kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

Put in some light highway driving today, cruise is working as it should. Happy about that.

Not happy about how far off I managed to make the wheel. I seem to have corrected it though. Loosen the nut a couple turns, firmly turn the wheel against the column lock, and find there is actually significant rotation available despite it seeming like there shouldn't be. It had been at the extreme right end of the available rotation, and I cranked it back to the extreme left, which seems to have brought the wheel back to centre again.

Out of an abundance of caution I'm going to check if the tie rod ends seem to have adjusted themselves (if alignment shop didn't tighten the sleeves enough, basically), but it feels like it's back to how it was. I was enjoying having a properly set up steering wheel so it was super upsetting (even if that seems like an overreaction) when I found it no longer that way.

[gadget73]

The wheel in the Conti is a bit off so I understand about it being annoying.

[kishy]

Worked on a few things today:

Wire brushed the rough areas of the passenger rear quarter (spare tire area) to knock loose all the rust chunks. Patched from the inside with some galvanized sheet steel I had around, with windshield urethane and rivets. High tech repair. Somehow didn't think to take a pic of the result, but it's not actually horrible. Brushed, rust primer, primer sealer, then the urethaned and riveted panel on top.

Put a spare where it belongs, along with other helpful items. Discovered that a piece of metal I have scrapped is probably the correct bolt thing to hold the spare to the jack...kind of annoyed about that.





Swapped the cruise servo so the 85 original is back in this car. It is verified to work now too. Nice tip about the cable. Cruise is a little lazy in this car which I am sure is a vacuum symptom but can't be bothered right now. It holds speed fine, but the initial engagement has lag time that my others don't seem to have.



Found the other cruise module pigtail. Swapped the connector so now the wires stay in reliably. Of course I forgot to note the part number from the good one...maybe I can get a pic of it already installed at a later time.

Fixed the fuel door popper. Issue was the button. Had to file some corrosion and crap off the contacts and this got it to work.



Came up with a battery hold-down solution. The metal which normally runs under the battery tray and forms the connecting point for the hold-down J-hook is completely gone, as it was rusty junk. I reinforced the plastic with some sheet metal and now the J-hook grabs onto that. Took this opportunity to install a group 65 battery, as I had previously altered the tray to accept one, and have found one of my group 65 hold-downs.

[gadget73]

same issue with the door release on the Conti. Non-sealed button, can't imagine why that would ever get crusty inside. On the plus side it makes it easy to take apart and fix. I gave the contacts a light wipe of spark plug grease when I put it back together. Figure that might help fight off future moisture / corrosion.

[packman]

That was the way my battery tray was in the '86 CV. I ended up bolting up a JEGS universal battery tray in its place. I was even able to use the stock bracket to hold the battery tray.

[kishy]

The above work was lead-up to a bit of a road trip...went camping with some friends a bit north of Parry Sound, ON. Second time to the area, I don't recall if I had mentioned the last time I went. Map.

This was approximately a 1200km round trip, with approximately 20km of it being a rough unmaintained seasonal road typically reserved for trucks and off-road vehicles. The wagon handled the trip extremely well, with the following exceptions:

1. As the weather turned cold during this trip, the fast idle is becoming more of a priority.
2. The vibration at highway speed is still there, but not on all road surfaces. I think I'm going to throw some money at a set of decent shocks and see if it helps. Driveshaft balance might need to be looked at as well.
3. My poorly installed trunk pan fell out after bottoming out taking the car through a water crossing. Ratchet straps successfully put the car back in operation. The fuel tank thankfully stayed close enough to where it belongs that all continued to work. As I do not like this particular trunk pan, it is not getting installed any better than it was previously...I need to find a properly good one (which this one never was) before I invest any meaningful effort, time or money into how it is attached to the car.

Fuel economy according to the Tripminder was very respectable (19-25MPG) when the car was driven sensibly. However, for most of the trip I was driving in the 11-15MPG territory. It is what it is.

It's one hell of a head-turner. A whole lot of things like passengers seeing the car then grabbing the driver to make them look at it too. Fun stuff.

Found a great deal on a rooftop carrier that is reasonably aerodynamic and fits under my carport, for $100 new on clearance. Excellent piece of gear and freed up a lot of interior space considering I was hauling a fair bit of gear for the whole camp, which overall was 9 people (all previously acquainted and confident in our pandemic exposure risks).

[87gtVIC]

The detachable trunk pan made me chuckle.

[gadget73]

Its not a proper hooptie unless you have to use ratchet straps, zip ties, coat hangers, duct tape, and/or hose clamps to hold some critical thing together.

[tikitiki65]

Cool road trip!!
Hope to take my wagon on one some day.
Maybe even a Lemons rally

[sly]

[DerekTheGreat]

The detachable trunk pan made me chuckle.

Reminds me of a song by King Missle.. "Dee-tatch-A-ble Pee-nis"

[kishy]

Trunk pan went back in, this time with bigger rivets, and a few bolts. It should be significantly less fragile now. I also managed to make it fit better than before, so that's a bonus. Need to find a good one still. It's an 86 pan, which uses the retaining dowels for the fuel tank straps rather than the T-ends on the straps.

Oil changed, as I had noticed this trip cost me two letters of the word SAFE on the dipstick. This is consistent with my other 302s in that they make it pretty much exactly to 4800km/3000mi before I need to add oil. Oil was changed at 78,895km with 4632km on the oil. I run a 10W30 diesel semi-synthetic in this.

As mentioned way earlier, the exhaust interferes with a rear upper control arm. With the car heavily loaded, this causes the tailpipe to get rammed into the quarter panel going over bumps. The tailpipe no longer points the correct direction, so I think exhaust replacement is forthcoming for this car soonish. I wish the wagon driver side tailpipe was available off the shelf anywhere.

[gadget73]

Not having to add oil between changes is what I consider proper. Ford has other ideas but I refuse to deal with a quart every thousand miles.

[kishy]

Yeah, the 1qt/1k mi never really sat right with me...especially since they considered that to be normal loss through consumption only, and when the engine is new, not factoring in leakage once the engine is old and accelerated consumption as the engine wears.

Some updates for the night.

I have two hitches on-hand, a Draw-Tite and some sort of Reese/Cequent one, both are pretty much identical except the coating. The Draw-Tite has a clearly inferior coating and will need proper painting before installation.

Neither of those hitches lists the wagon-only models as applications, and they fit quite poorly against the wagon frame. The Curt 13707, on the other hand, is shaped a bit differently where it mates with the frame, and specifically mentions wagons...so I decided to spend some money and get the Curt. My eventual goal is to have a 2" receiver on every car so it hasn't really bought me anything extra, just earlier than needed.

The Curt is quite different, and confirms that the 1-1/4" receiver I took off was also a Curt. The legs that mount to the frame are shorter which creates a less aggressive angle needing to be filled with the wedge spacers. This also has the added bonus of fitting the existing drilled holes on my frame, so on it went tonight. Fits like a glove, very happy with it. I'll also mention that the Curt has the nicest coating of all of them. It is however made of the smallest outside dimension tubing...but has a subtly higher weight rating than the others...so I'm not sure what's up with that.

While under the car, I identified why the exhaust pipe was angled funny: the exit tube of the muffler (normally integral with the muffler) had separated from the muffler body and was just flopping around in there. Same failure as the 83 muffler. A little cut-off-wheel action and I yanked the whole tailpipe out, to be dealt with later. Oddly enough, the exhaust is quieter now.

I did identify that there is a fuel leak from the tank. It is unclear if it's the fuel pump hanger gasket/fuel pump hanger itself/fuel line connectors/maybe the tank itself where the two halves are joined together. It is an extremely slow leak, I couldn't observe anything leaking, but the residue on the bottom edge of the tank is absolutely gas. Diagnosis is complicated by the fact I had soaked the fuel pump hanger in rust preventive oil spray, so everything in that area is wet all the time.

Also, perhaps a product of the slightly quieter exhaust, I can hear the fuel pump making unsavoury noises at idle, but seemingly not when above idle. Further diagnosis is required. It's possible I pinched a line putting the tank back in after the recent floor adventure, which would create a higher than usual pressure between the pump and pinch, and make the pump be noisy. I hate dropping the tank so much on this...the Chinesium tank really doesn't seem like it fits the car correctly at all, and reinstalling the straps is significantly harder than on the Lincoln.

[87gtVIC]

I believe I have the older brother to that curt hitch.

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?26257-My-1987-Two-Door-Crown-Victoria-AKA-THE-BROWN-BLOB&p=687298&viewfull=1#post687298

Different part number but same ratings.