kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

Yeah, I haven't seen anything about the A/C system to suggest it wasn't a factory job. The compressor is an FS-6 mounted with the same brackets my others use and everything about the accumulator looks normal. The only thing that stands out is the lack of noise muffler on the one A/C line, but it isn't clear to me if the Fords ever had it, or it might be a newer replacement line. The previous owner informed me he was a retired HVAC tech which suggests he may have worked on it once or twice earlier in his ownership of it.

89 DSO is interesting. That combined with the fact that it's a very early STAP car leads to a few possibilities.

The AutoCheck indicates from an "independent source" that on 1985-02-27 there was a "vehicle manufactured and shipped to dealer" event in Michigan. The first title-related activity was in 1996 in SC. Keep in mind it was built as an American-spec car (common belief being that Ford/Mercury never had CFI in Canada).

I'd love to know exactly how early it is relative to STAP production, maybe there is a record somewhere of that sort of thing. If the serial number part of the VIN was always sequential and STAP took over numbering from the last car that left St. Louis, it should be reasonably easy to figure out if the records can be located.

Calling the body "super clean" is being generous lol, the passenger rear quarter is toast as are the door bottoms and tailgate. The vinyl wood hides some of the fun.

[DerekTheGreat]

LoL that is super clean for the area. Most cars that age, you could throw a softball into one of the door panels haha.

Ashley's F150 has dealer installed A/C. At first glance it looks original but upon closer inspection it's junk and obvious. We spent the past Saturday scoring parts for it but unfortunately 5.0/5.8 compressors will not work with a 4.9 because of a couple millimeters in bracket difference. Gah. Well, at least we have the big radiator and factory condenser in there now.

[kishy]

More stuff done...

Removed the rest of the door panels. I stand by my assessment that the car was significantly submerged at some point, even if just a good accidental soaking at a boat launch. Found some good "WTF" going on with the passenger front door wiring...wire nuts? Really? I can fix this properly and will do so before the new door panel goes on (I previously picked up a good set of door panels for this car).

Determined that the reason the passenger rear window motor polarity is reversed is because P.O. used a RF/LR motor instead of a LF/RR motor. I did not realize there was clearance from the rest of the stuff in the door to do that, but there evidently is, because it's in there and it works. Reversed the polarity in the connector and leaving that alone otherwise for now.

Disconnected the front two (seized) lock actuators and found that the two rear door ones actually work correctly, but had to replace both of the power lock switches out of my inventory of junk. They were both dead in opposite directions. Protip: the lock and window switches are the same, the rocker handle part on top can be swapped out between them.

Wipers were previously stuck on. Junkyard motor fixed this.
Wipers were previously unable to park. Junkyard switch from junk inventory fixed this.
Soldered on a new wiper motor pigtail as original was lacking insulation in alarming quantity.
Went on a hunt looking for the long-removed wiper arms (found them) and put on new extra-cheapo blades which has effectively crossed a to-do item off the list.

Found the washer pump is trash (jammed up with rust) in the 'new' used washer fluid reservoir. Swapped the good one that came out of the wagon's original reservoir. Testing found the washer sprayer plugged up. Reverse-shot air through it, found pieces of insects came out. Washer now performs as intended (hits your face if you stand right beside the A-pillar, like it does on my other boxes). That's another to-do item off the list.

Passenger side horn is dead (sounds like the high tone). The '79 at Ryan's Pick-a-Part happens to have that same horn already removed, by me, when getting the header panel off. I'll grab that next time I'm there.

Hoods and (grumble grumble) "header panel with sealed beams" are 50% off this coming weekend. Revisiting that whole "replacement hood" idea.

Ordered new drums (11") as per http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...005#post817005
I found that if you look up a Town Car on RockAuto, there is one extra drum option offered, a discontinued Aimco drum that only applies to limos. However the part number and reference photo are the same as those from other brands which are not limo-specific (but no dimensions are given other than being 11"). Fingers crossed the 11" drums are the same for limo and non-limo applications. 20 bucks a drum is a good savings over the non-limo options.

Not bad for a weekday...an uncomfortably warm one at that.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Talk about wasted door cards. I can’t say I’ve ever seen some quite that bad. If you’ve got a good set waiting to go on, I’d strongly suggest making up a weather barrier if you don’t already have some stashed away. It doesn’t take much exposure to moisture to make them grow mold and start to warp.

[kishy]

Yeah, the plan is to harvest a set of good plastic ones, but unfortunately it seems like every car that ever had a window motor replaced has them trashed.

[gadget73]

those are nasty. Definitely got well soaked at some point, and probably for a long while if they're that bad. If that was a ramp dunk, someone did not make any particular effort to get the car dry.

[kishy]

Decided I would mess around with the RR window motor (the opposite motor, installed backwards to allow fitment in this door).
Swapped it for one from my parts horde. Took the other 3 motors out, rebuilt two gears with new plugs, everything works happily now. Tailgate will be its own phase of the project.

Observed something that I had previously been kind of aware of due to GM_Guy...although you can successfully use a newer window motor (89 mid year change I think) in the older cars, it is correct that only two of the screw holes line up and the third can't be used. The motor mounts firmly, lines up and works, but minus a screw. I had put one of the newer motors in the driver door back when I first dragged the car home, but I only had two screws handy when I did it, so the third hole thing never really came up.

Fixed the wiring mess on the passenger side. Not sure what was going on there, but there was an additional window motor pigtail spliced in with the wire nuts. I soldered up everything as it should be and it all works fine using the original connector.

[DerekTheGreat]

You fixed the angry spaghetti, nice. I hate wiring hack jobs, especially when they use wire nuts. Although is that better than simply twisting wires together & wrapping them in electrical tape? Hmm...

[Tiggie]

Wiring hack, wire nuts, and all this inside the door work makes my fingers and hands glad I didn’t have to do that job. Probably would have split a pint if blood in the process. Door innards are not my favorite! But you got it looking good.

The tailgate motor is an interesting animal to get to. I drilled holes for mine in the 88 and put plugs back in. I plan to do it the right way on the 90. I think some small ratcheting wrenches are in my future.

[kishy]

Although is that better than simply twisting wires together & wrapping them in electrical tape? Hmm...

Oh, you mean like the positive cable down to the starter? Yeah, no, that's fine. I guess.

Wiring hack, wire nuts, and all this inside the door work makes my fingers and hands glad I didn’t have to do that job. Probably would have split a pint if blood in the process. Door innards are not my favorite! But you got it looking good.

The tailgate motor is an interesting animal to get to. I drilled holes for mine in the 88 and put plugs back in. I plan to do it the right way on the 90. I think some small ratcheting wrenches are in my future.

Small ratcheting wrenches are lovely, but I'm not sure they can do the job on the window motor bolts. I did my first one ever using a normal non-ratcheting closed end wrench and I think it worked because the wrench handle kicks off at an angle on those. My ratcheting wrenches (and I think most) don't have the angle and the window motor bolts are slightly "recessed" relative to the rest of the metal the motor bolts to.

I have a complete spare working tailgate on hand. This one has some rust issues...like poke the fake wood and you're inside the tailgate. I will likely put on the spare tailgate to get the car roadworthy and deal with this one off the car later. Rust holes through into the interior = fail on the safety inspection (exhaust entry).

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah I like to use butt end crimps on everything now, the kind that have the adhesive lined shrink already on them. So far so good, never had one come apart. I used to solder everything and had to have Ashley help. She appreciates no longer being burned haha.

[gadget73]

I drill the holes. I tried to pull a motor without it once, gave up and went for the drill.

[kishy]

Drained the fuel. There was about 5L in the tank. It doesn't look like normal gas...the engine burns it, but it definitely looks like it's aged. I drained it via the fuel filter with the pump relay bypassed, into a clean gas can. I'll likely burn this stuff in the lawn mower.



Got the tank and filler neck out. Tank is scrap, I have a new one on hand. Removed sender and pump hanger from tank. Tested sender hooked up to the car and the gauge responds accurately, so I'll put a new float on it and use the existing sender.

The tank had to come out to enable cutting out the trunk pan, which I will be doing as one of the next major steps. Still not 100% confident in my ability to attach the replacement one onto the car (I have it already), but I'll get there.

[DerekTheGreat]

Wow, I'm surprised at how clean the inside of that tank is despite sitting with next to no fuel in it. Some dude on here posted a pic of the inside of his tank and it looked like you'd get tetanus just from looking at it.

[kishy]

Wow, I'm surprised at how clean the inside of that tank is despite sitting with next to no fuel in it. Some dude on here posted a pic of the inside of his tank and it looked like you'd get tetanus just from looking at it.

Yeah, I was expecting at least a little worse. At least my decision to buy a new tank has been vindicated by the overall condition of it, so that's good.

It's kind of like rings on a tree, too. You can see the fuel level from the last time it sat for a long time with an unchanging amount of fuel, and the rust specks above.