kishy's 1984 Town Car

[gadget73]

so long as the washer overlaps the dowel its not going to come out completely, and so long as the cam bolt is tight I doubt the cam gear will move relative to the cam enough to wallow anything out and cause issues.

the dowel isn't a press fit though, so it can possibly move, but in reality I expect its pinched in there pretty tight by the driving force on the cam so its not like its just hanging out waiting to fall out of position.

[kishy]

Sigh...

My friend who works for the scrap yard (the one who towed the 83 Town Car, the same who sold me the 86 Grand Marquis, the same who tried to coordinate to buy the blue 84 Vic unsuccessfully) notified me about this really nice '88 Town Car that got probably totaled recently. He actually stumbled upon it right after it happened and sent me a photo of it still at the crash scene. It's really clean aside from the crash damage and has a black interior (!!!). He, being connected as he is, has been following along with it to find out the fate of the car. It would make an excellent derby car and many of its parts can live on in my car(s).



The story is: it's an old guy, he's the original owner, and he adores the car more than anything in the world. He's fighting tooth and nail to have it not be totaled and get it repaired. As I ran into with mine, it is very hard to get these cars fixed now...the body parts just aren't inventoried anywhere anymore and that, moreso than any other factor, makes body shops seem to lean more towards saying it isn't repairable. And I can't really disagree with the reasoning. Us enthusiasts know all the hookups for this stuff, but the auto repair industry doesn't cater to these vehicles (consider that nobody makes our floor pans, for example).

Anyway, I've had some questions asked on my behalf and basically it sounds like the guy isn't going to sell the car. Obviously he eventually will if he can't get it fixed, but there is no interest in doing so, so it'll be a while. But he is very interested in acquiring another 80s Town Car.

Haven't gotten anywhere in these discussions yet but we might come to some sort of resolution where he buys mine. Mine needs a lot of love and is very imperfect, I'm basically going to describe it as a total shitbox to him. Fact is though, I don't need the car, it's redundant against my others (the wagon is the ideal vacation car now). Nobody else will likely ever want it. We'll see what happens. I think I will get more than enough money for the car. I just think it's really important to be up front about the problems it has and also encourage him to do a powertrain swap (maybe frame swap if his is straight in the back). A lot of tough calls here. My car needs a lot of money put into it to be as nice as his was/still is.

[87gtVIC]

That is SO totaled. Easily will be way over 5k estimate in my eyes and it would never be the same.

Maybe get a pretty penny for your "shitbox" lol if this guy is dead set on a town car.

[gadget73]

yeah thats pretty bad. Everything is in theory fixable, but realistically it would probably be cheaper to replace than repair.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yep, that's destroyed. See if he wants my Town Car.. Otherwise, I'd be interested in JBL goodies, the radio, center caps and some misc outside trim & the front turnsignal lenses as well as the instrument cluster...

[kishy]

Well, continuing with the "re-awakenings"...

This car has been parked for a while. I'm not exactly sure what the timeline was, but probably, I parked it before the winter going into 2020. Winter 2020 was spent driving the work vehicle and the Ranger. Coming out of winter, I believe that's when the wagon went up to bat, so yeah. Lincoln's been parked for 2 years and a bit.

With the recent bylaw officer situation as mentioned in my 91GM thread, I had to bring the stickers up to date on 3 vehicles, and the Lincoln was one of them. Since it currently has active insurance and good stickers, I decided to quickly go through it to vet roadworthiness, then put some mileage on it.

My concerns requiring attention were:

1. Fluids.
Oil level checked out fine, and oil change interval is still at a reasonable mileage, but I'll likely change it soon anyway. Trans fluid level checks out perfectly. Coolant was a bit low, but I have long suspected this one has a very minor heater core leak and I do believe it loses some somewhere around the timing cover...but they all do that.



2. The battery.
The battery was allowed to fully discharge, and sat in that state for many months. The car would start with a boost, and run off the 3G alternator, but even if allowed to run for an hour the battery would be too dead to even ding the door chime. I have over the last couple weeks had the battery charging out of the vehicle including a bunch of hours on a manual charger at 40A (battery was only accepting about 10 at peak), and it finally came back to life enough to crank over an engine. It passes a load test for a battery with significantly less CCA, so it's pooched, but usable.

3. The front end.
When I parked the car, I had recognized a "ticking" or "clicking" sound from the driver front wheel area, associated with speed. I had believed this may have been a failed wheel bearing or some interesting failure of a brake pad. I did not do anything to identify the cause until today. The cause turned out to be one of the screws which is part of the wire wheel centre caps bouncing around loosely inside the cap. Easy fix, epoxied the screws back in, noise silenced.



I did also grease all greasable items, as well as verified the amount of friction material on the brake pads.

4. Passenger front power window inoperative.
I was working on the assumption that the motor had given up (suspected full of rust due to water ingress into door, or failed magnet adhesive), but after opening the door I found the window worked fine from the passenger switch. The problem was actually just the driver door switch, and after rapidly and abusively working the switch back and forth, it came back to life. Easy fix, even if likely not permanent.

5. The TV rod sticks, and will not return to idle/low TV.
I tried soaking it with PB Blaster, I tried soaking it with another penetrating oil, no dice. Still sticks anywhere in its travel and won't come back to idle. This of course has the effect of preventing trans upshift and creating a weird sensation of no engine braking when you coast in gear. Really odd.
I then tried soaking it in brake cleaner, and it seems like this, combined with heat soak from the engine having been running, is what finally did it. It is now smooth in its travel and returns from any position back to idle.

6. The gummy steering wheel.
This car develops the gross sticky steering wheel problem, seemingly from the plastic wheel breaking down. I've found isopropyl alcohol on a microfiber towel takes it off and brings it back to feeling like just smooth plastic again, but the result doesn't last. I cleaned up the wheel so tonight would be less intolerable with it.

7. Tires.
One specific tire loses air, probably due to a poor seal on the bead. Added air to all including the spare. While fussing with the spare, I noticed that the trunklid rust has advanced quite a bit, and there's about to be a large hole, but in an area that I can get away with it for a while longer yet. I have been, and continue to be on the hunt for a decent trunklid for this car.




I then used this car to take my mom out for dinner, after which I installed a new kitchen faucet for her, then drove around aimlessly burning fuel. I like this car. I like all my cars.

[friskyfrankie]

Appreciate you reliving these older cars and giving us such detailed info on it. Most folks would have trashed it many moons ago but it is folks like you that keep the hobby alive. I would spray some contact cleaner on the bad window switches and just work them in both directions. Like many things on your car, simply using it will work a lot of kinks out of it! POR15 has some good products for your trunk lid but it may be too far gone. Would be nice if you could find one both in good shape and the same color. All the other stuff is easily fixable. Any big rust elsewhere?

[kishy]

Appreciate you reliving these older cars and giving us such detailed info on it. Most folks would have trashed it many moons ago but it is folks like you that keep the hobby alive. I would spray some contact cleaner on the bad window switches and just work them in both directions. Like many things on your car, simply using it will work a lot of kinks out of it! POR15 has some good products for your trunk lid but it may be too far gone. Would be nice if you could find one both in good shape and the same color. All the other stuff is easily fixable. Any big rust elsewhere?

As a more recent member to the forum, I don't expect you've read back on the fairly extensive history on this car, so a quick recap:

-Bought in 2016 for $650 for the specific intent to be a winter beater, but I ended up liking it too much and took it off winter duty pretty quickly.
-Had catastrophically rusted bottoms of both rear quarter panels, which have been patched in functional but hideous ways.
-Has body concerns that didn't really bug me given it was meant to be sacrificed to the salt, but obviously are now needing to be revisited. e.g. vinyl top is irreparably toast; water entry in some spots.
-Had what I affectionately refer to as a "nose job" done following a collision; insurance paid most of the way towards swapping on a Mark VI header panel. The poor paint match on the front panels comes from this.

As far as other existing active rust, there actually isn't much. A previous owner had this car coated with one of the thick slimey undercoating products at some point and it has done a decent job keeping the underside fairly rust-free. Common body areas of concern like the wheel arches are pretty OK as well. There is bad news forming underneath the vinyl top, with visible rust at the bottom edge on one side. The trunklid is toast; it has decent size rust patches on the exterior top surface and I knew the bottom lip area was eventually going to fall apart, but I didn't realize how high up it extended. Paint match is a hopeless goal for any panels aft of the A-pillars, because this is a really sun-baked car and the paint is way too far gone. But yes, I have previously seen good junkyard trunk lids and I am sure I'll eventually see another, so I'll be getting one eventually.

---

Today, I visited Detroit to try to tackle a few goals, and the day went as follows:

Friends A and B travelled across the border at the same time, but in a separate vehicle, so we could be somewhat independent and then reconnect later. They went to attend to their COVID test requirements while I went directly to friend C's house. Friend C invited me for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant in SW Detroit (this might be one of those "if you know, you know" things), and off we went. The intended place had a wait, so we tried a randomly-selected nearby option, Taqueria El Nacimiento, and it turned out to be really excellent.

Moving on, friend C delivered me back to my car at his house, and I went to join friends A and B at Micro Center. While on the way there, I got to witness my very first "authentic Detroit hit-and-run": guy lazily operating a Saturn Aura with pre-existing damage driving ahead of me in the same direction on 8 Mile Rd ran a red light, hitting the rear quarter of a newer pickup that was crossing on its green light. The Aura never even came to a complete stop, just kept right on going. It sort of looked like the truck may have done the same; I didn't see where they stopped if they did. I just continued to Micro Center at this point - I had been too far back for my dash cam footage to be of any value.

After buying some things, we were running pretty close to closing for Harbor Freight and decided to skip it. We parted again, this time for them to go to another friend's place and then later head on to a late dinner at a restaurant somewhere, while I carried on to Advance Auto Parts to pick up some Bleche-Wite (whitewall cleaner).

The store at which I had placed an online order was closed when I arrived, despite it being 40 minutes to closing time. The hours posted in the window on the permanent sign still showed they should be open, but someone wrote on a piece of paper reducing the hours. I then drove to another nearby location which is scheduled to be open even later, and ran into the same problem. I understand there have been staffing challenges but this is really not acceptable for a location of a major national chain which posts its hours online...especially a chain that encourages the use of online shopping for in-store pickup.

So anyway, sitting in front of Advance, I Googled places that carry Bleche-Wite, and I found Dollar General does. I am fairly sure this must not have always been the case, otherwise I wouldn't be so happy to pay $6-7 a bottle, but regardless, I drove to the nearest one and found sure enough, they have it, regular price $3.60, on sale/clearance at $1.80 (!!!). I bought all 4 bottles they had in stock and will cancel my order with Advance tomorrow when I can hopefully get someone on the phone about it.

With my Bleche-Wite in hand, I then drove to my preferred local self-serve carwash in Eastpointe and washed the car, including a good solid scrub of the whitewalls using a tire brush and the Bleche-Wite. As I had hoped, the tires came back to a pretty decent brightness, not bad considering I'm coming up on 10 years with these tires. The rest of the car washing went OK, some areas need re-washing, but it was very dirty and had sat dirty for a long time, so that's how it goes sometimes.









I went looking for some photo op spots for the car, did find a couple, results below.





I then reconnected with friends A & B and went to a donut shop in Hamtramck to get some donuts to take home. This mission was a success.

Wow, that got kind of wordy. Whoops.

[DerekTheGreat]

I like all of my cars too. When I don't drive them for awhile, I talk of selling them. Then I drive them to document what they need. During said drive, I forget about selling them as I enjoy driving them too much. Drove the Town Car two days back to back this weekend. I'm sure if it could be happy, it was.

[friskyfrankie]

Thanks, Kishy, for the backstory/history and updates. Doesn't look too bad for a beater!

[gadget73]

Was that purposely written to give me flashbacks of math class word problems?

[friskyfrankie]

Was that purposely written to give me flashbacks of math class word problems?

Not sure but if Friend A walks North 8 miles and Friend B walks South 5 miles, how many mile does Friend C, coming from the East need to walk to meet both Friend A and B for coffee? I do enjoy his detailed posts!

[DerekTheGreat]

Was that purposely written to give me flashbacks of math class word problems?

LoL. I hated those problems. Didn't help me learn math so much as how to analyze whatever I'm reading. Guess that was the point.

[GM_Guy]

Good write up. How much is it for a car wash 'over there'? $4minum where I go for 5 minutes now.

[kishy]

You thought the above sounded like a math problem, well just wait...

Good write up. How much is it for a car wash 'over there'? $4minum where I go for 5 minutes now.

$0.25 to start (none of this 3-4 dollar minimum garbage), and I'm not quite sure how it works out after that, I think roughly 1:25 per $0.25 for the first quarter and the subsequent ones are worth less, but I haven't worked out how much less.

So doing a fairly thorough job on a fairly large car works out to 6 or 7 bucks US, where a fairly sloppy rush job over here may be $11 Canadian (so I dunno, $8-9 USD) and putting any sort of detail or effort into it runs up more like $15.

I prefer the $0.25-to-start because I can buy a couple minutes, let the timer run out while I do (against the rules) hand washing or detail work like tire cleaning, then start the timer again without using a lot of change to do it.

---

In consideration of the massive quantity of interior light bulbs in this car, I have purchased a bunch of LEDs via AliExpress and will post the results when they arrive. I could swear I've got a second set of the ludicrously bright bulbs I used as cornering lamps on the wagon, so if I find those they'll go in this car too.