Monty's 1989 Crown Victoria LX

[monterey1962]

It's a dreary rainy day and I'm waiting for coatings to dry, so I might as well kill some time. I had a very old thread on this car, but the pics have since been lost due to image hosting issues.

A brief summary: Purchased in '06 with 135K miles. Think it's somewhere in the 145K range, now. Rarely gets driven these days. It's my highway driver, so I pretty much only take it out for longer trips. Still maintains 26 mpg on the highway. It's out of storage now since I found some rust issues that need immediate tending to. Currently, it's torn up a bit in the garage.

Really tired, but these are the upgrades that I can remember at the moment: Tires are 235/60R15 Firestone Indy 500's. Rear sedan cargo coils to level the car out. 130amp 3G alt upgrade. Steering wheel leather redone. Pioneer stereo system with wiring for sub woofer. Extra gauges. 140 mph speedometer. Cat-back dual exhaust with 18" glass packs.

Frame was pulled straight in the right front corner a couple of years ago. Drives like new.

[monterey1962]

Noticed a small amount of rust in the rear quarter panels in the trunk area. I pulled the tail lights and rear corner assemblies and found what I was expecting on a 21 yr. old car ... rust on the body seams with evident leaks into the trunk. First step was to get the dirt out of the 1/4's and see what I had. Looked like a small issue of surface rust in the front portions. Wanted to be safe, so I scraped out the factory coating ... and found a lot more rust hiding. Very tight work area, so it's all hand work with the sand paper. Sprayed some rust converter in there to give me a better view of what I'm up against. Once that dries, I'm going to re-sand the whole thing to try and get more of the rust out. After that, I'll coat it all with Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and Extreme Chassis Black to make sure it stays solid. I should mention, the outside portion of the 1/4's, under the granny trim is clean.

[monterey1962]

Re-sanded the inner 1/4's and got a better view in the light, but ran out of time. Re-coated with converter so there's no exposed metal. Pulled the rock guard from around the rear bumper. Found rust on the top of the bumper and even more on the bumper frame. Also found rust on the bottom of the lower rear 1/4's on the outside. So much for a small repair project.

[monterey1962]

How depressing. Everytime I remove something, I discover more rust. Below you can see the trouble spots on the trunk floor that have been coated. Since the right side vertical seam showed some signs of rusting, I decided to removed the entire seal. It was rusted badly underneath the factory seal, top to bottom. Left side wasn't as bad. Used my Dremel and pointed grinding tip to get as much out as possible, then sanded it. Currently, I'm waiting for the Encapsulator to set so I can re-seal the seams. I'll give that a day to set, then throw some paint on the tail section.

I was going to pull the bumper, but this is just getting to be too much to take on when I've already got a hundred other things to get done on the other cars before it gets to late in the year. The frame is rusty. The gas tank is rusty. The floor pans are rusty. I'm going to do spot repairs and call it good for now, unless time allows for more.

[monterey1962]

Outer, lower portion of the rear 1/4's. Waiting for second coat of Encapsulator to dry. Will put a couple of coats of Extreme Chassis Black on top and hope that it holds the rust off.

[87gtVIC]

Keep up the battle.

[Lincolnmania]

it's a sweet ride, i hope to see it in person some day mang!

[packman]

Nice exhaust vid! Is that an empty box of Aunt Jemima waffles? Also, I like the Super Unknown exhaust vid as well. Really like the song in that vid. One question though; is that lipstick rolling around in your cup holder in the SU vid?:smirk:


Packman

[monterey1962]

Box over the license plate is an air filter box for my truck. You can hear the true sound of the exhaust when I pull the car ahead. I had the camera too close to the car at first.

The song in S.U.'s video is where she got her name. Lipstick color matches the paint on the car. I wear it to feel pretty.

Back to the CV ... Tonight, I sealed a couple more spots in the body seams and coated the outside lower rear 1/4's and tail section with Extreme Chassis Black. Man, is that stuff shiny ... and potent. Had the garage door open and I still got a mild headache from it. Yesterday, I coated the inner 1/4's with the Ex.Ch.Bl. Looks like it sealed up well.

Next step looks to be taping off the ass end, then laying down self etch primer and body color to cover up all the repairs. Most of the area is out of sight once the tail corners are on, but I like to make things nice and neat, whenever possible. Debating if I should lay some sealant on the inside of the trunk along the seams. Probably will, just to be safe.

[monterey1962]

Well, a small project grew ... and now it grew some more. There are a few areas of surface rust on the underside of the trunk. Started sanding to see how deep it was, and discovered that the paint was riddled with chips. It's enough to be concerned about future rusting, so I scuffed the entire underside of the trunk tonight. Need to clean out the underside of the 1/4's and scuff them. Will have to drop the tail pipes to get better access. Getting between the frame and body looks like fun. After that, I'll have to sand off the rusted areas and hit them with Encapsulator. Going to try and get two coats of Ex.Ch.Bl. on the entire underside. Go figure, now I start running low on supplies. Bought some cheapy foam paint rollers. Hope they work better than the brushes.

Gas tank has some surface rust that needs to get taken care of. Found a dent in the tank, but doesn't seem to be an issue.

Anyone try using that Rustoleum Undercoating in the spray can? Can get it pretty cheap at Wal-mart, but I figure Eastwood is a longer lasting fix.

[monterey1962]

Sonofabitch. Unbolted the rear tail pipe hangers to gain access to the rear 1/4's and found that the right side tail pipe is rotted out over the axle. Yay, more shit to fix.

The entire underside has been cleaned (used Purple Power) and sanded. Just need to hit a few spots again for good measure. Fuel tank cleaned off nicely with 80 grit. Rear 1/4's are tough to get sanded out, but the metal feels solid. Will wipe it all down and hopefully get some Encapsulator on today.

[monterey1962]

Got Encapsulator on the rusted areas and bare metal. Rolled on one coat of ECB. Tip: ECB and brushes suck, get a cheap 4" mini roller with long handle from Wal-mart. Man, that roller made it go fast. Used a small brush to get into some of the spots the roller couldn't reach. However, I still could not get between the frame and the body in the area of the rear 1/4's. Will be ordering a couple of spray cans of Eastwood stuff to finish it up. Need to apply a second coat of ECB once this one dries.

Taped up the back end so I could throw some primer and paint on, but it was just too windy and cool today.

[monterey1962]

Cold and rainy all week, so I didn't get any shit done. Today, I'm sore and very tired, so just did the tail section. Should have just left it for tomorrow when I'd be rested 'cause it looks half-assed. Shot it with self-etch primer and body color.

[monterey1962]

Ten points to the person who can spot my screw up on the tail end yesterday. Repainted and cleared the whole ass end today. Looks much better.

New tail pipe is on. Thank goodness for pipe spreaders and a pipe expander. Made the job a lot easier. You can see in the pic how bad the old pipe was over the axle. Maybe the new pipe will last longer than four fucking years.

Second coat of ECB is on the underside of the trunk. Still waiting for my spray on ECB so I can finish the 1/4's. Thankfully, the spot of rust on the outside of the left rear 1/4 was just on the surface. Scuffed it through to the factory primer and shot some self-etch primer and body color.

Cleaned up the floor pans a bit and got Encapsulator on. Going to roll on some ECB tonight.

[87gtVIC]

Looking good. And I cannot spot your fuck up.