VicCrownVic's 1989 Colony Park - Large Marge

[gadget73]

early boxes don't have a "sensor" exactly. There is nothing electronic about it, its purely mechanical in nature and regulates the vacuum. The later cars use an actual sensor, a thermistor that changes resistance with temperature.

[VicCrownVic]

Neat, thanks for the info. I'll likely dig into it in the Fall timeframe. Too much going on at the moment to make it a priority, especially considering I've got the heat working at full heat now. I suppose then, he only way to use the '90+ sensor would be to convert to a '90+ system, which I could do, but do I really want to is the question (probably not).

[VicCrownVic]

Muffler rotted out and broke over the weekend. It was dragging so I threw a ratchet strap from one frame rail to the other to hold it up. That worked until the next day when the ratchet strap broke and I threw another one on. Got most of the big stuff moved from the old place to the new place, so I decided to just park it in the garage at the new place, got a ride back with my father-in-law, and I'll properly deal with it later.

[DerekTheGreat]

When the muffler decided it didn't want to be attached 100% on my truck, I promptly sawzalled it right off just behind the cab. Drove it like that for about seven months before I replaced the entire thing from the manifolds back. That was ~3 years ago and this cheap aluminized stuf has started to rot out at the welds. Don't know of any shops that'll put in a stainless steel exhaust.

[sly]

No shops with stainless? Wow... ALL the shops near me offer stainless. Only one has a mandrel though. The rest use pinch/crinkle bends or just off-the-shelf parts (order in shop and come back when they show up). I understand not having stainless on the shelf down here, but up in the rust belt? That sucks.

[gadget73]

yeah I'd expect to have to special order crappier pipe up there.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, it's probably some sort of profiteering deal all these exhaust shops are in on. Truth be told, it's been three years since I searched, so perhaps there is a shop now that'll do it. Don't like the idea of crinkle pipes, but that's better than this stuff which rots right off.

[VicCrownVic]

Bolts for the exhaust manifolds showed up yesterday along with new O2 sensors.
I unbolted the passenger side this evening without too much hassle. Since the exhaust (I assume installed during Scott's ownership) is true dual, I'll deal with removing the driver side later. At the moment the passenger side exhaust is just hanging there now since I need to separate things to get it all the way out. Once both sides are removed, Lincoln logs with the new O2 sensors and (for now) the exhaust from The Ice Car will go on. Hopefully it will be done by August.

[DerekTheGreat]

I sawzalled the muffler out of my truck. It is much louder this time than it was before, not really sure why. Back then, it had the 100lb factory cat which was pretty plugged up. Maybe that's why it was quieter. Now it's so loud it's embarrassing at anything other than idle. The one time I drove it, some dipshit became irate that I wouldn't nail the brakes to let him in as he just tried to enter my lane as if I wasn't there. He pulled up alongside me, started running his mouth and I just revved it up until I drowned him out. Ahhhh.

Raw gas must've gotten in that muffler, it exploded, but didn't split open like the muffler on my '85 LTD did, nor did it sound like four M-80's going off at once. All I recall is a faint "pop" when I started it one morning. Exhaust got progressively louder from there. 2nd section of flex pipe wouldn't fit over the exhaust to be clamped down as a temp fix. Going to either have to put a new exhaust on this damn thing or pay about a quarter of the original price that exhaust to replace roughly an eight of it.

[VicCrownVic]

That's enough for one night. Just need to get the driver side manifold off then I can start putting the Lincoln logs on and get the exhaust from The Ice Car on.

[VicCrownVic]

Well I get what I pay for, LOL.
Got the (used) exhaust on and took Marge over to my friend Jon's place to work on his '69 "Chevelle SS". (We got his hood and front bumper on.)
The exhaust got louder as I got to his place and got even louder on the way home.
Pipe from the cat to the Y-pipe broke on the passenger side.
Back in the garage Marge will sit until I fix the exhaust again. Really don't want to spend money on cats at this time so we'll see what I decide to do and how long it takes me to decide.

[DerekTheGreat]

Seems I'm lucky if I get three years out of this aluminized crap they sell. I am really tempted to go stainless for all salt cars moving forward.

[VicCrownVic]

I had that exhaust on The Ice Car for only 4 years, maybe just under 4. Whatever Scottmang put on for exhaust had sidewalls double the thickness and, other than the mufflers, could potentially be used again.

I borrowed the mig welder from Dad and was able to weld it back together. Put about 75 miles on and it's still holding. So, while my welds look like absolute crap they seem to be holding well enough for me to slowly buy new exhaust parts to put on next year.

Marge is much quieter now and single (exhaust) for now. The dual will go back on eventually, I just wanted to get it drivable with what I already had on hand.

[VicCrownVic]

Well, looks like I've met the goal of having this car ready for this weekend. Exhaust is staying together after over 100 miles, and I even fixed something last night that has been bugging me since I bought this car from Grand1. There has been this annoying noise coming from the front right, which I knew was not something serious but just some thin metal scraping against the rotor. Sunday evening I had it all apart and could not find any obvious signs of rubbing, but I cleaned up the thin metal slide clip things that the pads ride in and made sure they were positioned where they could not rub the rotor. Same issue was still there so I took it all apart again last night. I finally found it was the thin metal clip in the underside of the top side of the caliper that had been rubbing on the outside edge of the rotor. The clip showed a very small area of wear but the rotor itself showed no indication of wear. The clip also had a crack on both ends/sides so since I had a clip from when I did front brakes on the '98 a few weeks ago I replaced it with that one. Test drive last night finally produced no unnecessary noise from the front right with the new clip in.

Now, time to get The Scab in the garage somehow to figure out the no start on that car (cranks, no spark despite swapping in Marge's dizzy, coil, and an ECM Marge starts right up with). I'm thinking I'm going to find chewed wires somewhere on that car (stupid animals).

[Brown_Muscle]

wow i missed a lot of posts here! Yes Scott had that exhaust put on, but I added the cats later on. Glad to hear she's still around and kickin!