My 1987 Mercury Colony Park

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Put everything back together today, it was running good.

I decided to test the strength of the restrictor and found its cannot handle TEH LOPO WOT WATER POWAH! That thing blew up where it was “sealed” together and sprayed the engine bay all over the place with antifreeze. I thought I sliced a hose until I restarted it and saw it shooting every which way.

FWIW, all the new hose connections worked great, and the sensors aren’t leaking.

Guess tomorrow I’ll go to the store, warranty return that fitting and do what I’ve seen around here: a 13mm socket stuck in the hose. I’ll also need a hose barb to reconnect the hose, but that’s no big deal.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

"Impromptu dissection of restriction device was performed by forces delivered by the right foot applying more force to the power metering component and under less than optimal conditions resulting in fluid loss."



I did get to actually look at how this one is supposed to operate. It has the restricting ring in the middle, but uses a coil spring in the large portion to cushion the force of the water for metering I suppose. The end cap was sealed to the main body, but absolutely just blew apart when I floored it. Like I said above, I'll try something else, since obviously this won't hold up very well on our cars.

[87gtVIC]

What the heck is that from again?


I rev the snot out of my 87 with a mustang heater core flow restrictor and have no issues. If this is something you want to persue (even after the socket trick) that may be the route to go?

[gadget73]

The Mustang part works well. Basically looks like a piece of plastic tube with a hole in it. No extra clamps needed, it just sits against the end of the heater core inside the stock hose.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

What the heck is that from again?


I rev the snot out of my 87 with a mustang heater core flow restrictor and have no issues. If this is something you want to persue (even after the socket trick) that may be the route to go?

The piece I broke normally fits mid 2000s Chrysler minivans and apparently some mid 90s GM stuff, including but not limited to H and F body cars.

I saw the Mustang heater core restrictors after I picked up the inline thing. I think I'll try the socket trick first since it's readily available (and I think I have some extras laying about). After seeing what a WOT run did to that thing, I certainly do want to try and prevent damage to the heater core from that abuse. I don't beat on it regularly, but it's peace of mind here.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Back in business today. Got a cheapie 13mm socket and a brass hose barb from the parts store. Tossed it all together and now I have a functional assembly that doesn't blow up under hard acceleration. Car now also holds vacuum very well after being shut down, hopefully that line doesn't decide to crack again anytime soon.

Also, this arrived in the mail today from someone here:


Not going to name drop unless they're comfortable with that since he wasn't publicly advertising, but he messaged me while I was originally just looking for a spare 85 MPH cluster after having read through this thread, since I have a Town Car electronic speedometer head but didn't want to cut up my OE gauge face. He mentioned he had the 135 MPH unit and a 85 MPH unit and to make an offer for both. I did, and he hit me with the number he was looking for, I waffled around, then finally concluded this wasn't likely something I'd cross paths with again so I agreed to his price and made a deal.

I think I'll put the electronic hybrid thing on hold since I'm sure once this is installed, I probably won't have it out anytime soon. I already told him it will stay in the GMN family, and if anything happens to the wagon, this will be removed for someone else to have here.

[Tiggie]

The one of one remaining holy grail. Good addition to your car!

[gadget73]

Wow, thats a super rare piece.

[87gtVIC]

I want one as wall art. I get chills every time I see one.

[DerekTheGreat]

Ehhh, if I stuffed one of those in my Mercury I'd now have to squint to see what speed I was doing. For all intents and purposes I'd only need the first half of it...

[Mainemantom]

Now to find a whole box Mercury police car as clean as that speedometer. Even harder to find.Have not seen one anywhere in many years.

[DerekTheGreat]

I've never seen one, didn't know those were things. Talk about a unicorn.

[VicCrownVic]

Mostly early years from what I gather. Around '82 and I want to say St. Louis was one of the few that someone said had such a thing.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Decided to add an electric fan for A/C assistance. I was planning on doing a setup similar to the '95-'97 cars with the mechanical fan primary with electric fan secondary, but there's not enough room for all of that in front of the mechanical fan, so instead of using the electric fan as a puller, I used it in a pusher configuration in front of the A/C condenser.

Since I had originally planned for this to be Aero styled in setup, I only got one 16" fan before realizing my space error. Realistically given front mounting restrictions, maybe two 12" or 14" units would have been more appropriate due to the support bar being present in the dead center of the condenser, but I made use of the single fan.



It's a Hayden 3700 unit. Single speed rated around 1100 CFM or something close to that.

Wiring is a little spaghetti, however I eventually plan to eliminate most of that with a later style high amp fuse box used on the later cars. I'll also be integrating the protected fusible link circuits into that box as well.

Regarding activation of the fan, the trigger wire is actually hooked to the constant powered side of the A/C low pressure switch (not the switched side). Anytime the HVAC controller is set to A/C Max, A/C Norm, Mix, or Defrost, it'll trigger the relay turning on the fan with the car on. The fan circuit is protected by a 30 amp fuse.



While I didn't take the car out to see how well it worked in traffic, it certainly seemed to do a good job just even being in the garage and moved plenty of air across the condenser and a fair amount through the radiator.

I did not want to go with a full electric fan setup replacing the mechanical fan since I haven't been let down by mechanical fan yet and if the electric fan fails, I don't lose cooling ability. Using an electric fan to help with additional cooling demand in this instance seemed to be a more ideal route.

[87gtVIC]

Were you having issues with your ac? If so I am curious if it helps out.