis ground. Did that, and got a tiny spark and the little red light came on.

Decided to delay welding up the old clamp joints on the X-pipe for now, so I crawled underneath and bolted it to the collectors. While I was under there I installed the factory chassis reinforcement bars I stole off the wagon. Chassis bars are good for safe jacking, as I've grown accustomed to using the four bolt heads on the front crossmember to locate the jack under the car.

The starter solenoid isn't solenoiding using the regular primary-starter-circuit wiring for some reason. It's working fine with the neutral safety switch bypassed, though, so evidently the problem is between where my jumper lead is connected at the safety-switch connector and the solenoid. Good enough for now.

Put in coolant and filled the power steering pump with Type F as Scott has suggested to other people. Need to bleed it a couple more times, though.

Now I think the main thing I need to do is to locate my new AGSF32 spark plugs and install them in place of the gross ones currently in the engine.

I still haven't obtained new cotter pins for the front balljoint castle nuts, but I'm thinking about just leaving them out for the weight savings. :smirk:

[gadget73]

Glad you didn't break anything, I only mentioned that other people have broken things by doing the same thing. Also I'm assuming the last remark about leaving the pins out was just a snarky moment intended to get a rise out of someone (me). Believe it or not, I'm not an asshole, nor am I intentionally trying to make you mad. I'm only trying to be sure that people have a safe and reliable vehicle. If you take offense to the idea that someone has a concern for your safety, then I apologize.

[1987cp]

Right .... sorry about that. I guess I was stressed from having my stuff all apart at a time when it was decidedly less than convenient .... then when between sixteen and twenty-four (friendly and well-meaning) people all chimed in, and then got all persuasive when I said "not now", that was a good recipe for feeling highly heckled and slightly jerked around. Too much going on here in too little space with too little time, patience, and $$$ available!

I'm randomly reminded of once when playing Civilization III, when nearly every foreign leader I tried to make a deal with started saying "Did you forget to take your medication?"

BTW, today I greased the heck out of everything greasable and also obtained and installed four nice new stainless cotter pins.

Maybe tomorrow I can get some pics of the new stock-looking tailpipe configuration I whittled up today while under the car welding up the mufflers. I think it actually looks halfway decent, though I'm sure I'll be going back and filling a few pinholes in my crappy welding in the foreseeable future, and a couple of my hangers are still in need of improving on.

[packman]

Out of curiosity (and fear of certain reprisal), what do you plan on doing with the 358W?



Packman

[1987cp]

lol - that's okay. I'm still not sure exactly what I want to do, but I very much want to do at least a head upgrade, even if it means just taking the old E7s out to BHP for a little port work. But with an essentially unlimited amount of time to perform the upgrade, hopefully I can manage to afford something better. I'm tempted to wonder how much Pirate's long-rod combo theoretically makes with unported F3ZE heads ...... I don't think I can really make use of the 440hp/440lb-ft or whatever he reported getting from the motors he built, but with slightly more restrictive heads maybe I can get a more streetable power level going.

[1987cp]

Pics of new exhaust

Nearly invisible - click and drool. If you can live without 3.5" chrome tips, that is!

[70torino429]

looks awesome!

[1987cp]

Or more to the point, doesn't look like anything at all. Man, my welding is still nasty ....


Thanks!