My 1985 Town Car Sig.

[Piece-it pete]

Beating nipponese vehicles FTW!!

I checked the gain and it was all the way up, I backed them down a smidgen. Saturday I installed the tweeters in the dash and backed their level down 2 notches on the crossover (4 level choices avail), they sound WAY better, dash back together and wires cleaned up.

One problem, I tried fitting the crossovers behind the glovebox, they ALMOST fit. I didn't want to force them because I didn't want to break anything

I should've looked to see if I could fit them under the dash pad somewhere. Right now they're in the glovebox.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Took a gamble on a marginal e-seller and bought a pair of TOTL Clif 6 x 9s, that should be a close sonic match for the Clif component speakers in the front. And maybe give me a little bass, the fronts are clean but only good down to about 45-50 hz by my ears. We'll see if a) I actually get them, and b) they work. I did use Paypal.

I think I'll take the time to install them properly, the current ones are basically just screwed down to the shelf liner from the top. Maybe drill and bolt them down.

Bought broken in wagon cargo coils from 87gtVIC, great deal, thanks! Hope to get them in this weekend, get that back end UP. Sagging hoopties FTL.

Almost ready to tackle the timing chain job. I really wanted Lincolnmania to do the job, and Scott is MORE than fair for sure!, but circumstance says next time (darn it!). By golly I'll get out there some day.

Rock as usual (plus frt), Cloyes silent HD dbl roller, looks good, C3057X $37, Dorman harmonic balancer, looks like a harmonic balancer , 594024 (594-024) $38, stud kit, the 8 million piece gasket set....

Shoot me but I'm not replacing the water pump. It looks like new (hope so! Maybe the bolts'll come out easily)(yeah right!), and as usual funds are an issue.

I do want to change the fan clutch. A non-thermal is $12. A thermal is $28. Is it worth it to use the thermal clutch?

I'll also be changing the intake gasket.

At least I've roped my 13 year old nephew into helping He'll do most of the grunt work, and he seems to have a greasy thumb, a natural. I'll know for sure after this

Any tips suggestions etc are much appreciated!

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Changed the springs, it now sits 'properly'.

High all around though. The real problem is indeed the superthick front spring isolators that come with the Energy front end bushing kit. They're in, and I won't take them out, but I won't use them again. Without them I think the back would be too high. It's nice to be sitting right again! Ride is pretty firm.

One thing, before I installed the 1" rear sway bar, cargo coils would fall out and I'd have to hold them to get them back in. With the sway bar, I had to get someone to lean on a prybar hard and force / pop them in and out with a smaller bar. Not that big of a deal, but I bet it might have been a larger problem if I still had the factory springs in there. I could've fairly easily disconnected the bar on one side, but why? My take, if you're adding a bar, I'd change the springs first if needed.

Pete

[zoomie]

very nice very nice

[Piece-it pete]

Thanks! And my gambling speakers are sitting on the front stoop. Hope they work! At least the guy shipped them

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

And..... they work! Very nicely. I hooked them up to my home stereo to test them and they are far from junk, they took serious power cleanly.

In the car, they do fill out the bottom a bit more. I'm going to try covering the tweets, see what that does.

The guy has at least one more pair, I paid $85 del'd, if anyone's interested PM me. They are these: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...ns-QX6950.html

I'm also getting the 6x9s out of my old 97, Infinity Kappas, 3 ways with external crossover. They were very good but getting old. I suspect I'll end up sticking the Clifs in the 03 and the Kappas in the 85. Stay tuned for the thilling conclusion!

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

I'm really liking the 6 x 9s.... Got the old Kappas. In good shape, but the kid forgot the external xovers! ggr. Oh well.

Changed the tranny filter. The fluid was somewhat dark / dirty but not burnt, and there was less schmutz than I've ever seen in a pan, just a very thin coating, the tranny shifts better, and less Ford thunk. Took almost exactly 5 quarts of Mercon V. I'll do it again in a couple months.

Was going to change the hood supports while the tranny drained, but couldn't figure out how to take the old ones off. They work, but they are a little weak, and Rock had new ones on closeout for less than $6 (STRONGARM Part # 4104). I was going to give the old ones to my neighbor for his 100% non functioning supports on his Explorer. Is there any way to remove them without destroying the clips?

And, I've developed a exhaust leak. Right where the crossover on the h-pipe welds to the main line. I'm going to do some research but any suggestions appreciated

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

For those of you who haven't been following my heart pounding and ultimately futile pursuit of an electrical gremlin:

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...oil-not-firing.

But, SHE'S A-RUNNIN' :whoop: And got a bunch of new parts, not a waste, distributor, coil, ignition condenser, EEC & fuel pump relays, and a bunch of new plugs & connectors that were really getting ugly.

Got her back from the muffler shop, she now has a sexy 2-1/4" custom cat-back h-pipe & tailpipes, reusing the Magnaflows on there (they were in fine shape). Sounds a little loud for what she is, and a bit'o drone right before overdrive (at around 40 mph), but overall I like it. Minty fresh exhaust FTW.

Took yesterday off and did a little, pulled the front door panels, removed the 6-1/2" woofers, pulled those little trim rings that angles them up. They still didn't quite fit so I bent the metal edge around the speaker hole in a little, wa'la! Sealed and in for good. Thanks for the tip, was it zoomie? who told me about the trim rings and 6-1/2s.

Installed the pass door panel I picked up at the 'fest, finally that door doesn't rattle like a sumbitch when closed. Interestingly the pass door panel is a slightly darker shade of dark blue. Not enough to matter imo. Got the drivers in better too but it still rattles a little, I can't figure it out.

With the woofs direct to the doors the bass is better, but the mids are a bit more muted.

Got the lower dash back together and gave it a general cleaning & vacuuming. Looks pretty good.

I've got mon & tues off, I plan on a number of things including adjusting the steering box (she can't be true: she loves to wander), cleaning the 500 pounds of junk out of the trunk, getting the amps in right and installing the rear speaks permanently, under the rear deck instead of sitting in the holes from up top.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

I did the steering adjustment. Is she going to win steering awards? No. Does she no longer feel like imminent doom going down the road? Yes! Win! Only took a few minutes too. Too bad the power steering pump started whining like a bitch last week. Another thing onto the list.

Getting the amps installed properly took a good bit longer, a solid 5 hours. For a pro it probably would've taken 1

To recap, 6-1/2" components in the front (woofs in the doors, tweets in the dash), nice 6 x 9s in the back (of course), both Clif top of the line.

A smaller 'Mark Antony' gs 250.2 amp, 75 wpc @ 8 ohms,



and a larger Clif CD400a 150 wpc @ 8.



I had the wiring in place, but all rigged up, with the amps just sitting on the trunk shelf and the wiring all spliced in just to get it working. I figured I'd start a fire back there sooner or later. I also had the 6 x 9s just sitting in the holes, I started by permanently mounting them under the package shelf.

I picked up this for power/ground distribution, very cheap on ebay:



And just crimp connected the trigger power.

A coupla observations: Even the bigger amp can be mounted flat against the seat backs in the trunk (barely!), although I had to slide it in face down then set it upright, and I couldn't get a screwdriver to the bottom holes, so no self tapping screws. I had to remove the back seat back, template, and drill, using bolts to mount. Probably the right way anyway...

I had the big one running the 6 x 9s and the smaller one running the 6-1/2s. Logical right? Because I cut a wire too short I ended up saying screw it and used the bigger one for the front. Wow! It just goes to show, gotta try everything - it sounded WAY better!

So I'm a happy camper, it sounds much, much better than it did and goes louder cleanly past where I can comfortably listen. Also, mounting the 6 x 9s under the deck really seems to get lower note output up, it's even got a good bit of beat going on. The biggest thing I learned (again) is, looks can be deceiving. With the fader at dead center the back sounds louder than the front even though the front amp has 2x the power, and speaker sensitivity is roughly equal (gains are set the same too).

Not bad for a sub-three hundred setup including all sundries I've got a problem with the Sony CD player that came with the car though, during CD playback if I hit a bump it squawks, but radio is fine, so I used the last of me grans' final gift (bless her soul) and picked up one of these used (<$100):



A really nice Kenwood kdc-x993. The twin knobs caught my eye a while back, thought it would look pretty good in an old car. A little research says is sounds great too, can't wait.

When I install that I'm going to finally move the crossovers for the components out of the glovebox as well. Then I can move on to less important matters, like the timing chain and heater core

Pete

[zoomie]

For those of you who haven't been following my heart pounding and ultimately futile pursuit of an electrical gremlin:

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...oil-not-firing.

But, SHE'S A-RUNNIN' :whoop: And got a bunch of new parts, not a waste, distributor, coil, ignition condenser, EEC & fuel pump relays, and a bunch of new plugs & connectors that were really getting ugly.

Got her back from the muffler shop, she now has a sexy 2-1/4" custom cat-back h-pipe & tailpipes, reusing the Magnaflows on there (they were in fine shape). Sounds a little loud for what she is, and a bit'o drone right before overdrive (at around 40 mph), but overall I like it. Minty fresh exhaust FTW.

Took yesterday off and did a little, pulled the front door panels, removed the 6-1/2" woofers, pulled those little trim rings that angles them up. They still didn't quite fit so I bent the metal edge around the speaker hole in a little, wa'la! Sealed and in for good. Thanks for the tip, was it zoomie? who told me about the trim rings and 6-1/2s.

Installed the pass door panel I picked up at the 'fest, finally that door doesn't rattle like a sumbitch when closed. Interestingly the pass door panel is a slightly darker shade of dark blue. Not enough to matter imo. Got the drivers in better too but it still rattles a little, I can't figure it out.

With the woofs direct to the doors the bass is better, but the mids are a bit more muted.

Got the lower dash back together and gave it a general cleaning & vacuuming. Looks pretty good.

I've got mon & tues off, I plan on a number of things including adjusting the steering box (she can't be true: she loves to wander), cleaning the 500 pounds of junk out of the trunk, getting the amps in right and installing the rear speaks permanently, under the rear deck instead of sitting in the holes from up top.

Pete

yeah that was me that said somethign about the trim rings lol .

[MrMarquis]

Sub $300 eh? Did you pick up everything used?

[gadget73]

well, the rear speakers are mostly for fill, so its actually slightly less important to have more power back there. You probably do make out better with a larger amp on the front speakers since you'll usually have more headroom with a higher power amp thats loafing along vs a smaller amp thats being pushed closer to it's limits. The fact that those amps are physically large without having utter nonsense power ratings tells me its probably real power ratings too. You can get a cheap Class D amp that claims 800 watts in the same case size as that 150 you have. I doubt it would sound as good though.

[Piece-it pete]

I dunno Thain, I saw a wonderful 6" x 6" 2# amp that claimed 1500 watts PMPO for $15

They do seem real decent and pretty weighty. I've been having luck looking for would-be lesser known higher end stereo manufacturers that went bust. For the money, I like the older Clif stuff, lots of nos stuff out there and it seems solidly midfi at least with the component set close to real hifi. The lower line 6 x 8s I put in the front of the 03 sound great too, I think better than the Infinity Kappas I put in the back.

I had a chance to stretch out the system yesterday cruising down the turnpike in good weather. Fader at '0', the back and front sound more than even, a bit weighted to the back, to a point, then the rears start to break up (but still past what I can normally listen too). If I put the fader 3 clicks to the front (which is where it sounds best even at lower levels) it goes pretty stupidly loud overall. Fun. It's kinda neat - I've got the fronts high passed at around 55-60 hz, and the rears do better at bass anyway, so I can control the beat level somewhat with the fader. Certainly not a sub'd system though.

MrMarq, the speakers front and back were NOS, the amps used (not perfect looking but good). I got a particular steal on the front component set. On sub-$100 stuff I've taken chances on marginal or low feedback sellers on the bay, depending. I also make offers on EVERYTHING, love the game. I'm a dog. A bit more cautious now with bigger ticket items though

The 'good' seller on the Kenwood made a typo on the head unit, it's a 693 not 993. The difference appears to be bluetooth capability. I don't care - I said knock $20 off and we'll call it good. Can't wait to get it in. Also, I rated the watts on the amps at 8 ohms when it's 4.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Installed the 693, it sounds great. Don't like the controls though. Rigged the x overs behind the glovebox, heck on it.

Figured out why the drivers door rattles when closed! The felt strip for the vent window on the back side has failed, curled up on teh inside bottom of the door. Have to go JY'ing.

Since I overheated the front brakes having it pulled to the shop (6 miles 4' off the back of my buds pickup with hitch, at night, with a dead battery - I claim just cause), I pulled the front brakes & rotors off for inspection, changed the front calipers, gave the pads a dust off with the wire wheel, go to repack the bearings and discovered one getting bad, changed it too. New axle grease is 'clear'? Weird.

Had a question but don't remember. Dang.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Over 20k miles on the old lady. Still idles like crap but runs good

I've got a gas smell, gonna check the canister hoses (thanks Thain!). I've also got a new thing: When the engine's cold, I have to turn her over a few times, stop, and hit the key again. It will not start on the first try till the engine's warm but fires right up on the second try. Any ideas?

And I've got a whine in the stereo system. No real problem but would like to eventually filter it out. I remember we used to have a little filter on the head unit power supply. Do I need a super-duper one on the main power to the amps?

Pete