kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

Its also there to keep the dowel pin in the cam. Later cars have an L shaped thing in there for that purpose, but possibly it didn't exist in '85.

Good point. I had kind of assumed the dowel was driven in, interference/press fit, but I've not tried to pull it out and I suppose maybe it's just chilling in there waiting to pop out one day.

Well, weren't the Canadian cars non CFI? So could it be possible they set the engines up for carb or CFI?

Kishy, was that a nylon gear?

As best I can gather, yeah, no CFI in Canada in Ford or Mercury. Verdict seems to be out on Lincoln. Mine was sold new in Canada and has it.

But, if you were getting a carb, you would have the timing cover that has the hole cut out for the fuel pump. It isn't a block-off plate, the timing cover is actually cast differently with or without it, even though the 'boss' is still there for it. So the question would be at what stage in engine assembly does the timing cover go on relative to the timing components, relative to knowing what type of engine management will be used.

If it was a nylon-toothed gear, the nylon is entirely gone. I dropped it and it rolled away under the car so I forgot to look at it more closely. I think it's a replacement gear.

[DerekTheGreat]

Make sense a high and mighty Wixom built Lincoln ought to have CFI.. I really wish these things got some variant of the truck 302 or 351 and not the LoPo.

Oh, I didn't know that about the timing cover. That is a good question.

LoL I hate it when that happens. I can't open the youtube video up at work, how much slack was on the chain you replaced? Is there a noticeable difference between it and the new one?

[kishy]

Make sense a high and mighty Wixom built Lincoln ought to have CFI.. I really wish these things got some variant of the truck 302 or 351 and not the LoPo.

Oh, I didn't know that about the timing cover. That is a good question.

LoL I hate it when that happens. I can't open the youtube video up at work, how much slack was on the chain you replaced? Is there a noticeable difference between it and the new one?

I'm guesstimating it was enough to be good for a 10-20 degree difference in cam timing lol. Pretty significant.

[DerekTheGreat]

Ooo yeah, she was due. Wow.

[gadget73]

i imagine that much slack would have had it running funny from unstable timing too.

but yeah, the dowel isn't a press fit, its more of a snug fit. It will come right out if you grab it with pliers and pull. The cam in my car has the original pin from my old Exploder cam.

[kishy]

Lincoln's original timing set with nylon-toothed cam gear:



Take-off from the wagon:



So it's definitely a replacement, and this one never had nylon teeth. This points me towards thinking the car does have 145k miles rather than 45k miles. Believe it or not, the latter was completely believable to me up until the axle shaft wear and this finding. The car shows evidence of living a very hard life but it does not show evidence of high mileage, other than the axle shaft and the timing set.

As for the question of how it compared to the new set, the video shows the slop (excessive), and the new set was so tight it was hard to get the cam gear on because the crank gear needs to be slid along at exactly the same rate to keep the chain the right length.

Who wants to place bets on if it still has overdrive? TV rod was improperly connected, but not in a really awful way, but that still suggests it came detached in order to prompt the halfass fix. I've never seen the car driven nor driven it myself outside of my driveway above first gear or reverse.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

On TV rod cars, do they fall to low pressure like the TV cable cars do when disconnected?

[kishy]

On TV rod cars, do they fall to low pressure like the TV cable cars do when disconnected?

Good question. There is a fair bit of (mis?)information suggesting that it goes to full pressure when the linkage disconnects. When the linkage is disconnected, spring tension at the transmission end pushes the rod forward past the zero throttle position. The rod does not move to the full throttle position, it moves to its minimum value.

I have not verified with a gauge what happens when the rod goes there, but logically speaking, it is probably zero TV, not full TV.

The only way it could go full TV is if the internal valving just by chance allows pressure to go full at the zero travel position of the linkage.

Let's put it this way...if I accelerate in the Lincoln, and then coast downhill with the throttle totally closed, the trans will still upshift in response to low throttle/high driveshaft speed. If it were going to high TV at fully closed, it would downshift to 1 every time I let off the pedal.

[DerekTheGreat]

Really cool pic of the cam gears. I've never seen a nylon one but you can definitely tell your Lincoln's old gear was indeed nylon. And we can see that your wagon had a replacement chain. But weren't some '85's equipped with regular cam gears? I thought I heard '85 was that strange year where you might end with such things like that and a roller motor or at least one provisioned for the roller stuff.

I feel these things fail similar to how an SEFI does, only it's probably less common if the thing was adjusted right from the factory. When the grommet fails on a TV shaft car, there is just slop between the linkage and the shaft, so you're at least looking at lower TV pressure than there should be. When I got my '85 it was that way, I put a new grommet on and adjusted the trans correctly. When I first got it, it would slip on acceleration when cold but never had any issues going into OD. I found my car in a junkyard last year, no apparent damage so I'm guessing the trans died on it.

I would change the filter and fluid and then run it through the gears on jackstands before putting it on the road if it was my car.

[sly]

From what I remember about posts here and there for CFI cars, TV rod transmission up to like 84 I think fail to high pressure. After that it changed to failure of destruction.

[kishy]

Really cool pic of the cam gears. I've never seen a nylon one but you can definitely tell your Lincoln's old gear was indeed nylon. And we can see that your wagon had a replacement chain. But weren't some '85's equipped with regular cam gears? I thought I heard '85 was that strange year where you might end with such things like that and a roller motor or at least one provisioned for the roller stuff.

I feel these things fail similar to how an SEFI does, only it's probably less common if the thing was adjusted right from the factory. When the grommet fails on a TV shaft car, there is just slop between the linkage and the shaft, so you're at least looking at lower TV pressure than there should be. When I got my '85 it was that way, I put a new grommet on and adjusted the trans correctly. When I first got it, it would slip on acceleration when cold but never had any issues going into OD. I found my car in a junkyard last year, no apparent damage so I'm guessing the trans died on it.

I would change the filter and fluid and then run it through the gears on jackstands before putting it on the road if it was my car.

My understanding is that the nylon cam teeth (just the teeth, the gear overall is metal) continued quite a bit later. My buddy's 87 had the nylon stuff.

My 84 has proven very picky about TV. There is an exact dividing line between slippage and teeth-removing jarring gear engagement. I toe that line with how it's set. I suspect the trans is sad, tired and worn and that's where the slipping at more normal TV levels comes from. Or so I think.

From what I remember about posts here and there for CFI cars, TV rod transmission up to like 84 I think fail to high pressure. After that it changed to failure of destruction.

My 83 behaves the same as my 84, and both of them mechanically operate the same as the 85. 83 is factory carb and it uses the same TV linkage as CFI. The only difference that could exist is internal to the trans, and that I of course can't speak to.

If there is not a "full TV pressure" position in the valving just below the zero TV value, then the only way it makes sense is for the TV rod to fall off in such a way that it pushes the TV lever all the way down. The TV lever on the trans is spring loaded to come back up when it gets pushed.

I really want to not totally discard the effort someone may have gone to in proving that, but I have not seen it to be true, and my vehicles are prime examples of it not behaving that way.

---

Today, decided to remove more things. A cast iron water pump is on the way. With the issues I had getting the Lincoln to seal up using an aluminum pump on the "HD" timing cover, I will not make that same mistake here.

Throttle body off. I need to replace the idle speed pull-off diaphragm, which I have more of, so that's good.
Distributor off. Didn't put up a fight, thanks to me previously re-stabbing it to fix the totally inverted plug wiring order it had when I got it.
EGR off. Very plugged up with carbon. Valve tests OK and will be used. Valve had been hooked to incorrect vacuum line, which went directly to a vacuum source, which explains why it got capped off.
Coolant fitting where the ECT goes was rusted through. I think I've got a spare. ECT disintegrated when I looked at it.
Broke an intake manifold bolt, the one at the front by number 5. Same one that broke on the Lincoln. Coolant with insufficient corrosion protection eats them up.
Intake off. Gasket condition verifies I was right to pull it to re-gasket it.

Green growth is still present and active. It isn't coolant, it's definitely alive. I vacuumed some of it up and now more of it is back. Cool in a weird way.













And that's how it sits currently; timing cover and intake off, with stuff covering all of the openings. Hoping the mysterious day of Americans setting off annoying noise and light makers won't interrupt my FedEx shipment because I'd love to put the timing cover on this weekend, and that requires having a water pump on-hand.

[gadget73]

I think the full pressure thing depends on how it falls off. If it comes off at idle, it will be at no pressure. If it falls off and gets pushed back with throttle, its possible to stay there since the rod can drop down and get stuck.

Either way you really don't want the thing disconnected from the throttle linkage, its just not going to work correctly.

[sly]

I think the full pressure thing depends on how it falls off. If it comes off at idle, it will be at no pressure. If it falls off and gets pushed back with throttle, its possible to stay there since the rod can drop down and get stuck.

Either way you really don't want the thing disconnected from the throttle linkage, its just not going to work correctly.

Pretty much this. It either grenades or won't shift out of first.

[VicCrownVic]

Those holes that the front two lower intake bolt/studs bolt into are through holes. I broke one of them on one engine and both on another engine. Found some really clean ones at the JY (from non through holes) and put some high-temp antiseize on them. I wasn't terribly worried about how the antiseize would affect torque reading, and no issues to report a year later.

[87gtVIC]

enough head was sticking up to use that ez out grabber contraption thing? Any heat persuasion before that?