Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all Show Posts made by this member. Note that you can only see Show Posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Chuck W

1
Other Vehicles / Re: OK. So hear me out...
This one's going to go away for a bit and something will be leaving before it comes back. I had the funds and wanted to grab it, as the 2drs are harder to find.

Did I need it? No. Did I want it? Yes. :mullet:
2
Other Vehicles / OK. So hear me out...
I may have a problem.

This is more of an introduction post, vs a project thread, as this is going into storage for a bit, as I have many other things in front of me currently.

I've had the itch for another RWD daily driver. Specifically, a 2-door Fox.
On the short list of options were:
- 80-82 XR-7 or Tbird
- Fairmont Futura or Zephyr Z7
- Box top Fairmont or----this----





81-82 Granada 2Dr

The Box Birds were a little bigger than I wanted, and my wife actually preferred these to the Futuras (which were my initial front-runners).

I have a plan formulating, but after I get the title stuff done, it's going to sit in storage for a while until I have the bandwidth.
The 2-Drs are harder to find, so I jumped at it, even though I'm buried in projects currently.

Aside from the baked paint, areas, there is NO rust on the body or underneath (NC car). I6/auto with 2.73's, but that's all moot, as none of that will wind up staying in place, no matter what winds up propelling it later. It's all tired, but I just drove it the 60 miles back to our place from my buddy's (We dropped it there after the pick up a couple weeks back).

My current daily is the '97 Turbo Volvo 850 in the background. Fun car, with lots of mods/upgrades to it but I think I've run my limit again of dailying a FWD car. There's also availability issues on some parts that are starting to get on my nerves.
With this, it's all "Mustang" stuff to keep it on the road.

Anyway. Here's to doing silly car stuff!



4
Other Vehicles / Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)
So, I got things to the point where I'm able to do this.


Got the PATS delete tune flashed and no smoke escaped from the wiring harnesses as I've put together, so I consider that a win.

Only have the bare essentials together to power things up, but a lot of needed things aren't wired yet.


Lots of DTCs and no crank, but the fuel pump is "priming" as it's running full voltage, but seeing as there is no fuel in the system to pressurize, it's not going to see pressure and shut the pump down. It appears that the earlier FDMP is working as it should, and I maybe don't need to deal with the FPCM.
5
Other Vehicles / Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS
Well, after a couple of days of driving, the PS reservoir was low again. The fittings on the rack are clean and the boots are new-ish and aren't full of fluid, but should probably warrant a closer look.
I replaced the PS return hose with new clamps and cleaned things up.
Watching it run, it looks like the pressure line is seeping at the crimp.  :shakehead:

Also, at this point, the front main seal on the engine is merely a suggestion.  :nonchalance: That's where the bulk of the "mess" is coming from. I may need to park the car until I can get the drivetrain pulled out for the reseal/clean/port induction/MS swap.

I need to do a couple things on her Beetle, mainly to get the parts/boxes out of my way. Then this may move into the "work bay" spot and I'll bounce back and forth between it and the wagon. There are piles of parts in my way for this project as well, and it would be nice to get them off the floor and on the car.






6
Other Vehicles / Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)
OK, finally got the parts I was waiting on.



That's a FPDM (Fuel Pump Driver Module) from an '02 Mustang, but pretty standard for many of the '99-04 Fords with the returnless fuel systems.

Originally, I was going to try and use the '11 FPCM (Fuel Pump Control Module), but was going to have to find a way to spoof the signal from the RCM (Restraints Control Module). After '05, the cars did away with the inertia switch and used impact sensors over CANBUS to feed the RCM and that would be used to shut down the fuel system in case of an issue. I was going to feed a 10Hz square wave signal to the FPCM, which is supposed to be the "all clear" to allow pump function. That still may work, but I figured there had to be a way to do things without that.

Not having spent much, if any time with Mustangs past '00-'01, I never even knew about all of this.

Anyway, the car with the FPDM also used an inertia switch, to interrupt power to the fuel system in case of an crash, and still modulated the fuel pressure based on the need.
I'm replacing the earlier "white button" inertia switch with the later "red button" one, which is rated to carry the full current load for the fuel system, instead of just a control voltage for the the old FP relay.

This was the last of the stuff I needed to get my fuel system stuff wired up and be able to start doing power-up and systems checks.

I still have a good day of getting things wired up to the bulkhead connector to do these tests, but I finally have pieces in hand to hopefully make that work.
11
Other Vehicles / Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS
Coming back from spectating at the velodrome Thurs night, I noticed that the PS pump was making more noise than it should.

It was dark at the time, but I looked under the car to see this mess.


Awesome.

A quick investigation revealed that it was probably the reservoir o-ring. Seeing as it was probably the original to the car. It did have a bit of movement to it.

I was hoping to tend to it when I pulled the drivetrain out for a reseal, but I guess this didn't want to wait.

The reservoir was basically empty, but there were no signs of any rapid losses. I guess also hadn't noticed the dribbles on the driveway, but it rained a bit earlier in the week and I hadn't driven the car in a few days.

Since I had a pump rebuild kit but didn't want to pull the pump from the car, I just decided to do a quick o-ring replacement.



You can see that the old o-ring (right) was kind of flattened.

Since I had it out, I also replaced the o-rings on the inlet fitting and the high-pressure connection.


Got it all back together and power washed the gunk off of everything.

Now back to driving it until I'm ready for the aforementioned side-quest.


12
Other Vehicles / Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)
Quote from: bodyman – on
For 29 locations that bulkhead connector is fairly compact. Duetsch connectors?
Yeah, it's a Deutsch HP20 series connector. It's got 12, 16, and 20 sized terminals. which worked out great for what I needed.

Been a busy week getting back to work FT after the surgery, so limited progress other than researching switching some things around on FP control/power and making a decision on what needs to be done for working AC. More details on all of that when I get some more interior wiring done.
13
Other Vehicles / Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)
OK, back to the wiring.

Seeing as I got pretty much most of the bulk of the wiring to the bulkhead connector from the engine bay, I need to get in the car and sort out the wiring from inside or the rear of the car to the bulkhead connector.

The throttle pedal and the DataLink Connector are at the dash, but the rest (Fuel and emissions) is at the rear. That means I needed to first tackle the nasty bit of removing the interior and headliner, as I knew it was all going to be gross.

I started to get the headliner out first, because I knew it was going to make a mess.
I was right.




So much mouse poop. :yuck:
I'll be able to reuse the front board, but the rear one I'll probably have to make a replacement out of ABS sheet. The mouse nests were worse back there.

After that, I pulled out the rest of the trunk area panels and the rear seat.


It's amazing how much dust/dirt is on EVERYTHING inside this car behind all of the panels. Gonna take some time just to clean that all up.

I did unfortunately find some soft spots in the floor under the rear seat base.


Kind of not surprised, as there was water ingress due to door strikers not having bushings on them.  Should be an easy repair, though.
Both lower rear quarter panel areas behind the rear wheels was also full of mouse house stuff. No corrosion, though.

I took all of this out, as I needed to trace the stock FP wiring back and de what I needed to do for the new stuff.
The original FP relay is on the PS rear, and the inertial switch is on the DS rear. This thing also had the dual FP set-up, which is getting replaced with one.
Going to remove all of the wiring to the front pump and rework the rest for the new pump set-up.
15
Other Vehicles / Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)
More work.

Worked on getting wires to the firewall bulkhead connector together, as that was the last of the underhood wiring I needed to sort out, aside from adding connectors to the MAF sensor and the AC pressure transducer. I don't know where those will live yet, so I'm holding off a bit.

I filled 27 of the 29 locations on the connector. This is all stuff inside or at the rear of the car (fuel system, etc)





I went ahead and populated 3 extra wires and I have the stuff for the cruise control, just in case I can get that to work.

I'm planning on running the bulkhead wiring outside the engine bay and pop in behind the pass strut tower. Gonna need to open up that hole a bit though.


The connector will be mounted in the same location of the old factory ECU wiring. I'll be making an adapter to mount the Deutsch connector.
The wiring is still all open right now, as I want to get stuff together so I can power things up and get the tune flashed and make sure the car starts. Then I'll tidy it all up.

Going back to the CC plates.

I needed to redo the risers for the poly bushings, but haven't been able to get any material yet.

However, I had these old things.


They were a couple of fixed-caster mounts I made up at least 20 years ago. They were probably on my old '84 XR-7. These were a less aggressive version of what I have on the TBird.
I just needed part of the riser, so I chopped them off.




Just need to finish weld and coat them, and they're all set.
(I noticed that one of the centers is slightly lower than the other, but for what this car will be doing, that couple mm difference isn't going to matter)

Next is to sort out the wiring from the bulkhead connector on the inside of the car.