My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[johnunit]

it will take a looooonggg time to get to clean metal on those drums. Maybe a sandblaster...

[Pesty351]

Dude new ones are only like $50 you might as well get new ones. I would waste hours trying to clean up those old ones to only have the rust come right back.

[87gtVIC]

I have plenty of time to work on them. I will see how they turn out after attacking them with all things I have to throw at it. Gotta love pneumatic tools...really makes life easier. Plan to knock off all the loose stuff first with a hand held wire brush, then go at the fucker with an angle grinder and an assortment of wire wheels brushes I have on hand, after that is done the thing will be soaked in naval jelly for a couple go a rounds...look it over repeat anything that is necessary then give it a once over with a green (super coarse) scotch brite pad then paint. 100 bucks is expensive when I can just take my time to do it for less.

[packman]

Thanks for the tips. I actually looked at AZ website and saw that ONE drum was 60.?? bucks. No thanks...So now I think I will patiently take my time and thoroughly clean what I have up. May flush the entire brake system just so I can work on the calipers off of the car. cheaper this way than purchasing all new items that currently work fine. I want to do it once and do it right.

You might be able to take the line off of the caliper and plug up the inlet. See if you can go to your favorite parts store and ask them if you can have/purchase the plugs for the remanufactured calipers. That way you can plug them and not make a mess when cleaning and painting. Plus it keeps the fluid from running all over your work. If you do get new calipers, just make sure that they fit AND they bleed and operate properly before you paint them. I learned this over the weekend with my calipers for Putter Project. I found out that the pass. side caliper wouldn't bleed, only after I painted and fitted them onto the spindle; so I can't return them.



Packman

[87gtVIC]

Jacob you have some bad luck with parts man. Thank you for the learning experiences.

[gadget73]

For all the time spent de-rusting drums, you can just convert it to rear discs that look better anyway

[87gtVIC]

Now that I can agree with. There is some turd parting out a 99 CVPI because the car wont start anymore around me.....unfortunately the 99 wont work right?? And I say turd because the dope is asking $650 for the rear end. lol

[87gtVIC]

Chrome pedals, 1990/91 fender mounted relay pack and new reverse lens assemblies

Time to dust this thread off

Last week I stood over by Scott. John was there for the week as well and we went to the junkyard twice and got some odds and ends for my cars and his 86 Crown Victoria. One thing we picked up was the actual relay box that slides into the fender mounted relay cover next to the vacuum reservoir on the 1990 1991 panthers. I did the inner fender swap over a year ago but just resorted to shoving the stock Ford relays into the box by cutting out a channel for the wires to slip into and zip tying the three relays in place. Looked like this back then:



The relay pack actually slides into the cover and keeps everything looking nice and clean. The relay pack consisted of a diode providing trigger power to the coil of the EEC power relay, and EEC Power Relay, an A/C Cutout relay as well as a Fuel Pump relay. Everything was pretty much the same color coating so it all went smooth. Now everything looks like this:





Now it is nice and neat with the wires coming out of the box in a controlled manner. The relay pack even has a provision on the end of it to secure a zip tie to wrangle up the wires just before it exits the cover.

While at EZ Pull and Save with John I also pulled two reverse lenses from a 85 base model Crown Victoria. The screws and lenses were near perfect so I swapped them onto my car today.

Drivers side before:



Drivers side after:



Passengers side was not as bad but I still swapped them out.

Passengers side before:



Passengers side after:



Then I moved onto my chrome pedals

I picked up the gas pedal as well as the e brake pedal from a 71 or 72 Lincoln Continental at Harrys.

The Lincoln gas pedal bracket was different so I had to swap the pedal onto a Crown Victoria pedal bracket. That was easy to do. The pedal now sits up straight as compared to the stock tilt from left to right following the contour of the transmission tunnel, but this new set up works fine...actually BETTER for me then the stock crooked pedal. The brake pedal from the Lincoln was absolutely massive so there was no way of using that so I ordered a 68-73 automatic Mustang pedal as well as chrome pedal cover from Mustangs Unlimited. Thanks to Daryl AKA Hypostang for that information otherwise I would have still been out of luck. I could have put the chrome surround around the existing pedal but I wanted the Disc Brake lettering.

Before:



After:





Here you can see the difference in the mounting of the pedals between the 71 or 72 Lincoln and the 87 Crown Victoria. The Lincoln bracket on the pedal is much more upright.



And the difference between the brake pedals:

[tjc78]

Nice job. The pedals look great.

[Lincolnmania]

looks really nice mang!

[hypostang]

Very Very Nice sir .

[johnunit]

that pedal setup looks GREAT. I'm jealous.

[andyfanshawe]

Brilliant trophy! Always a good day with a trophy.
Your car looks seriously straight. Hope my wagon turns out like that - but i doubt it.

Strip the calipers out and get them and the drums media blasted. That rust will come back through if you dont - trust me.

Get us some clean up pics while you do the brakes!

I know what you mean about the vettes and the camaros and stangs. I have built all of those and decided to build a rare one - hence the country squire!

Gorgeous looking car you have. You must be seriously proud.

Andy.

[87gtVIC]

Thanks everyone. The new revised drum clean up procedure is as follows:

1. Remove drums
2. Hand wire brush to knock off all loose stuff
3. screw driver the fins to remove heaver loose stuff
4. hit everything with my various sized wire wheels
5. submerge drums in vat of evaporust (neat product that i am using currently for various other things)
6. go over any areas that need it with a roloc disc
7. green scuff pad them up
8. wax and grease remover
9. then a couple coats of cailper paint

Should turn out well. For the calipers...well I plan on upgrading the brakes to BB status so I will have new rotors, calipers and caliper brackets to work with.

[87gtVIC]

Trunk Hinge Bumper, Painted Master Cylinder Cover and Painted Seat Belt Sleeves

First on the agenda for the day was a cleaning for the car. Washed her up and took her for a spin and began getting used to the new placement etc of the accelerator pedal. I like it so far especially because my feet no longer get caught up on the transmission tunnel.

After that I had installed the trunk hinge bumpers that I purchased from hypostang. They are neat to say the least. Nice soft cushion for the trunk arms to land upon.

VIDEO:

After that I prepped and painted my spare master cylinder cover I picked up from the junkyards last week. I paint stripped it and let it sit in a vat of evaporust and this is how it turned out after scuffing the surface with a green scotchbrite:



Engine Primed:



Low Gloss Black Engine Paint applied:



After all of this I moved onto the seat belt sleeves I bought from hypostang. I removed the brown and gray seat belts. Cleaned the sleeves with simple green. Scuffed the sleeves with a gray scotchbrite then sprayed a few light coats of Dupilicolor Professional flexible primer to ensure the tan would come out even in the end since I was painting a brown and gray sleeve. Then I finished it up by applying a few coats of Desert Sand interior paint.

Sleeves ready for primer:



Primed to give the base a uniform color to work with:



And painted:



Next up is allowing that stuff to dry then removing the seatbelts from my car and sewing up the seatbelts into these new sleeves.