kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[mitymerc]

Thry look great!

Do the "new" headrests push on your neck/head?

I have driven a few Ford/Mercs that are extremely uncomfortable for some one with neck injuries.

[kishy]

Pedantic trivia - they are termed "head restraints" because their function is to prevent whiplash, by catching your head as it snaps backwards in applicable types of impacts. They aren't really meant to be a comfort feature, although some vehicles also use them that way, and in some designs they (as you've pointed out mitymerc) have the opposite effect of comfort entirely.

I agree that the early (and then revisited for late boxes into the aeros) tiny head restraints are not particularly effective for either purpose.

If I'm wearing something with a hood (e.g. a hoodie) which is sorta bunched up behind my head, or something like a tall collar on some coats, I find that will be in contact with the new head restraint, and that in turn is sort of uncomfortable. But not really significantly. I'm sensitive in this area as well from the pinched nerve incident, and I do prefer to have nothing touching the area where the spine transitions into the neck, and while this is worse in this area than the original setup, it's really mild.

These head restraints do not have much lift available, but they do pop up a small bit, and they can also tilt forward, both of which you can sort of work to your advantage.

My work 2021 Transit Connect was fine before and since the pinched nerve problem, but during, it was totally intolerable. It does not allow what I would call a truly neutral neck and head position, but it's so very close to neutral that it only bugged me while I was in a lot of discomfort from that other cause. I had actually borrowed the head restraint from a 2016 TC (passenger side) that a friend drove for his unrelated work and it helped a fair bit. Still tips your head forward a bit, but makes no contact in the neck area, where the 2021 does make neck contact.

[kishy]

Detroit, Michigan:

[GM_Guy]

How are those high beams working out? Fill up the area as well as the old incandescents? Any patchiness in the light spread?

[kishy]

How are those high beams working out? Fill up the area as well as the old incandescents? Any patchiness in the light spread?

Whoops, kinda left you hanging here.
Those are low/highs which I only use as high beams. They have a very cold colour temperature and a fairly sloppy beam pattern. They throw a decent amount of light and function for what I need them to do, but I wouldn't really recommend them. They're not really any good for throwing light down the road a decent distance.


Minor updates for the wagon:
I've recently been shuffling cars in the driveway, which has involved running and idling the wagon a bit. It seems to be leaking "something" in substantial quantity from the front of the engine, offset to the passenger side. Either going to be a big oil leak from valve cover gasket, oil pan, or timing cover, or a coolant leak from that troublesome bolt hole for the water pump/timing cover. I have no idea at the moment what fluid is leaking, just that there's a puddle which formed since it was ran up to temp and cooled off again.

I've found myself feeling like I buy a lot of junkyard parts and never get around to installing them (and, well, this seems to be true). As a result, tonight, I installed kinda-sorta-more-correctly-coloured rear speaker grilles which I harvested from a Bronco II on a recent junkyard trip. Good news is the Bronco II (pre-facelift) uses the same rear speaker size including the grilles/covers. Bad news is the blue seems to not be the same, but this doesn't really matter in my case, as the plastics in my car are so sun-roasted that they look more like chalky grey than blue.







This car still has tremendous water entry into the passenger side floor area, on top of the carpet, and I'm really not sure what the source is. Probably some foam seal related to the HVAC system passing through the firewall, but wow, it gets wet. When warm weather comes I need to strip the interior.

[DerekTheGreat]

Eee, stock Ford speakers.. I know a guy who hoards JBL drivers, should you want to upgrade.

[friskyfrankie]

Guess you'll run a coolant pressure test to determine if it is coolant or not. That should help narrow it down for you. As for the speakers, yeah I would do upgrades since you already have the grills out. Crutchfield (who is normally not cheap) has a pretty good selection and they include accessories so you don't need to buy them separately (like the conversion connector for the OEM speakers - saves cutting and splicing connectors on). Something to think about....

[hot__box]

As for the speakers, yeah I would do upgrades since you already have the grills out. Crutchfield (who is normally not cheap) has a pretty good selection and they include accessories so you don't need to buy them separately (like the conversion connector for the OEM speakers - saves cutting and splicing connectors on).

X2. Do you ears a favor and upgrade those bad boys. Crutchfield isn’t cheap by a long shot, but they usually include free accessories to make the job easier, and free shipping that’s relatively fast. They also have a lot of helpful resources available.

In the last 5 years or so I’ve bought all my head units door/deck speakers from them. Subwoofers I usually buy locally but that’s just me.

[DerekTheGreat]

I was talking about the factory Ford-JBL deals. They plug & play and sound damn good, especially if you snag 'em for junkyard prices. You'd have to spend over $200 on a pair to get anything else which even competes, least to my ears. In the Town Car, I went from premium to Ford-JBL and noticed a huge difference, all over the spectrum. Then I "upgraded" to JBL Power Series. Those were pretty spendy, and I didn't notice much of an improvement except for the top end. Before that I've tried nearly everything just short of that overpriced & overrated Focal shit. My ears were happy with upper teir Boston Acoustics or Infinity Kappa's. Pioneer stuff with their basalt cones weren't bad either.
..JBL was bad ass all they way up until the late 90's.

[kishy]

Do JBL speakers even exist in the wagon rear size? It isn't the same as a sedan. Of course, plenty of room to make alterations, so maybe a non-issue.

I will eventually need to move on from factory-correct radios, but aftermarket ones are just so frustrating to look at and use, and the newer OEM radios that are worth considering for the most part don't mount the same way, and I'm not a fan of the plastic mounting adapters/"installation kits". Factory JBL setup is probably something I should try sometime. If I like how it sounds, retrofit a 3.5mm input and roll with that.

As for the leak, it is coolant, since it evaporated. Accordingly, I think I'm being bitten by when I remarked some time ago that I had forgotten to put any sealant on the one stud/bolt that goes into the water jacket. Car's outside and it's cold and intermittently wet, so I'm not touching it any time soon.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, they're 5"x7" or so, right? I believe I have at least one pair snagged from a later Continental.

If you use a later "Preamp" style Premium or better head unit, I think you can modify it's CD intended input to be your 3.5mm aux input. Another cool thing about those is that they allow you to use an aftermarket amp, should you choose to. I drive my Lincoln so irregularly that I pretty much forget how to operate it's aftermarket stereo each time I drive it. It's tempting me to throw the factory deck back in it as a result.

I heard that.

[kishy]

I'd guesstimate them at 5x7, sure, probably.

I find the "wall of buttons" radios that you see in 90s upper trim Fords (not sure the Panthers ever got that specific one) to be pretty aesthetically neutral...would be an option I'd go for. The mounting would still require the plastic trash but if the radio was substantially better, maybe not an issue.

[TecNickal]

I put 89 Town Car JBL speakers I found at a full service yard, in my 89 Colony Park. The quality of the sound is incredible. Very happy with the upgrade. The rear speakers from a JBL Town Car are a bit too deep to fit back there, so I used some Alpine Town Car speakers from a 2003.

[DerekTheGreat]

A family friend designed the look of those "wall of buttons" radios.

Not sure if those have the preamp bit going on about them though.

Nick, how do the Alpines sound compared to the JBL's?

[gadget73]

Depends on the radio but some of them do use the same preamp out connector that the earlier JBL units require. I ran one in the Mark VII for a while until I got the proper flappy paddle radio for it. Most are green light though, so mind that if mismatched dash lighting bothers you.