My 1987 Mercury Colony Park

[sly]

[packman]

Your Colony Park is very clean for a daily driver. Usually when I see wagons, they're fairly beat.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Your Colony Park is very clean for a daily driver. Usually when I see wagons, they're fairly beat.

It cleans up okay even for really faded paint. The interior is the stronger spot outside of some sun faded plastics as it was reasonably well kept. I haven’t seen any other Panther wagons around here in ages, and most sedan Boxes I see are one turn away from the junkyard. There’s been the once in a blue moon B-Body wagon, but even those are sparse.

I planned to park it outside and drive it today, but last night I had it out and rolled down the window, and it decided to not go back up, so I parked it in the garage and put the ‘97 outside. Pulled the motor and it’s running real slow and is seeping grease. I’ll swap it for another unit and test. Switch operation seems fine.

[gadget73]

I've had the magnets in those break loose and jam things up. I've also had dirty brushes, petrified grease, dirt, and maladjustment of the endplay screw on the gearbox end (the flat head screw with the lock nut) cause binding in those motors before.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

So the week long shake down has been fairly favorable, still have a few things to work through, though. 16.2 MPG average on 225 mile tank. Was expecting worse; TripMinder was a bit pessimistic with 15.5 MPG on the average.

Stuff I've done:
Swapped IAC, no more odd sticking (Was failing KOER test, unable to high idle on command)
Reduced TV pressure some, shifts perfectly for local driving (was up too high, OD was disagreeable below 60)
Adjusted TPS and throttle stop plate
Reset base timing to 10* BTDC . I had been setting timing in park, not drive, and had the base timing closer to 28* BTDC or so with SPOUT out.

Things I've noticed:
Intermittent fuel smell, seems to be charcoal canister area. The hoses are old, likely cracked/split somewhere.
Coolant smell, thermostat gasket has small weep. A re-seal and that should be good.
Warm idle in gear is rough. This is the one that is of most concern. When it's cold and the idle is up, it's pretty decent, however when I stop at a light and idle for more than a few moments, it seems as if engine RPMs drop and it'll vibrate/shake the car (nothing violent, more like a large cam idle). Sometimes it'll idle as one would expect, and then it seems to drop and be lumpy. Touch the accelerator and it takes off with no hesitation. Might need to hook up a vacuum gauge and measure it's behavior. I can't hear any vacuum leaks, but that doesn't mean there might not be one. Cylinder balance test might help if there's someone not keeping up.

Also, has anyone had idling issues after using the HO throttle body? I only ask since I know it has a large hole in the plate and I don't recall my LoPo one having it at all, so I don't know if maybe too much air is getting in with the throttle closed. If I can get that idle thing squared away, that'll cover "biggest" hurdle. Otherwise things are better than they've been in a while.

[87gtVIC]

Some guys have used a pop rivit in the hole to stop the flow of air a bit. I used a drywall screw insert (the plastic thing you pop I to dry way and the out the screw I ) on my car because the idle was to high.

[BigMerc96]

I know on the Aeros/Whales they will adapt to the extra hole in the TB blade. I've installed 70mm truck TBs both with and without the hole in them on various cars and never had an issue. The first one I did was idling too high but that turned out to be because the cruise control cable was holding it open very slightly due to the truck TB's cable bracket being slightly larger. Its a minute amount of air that'll leak thru the small hole in the blade, so in theory it wouldn't make much difference since the air is still being measured, at least with a MAF system. I could see it maybe messing with a speed-density system a bit more since it could effectively be a vacuum leak the system isn't expecting and they rely on vacuum for fuel calculations. You could try plugging it and see if it makes a difference, even temporarily covering it with tape to test would give you an answer. Just make sure whatever you use isn't likely to get sucked into the engine, that would be bad. I'm sure there is a reason for the hole in the blade, but IDK what that is without researching it.

[sly]

Yeah... speed density doesn't take kindly to added idle air. It needs good vacuum to work right.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Thanks. I’ll try covering up the hole and seeing if things improve.

[DerekTheGreat]

Some guys have used a pop rivit in the hole to stop the flow of air a bit. I used a drywall screw insert (the plastic thing you pop I to dry way and the out the screw I ) on my car because the idle was to high.

Semi related: I decided to clean the TB on Ashley's '92 I6 F150.. Idle was super high after that and I suspected the IAC motor, swapped them, no change. Could see the % open commanded by the ECM was 20%, which I think is the lowest. Not even messing with idle screw did much, least not before the TPS was out of range. I even took the IAC motor off and plugged the dham holes myself and no change. Then that's when I had an epiphany, removed it again and compared with a spare I had on hand. Spare did not have bleed holes in the throttle blades whereas the one on the truck did. Also, cleaning the TB revealed that it was worn out, as now sunlight passed by the throttle blades. So I swapped on the spare, and nope, I did not clean it haha, didn't want to risk that nonsense again. But after I did that, idle was where the factory said it should be and the IAC commanded position looked right, not to mention it no longer went to 20% and the engine responded as it came down from say 80%.

[sly]

Thanks. I’ll try covering up the hole and seeing if things improve.

When I did this on the Mark VI, I took the screws out that hold the plate in and installed the pop rivet outside the car. Made sure to punch the center pin back out so it wouldn't fall into the engine later on, and flatten the rivet out a little more on the back side. Then reinstalled it in the throttle body. I don't remember if I left it in there or removed it later as I don't remember if it helped at all, but that's the way I did it. I also don't remember if I put any locktite on the screws or not. It would have been blue if I did.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

So the air bleed hole on this TB is smaller than some I’ve seen, maybe about the size of a ball point pen tip; rather tiny. I’m wondering if it’s having much of an effect at all now that I’m looking at it.

I’ll try to grab a vacuum gauge next week and see if it’s stable or walking around at idle.

[sly]

That sounds like the stock lopo style. The HO one is about 3/16 IIRC.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

That sounds like the stock lopo style. The HO one is about 3/16 IIRC.

Odd. TB is definitely the larger HO one, just with a small air bleed hole it seems. This one came off an ‘89 Mustang GT.

[sly]

yeah... dunno.