kishy's 1984 Town Car

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Wonder what year the running change on the wiper pivot was. Guess I could pop out to the garage and look at mine. I know I've got a fair amount of slop in the wiper motion, and while I don't recall pillar strike, I know it looks very close on high.

Might be worth going the route you took though and just finding a late model cast unit if mine isn't.

[kishy]

Can't win here, I guess.

The howling squeal is returning. It is not as consistent or as awful as it was, but it's definitely coming back in the same circumstances as before.

Also, the "hot brake" smell is definitely happening again (maybe just "still", not "again", hard to be sure). The driver rear wheel gets really hot to the touch, the passenger one gets warm but not crazy hot. Worth noting that the wire spoke wheels do not have any through-hole ventilation at all, so it's not an ideal situation, but the heat is coming from something not working properly and I don't know what that something is. Also, the axle vent is wetting the axle pretty effectively, and I'm not sure exactly how that happens. In order to expand the oil enough to completely fill the tubes and then expand out the vent, the whole axle housing would have to get very, very hot. Like well in excess of 200 degrees, if the oil is even capable of expanding that much. It would be essentially double its original size to do that. Sort of at a loss about it now.

Might just raid a junkyard car to disc swap this and be done with it. I want the 97 rear end in my driveway to go in the wagon, at least I think I do.


Today, I chipped away at a couple items:

Shocks. I have recently remarked that the blue Monroes are doing a whole lot of nothing in the back, and even more recently than that, determined that the fronts also seem to be doing basically nothing. Specifically, the fronts were doing nothing to resist compression, but do resist extending, and the rears are the exact opposite, which means tapping the brakes tips the car forward really aggressively. Despite this, since they do resist movement in the other direction, they don't let the car bounce. Just nosedive.

I bought some NOS Motorcraft shocks on eBay. They arrived yesterday. Both the fronts and rears show evidence of leaking some oil. I'm not thrilled about this, but this is also part of the risk of buying a NOS sealed-box item through a non-retail channel. It's sort of a risk that I feel is inherent with this purchasing channel and is incorporated into the lower purchase price. I decided to put them on the car and see how they do.

Got the old off effortlessly thanks to my liberal use of anti-seize in the past, and my 14mm ratcheting wrench. Even with dual exhaust and the fat rear sway bar, it isn't too bad to snake an arm up with the wrench and get the job done with the rear tires on ramps and suspension sitting at ride height.

Motorcraft shocks are indeed very obviously made by Monroe.















Somehow, the lower shock bolt holes are still good on this one, but I've got U-nuts hanging around for when they decide to rip out.

Test drive shows the car handles a lot better than it did while still being comfortable. I'm sure if the oil leakage does not somehow magically fix itself, this will not last. It does still do the weird sideways axle hop over larger bumps that I can't seem to cure on this one...but I think the Gas-A-Justs cured it on the wagon.


After that, I moved on to the wiper transmission...again. I took out the passenger wiper pivot, found it a little sticky and also plastic, and swapped it for the part harvested off the junkyard 89 Mercury recently. I put new bushings in the relevant pieces, oiled the pivots, greased the bushings and set the wiper arms at the correct low height under the hood. Made sure everything moves nicely, it does. Seems to have breathed new life into that motor, the wipers really move now. Also bonus with the driver wiper pivot replacement, the driver window no longer skips in the middle of its arc of travel leaving a bunch of water there.

I know 84 has plastic and 86 has metal. I don't know off the top of my head what my wagon has, but I think that one slams into the A-pillar also, so I'll bet it's plastic. The metal ones do seem to wear and get messed up in the same way, but it should take longer.



From there, I tried to identify two extremely irritating noises: a loud creaking while opening the driver door, which lubricating the hinge pins has not improved, and also a squeaking sound going over bumps that seems to be related to the driver door.

The creaking turned out to be the little roller wheel things on the lower door hinge. Hit those with penetrating oil to try to wash out any junk trapped in there and also free them up, got them to turn pretty decently and it silenced the creak.

The squeak is more complicated. I think it may be inside the door. Window-related, maybe. More investigation pending.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Regarding the shocks, that's a bit disappointing that Motorcraft replacements might not live up to expectations.

I cannot say I've been pleased with Monroe shocks. I used to sell them when I worked parts. I recall selling a set of those blue ones to a man with a Wrangler. He brought them back within a year, all of them had blown out, however it was a base 4 cylinder SE used for more road travel than off-roading. I think he said he got roughly 12K miles out before they were wasted. Lifetime warranty helped him and he swapped over to a better grade. The blue ones were great as a cheap option to buy and give the appearance of being a shock, while actually not doing shit for nothing.

I do recall selling OESpectrum models, perhaps they were better as I don't recall as many comebacks, but arguably I tended to direct folks towards KYB when available, but I have a standing bias on the -'02 chassis for them being decent. I've stuck them on my '97, '87, and a friend's '99.

I think I've dropped two sets of junk Monroes. My '87 had Gas Magnums on it that didn't look terrible and could pass the bounce test, but once you were on the road, it was a mushy and unpredictable ride. After pulling them, I think two of the shocks would compress and refuse to rebound. We dropped a set black Monroes (or at least a series made by them based on the design of manufacture) from Nick's '89, and likewise, they were junk. I tossed police rate KYBs in mine years back, and he respectively ran Bilsteins. Both were a considerably improvement without being harsh.

Hopefully your replacements hold out for a good moment. No sense in constantly needing to revisit what should be assumed as a robust component for tens of thousands of miles.

[87GrandMarq]

S197 mustangs have a tendency to puke oil out of the axle vent as well. Looking more into that might help narrow down your issue. I never had that issue with my 07 gt so I didn’t look into it really.

Funny you say yours hood sideways over bumps. My old 85 ltd did the same thing. I didn’t own it long enough to really look into it though. Could be something inherent to the panther platform when something specific but common fails. My 87 mgm has too much of a soft ride I haven’t noticed it hop though.

[gadget73]

hm, the Motorcraft ones I have are Made In Japan, reasonably sure they are Tokico or KYB.

How much fluid did you actually put into the diff? The book quantity is actually somewhat less than the "fill till it dribbles out the fill hole" amount. Either way it shouldn't be getting hot, not sure if thats brakes or bearings or what but something is displeased.

[kishy]

No question, KYB makes a good shock. My goals here are to try to get ride quality to OE-correct, however, within the limits of what is possible on replacement rear springs which contain Air Lift helper bags. The helpers are at 0psi but if the spring tries to compress, that obviously changes as they are not open to atmosphere.

I could certainly believe that Motorcraft has used multiple vendors. I found these shocks by looking at RockAuto to identify a currently catalog part number, and then looking on eBay for those numbers for both front and rear. For the front shocks, which were not priced particularly cheaply, the seller did agree to a 50% refund which made me feel a bit better. The rears were already ludicrously cheap and I won't be asking about it. Additionally, the front shocks were open box (box tab included but sent in different packaging) while the rears were sealed original boxes. The seller of the fronts should have recognized the oil leakage as a problem; the seller of the rears may legitimately have not known.

Not sure what's up with this brake business. It is possible there's a proportioning or front brake contribution issue. All plumbing on this one is still as it was when I got it, as well as old calipers, old rotors, just old stuff in general. It stops quite well, but if you told me the fronts aren't doing a whole lot, I'd maybe believe that. I have historically found that stock box brakes do seem to make the drums do a lot of work, so maybe if the fronts aren't biting much I'm doing most of my braking on the rears unless I really get into the pedal.

The hot brake smell is not every time it's driven, just sometimes, which makes it even weirder. Also, the noise is gone again. I dunno.

Tonight, I soldered in a replacement cornering lamp socket, and installed more of the AliExpress LEDs from China. Performing as desired.

I also swapped in a junkyard driver window switch, as the passenger window has a habit of only working up or down from that switch specifically, but not both in the same day, and the switch has to be really manhandled to work. Issue resolved.

Gearing up for a weekend camping trip. This will be the car for the trip. Thought about the wagon, but it doesn't have helper bags yet, and ground clearance with the hitch bike carrier is an issue.

Other discoveries of the evening include:
-The 3156 LEDs from the same seller as the 1156 I've come to love are not nearly as good. I put them in the reverse lights of the 83 and the Ranger (both had sockets swapped to 3156/3157 in the past), but honestly they kind of suck by comparison.
-The Ranger has a clutch hydraulic failure and the clutch will not disengage; the pedal went to the floor and stayed there. It's acting like it can't pressurize at all. Possibly using this opportunity to swap to the external slave arrangement if the problem turns out to be the slave cylinder. This will be a Fall project to be tackled in that vehicle's thread.

[kishy]

Gearing up for a weekend camping trip. This will be the car for the trip. Thought about the wagon, but it doesn't have helper bags yet, and ground clearance with the hitch bike carrier is an issue.

I've returned from my trip. 7 friends and I camped (tents; drive-up but unserviced; washroom and shower facilities nearby) on Pelee Island from Friday to Monday. Pelee Island is a place I've been before many times since I was a child and it's a really great place to vacation. It's where my current sig pic was taken, as well, and is where I found the wagon.

Taking two days off, a Friday and a Monday, has to be the highest-value way to make it feel like you took a week off without using that many vacation days.

We went over in two vehicles as well as a couple participants who walked onto the ferry (stayed for less than the full trip length). The Town Car was one of the two. This car went to the island on MV Pelee Islander, built in 1960 and in mostly continuous service since. Riding this particular ferry was a goal; a friend in the car's father worked on the boat in the 70s.

The ferry is why the ground clearance with the gigantic bike carrier is a concern. Where the ramp meets the dock is usually a pretty significant angle, and between the long wheelbase and long overhang, the hitch can get hung up on the ramp. One of my air bags has actually failed, but fortunately the car wasn't packed very heavily, and the other bag still held air, and this particular ferry's ramp angle was less problematic than the other two boats, so it worked out OK. Friend grabbed a quick potato-quality video just in case things got dramatic:

(the things, as it happens, didn't get dramatic at all)

The return voyage was on MV Pelee Islander II, built 2018. We had come across a paddle boat with some rudder mechanical problems and a sign saying "free", so we brought it home to try to refurbish it. Yes, on the Lincoln.

Some car-related photos from the weekend:















The Monroe-made Motorcraft shocks are giving the kind of ride quality I was hoping for. This is a good car for trips.

[gadget73]

paddle boat is getting an LS swap right ?

[87gtVIC]

Awesome! Looked like fun.

[sly]

paddle boat is getting an LS swap right ?

Hayabusa?

[jaywish]

I actually LOL.

[DerekTheGreat]

Looks like a good excursion. I remember that top being more intact and the decklid and roof having more paint on them..

[kishy]

The vinyl top has not changed much; all the splits that are there now have been there the whole time I've had it, but they're getting wider I think. There was no saving it then, and certainly no saving it now, once it splits it's done. Not sure what I'm going to do about that since there's evidence of pretty catastrophic rust underneath it. Maybe junkyard harvest a full-length ragtop (the fiberglass-backed type, like my 91MGM and 88TC have) and hack that onto it.

The roof clearcoat has been totally absent for the whole time I've had it, and the paint is thinning quite severely. It isn't just a matter of slapping some paint on it though, as there are the usual rust issues near the windshield, so there's metal work needed too.

The decklid is catastrophically rusted to the point of failure, from the inside-out, at the inward-facing surfaces near the bottom lip. There is no value in doing anything to try to pretty it up because it's going to fall apart into pieces whether I paint it or not. I need a whole new one, but haven't found any good ones since realizing it was unsalvageable.

[kishy]

About mid-day, I washed the car and attended a charity benefit car show with a few friends. There was definitely some contrast when we parked beside each other:



This evening, I decided to try to tackle a couple items that have been nagging at me, all related to the instrument cluster: some burnt out backlight bulbs, the only sort-of working clock, and the speedometer cable noise.

Got the cluster out, pulled out the speedometer cable expecting to find it fraying or otherwise not good based on the noise it makes, but found nothing. I cleaned the cable with brake cleaner, then shot a bunch of white lithium grease down the tube.

The clock took some investigating. The motor works, but a couple gears are missing chunks thanks to the mix of metal and plastic gears. I have the cluster from the 83 Town Car which I kept specifically for this, and cracked that open. I found its gears are all good, but its motor doesn't work. Swapped the motor over, gave it power and verified it keeps time correctly, then put the cluster back together.











The backlighting bulbs were just that; bulbs. Easily resolved.

I then "fixed" the gear selector indicator using a hose clamp (actually two joined together).



Took it out for a drive and found the speedometer noise is totally resolved, but it does still bounce at speeds below about 50kmh. Not worried about it. The clock seems to be working which is nice.

I plan to revisit the in-cluster temp gauge and delete my A-pillar mounted gauge. The problem with this was that the gauge would very gradually creep all the way across until it pegged on the hot side. Multiple senders including known good did the same. I gave up on it easily because I had bigger fish to fry (all those engine management issues in the first year).

Having now seen inside the clock, these clusters are probably an item that should be hoarded by those of us who have them if you want the clock to work forever. I suspect the clock mechanics are probably interchangeable 80-89 and will verify this.

[DerekTheGreat]

Guess it's been several years since I've seen it.

Awesome info about the clock. Mine quit working some years ago. Occasionally the second hand will twitch but that's about it, can't even adjust the time any more. I suspect it needs lube but seeing plastic gears mixed with metal ones does not instill me with optimism.

I've had pretty solid luck using ATF on speedometer cables. The van I bought was pretty bouncy. I took the cluster out and disconnected the cable on that where it goes into the trans. I lubed it from the front until I had ATF coming out at the trans- I think it was rock solid after that. Although I've heard speedometer bounce can be intrinsic to the cluster as well.