Saved from the Demo Derby: 1990 Country Squire

[Tiggie]

To review: this car stinks inside and has since my ownership began.

It's a musty smell.

The body on this car is nearly rust free, but the interior is rusty... surface rust on anything metal. I've considered this being a potential low level flood car, but I'm not finding evidence of that. My best guess is that it just leaked and a mini water cycle happened in the car every day with the heating of the sun and cooling at night.





I decided to clean the carpet and dye some of the faded interior panels of the next few weeks.

Cleaned the carpet yesterday. It wasn't dirty. It's just smelly. Round one seems to have resulted in a still smelly carpet and underlayment.

Check out the rust. All surface rust, but mostly on the transmission and driveshaft hump.





That wad under the carpet ended up being a glove, minus a finger.





Mmmm rusty. Still moves freely.

Primed the spots on the floor after some wire wheel action.




Going to try again on the carpet today to get that smell out.


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[packman]

How does the windshield mounting flange (or whatever its called) look? That was a problem (among many others) with my '91 Ranger. Water got in from there and would wet the floor and headliner. Steadily got worse until 2019 when after sitting for a month; all of the interior electrical accessories stopped working. Once that happened, I gave up on that truck and junked it.

[jaywish]

I power washed my carpet a few times over a few hot sunny days. Flooded the heck out of it. It came out great.

[Tiggie]

I know the tailgate window leaks like crazy. The windshield leaks as well. I resealed the cowl vent screen a while back, so hopefully that helps. This car stays under a carport so it doesn't get wet much these days.

Day two of carpet and underlayment cleaning. Tried various soaps and carpet cleaners yesterday with the pressure washer. The thing still smelled this morning, so I put a little bleach in the water and sprayed that on. Rinsed it well. It's improving. I didn't want to use the bleach but it's either use it and make it smell better, or get a new carpet.

Going to start pulling interior plastics this evening.

[FordMan77]

Since the carpet is out of the car try using Folex on it. Just soak it, gently scrub it and let it sit for a bit before rinsing it all off. May require a few times but I used it full strength on my 00 Grand Prix carpet that I had out. It pulled damn near all of the stains, old soda/coffee and assorted kid damage from it and made it look as new as possible and it does not smell one bit even in the humid 100* midwest sun. Just make sure that it sits out in the sun for a few days to dry out completely and throw it back in. And no, it didn't remove color from it or harm the fibers, but test a spot just to be sure. Was totally worth it IMHO. Best part is there is no "chemical smell" once it dries.

[Tiggie]

I'm pretty slow to post progress...

Carpet went back last week. It seems okay so far.

Have been refinishing the floor panels. Stripped, primed, and repainted. Used Rustoleum 248635 "cabernet" satin finish, which was as close as I could find to the original. The new is much more orange than purple in the original maroon. It would probably be an excellent match for 79-81 reddish interior color, or maybe the porno red cars. It certainly looks better even if the color isn't right.

I backed out of removing the side trim and dyeing it. I removed the passenger side and realized it would all need to come out again when I remove the exterior trim to paint the car in the future. Instead of removing twice and risking damage, I left it be for now. For the record, the Duplicolor HVP110 burgundy dye is very close to the original 90/91 cranberry plastic trim color.

Since all the screws were nasty rust messes, I got new screws too. Zinc finish instead of phosphate and oil... again it looks better.

Forgot to take a before pic, but you can see how bad the floor was:



Naked Wagon Floor for reference:



Now:



I need a rear seat latch if anyone has one has one. This one is frozen. I got it to move but it won't move enough to function. I may try soaking in evaporust if it comes down to it.



I also threw a new IAC on this and a new TPS. The IAC I knew was bad. The TPS is a guess on a stumble and a CEL that likes to come on when coasting after it gets nice and warm.


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[87gtVIC]

That looks a lot better. If that mechanism can be removed I would definitely soak it in evaporust.

[WagonMan]

You should ask your wagon parts supplier. I bet he has one. WagonMan

[jaywish]

Yuk Yuk

[Tiggie]

I threw a Motorcraft YB-327 fan clutch on in preparation for warm weather and A/C use. This is supposedly the police/trailer tow part. It does run more than the original.

The original front shocks were absolutely completely dead. Finally installed the front shocks I bought in 2016. Motorcraft police spec for an aero IIRC. Had to use the hot wrench to get the old ones off.



There has been some theory that some Motorcraft shocks are manufactured by Monroe. The 20906 on these crosses to a currently unavailable Monroe number. More evidence for the Monroe connection.


Trans seemed to indicate service at 54,181. Odometer currently says (1)31,223. The fluid didn't look the best and there was a slight dampness around the pan, so it got changed.


A reasonable amount of friction material in the pan.



Rolled the dice and removed the access cover to see if I had a drain on torque converter. It was right there. Should have played the lottery.


No noticeable difference in transmission behavior after the fluid change. That's fine since it worked fine before!

Revisiting the TPS: the new one I had in my stash was faulty. Voltages were okay but wiggle the wires while it was running and the idle would go crazy. CEL on.

Ordered a new TPS. The CX-1322 originally spec'd for the 88/91 cars is no longer available. So I got the CX-1133 which replaced it. It works fine.



Moving ahead:
- replace A/C seals/try to locate A/C leak.
- try to repair rear seat latch or source another one from WagonMan. Really don't want to remove all that trim to get to it again.

Brake line replacement is also on the agenda at some point.

Long range thoughts on the woodgrain. I always liked the woodgrain... until I owned one. It's kind of like vacation. Nice to visit but not where I want to live. When repaint time comes, the majority will remain white but I am considering a maroon in the woodgrain section. Keeping the trim intact. I think it may look decent, similar to the Ford trucks of the era. Could always put woodgrain over the maroon and no one would know it's there.


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[gadget73]

I like woodgrain until it starts fading and cracking and generally looking like crap. Also the Ford woody wagon trim sucks, the plastic gets all funky and it just ends up looking like someone forgot to remove the shrink wrap for 20 years. The Mercury trim is much better in that department.

[Tiggie]

Agreed.

Finding a Mercury trim set would be great. If they swap over? The difference in the taillight area might make it a no go.

I have considered stripping and polishing the Ford trim.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Agreed.

Finding a Mercury trim set would be great. If they swap over? The difference in the taillight area might make it a no go.

I have considered stripping and polishing the Ford trim.

The Mercury trim would hit the top and bottom of a Ford taillight. All the Mercury bodies have the Ford taillight impression pattern that's usually covered by the vinyl, but speaking from owning a de-grained car that just got paint with no filler, you can see where the Ford assembly would land.

I like wood grain if it's still in great shape, but once it's shot, it's shot. Doesn't help if you ever needed to repair a body panel where it got damaged that the likelihood of repairing it with a matching pattern would be low. I think I toyed around with 3M's site for Di-Noc, and enough material to cover the usual area would be almost the cost of doing some body work and a good paint job, something in the neighborhood of $4000. Arguably I can say I recognize decent condition wagons might actually be worth throwing that towards as market trends slowly turn to favor the last of full size station wagons, but steelsides look decent too. In the Eventual Future™, personally I want to go the route of removing the wood grain trim from my wagon, have the body work done to correct dents and the nub removal, the car shot a single color, then install base wagon style wheel arch and rocker trim, which I assume could be borrowed from any sedan.

It's obviously all up to personal preference and probably how you intend to use the vehicle.

[Tiggie]

Evaporust saved the rear seat latch. It works now.

Replaced all the o-rings on the A/C system. Still had a leak. Cleaned the connections exceptionally well and determined the valve cores were loose. Replaced those with some new ones (they are the same as valve stems for a tire). Held a test charge for several days and held a vacuum all day today.

Put a new accumulator on it. Charged it with "Envirosafe Industrial r134a Replacement", which we have discussed to be some blend of hydrocarbons, likely r441a.

My calculation by liquid density comparison puts me at 3.4 cans to reach an equivalent of the 3lb 4oz of R12. I put two 6oz cans of the new stuff. I'm getting 40-42 degrees F from the vents. It's 90 out today, high side pressure is at 220psi. Low side runs the 20/32psi cycle at about 1500rpm as the compressor cycles. Compressor runs solid at idle and temps stay steady. I think it's close to right, low maybe. Don't care to crack open another can until I test it a little more to check those original hoses.

In other news, the compressor is silent.

[sly]

That's pretty good. Might as well ride with it for a while and see how it does.