BGreyWolf's 1986 LTD CV aka Walrus Brown

[bgreywolf]

Well, I've been here a year with this old beast, so I suppose I should post up a build thread and some pictures.

The car is a 1986 LTD Crown Victoria 4-door:

Serial Number 2FABP43F1GX21xxxx
2FA Ford Passenger Car, Built In Canada
B Active Seat Belts
P43 LTD Crown Victoria 4-Door Sedan
F 5.0L 302 V-8 EFI Engine
1 Check Digit
G 1986 Model Year
X Built at St. Thomas
21xxxx Serial Number of this Ford scheduled for
production at St. Thomas
07/86 July, 1986
8Y Dark Clove Brown Metallic Paint, Ford #5973-A
16 Philadelphia DSO (District Sales Office)
54K LTD Crown Victoria 4-Door Sedan
D4 Clove Brown Valino Rear Half Vinyl Roof
GC Clove Brown Cloth Split Bench Seat
8 2.73 Conventional Rear Axle
T Automatic Overdrive Transmission

As received, it was a time capsule. I'm the 3rd owner.

Your vehicle was equipped with the following features:
- Front License Plate Bracket
- Interval Windshield Wipers
- P205/75R15 Wide White Sidewall Radial Tires
- Electronic Digital Clock
- Tilt Steering Wheel
- Speed Control
- Power Driver Seat
- Bumper Rub Strips
- Air Conditioner - Manual
- Electric Rear Window Defroster
- Right Hand Remote Control Mirror
- Power Windows
- Locking Wire-Style Wheel Covers <--I got the car with a nice set of turbine wheels which the owner claims were original.
- Rocker Panel Moldings
- Clove Brown Valino Rear Half Vinyl Roof
- Tinted Glass
- Light Group
- Power Lock Group

Otherwise, the car had about 75000 miles, pretty hefty documentation, new tires and new exhaust. There's a small dent by the passenger side rear wheel arch and there was a rust hole about the size of a dollar bill where some leaves got wedged under the driver's side of the transmission crossmember (which is gone now).

I've put on about 8000 miles, daily driving. So far I've done a tune-up, HO intake/replace all the vacuum lines, valve covers, battery, new radio and front speakers, minor interior cleaning, trip computer (not the tripminder), air conditioning, and most of the brakes/suspension/steering.

Approaching plans:
Poly bushings/Bilstein shocks
Police sway bars if I can find them
3.55 gears with Trac-Loc
Rear speakers (currently none and no wiring--I think the original radio only had front speakers; it barely had those when I got it)
More gauges-water temp, trans temp (for towing), oil pressure, voltage, tach
Transmission cooler and replace TV cable (mine isn't broken yet, but the front clip has been JB-welded and can't be adjusted anymore)
Repair peeling interior "chrome" with replacement parts
3G alternator and electric fan
Timing chain/water pump/power steering pump/belts/hoses/radiator/thermostat because I'm in there and I have new ones.

Later plans:
Since I have 2 very good sets of 15" tires on wheels, gathering parts for the big brake swap but I'll wait until the tires are worn out first. I'll also need to find wheels (I have 17" Mustang Mach 1 wheels I could run with spacers, or I could save those for my Zephyr project).

Story of the Walrus Brown name and pictures will have to wait until I've had coffee and some time to settle into being home after a month at work. Came home to a blizzard, a dead snowblower, and a locked up starter and of course the car has my F150 blocked in so I changed the starter in the snow. Fortunately Ford used all of 3 starters from 1965 to 2004 in their RWD engines, so my spare F150 starter went right in (I could have used the Mustang gear reduction, but it was cold and snowing and I didn't want to spend even 5 minutes running a new cable.

Also, that spare starter was a "new" one I bought about a decade ago. The part number sticker was peeling, under the "NEW" sticker was.."Remanufactured in China". It works and I'm not in a hurry to change it, but WTF?!

[Tiggie]

Wow on the starter... 100% new(ly remanufactured in China).

Glad to have you as a member here. Always helps to have some people well versed in the Mustang and F-series lines of the same era for questions that cross between and solutions that those communities have come up with that also work for our cars.

[packman]

That sounds like a nice CV. I hate working on snow/ice covered ground. Cardboard soaks through in short order :-/

[87gtVIC]

Good color combo on the paint and vinyl top

What mine was originally.

[clutch47]

Welcome. The car sounds sweet, the Walrus story sounds interesting.

[knucklehead0202]

Yeah i gotta hear about the name.

[bgreywolf]

Sorry for the delay, got caught up in a bunch of "first few days home" stuff--I probably should have started this topic while at sea, but I was excited to get some pictures of the car and post them (which, due to blah weather, twisting a finger, and getting snow immediately after washing the car, has been put off again).

As for the name...long story, but here goes:
Backstory: A few years ago, some friends and I were waiting for seating in a restaurant, and heard a news story which talked about how animals that are "cute" or "majestic" get lots of money--SPCA with puppies and kittens, World Wildlife Fund gets money using pictures of lions and elephants, and so on. Animals that are ugly just don't get contributions--there's no "save the hagfish" campaign. The woman reading the story made a comment about stuffed animals being the "test" for whether people will contribute.
So we quickly started joking about ugly stuffed animals.
I made a joke about walruses being assembled by committee (big teeth, small head, huge body, tiny flippery feet) and how they were not cute, so they were doomed.

Ever since then, my friends have been giving me walruses as gag gifts. Stuffed, carved, bookends, you name it.
So, when I bought the LTD Crown Victoria in fine Dark Clove Brown, the very first comment from one of my friends was...

"IS BROWN LIKE WALRUS!"

I suppose there are worse fates than being the walrus guy...

[packman]

....I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob....

[bgreywolf]

If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all sometimes.
I'd intended to put up some pictures, and instead I got completely swamped.
I'm still swamped, but I'm taking a quick break to show off the car a bit:



I got all the vacuum lines and underhood bits mostly sorted, but I still have to do the PCV filter when it's not ice cold out.
I replaced a bad wheel bearing and put in some rear speakers and my SiriusXM receiver.
Better interior pics eventually.

I still haven't had a chance to put on my snow tires; I think I'll skip them this year, since I'm now at sea until the middle of March.
I was supposed to have a full weekend to spend working on the car in a friend's heated garage. Instead, I drove up there and went to pull out his van (1990 Plymouth Grand Voyager) and it wouldn't start.
1 fuel pump later, I had 3 hours to do wheel bearings (old one was making the clicking whining doom noise) and run the rear speakers. Snapped the wire to my Sirius antenna and had to replace it, and managed to bend my finger around backward while working on the Plymouth so most of the wire pulling was really painful.
Because of the wheel bearing failure, I put in new rotors and pads too. Hoses and calipers are almost new, and rotors were also but the wobbling wheel bearing made a mess of the almost new rotor and pads.

The failed bearing was also new, a Timken, not sure why it failed with under 10K miles but I didn't really like the grease I had packed them with (a friend's older tub of "general purpose" grease). I remedied the problem by replacing all the bearings on both sides, the wheel nuts and washers, and the grease is now high performance wheel bearing grease (>500 degree drop point). Much warmer, fuzzier feeling on the drive home, and I got them cooking hot when I bedded the pads. Still went with Timken as I've usually had no trouble with them. I'll blame my own lack of interest in spending $6 on a tub of something I knew would last better.

Also, the right front reflector is cracked now and missing a little chunk of the lens. Not sure how that happened but it's going to need to be replaced.

That's the news for the month. Hopefully the shocks/springs/finding sway bars will happen soon, followed by weatherstripping...

[87gtVIC]

I sure love that color. Just like my 87 was.

Looking good!

Funny seeing snow. Had barely any so far this year around the 5 boroughs.

[bgreywolf]

I don't have any good interior pics on the ship with me, but here's one of the trip computer. It's only partly wired, I haven't run the fuel meter yet. As far as I can tell, the pulse per gallon count should be very close to the Ford Tripminder count, so I should be able to calibrate it to work.



Edit: Also, cheap Dual radio I snagged from my roommate's rusted out Focus has been put in the junk box and replaced with an Alpine that was previously in my dear departed Mustang.