1988 GM LS 'ol bluey' - > general petraus Roll Empire!

[Grand Marquis GT]

Man, you're eccentric. You'll fit right in

[79lincolnlover]

Try to ignore the roof for now and stay focused on getting the old beast back up to par maintenance wise.

[Mad MAx]

thanks everyone!

now that i have heard from you guys that that roof is more uncommon im starting to like it. see how that worked? all i ever asked was for someone to convince me to like it.

so.. anyway. picked up a fuel pump. next move is to drain the tank again, drop it and swap in the new unit. should get the thing running. it was acting like it 'wanted' to run even w/o the fuel pump after changing the plugs and wires. what i mean by that is after letting it sit over night (for example) it would just about start (some combustion action was definatly happening). initially there was some unpressurized fuel in the lines when I removed the filter. wait didnt I already tell this story....

anyway. should have it back on the road soon. still going to need a heater core. after that new rubber and eventually try to pass an inspection.

[ford man]

If it were me I would just run a hose from the water pump to the block and forget the heater core entirely until I get the car driving and happy enough with it to fix the heater core.

[Mad MAx]

If it were me I would just run a hose from the water pump to the block and forget the heater core entirely until I get the car driving and happy enough with it to fix the heater core.

tru dat.. though the way the hoses run into the firewall it looks like i could just pull them of and couple them together. im not expecting it to have any trouble running after the fuel pump is place..

but yeah im getting ahead of worrying about the tires. they were pretty good when it was parked, held air for some tiem, and then slowly deflated on one side. then partially on the other. im sure there is signifigant dry rot and cracking.. i wonder what the life span for them would be. days? weeks? months?

[GoodSamaritan]

It's hard to tell with old tires. I'd look at the sidewalls where they are flat. If there are horrifyingly large cracks then they're probably not long for this world.
On the other hand, if there are lots of tiny cracks, that aren't deep, they could go for a long time. In any case, I'd drive around town on them a few days and see what happens.

A cheap fix is to check craigslist to see who's selling some nice used tires. It's also worth some time spent on the phone to see who has the best deal on swapping and balancing tires that you supply.


Another thought. I've seen some nice stock mustang 5 lug wheels with decent tires on them go on CL for less than a cheap walmart set of new tires.
Of course you'll need some wheel spacers but they are pretty reasonable. Depending on the car, some of the mustang wheels look better than 90% of the aftermarket offerings.




About the fuel pump.

Here's something you'll probably want to ask Lincolnmania about, but would be worth a few extra minutes while you have the tank dropped.

If you have to pull the filler neck out of the tank, you can increase the amount of fuel it holds simply by shortening the filler neck a bit. I seem to recall that different panthers with the same gas tank had different fuel capacities listed and that the only difference in them was how deep into the tank the filler neck protruded. The longer ones end up with a big air bubble at the top of the tank.

[rick99601]

About the fuel pump.

Here's something you'll probably want to ask Lincolnmania about, but would be worth a few extra minutes while you have the tank dropped.

If you have to pull the filler neck out of the tank, you can increase the amount of fuel it holds simply by shortening the filler neck a bit. I seem to recall that different panthers with the same gas tank had different fuel capacities listed and that the only difference in them was how deep into the tank the filler neck protruded. The longer ones end up with a big air bubble at the top of the tank.

my dad's '88 LS had the larger fuel capacity option, that would definitely explain it.