kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

After having some less-crap-but-still-not-roadworthy tires put on the wagon turbines, so I'd have something to store and roll it around the driveway on, I put two of those on the rear axle today. Keeping the donuts up front for now because it's easier to steer not running that way. Power assist is also not working when running, might just be because it's empty, hoping that's the case.

I beat the drums pretty hard with a BFH, and got the passenger side one off. I turned the adjuster in a bunch so it'll come off easy in the future. The driver side, which is the side that had the parking brake seized, did not want to come off. The shoes are right against the drum. I put this side in the air and ran the engine, trans in gear, other side chocked, to try to wear the shoes down a bit. No go. Drum got super super hot, but I still couldn't get it to slide off over the shoes. I'll have to try to wind in the adjuster through the access hold on the backing plate.

Rolled it into the garage, since the below-freezing weather is probably not ideal for windshield urethane application, which I'm hoping to do this weekend. Taped up the old windshield and lifted it out onto the roof.





Pulled the cluster out and rebuilt it with the new speedometer. While testing bulbs, I burned a trace on the flexible circuit sheet. Repaired it, surprisingly it went OK, I was expecting soldering to melt the thing pretty aggressively.

There is a difference between the older and newer clusters...not sure what the change over year is. The hole for the high beam indicator is smaller on the older speedometer face, and the little icon is too big on the newer cluster insert for it. I opted to put it in backwards so the symbol isn't visible with the high beams are off since it doesn't line up properly.











I'm going to have to watch for an orange-needle early year car to pop up to take its fuel gauge from, or find an orange paint that's close. The mismatched needle colour is no fun.

[gadget73]

There is surely a fingernail polish color that will match.

[sly]

Or you could swap the white needle over to the "new" cluster.

[kishy]

There is surely a fingernail polish color that will match.

True. I was thinking model car paint also.

Or you could swap the white needle over to the "new" cluster.

Oh hell no. The orange is about the only reason I was willing to buy the NOS early year speedometer. It's gorgeous!

[sly]

Point.

[Tiggie]

I used this: https://m.lowes.com/pd/Rust-Oleum-Hi...iABEgKKUPD_BwE

I painted both needles but it was a darn close match.

[kishy]

I did more things!

Took the broken windshield to the dump. I figured they would treat it as recyclable glass but nope, it's garbage.

Took the carpet to a carwash. I have a pressure washer but it's cold out and I didn't want the wet gross mess all over my driveway. You should have seen the colour of the water washing out of it. Stuff of nightmares. Far from perfect but better than it was. Blue interior cars pop up often in Detroit yards so I may end up replacing it anyway.



I used various scrapers and wire brushes to clean up the sealing surface for the windshield. I discovered there was a rusted-through area on the passenger side and a couple iffy spots elsewhere too. It looks like the metalwork from the factory was kind of shoddy in the upper corner areas too. I've put down two coats of primer on it (the urethane product says to do so) and put the heat on in the garage.

Realistically, the rust issues in the "above the blower motor" area aren't going to kill this car. There are plenty of other likely and valid reasons that will be the death of it before that ever becomes a meaningful problem, so aside from grinding it to clean metal, priming, and maybe throwing some paint on it, I'm not going beyond that.

The glass will hopefully be in tomorrow. I'm just thinking about what a pain it is to undo any of the screws on the top of the dash with the glass in. Debating replacing the heater core pre-emptively even though I don't believe it leaks presently. I have one on hand already (of course I do).

I also found a lot of crap in the wiper transmission cowl area. The wipers dragged super slow in this, now I see why.

[gadget73]

looks like a good spot for rust converter and JB Weld.

[kishy]

looks like a good spot for rust converter and JB Weld.

There is no real need to. It's above/inside of the surface that the urethane bead needs to go on. I see no reason to fill/repair it, only coat it to slow it getting worse. I'm sure the bottom side, which is inaccessible with dash installed, is also pretty crappy.

I do have rust converter, but in this case I had already taken it down to clean metal and put the primer on, so probably paint it and call it done-ish.

[87gtVIC]

Cant hurt. Better than just ignoring it.

One area to take a look at is the seam sealer just next to the hood hinges. Ive had to address that area as water was intruding my interior. Took quite a long time to figure out where it was making its entrance. May be a bit easier to do some preventive maintenance while the windshield is out as that area is kinda tight to begin with.

Did you try any soaps and agitating the carpet with a brush? Maybe that could save you the extra effort in finding one and then stripping the cars interior for it.

[BigMerc96]

Wagon owners out there: Do they all have shoddy bodywork where the roof meets the pillars? My buddy's old '91 had a definite seam visible in sunlight where the roof met the a and b pillars on both sides. Originally I thought maybe it had some work done but the unevenness of it was just too consistent and I've seen other wagons like that. It was especially noticeable at the top of the b-pillars, one side had some filler/sealer/whatever that had actually cracked a bit and you could see it in direct light otherwise you couldn't tell. Never seen that on a box sedan, but, those usually have a vinyl roof hiding at least the b-pillars.

[gadget73]

The later ones seem to be worse about that. The stamps were shot by 91 so the bodywork comes out kinda f'd.

[kishy]

Cant hurt. Better than just ignoring it.

One area to take a look at is the seam sealer just next to the hood hinges. Ive had to address that area as water was intruding my interior. Took quite a long time to figure out where it was making its entrance. May be a bit easier to do some preventive maintenance while the windshield is out as that area is kinda tight to begin with.

Did you try any soaps and agitating the carpet with a brush? Maybe that could save you the extra effort in finding one and then stripping the cars interior for it.

Yeah, I'm going to be checking out the seams along the whole cowl area especially at the ends. The extra access of the hood not being there is enormously helpful and the windshield being out helps even more.

I didn't think to bring a brush, and the carwash brush was too soft (maybe the only time a carwash brush hasn't been too rough), so I made do with high pressure soap followed by high pressure rinse.

I don't mind interior stripping, except the seatbelt bolts. Those bastards always freeze up and break a torx bit.

[DerekTheGreat]

If you let an orange cluster needle hang out in UV rays, it'll turn to yellow and then white. So if you plan on DDing it you should just give up and go to white or plan on carrying a towel with you to drape over the cluster for when you park it. Dad did that with the Firebird and the needles are still nice and orange like they were from the factory.

Oh and you guys with that 140 mph cluster... Considering 85 is about the max I drive, that renders the other half of that cluster useless but unfortunately it makes the usable half that much harder to discern... Now, if there was a 120 or 100mph cluster that would get my heart going... I've never even had the Firebird above 120 and that's got a suspension & wide tires that can actually handle the speed LOL

[kishy]

If you let an orange cluster needle hang out in UV rays, it'll turn to yellow and then white. So if you plan on DDing it you should just give up and go to white or plan on carrying a towel with you to drape over the cluster for when you park it. Dad did that with the Firebird and the needles are still nice and orange like they were from the factory.

Oh and you guys with that 140 mph cluster... Considering 85 is about the max I drive, that renders the other half of that cluster useless but unfortunately it makes the usable half that much harder to discern... Now, if there was a 120 or 100mph cluster that would get my heart going... I've never even had the Firebird above 120 and that's got a suspension & wide tires that can actually handle the speed LOL

How quickly are we talking about, RE: UV fade?
This is a NOS speedometer that didn't see the light of day for decades. Surely I'll get at least 5 years out of it? Plus the cluster hides under that overhang of the dash pad, I don't think it would often have direct sunlight on it.

The "new" windshield has the factory green tint, not sure if that has any anti-UV properties.

I always found it kind of strange that the non-police Canadian clusters went significantly higher (even in MPH) than do their American counterparts. The 90-91 Ford/90-94 Mercury/90-94 Lincoln clusters were 85MPH in the US, but 200KM/H (124MPH), and the police version of that was 220KM/H (137MPH). The 80s Mercury clusters were 180KM/H (112MPH).