Poll
Question: Have you been stuck this year?
Well we got our first real snow today and I had about a foot or more of snow to get off the top of the Cougar before I could head out. Since I had parked before the snow fell I had no trouble getting out and while the heavy snow was a pain, I've gotton used to it over the years, so it wasn't that big of a problem. When I left later to head home, since I parked in a parking garage it was no problem either. Right in front of Wendy's some lady backs out in front of me, while evasive manuevers in the snow in the Cougar are an interesting experience I managed to get stopped without hitting anything. Breath a sigh of releive and attempt to back up a bit so I can swing back into the driving lane...and I'm stuck.
Wonderful.
Everyone inside Wendy's is no doubt laughing at my predicament and I finally flag someone down on a bike (who is biking through this type of snow anyway?) He couldn't quite get enough traction to push me out either, so I'm about to walk into Wendy's when a few nice guys come out to help me out.
So My question is, am I the first person to get stuck this year? What do I win? :hick: :D
A bike in snow!!?? WTF...
ohh...Cats hate wet stuff. Including snow. ;)
You don't have trac-loc, do you? That most likely would have made the difference.
Snowing here now, blah.
Yeah a Traction-Lok helps out alot :D
I learned to drive in a rwd car so snow doesn't bother me even though my DD is a 95 T-bird. We got about 5 inches Tuesday and and the T-bird handled it fine. I purposely drove sidways for a block though, because it was fun and I could do it :hick:
88 TC 2.3/T5 (11"brakes, rear disc, trac-loc, 16" wheels) in snow = Great!
87 Cougar 5.0/AOD (10"brakes, no trac-loc, 14" wheels) in snow = Hell no! spinspinspinspin...
Yep if you don't have Traction-Lok once one wheel starts to spin you're screwed:hick:
You need to start driving that 95 in the snow. The MN-12 cars do great in the snow. I drove my 92 in an ice storm last year and it did great, but it did have a trac-lok so that helped too. :hick:
I do the 95 T-bird is my dd (daily driver). The 88 T-bird sits in the garage from Nov 1st till April 1st, or when ever the snow is melted and the salt is all gone ;)
Whats trac-loc ????
basically Ford's version of a posi.
It's like a clutch mechanism in that it locks up when a wheel starts to spin, someone else that knows exactly how can chime in...lol
mn12's aren't always good in the snow, but it's not the car. my 95 came from arizona and i haven't swapped the tires on from my 93. wow those hankook tires fishtail so bad.
my buddies 87 cougar never got stuck in the snow but it did always drive sideways from the trans being out of whack.
i am not looking forward to driving in the snow with my tbird
not because it cant handle it but because the other drivers on the road cant:raspberry
When the clutch mechanism engages; power is re-directed out the other tire (i.e. the one that isn't spinning).
My understanding of how these traction-lok limited slip diffs work is it's kinda like a posi, but on a traditional posi you have power comming from both rear-wheels (which is adjusted accordingly) vs the traction-lok which power only comes out of one side until that side looses traction. I believe the passenger side tire is the power tire.
The poll above, I just had to vote for choice number 4. The first major dump of snow and I couldn't even get out of my driveway. I will be picking up snow tires as soon as money allows. :D
Not in a bird or cat, but I got stuck in my parking spot with my 2wd Jeep. Last week during one of the snow storms here, the plow trucks decided to go through during the night; needless to say, it happened to be the day I was going to get my 4wd Jeep out of storage. Went out to the truck and had a snow bank taller than the rear bumper. GREAT!! This should be fun; pull it forward as much as I can, shift into reverse and floor it. Didn't get anywhere, sat there for 20 minutes before I gave up and went back in the house. I still haven't been back out there to try it again, and I'm too lazy to take a shovel out there and get rid of the bank.
Nope haven't had enough of anything to get stuck. Also I refuse to drive my bird in the snow anymore. That is why I bought the 94 cougar. It is on the road and the bird is off the road. That way I can work on the bird when ever and I can use the cougar to go places. When I did drive Da bird on snow and Ice it did great. I just don't want to risk it why when I can take the cougar or the wifes Cherokee even if it is 2WD.
Ya just need something like this!
I wanted that thing so bad!
Holy :toilet: !! Is that thing for real?
so how do you tell if you have trac loc on your car. i cant tell on my 90 sc.
well on my 90 sc i have a locking rear end. if yours is auto and has the e axel code then its possible you have it. but just jack up the rear of the car and turn one wheel if the other one turns opposit then its open if they turn the same direction then you might have a trac lock. but to be sure look up the axel code at tccoa.com or even on erics site. coolcats.net
speaking of snow, my day has been ruined by it! i live in ga, so normally i would have had to vote "wtf is snow?!" but not today. its 1pm and snow is still falling and we got about an inch. bald tires+snow=fun/smash. i was ganna inspect the front end to see if the left front needs to be pulled, fix the wrinkles in my bumper cover, install fog lights, adjust my new headlights, and check my speedo harness for any kinks, but nope. snow. now i see why you guys complain so much about it.
A few blerbs from days gone by on this board which can be found in my diy link. I have always found nick's comments very informative on this topic so i had to save it.
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REAR END INFO
Measure backlash of rear diff to axle
lock pass wheel and raise driver rear wheel
find a cheap ruler that has a hole on one end
locate the CENTER of your wheel and lightly mark the spot
slid a nail through the ruler and let the point touch your center mark
hold the nail and let the ruler come to a stop as it acts as a pendulum and does not rub nothing
12'' from the center of your wheel is the key here so a ruler makes things easy
rotate the driver rear wheel CW till it stops
mark the wheel in the background of the ruler looking directly onto the left edge of the ruler
rotate the driver rear wheel CCW till it stops
mark the wheel in the background of the ruler looking directly onto the left edge of the ruler
now you should have two marks if you were able to not distrub the ruler and mark the wheel
measure the distance between the marks,, ford calls out for no more than 1'' or 25.4mm
blakct----
Today I pulled the 8.8 out of my '88 TC parts car and put it on the bathroom scale
(it's accurate) complete with brakes but no mooseballs. - 175 lbs.
Then I weighed the 7.5 drum brake axle from an '85 stang that I threw
in the car to keep it rolling. 145 lbs. Sure, there's no quad shock brackets and
they're 1.5" shorter than a cougar axle but that's as close as I could come.
Probably only a 3-5 lb difference between a stang 7,5 and a Cougar 7.5 due to the
length and brackets anyway.
That's a 30 lb difference, all day long
Nick--blown306cougar
i picked the f150 diff for a few reasons
i'm useing a 8.8 mustang rear with a F150 31spline diff inside the housing..
most of the other name brand diffs are a lot of money and most of them are very good.now in the case of the alburn diff and alburn pro.. these are reasonably priced..but!! and i know what i'm about to say some people would parden the pun"beg to diff"anyway they are known to brake i have seen a number of them busted.. alburn and the alburn pro. and the funny thing is i've seen more busted alburn pro's i guess they can't get the temper in the steal right.. but i'm still not saying their junk but here are the reasons i did'nt go with the an alburn diff or any others..1 price price price 2 in the case of the alburn all of the ones i saw busted where in cars with motors that had the same or more horse power as mine..3 when a alburn is busted it can't be fixed you will need to buy a new one which again cost big money..
now with the case of the F150 diff and why i picked it is.. 1 i spent only about $800.00 to have it set up parts inclued.and that allso inclued the moser axles and that is at New York prices and 2 when the diff needs to be rebuilt"clutch pack" it only cost about $100.00 for the parts..3 i can do it my self..you can replace the clutchs with out taking out the whole diff and don't have to worry about reshiming it..
so far it's bin two years and it's still going strong..
cougar5.0----
I found something unexpected when I replaced my stock Ford T-Loc with an Eaton E-Locker this past year. The shims on either side of the differential carrier are one piece (for each side of the carrier) ground at the factory based on some statisics as to how the carrier tolerances are running at a particular time (best I can determine). The problem I found was that the material they make the shim pieces out of is some sort of cheap soft metal that is susceptible to permanent deformation by the shock forces normally applied by a good running motor with a nice snappy throttle response. What does this mean in reality? Well, my shims were worn more on one side of the carrier and they were worn such that they were NO LONGER parallel to the carrier (diagonal wear). This was due to the way the force during acceleration is applied to the carrier and then to the housing through the shims. It was obvious to me after taking the unit apart that the shim material from Ford was TOO SOFT and this clearly allowed EXCESSIVE SLOP in the differential carrier. I wont go so far as to say that this is why many of these units clunk, but I will say that what I saw was a CLEAR DESIGN FLAW and lead to a ton of play in my differential. I ground the stock Ford shims down and added the HARDENED STEEL shims that come with any differential rebuilding kit between the now thinner original Ford shim and carrier so that a nice hard piece of TRUE SHIM STOCK was seeing the shock forces from the carrier! I was SHOCKED at the 0.030" lash I was seeing when measuring gear lash, and was almost as stunned to find out that just reinstalling shims to the original thickness as installed by Ford removed all of the excessive lash and put the gearset back into spec without ANY OTHER ADJUSTMENTS!!!
Perhaps I stumbled across the reason for the clunking of the Ford rearends? Let me state this clearly - the difference in thickness from one side of the factory Ford shim to the other (only 110,000 miles) was 0.010"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you familiar with these sorts of things, that a HUGH amount of distortion in what should be a hardened and stable shim.
thunderchicken
2. You can find one (7.5 trac loc) in an 83-86 Turbo Coupe, 84-86 XR7 Turbo, 87-88 T-Bird Sport V8
and 87 Cougar XR-7 V8. Of course it was optional in all other trim levels,
but the above ones had a 7.5" traction lock as standard equipment
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it's 2pm and its still coming down, slowed a bit at the moment, but here's a pic of my car (parked on the back patio b/c i WAS ganna do work and needed a quick way to the fridge) now mind you, this is GA, I'm talking Google maps says im 208 miles from Tallahassee Florida. sorry for the quality its from my phone and i couldn't get the color quite right.
my bird pulled some dude of if a drift
My 4x4 ranger is my dd, but I am usually driving in 2wd, 4 wheel is a waste of gas, and I have been driving in this stuff (3 to 4 feet) for all my life (8 years) and I just know what to do. But 4x4 is fun in unplowed parking lots!!!
(http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l178/winkysrides/poster/0000222.jpg)
YOUR 8YEARS OLD AND DRIVING
wow i didnt start untill i was 10