My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[kishy]

I can vouch for the "Ultra Power" lock actuators from Rock Auto - they will do the job nicely, and at the right price. They only include adequate rods to use for front doors, but with a little creativity you can use them for rears as needed too.

(Ultra Power is a sort of house brand for a specific warehouse in Texas. The parts under that brand are from many different brands, or are "white box" generic parts.)

I am not familiar with that aspect of bumper mounting so can't offer anything there.

The skinny/pancake motors were introduced, if I recall correctly, as a partial year '89 change. You do have the barrel/chubby ones. Just as a side note, on some cars, there is a bolt hole misalignment that prevents installing the newer motor in the older car. I am not exactly sure of the applications that fit and those which don't...I think you can use either motor on an 89-91 but prior to the existence of the skinny motor you can't use them.

On the rear doors, the rear piece of window channel is somehow integrated with the glass and slides with it. That is normal. It is weird, but normal.
I use an automotive silicone spray on door seals, but I leave the window channels alone. I'm not sure what would happen if you used it on them. I suspect it would cause the window to be kind of greasy around the edge but it might help preserve the rubber somewhat. Hard to be sure.

[Arquemann]

As mentioned in the lowering thread I made, cutting the springs is a no go.

This thing needs every single ball joint rubber. Upper ball joint seriously had an inch thick of crud on top of it.
All the joints have grease fittings so I assume they aren't original?
Trying to use said fittings ended up with the grease spewing out of everywhere, the rubbers are pretty shot.

Also ordered an "ultra power" window lock motor and some door panel clips from RA. They ought to be here next week.

Took off the hubcap mounting thingys, I'll try to clean up the original steelies tomorrow, maybe they'll be somewhat black under all that dirt and crap. I might get some brushable black paint if I get bored.
Also had a stupid vision about spiked lugnuts, but those are actually pretty expensive...

I might run the bare steelies for a while, even those look more "rock n roll" than the grandpa-spec wire hubcaps.
The Tbirds steelies have too small of a center-bore, getting those enlarged would be about 160€, which is kinda high, not sure what to do with those yet.

[gadget73]

prob replaced if they have fittings. Do they have any slop at all? Put a jack under the lower control arm and lift the tire off the ground. If there is play the tire will rock top/bottom if really bad, or you might have to put a bar under the tire and pry up on it. If it moves, they're done. Considering the ball joint has to come out of the spindle to replace the boot, you're already most of the way to just replacing the thing anyway. Did that on my Continental, the joints were tight but no boots and it was being aligned anyway. Only lowers on that, but same basic process otherwise.

[Arquemann]

They ought to be fine, car feels solid driving, wouldn't hurt to check.
Also the car passed inspection just fine earlier this summer so they can't be that bad, otherwise you get a fix it- order.

Yeah I decided against lowering the car now. I don't have the proper tools to remove the ball joints without damaging the boots more and the shocks are a bit of a mystery to remove.
I might reconsider cutting the springs if I get to replacing the ball joints at some point. Still dreaming about a P71...
Replacing the whole ball joints vs just the boots wouldn't necessarily be that much more work.
Though they are riveted on, which confused me initially since they have grease fittings.

Could do with new tie rods / tie rod end boots aswell, I managed to puncture the boot on the driver side by applying too much grease...

[gadget73]

I've seen a lot of ball joints checked with the suspension at full droop. They never show play that way, it has to be done with the suspension off the stops.


The uppers I think did come with grease fittings originally. Unless someone changed the whole arm. The official Ford procedure is that when the ball joints are worn, you change the whole arm. The thinking is if you need ball joints, you need bushings too. I won't say they are wrong.

[sly]

IIRC Original ball joints had fittings. Bushings did not. Idler arm used a bushings style instead of the newer greased cylinder joint style (Moog). Tie rod ends also had grease fittings. I think that changed some time in the 90s (98?) as my wife's 2000 does not have grease fittings on any of that except lower ball joints. It's still all original suspension (except for rear shocks I replaced while my in-laws still owned the car) and I have the service records to prove it. Basically if the pivot point had a ball joint, it got a grease fitting. If it had a bushing, it got torqued at ride height.

[Arquemann]

The lock actuator came in today already, was supposed to get here on the 28th. This way for once
None of the supplied rods were a straight fit (front right door), one with two opposite 45° bends had the lower bend at the same height as the original. I bent the first 45 to a 90 and straightened out the other a bit so it'd slip in to it's place.
The rivet I drilled out I replaced with a nut and short bolt, some ingenuity was required to hold the actuator, the nut and install the bolt.

I didn't bother waiting for the door panel clips that are still on their way.
Door is back together and things work again.
Still have to install the window guides on the driver door, but I'll wait until I get the new door panel clips, since the door panel is still on and attached.

I was bored earlier today so I cleaned up the original steelies and the white stripes on the tires.
Strong wheel cleaner and solvent on the rims and soap steel wool pads (or whatever you call them...) for the tire stripes. Works great.
The steelies are scratched to hell from the hubcaps, but the real bummer is that they're very greyish and matte. I might spray some black paint quick and dirty on them to make them look a bit better.
I've fallen in love with the slight beater -look, now only if the rear track width was bigger...

[gadget73]

thats why I bought a big rivet gun and the proper rivets. got tired of trying to hold everything in place working blind and operating a wrench with my stupid hand.

[Arquemann]

I got the driver window working good again with the new guide bushings, no more squeaaak-thunk-thunk-thunk...

Naturally everything didn't to plan.
The locating tab for the mirror control knob broke off immediately upon getting the locking ring to turn. Oh well, atleast the driver mirror stays in place in normal use, unlike the passenger.
The Dorman "oem replacement" door panel retainers are complete crap. They don't fit the holes in the door at all, also it'd seem the design is way shittier.

I even cut out the little casting in the middle and still can't push them in the door by hand.

Oh and by the way, the window guide bushings aren't the same in the front doors. Fortunately the one bushing that was broken, was the lower one, which is the square one. Those I had ordered.

Square guide inside hole is about 19mm x 19mm, where the slightly more rectangular is approx. 19mm x 21mm.
If someone has the rectangular mustang guides handy, would you kindly measure the hole size?

Everything went back together well, greased all the parts thoroughly and I cobbled together a moisture barrier from construction plastic sheet and duct tape
Window goes up and down juuust a slight bit crooked but no more clunking.

I also cleaned up the steelies with wheel cleaner and then a quick rub with Glym's SRP.

[gadget73]

never seen that style retainer before. The ones i've always gotten look like the original, no gap in the middle. Not sure what brand either, half the time its just what the parts store had on the shelf.

[Mainemantom]

This is the retainer that you need. Stock up for next time

[Arquemann]

A parking light bulb burned out on the thing, instead of just replacing it, maybe I should revert to the original amber lights in the blinker housings.
Atleast on the right side, still has a dual filament bulb in.
A wire has been cut from the blinker socket, and routed to another bulb with an added ground.


I should be able to just reconnect the brown wire to the blinker socket to work?
Or is there supposed to be a fourth wire to the blinker socket, I'm not sure as it's filthy.
My '68-'88 Full size Ford Chilton manual is useless, a wiring diagram would be appreciated aswell.

[gadget73]

3 wires to those sockets. Ground, parking/marker to the dim filament, and blinker to the bright filament.

Unless your country requires different light standards. I think England at least needs some side marker that most US cars did not have. Possible it was hacked to accommodate that but if you won't get in any trouble I'd put the thing back to stock.

[Arquemann]

We used to require this and that, hence my car has 3-point seatbelts in the back, "normal parking lights" and the ditch lights were taken off use. Not sure how the ditch lights were "eliminated", but I don't really care about getting them to work.
Nowadays even new imports require pretty much nothing, we see new yank trucks with amber parking lights. Even some beemerbros rip out their parking lights so the car automatically uses the blinkers as parking lights...

A side marker modification was done to this car:

That's it, just a stub screwed and epoxied to the side.

[Arquemann]

Well that was easy. Didn't even have to replace that one bulb


Yayy now I can also look like the cool kids with my amber parking lights!
(oh yeah btw, driving with only the parking lights is illegal in finland) But I don't care and neither do the police especially when it's an old yank hunk.