kishy's 1984 Town Car

[TecNickal]

I have the AC on from March through most of October here lol

Nice work fixing the clutch/coil/pulley. My 90 was purchased with a smoked clutch. New clutch/coil/pulley and proper spacing - air was ice cold!! But r134a. Oh well.

The condenser in the 88
And up cars works well for r134a and r12

[DerekTheGreat]

That mini hacksaw really comes in handy. Would have saved that random guy's hand a few years ago.
Heck I even have some sawzall blades riding arou... oh, wait, those weren't in the car I had that weekend. I must have said that at least half a dozen times.

Oh yeah, how could I forget about that dude? He was all "Oh you guys don't have ____? It's ok, I got a razor blade, I'm jus gon- OH man, that's deep. If I had insurance I'd get stitches..."

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Admittedly R134a works reasonably well in these cars, however I understand the issue of dealing with the R12 and finding someone to evacuate it. I know there's a few people down here that would likely do it so they could use it in other projects.

The '87 is converted and the A/C stays cold. The only downside is idling in stopped traffic does it go from cold to cool, but that's just because air isn't steadily moving over the condenser. Once you're moving, it works great. I'm still considering an electric fan addon similar to how the '95-'97 cars are done. The electric fan come on when the A/C is switched on to aid in low speed A/C efficiency.

[kishy]

I have no hangups with 134A converting it, on the basis of 134A itself or its performance.

I do however think that converting a working R12 car is somewhat of a 'baby out with the bathwater' choice, but it has pros and cons. One of the pros being that it's simple to find a shop to work on it.

I had a whole thread getting into these details lol, not necessarily meaning to rehash them too much. Presumably if I walked into an old school shop with an old school tech, there might be someone locally who will do what I want (evacuate the R12 and put it back after). But anyone particularly careful with compliance and all that goes into their licensing requirements will shy away from it.

[gadget73]

Just get a can of R12 and top it up yourself if nobody will evac and recharge with R12. The only thing that may not work is the charge hose, but it really depends if you can use a 134a can tap or not. The older R12 fittings have a different hose thread. I do not know if the top of the can is different and in need of a different can tap.

and thats the same failure mode as the Conti's original compressor clutch, but mine failed way more worse and destroyed the compressor in the process. To be fair, evidence after removal makes me think the compressor was basically toast internally anyhow, so no great loss. I suspect its oil getting on the rubber and breaking it down. Could be AC oil, could just be engine bay oil and fuel fumes.

[kishy]

Junkyard speakers have finally completed a long-needed repair. Dash speakers are in, hooked up, and not crackling, as are the door speakers. Levels are perfect from all speakers and it sounds as it should.

[gadget73]

dash speakers live a rough life. Paper + UV just doesnt work after a few decades.

[kishy]

Damn it.

Apparently the dash speakers are the ones that pick up and output ignition noise. I wasn't hearing it because I didn't have dash speakers.

Whine changes in response to engine RPM and does not happen with engine off.

[jaywish]

iirc I put caps on the line from the door speakers to the dash speakers inside the doors. I think it helped with the sound by filtering out the low frequencies. Might help with whine also.

[DerekTheGreat]

Ahh, that's what those do. I've noticed all dash speakers I've come across have those, I always thought they were just to filter out low frequencies to keep the speakers from committing suicide from dat bass.

[kishy]

Yeah, these dash speakers have the caps on them. Maybe there's more to it though.

It occurred to me that I had eliminated a noise capacitor from the voltage regulator when I did the 3G swap. I'll see if I can find it and add it back into the mix.

And Derek, if you want to un-gift the JBL door speakers that's quite alright. The weird stuff that was happening with the levels for those speakers is beyond my ability and willingness to troubleshoot lol.

[DerekTheGreat]

Probably because those are higher ohm ratings than what was there?

I'll take them back though, I do like to hoard them. Nothing urgent though.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Are you getting noise on FM and AM? I’ve swapped all my speakers at this point and get no noise on FM, but AM stations you can get engine noise at slow speed. I think my noise is ignition related though based on how it whines. I’m not too worried about that, though, as the only AM station worth anything is only available at night when the stations can up their broadcast power.

[kishy]

Are you getting noise on FM and AM? I’ve swapped all my speakers at this point and get no noise on FM, but AM stations you can get engine noise at slow speed. I think my noise is ignition related though based on how it whines. I’m not too worried about that, though, as the only AM station worth anything is only available at night when the stations can up their broadcast power.

AM was noisy back with the car totally unmodified...still 1G and all that. FM seemed OK, but it's hard to be sure as it's been a while.

Now, FM is noisy, of my presets it's worst on 104.3. Haven't tried AM since hooking the speakers up.

All speakers in use are factory Ford stuff, none of the Pioneers got installed. So any noise-reduction components (caps, etc) on the speakers are present.

[kishy]

Went to start the car this morning, single click of death. Hooked booster to it, started no problem. This crap never happens when I have time to troubleshoot (like break out the multimeter), only ever when I'm in a time crunch.

Suspecting battery weakened by an intermittent parasitic draw (have seen the same with two prior batteries in this car, now spanned across three alternators), or bad starter. It's PMGR swapped, so it's much less likely to be relay buddy on the fender. Main battery + and - are new, main body ground to engine is old but intact.

I'll load test it later and see how it looks. I expect that my commute is not long enough to artificially prop up the battery charge from what it was this morning, to make the load test look 100% acceptable.