kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[GM_Guy]

And if photo radar comes to be, you can bet they will start targeting plate covers. Here in Ontario, even a clear plate cover is technically illegal. You won't get stopped for it specifically, but it is something else they can nail you on if they want to.

[Mainemantom]

It is called probable cause for stop. Like a tail light out. Reason to fish for more things that could lead to bigger crimes. Never give authorities a reason to stop you. Any time they ask questions, they are building a case. Generally not in your favor.

[kishy]

Replaced a low beam (the remaining one which came on the car, full of water now). Took from the original header panel of my Lincoln.

Replaced the front marker light white 194s with amber 194s. Did help fix the colour of the lens being washed out a bit. Inboard 1157 seems brighter, occurs to me maybe the socket beside it is supposed to have a 921 or similar instead of the baby 194. Oh well.

Received some very specific LED bulb products from China, for a very specific project I had in mind for this car. They work great and should function well for the purpose they were advertised for, but do not behave appropriately for my project...investigating workarounds. I'm being vague intentionally because the cool-factor of making the thing work the way I want will be pretty decent if I pull it off...don't want to ruin the surprise.



I dug around in my collection of clocks, chimes and tripminders. Compared the tripminders, found the one with the best looking display. Replaced a broken button by harvesting from another. Cleaned the button contacts, installed in car. Working tripminder is once again a feature of this car. Now I just need to poke around a little with the climate control stuff and then I can close the front of the dash up. All of the pieces are quite filthy still so will need a good cleaning.

[87gtVIC]

Curious whet you are stirring up with the parking lights. If you had clear lenses Id have guess some sorta dual illumination. amber and white...sequential turn or something along those lines.

[DerekTheGreat]

I always replace side marker bulbs in amber sockets with amber bulbs- It's more ambery and better looking IMO.

[mitymerc]

Ambery like is definitely more amberly...

[87gtVIC]

Swapped the radio for one from an '85 Continental. The one I took out, not sure what it came from (provided by Derek some time ago), has "Electronic" in cursive script on it. The one I put in says "Premium Sound" in the same wonky font as "automatic climate control". This font was new for '85. Bonus, the pots aren't scratchy on this one. Side note Gadget, that radio was a recent pull from a local car being parted out. I grabbed you some items to add to that monstrous box I've got for you. Including front corner lamps. Will discuss by PM when I can lay everything out for pics. Also I'll say it publicly: if my delays have caused you to no longer want any of the items, or you sourced them elsewhere, that is my fault and I'm sorry. I probably have a little bit of ADHD and it makes it very difficult for me to remember even very significant tasks when they aren't literally directly in front of me.

I just picked up a radio identical to that continental one from a 1986 town car. It looked like the original one I had in my car (87 CV) so I just had to grab it in case I ever want to look the part. Hindsight I should have never took it out....I really wish I still had the stock radio. KISS. Simpler is better.

[kishy]

There is a way to make the switchbacks do what I want...it just involves deleting the switchback electronics of the bulb, I think. Investigating.

Amber for front parking lamps is the only way to go, even in a clear lens. Just doesn't look right when it's white.

Factory radios have limitations, but their controls are often far more intuitive than aftermarket stuff, and their appearance matching the rest of the car is important to me.

Today, I achieved some things, maybe.
Collected the various missing pieces of the dash, hosed them off, then cleaned with a toothbrush...
Found some interior screws, the newer T20 style. Every time I replace a Philips screw with a Torx screw I feel great joy.
Installed the various bits.
Also installed a hardwire kit for the dashcam which is going in this car, a Viofo A129 Duo. I have that in the Lincoln and have been pleased with it.
Replaced the turn signal stalk and wiper switch with ones less prone to assaulting me.
Knocked the rear view mirror button off. Not the end of the world, I had glued it too far up and needed to do something about that anyway.
Did more Tripminder experimenting. What a neat little device. It's also interesting to see that I basically drive the car in two fuel consumption modes: 1-5MPG, and 20-45MPG, with nothing in between.
Started sizing up some heater hose to eventually plumb in the heater core. Remembered I had all those late box SEFI molded hoses I got for like 40 cents each. Cut a couple to make useful pieces.











The 'LTD' emblem had melted into a crooked position, and requires reattachment. Also the woodgrain wrap stuff is lifting all around that spot.





This car needs either a headlight switch or a relay job ASAP. High beams can run for a matter of just a few minutes, which is impressive considering it's two LED housings plus the 4656s on the outside...only marginally more than the low beams.

[mitymerc]

Looks great! Do you intend to go back and show it to the PO at some point?

[87gtVIC]

You can become a rockauto belt and hose provider.

[gadget73]

single best thing about that style of stock radio is they are easy to hack for an aux input. Not quite as easy as the 90s ones with the CD changer connector but not hard if you can solder.

[kishy]

single best thing about that style of stock radio is they are easy to hack for an aux input. Not quite as easy as the 90s ones with the CD changer connector but not hard if you can solder.

Yes, I believe you did a thread about it some time ago?
It's something I want to eventually do, for sure, and I think I've established I'm not afraid of the soldering iron.

[kishy]

Re-glued the rear view mirror button. It's the same Permatex adhesive as before, so we'll see if it works any better this time. Also swapped to a stock-style mirror instead of the super wide one I found in a 70s Lincoln. I like the long mirror, but the Ford visors interfere...where they don't in my Town Car...despite the Town Car having longer visors. I'm not paying it too much thought.

Also mounted the dash cam, and its rear-facing cam as I did in the Lincoln. In consideration of the tailgate maybe eventually being used as an entry door to the vehicle for humans, I put the rear facing cam offset to the driver side, where it is least likely to be knocked off by an entering or exiting passenger. The rear camera cable is quite long and reached with plenty to spare. It is routed from the front camera, to the passenger side, to the rear, then across to the driver side with excess tucked behind the driver side rearmost pillar trim. The power source is a "hardwire kit"; its USB output cable is routed behind the passenger side A-pillar trim and the 12V-to-5V stuff happens behind the glovebox. This kit supports "parking mode", which I only loosely understand and am interested to try out. This kit also has a low voltage shut-off which has a configurable threshold, so it shouldn't kill the battery if the car sits too long.







The cam is a Viofo A129 Duo, which is wirelessly configurable with a smartphone and can transfer video files without needing to pull the microSD card. I've selected a Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB card. Sandisk is usually garbage for dashcams (lacks the durability for the heavy writing they see) but I'm giving the Extreme Pro series a chance to prove itself.

Also did a quick test of a different LED bulb, comparing the Philips Ultinon 1157R I am running against the Sylvania ZEVO 2357R. A 2357-equivalent should be brighter than an 1157-equivalent, but I found that in the wagon housings, the Sylvania does not produce more light (may even be a bit weaker). This seems to be because of the direction it hits the reflector at. No useful photos resulted.

The switchbacks...
I probed the yet-unmodified switchback to figure out what voltage the actual LEDs were receiving. It was around 7.4V when connected to a 12V battery in a reasonable state of charge. So as I suspected, some of the components on the tiny little circuit board were resistors to drop the voltage to not make the LEDs go poof. I need to delete the special switchback circuitry which will take the resistor(s) with it, so I need to sub in resistors of equivalent function...this should be straightforward to calculate but I need to wrap my head around it a bit more I think.

As a quick test, I did mock up a circuit with the switchback circuitry deleted, and the bulb will behave as desired. I just don't want to give it 12-14V knowing that its designers want it to get 7-8V. Unfortunately all the online LED resistor calculators depend on knowing specs of the LEDs which I do not know. Another route is something like a 7808 regulator.

[gadget73]

I've had very poor luck with DIY mirror button attachment. Gave up and paid a local place 20 bucks.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I've had very poor luck with DIY mirror button attachment. Gave up and paid a local place 20 bucks.

Same. Those little packs didn’t work for me. Used some Permatex 5-min two part epoxy, and that worked.