kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

The driver one is acting up now.

Yup.

I have now exhausted my supply of working junkyard motors. Will need to attempt refurbishment on the bits and pieces that remain, and when I've got access to Detroit again, stock up on some working ones.







Attended a "Cars 'n Coffee" this morning, a friend grabbed these while I was flying the drone getting some aerial shots of the overall area.

[kishy]

Got some more LED bulbs from China via AliExpress:
-several of the switchbacks I used for the reverse light/brake combos, for future projects or replacement needs (RE: I had tested several comparable products and found only these exact ones behaved as I desired for that project)
-ten white 194
-two red 194
-four white 1156, specifically looked for ones with many emitters facing many directions

I put the red 194s in the rear side markers on the wagon. Compared to the incandescent 194s, they fill the lens similarly (mild hotspot but not a big deal), and are rich red instead of sort of faded red as I had before. I'm pleased with them.

The white 194s are a little cold (colour temp) for my liking. I was hoping they would be less intense than the Philips ones I used for the license plate, but they are equally as intense, and colder, so I kept the Philips in there. I also painted the inside of the trim piece that goes over the license plate lights because they were glowing through it.

Two of the 1156s went in as cornering lamps, and wow, they work nicely. I intend to remove the housings and make them work even better in the future, but they're quite good as it is now. Note they illuminate the whole underneath of the front of the car, due to the reflecting coating just being completely gone inside them.









I did also recently have a headlight burn out - the passenger side, which was a mismatched Sylvania Xtravision that I had pulled off the 84 Lincoln's original header panel, to replace the one that was full of water. I replaced both of the lows with a pair of new Wagners I've had since perhaps 2013. I don't find their beam pattern or light output particularly great, but at least both have the same colour temperature now. This car does have relays for the lights.

[87gtVIC]

Note they illuminate the whole underneath of the front of the car, due to the reflecting coating just being completely gone inside them.

You aint kidding. Looks good too.

[Tiggie]

Ditch lights for the win.

[kishy]

Oil loss has reached and maybe exceeded adding 2 litres per change interval, and the persistent smell of oil burning off the surface of a cylinder head and exhaust manifold has steadily worsened. I finally decided it was time to ditch the previously replaced rubber (non-metal-core) gaskets and put on some PermaDryPlus good ones. Odometer showing 86,050km.



The bolts, as expected, were not even hand-tight. The problem I run into with cork+rubber, and fully rubber (but not metal framed) valve cover gaskets is it's impossible to torque the bolts enough to get them to stay in. The gasket always squishes out, deforms, tears or otherwise becomes useless. PermaDryPlus gaskets are easily the best choice for this application because you can crank the bolts down to a proper torque. Knock on vinyl sticker wood, the others haven't leaked yet.









Not the cleanest inside but not really a big deal.

[kishy]

The other day, I used the wagon to pull the Ranger Trailer full of yard waste for disposal. People go nuts over this thing and some people go super nuts over seeing this combo hooked together. It's fun.

[mitymerc]

People really notice the wagons!

[sly]

Why I loved pulling my F150 trailer with the 88 MGM I had. Turned lots of heads. Pulling said trailer with the 03 Expedition doesn't turn nearly as many heads.

[gadget73]

What you need is a hulk wagon to turn into a trailer specifically to tow with this car.

[87gtVIC]

It is a good looking period correct combo!

[kishy]

Have been noticing a metallic knock sound from the front end, seems to be passenger side, during the first application of the brakes after a direction change (R/D, D/R). It isn't consistent but those are the terms of when it will happen if it's going to.

Pulled the wheels off, pried at things. Ball joints are good, tie rod ends are good. Sway bar link is maybe not tight enough on the passenger side but it doesn't really match up with the conditions that cause the noise. Left it alone as the threads are filthy and a prime candidate to wreck the threads if I try to just power the nut on more.

Caliper brackets (95-97 stuff) are firmly mounted. Caliper slides work correctly and have no play. The pads rattle in the calipers when the calipers are not tightly pressed against them, nothing new there.

I did notice the pads seem to be wearing very slightly unevenly, like they have a "leading edge" and "trailing edge" (e.g. the friction material is becoming wedge-shaped), which I'd have thought not really to be a thing here, but the wear says they do.

It might just be a metallic slapping sound related to applying the brakes, and having the pads bind up in their cavities. They fit loosely in the caliper brackets and move a fair bit. Couldn't identify the concern for sure, but it doesn't seem to be anything that's going to cause me to lose brakes, steering or roadworthiness, so...guess I have to leave it until it worsens and can be identified.

The muffler has been in a sorry state for a while, and I cut it off today. Car got quieter. Same as what happened to the Lincoln. Full exhaust replacement is coming for this one, no timeline yet, but it's necessary.

Passenger side vent window knob (truck-style, not the spinny-knob style) has been slowly working its way off and I couldn't figure out how it goes together or comes apart. Turns out you knock out the roll pin, knob comes off, and then there's a threaded assembly inside you can just spin off or tighten back on. Some sort of gasket/washer/spacer has disintegrated and disappeared on this side, I made another out of gasket material, snugged it back up, and put the knob back on. No more rain entry around the vent window knob (it was substantial) or whistling from it. I'll have to remember the trick for removing the knob when it's time for tint. This car will be getting tint as well.

Driver power window is acting up, apparently the motor I used has bad spots also. Broke down and bought 4 new motors from RockAuto. Past experience has made me partial to ACI motors; for a Ford or Mercury box they are part numbers 83394 and 83395 (you'll find em sporadically for the boxes, some year/make combos don't turn them up). They're true to the original design of the motors and seem to make decent torque. They also make a Lincoln-front-specific variants as those mount differently.

Found I'm just about due for an oil change based on conventional oil, but I used synthetic this time around, and I also have replaced probably about half of the oil due to leaks (since resolved) during this change interval, so I'm going to run out the rest of the season on this oil and change it at the start of next. I'm probably flipping over to the Ranger in the coming week, but the Ranger has a broken passenger side mirror I'm trying to resolve before doing that, and oddly I can't seem to get the hood to latch either.

The in-rad trans cooler O-ring replacement looks to have failed, there is fluid loss from one of the fittings. It's possible the O-ring became damaged during install but it's also possible I needed to use thicker O-rings, I was not particularly thrilled about how well they filled the gap in those fittings when I did that job.

[gadget73]

if you can get the X profile quad seal O rings, that may be a better option. More seal surface. They work a treat on air suspension stuff.

[kishy]

I recently acquired, on a junkyard trip not-yet-mentioned in the junkyarding thread (but will be added in a day or so), the taller version of the head restraints which you find on select late 80s boxes. In this case, they came from an 88 or 89 Town Car limo, short enough on options to have cloth seats.

I did consider taking the entire seats, but I'm not really all that fond of the base model Lincoln cloth seats, so I settled for just the head restraints.

I disassembled them and ran the covers through the laundry in hot water and they came out pretty decent (in great shape to begin with). The blue is not exactly correct, but is reasonably close enough that I put those head restraints in the wagon.





Had a heck of a time getting the passenger side one to fit properly, I'm now realizing I put the cover on backwards. Oops. Will correct that another day.

[gadget73]

The early 80s head rests are entirely pointless. Maybe for a very short person with a head shaped like one of the Coneheads it would work but by the time you actually touch the thing you're looking at the roof. All 3 of mine have them. At one point the Mark VIIs had the larger ones, but switched back in the name of improved rear visibility.

[87gtVIC]

I like the disassembled picture. Cool seeing what under there. I like those headrests a lot over the factory ones.