My 1989 Crown Victoria.

[packman]

That brake line looks pretty rusty.

Good idea on getting a decent set of wrenches. Get a spool of E Coated brake line, a double flare tool, a mini tubing cutter, at least 8 fittings and a female/female connector (I would get two to have a spare).

When I replaced the right front line I put a connector under the engine. I felt I got better bends at each end by doing the line in two parts. The original was put in before the engine, so it was easy for ford to do it in one piece. Not so easy for me if I wanted no rub points.

That's what I did last year. My brake lines looked better than those and yet the passenger side broke right at the fitting. I bent up new lines (2-piece) and installed them like that because making it a 1-piece deal was proving too difficult at the time.

I would suggest saving the coin (time permitting though) and getting a hydraulic flaring tool (Mastertool). If you have the skill to use the cheaper mechanical flaring tools; then you're blessed. I can't flare without the hydraulic tool.


And nice job on the caliper painting. I used POR15 on my calipers.



Packman

[gadget73]

you need a good manual tool. the cheap ones are shit. The juice powered ones are all of a better quality, so you're pretty well guaranteed to get decent results from one.

[slack]

Oh god. I've used the cheap-o flaring tools before. I ran brake lines in my '84 Celebrity using the AutoZone rent-a-tool flare tool. That thing was an absolute nightmare to get a double flare work correctly without splitting the brake line in half. I held off on doing the brake lines for now. I figure I'll hopefully tackle those guys over the summer when the weather is hopefully more consistent.

That said... I did replace the calipers today! (Finally!)

Here's what I was looking out before the swap. (Nice new brake pads from a month or so ago...)


Some MAP gas (aka a lot) and Craftsman line tools were no match to the brake line. Driver's side came off without a hitch. I've found that you ALWAYS want to use heat on these fittings. They're the devil's best friend and their favorite thing to do is strip to holy hell without notice. Here's some pics with the bastards off


After that fitting was off. It's basically just unplug the current caliper and plug up the new one. Grease up the slide pins and make sure to put the copper washers on the fitting for the rubber brake line. Here's some pics with that on:


I wasn't so lucky with the passenger's side. No amount of MAP gas and WD-40 would help me break this brake line. (pun intended ) I ended up cutting the rubber hose and unscrewing it that way using a vice grip on the brake line and a line wrench on the remaining rubber hose. Putting it back on I used the vice grips. This line will definitely need to be replaced if this fitting is ever removed. The brake line fitting is pretty chummed up now. lol


So after this, I had the passenger's side brake caliper off and realized that the 2nd caliper Rock Auto sent me was the same as the driver's side. They sent me two driver's side calipers on accident....Grrrrr! I can't believe I didn't notice this when I was painting them. This is the first time I've ever had them mess up my order before.
Pic of remaining caliper and removed caliper:


I ran down to AutoZone and apparently they had a passenger side caliper over at the AutoZone in the next town. I drove down there and picked it up. After getting back home, I installed it quick. (Sorry no pics at this point). My Gf's dad helped me bleed the brakes afterwards and my CV was back up and running with a set of new brake calipers!

I did notice that some of the suspension stuff was "meh" at best in condition while the tires were off. That'll be my next project to tackle. Hopefully after I replace some bushings the front end will tighten back up to where it was earlier in the year.

[slack]

I ordered the correct color code paint as well. That should be coming this Thursday. I plan on getting rid of the rest of the gray this weekend. (Finally!)

[87gtVIC]

Looking good man. You keep the caliper as a spare now since you painted it?

[slack]

Thanks!

I was actually thinking about contacting RockAuto and seeing if maybe I can return it. (Doubtful because I painted it) to recoup some cash. I also have to send them the driver's side caliper for the core anyway so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. I don't really have a place to store extra parts at the moment except for in my trunk. (Which is getting pretty full. lol)

[87gtVIC]

No bedroom?I had piles upon piles of car parts in my room from time to time.

[slack]

Not really at the moment. Long story short, my GF and I moved into this place and it ended up being a nightmare so we had to leave. (We left within 15 days of moving in). Unfortunately we had already lost my old apartment in the process so we've been living at her parents house while we save up some more money and find another place to live. Until then I'm trying to keep extra stuff to a minimum. (So not to inconvienence my GFs parents) My family moved away to PA two years ago so I can't leave the stuff at their houses either. lol

[87gtVIC]

Trunk it is.

[slack]

lol Yep!

Paint has arrived! I was hoping this weekend would be nice so I could start to bang out some of the front parts with the new paint but it looks like it's going to be all rain. Bummer

I plan on changing the front sway bar bushings as well as the stabilizer bars soon. I measured the front bar and got a reading of 26mm... I don't really see anything online for that size. I want to go with Energy Suspension's poly bushings but it looks like they only have 25.5mm or 27mm. Does it make a difference which one I use? I measured the sway bar three times with a caliper and got 26mm each time.

I'm also planning on doing the control arm bushings using Energy Suspension's kit but that's probably later in the summer.

Maybe this weekend I'll try getting the factory radio back in. The one that's in there is a horrible horrible aftermarket one the previous owner installed that doesn't work correctly. Unfortunately he hacked the radio's wiring harness to pieces doing the install so swapping back should be "interesting".

[87gtVIC]

Yep rain showers the next few days for us. I had plans too. Down the drain they go.

Regarding the bushings I'd go with the smaller one. You want the bushings to grab the bar when the mounts are tightened. Be careful to not strip out the threads for the bushings cradles. I have done it on the p.side and was able to get nuts and washers in the frame to hold onto a new bolt. NOT FUN. Drivers side I had to tap a bigger hole.

You doing the front a arms? Should be fun. I did the rears myself but had Ivan up at Scotts shop do the fronts for me. He grab a set of lowers from a yard so they could pop those bushings in for me. They also popped the bushings into the upper big brake a arms I had. I wanted a complete set to just install onto the car in a day.

Factory radios are cool. It keeps things simple. I was young and dumb and pulled the factory one out of the Vic 2 years before I got my license. I gotta be on my 4th radio in that car now. lol

[slack]

Yeah it's a bummer.

I swung by Pep-Boys and they actually had the Energy Suspension 1'' sway bar bushing. (Roughly the 25.5mm I saw online) so I picked it up. I also picked up a new grease gun fitting adapter because mine as apparently gone MIA. Hopefully if our NY showers aren't too terrible this weekend I'd like to at least pop these sway bar bushings in.



I'm going to try to do the upper and lower control arms. I figure the front shocks and struts are shot so they need to come out anyway. As long as I can get that huge ass bolt off for the upper control arms I should be okay with the swap. I'm cool with burning out the existing bearing. (Just need to keep some distance for the fumes). It really shouldn't be too bad. The only issue is, I would like to do this piece by piece but it seems that in order to do things right without having to redo stuff I would have to basically do everything at the time I replace the control arm bushings. Otherwise, I'm replacing and taking stuff back out again. I'm not really sure how I want to handle this yet. Basically all my rubber bushings on the body are cracked and bad. From suspension to frame mounts. It's my daily driver so it makes it hard to take it down for long periods of time. (As well as not really having a permanent place to live. )

I guess that's what happens when a car lives it's almost 30 years of life in Speonk, NY. (right by the water. :p)

[87gtVIC]

The original owner of my car traveled with it to Vermont, a lot. All bushings were shot. The sad part is that my father swapped out the front a arms with new pieces back in the early 2000's when he picked up the car and last year they were shot already. lol. Right now eery last bushings was replaced in my car with poly or rubber where poly was unavailable.

[jaywish]

Got to say that you may want to hold off on the arms, unless they are really bad. I suggest you save up the money, bide your time and do the big brake upgrade when your situation permits.

[slack]

My bushings look pretty nasty. They're all cracked. I think I am going to hold off on them though until late summer as it's not really a pressing issue. I have a bunch of other projects to finish on the car first.

Like my trunk swap!

Finally got around to popping the replacement trunk on and seeing how it fits. I think the gray strip is going to have to go unless there's a way I can figure out how to chrome the plastic nice. As of right now, it's hideous.

Few pics of the test bolt on:




Also continued working on the rear tail light. I have a no good broken housing as my test template that I'm cutting up. It looks like a lot of plastic is going to have to go before this thing will sit flush on the 89 body curve.

Here's so progress pics:





Didn't get the tail light housing fully routed out because it was getting late and the drimmel sounds like it's killing kittens when cutting into plastic.

The idea is to use LEDs for the tail lights so that the bulb housing can be trimmed down as well and then a new back fabricated on it. The ideal situation is if we can get the bulb housing almost completely flat and use a flat-ish board of LEDs for the tail lights.

Thoughts?