LTDMan's '87 Ford LTD Crown Victoria LX (The Blue Beast) *DUW*

[LTDMan83]

Right now I'm in the middle of tearing most of the dash apart, Replacing the Steering Column/Speedometer and the Inner Dash Piece which supports the speedo / radio/ tripminder and heater controls, with the brown piece from the other car.

They made the dash were you have to swap the entire front inner piece, just to get the lower portions which go around the bottom of the dash.

It is a F'in wiring and vacuum nightmare behind this dash. If I didn't label all the wire connections and vacuum hoses I would never remember their locations afterwards.

I'll be happy when this part of the project is over.


Pics of the disassembled Dash to come soon, as well as re-assembly.

[FatNasty]

Yeah, switching out that lower inside dash piece is a royal pain in the ass. It just doesn't line up as well when you go to put it back together, everything is a tighter squeeze. All the wiring seems to expand once you take the old one off

[LTDMan83]

Interior and Dash Swap progress

Ok, I had the day off today so I've been up since dawn plugging away on this part of the project.




All Dash Trim removed.




Steering Column removed. The Hole in the firewall has been masked off, to prevent Insects from infesting the Interior.




All Instrumentation and Inner Dash piece finally removed.




Not as hard as I had anticipated, the part where it gets aggravating is finding and removing the Inner screws. I managed to find all 6 of the Inside screws, and actually got everything apart without even so much as breaking one of the mounting points. Which is a good sign for when I go to disassemble the Mint Interior's Dash.






Labeled all the Electrical and Vacuum connections, so I won't have any problem remembering where they go during re-assembly. It looks like quite a mess behind there, but it's really not that bad once you sit back and take it into perspective. I still have the Ford ATC nightmare to deal with on this car though. :/




Now I'm off to get started on disassembling the Mint Brown Interior Dash and Steering Column. Pics of re-assembly of the brown dash in this car, to come soon.

[86VickyLX]

Wow, that's a big mess lol. Does your brown interior have the hole for ATC?

[p71towny]

All that wiring is shitty, why so complicated?? Hell, I think half the weight of these pigs comes from the wiring.

[86VickyLX]

Yea, the brown interior has ATC, so it has the hole. I'm pretty sure they all had the hole though.

Mine doesn't, it's solid there, but then again, Vicky is an '86 which is one of the weirdos.

[87_crown_vic]

i like it... it has a coach roof and i know of h8rz of the coach roofs here on GMN

[86VickyLX]

I have a newfound love for Coach Roofs.

[87DeuceVic]

Reminds me of mine, xcept for the 4 doors and vinyl/pleather seats. Other then that the partly dissassembled steering column/under dash and faded paint all measure up

[LTDMan83]

The coach roof boxes are probibly my favorite of all the boxes, but I also like slicktops, and base vinyl tops as well. These cars look good to me with either 3 of those options, IMHO. I actually would like to slicktop a Box Lincoln Towncar SS one day, and keep the smaller rear window as well, molding it into the surrounding C-pillars and Roof.

It's not gonna be cheap replacing the Vinyl on the CR, but the end result will be well worth it IMO. I will probibly have them make it enclose the rear window a little more as well.

I also would like to mention that the Only work on this car that I'm not gonna be doing myself, and will passing on to a good shop, will be the Vinyl Top and the Window Tint. Everything else will be 100% me, with the exception of the things that actually take 2 people to accomplish.

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As for the progress:

The Blue Boxes Dash still looks like pictured above, but I finished disassembling the Brown Dash/Steering Column from the other box without any problems, and it is ready to go into the Blue Box, after I tie up a few loose ends under the dash. I'm hoping to have the Brown Dash/Steering Column completely installed soon, and will have pics afterwards.

I'm moving to a new place on Friday, way out in the boondocks, and I don't know if/were I will be getting my high speed connection. So if you guys don't see me for awhile that is why. I'm hoping Roadrunner will go out that far, but I doubt it .

The good news is that the place I'm moving to has a nice size lighted garage, so that I will be able to get more work done at night on the Box, and will have a place to do Bodywork & even Paint my car, working at my own leisure and time frame.

[91LTDProject]

Damn you virginians and your nearly rust free cars..... I think you need to do a complete wire tuck under hood if you are making it a show car. I think it would be a first on here....

[LTDMan83]

Hehe, yea virginia has quite a few mostly rust-free cars, and the further South that you go here the more rust-free they get, Florida seems to be the exception though as I have seen some rusty crap come outta some areas from down there.

I will definitely be doing a FULL engine bay "wiring tuck" job, as I've always wanted a super clean EFI engine bay, and is a Must anyway for a Showcar. I've allready started mapping it out, and it doesn't look like it's gonna be that difficult to do, most of the main wiring will only have to be lengthened around 1-2ft to be hidden inside of the fenders.

[LTDMan83]

Finally got moved into the "New" place, and got a DSL connection secured with a faster Upload speed than I had before with cable, so now the High Res pics will keep on flowing for sure.



Progress:

I got the brown dash and the steering column completely installed last Thursday, and most of the blue leather interior completely gutted. Let me tell you mangs, Do Not switch your boxes interior color to a different one, unless you are prepared for a Shitton of work. I took my time and did good thorough work though, I only got pissed off and walked away 2 times during the whole endeavour. I now have a Key for my Ignition as well, so at least no one can steal the car as easily as before, not sure why they would want to though anyway, lol.

Still haven't gotten pics of the dash since moving, it's far too hot outside right now to do anything out there (around 100F). Pics of the New dash will come soon.




In related news, here are some things that I have found recently while going through the engine and bay.



The Return fuel line is Kinked.





Engine had the wrong spark plugs (Left), the correct one is on the Right. Also the front plugs had never been changed since god knows how long. The dealership obviously worked on this one





The Injectors look newish, as well as some other top end parts, suggesting maybe the engine was rebuilt at some point in its history. The engine does run damn strong for a lopo.








The Model A project I'm working on now is starting to take up more of my free time, but I'm still getting in work on the Box every time I have a free moment. I really am enjoying this project so far. More pics to come soon

[p71towny]

Well, at least they've messed with the wiring too the injectors as the shitty plastic clip that breaks when you touch it is already broke lol.

[LTDMan83]

Hehe, yep that alone was a dead give away to me right there that someone had messed with or rebuilt the engine at some point. I can rarely ever remove any of the electrical plugs in the engine bay without breaking the plastic clips myself.