I got impatient.. decided to give the '88 a try without a new TPS and without the Y-pipe reinstalled.. figured I'd just run it for maybe 15-30 seconds and cut 'er off.. and it ran for maybe 10 seconds.
I have quite a few details left to take care of.. but at least it feels like a car again, and not a lawn ornament.
Took the taillight reflectors off and painted those with silver paint. Put the instrument cluster back together after silver-painting the inside of the white part and doing the 199 digital speedo mod.
Eliminated many of the smog pump hoses, and stuck one on the pump so I could route it out under the body by the swaybar mount. I'm hoping that kills a little of whatever noise it might make. I suppose I could always stick the valve back on that had the silencer on the bottom of it, since according to my Haynes manual it defaults to the silencer part with no vacuum put to it. Bypassed the smog system vacuum lines but kept a line to EGR.
Some more pics, since I finished painting both valve covers. Yes, the EGR spacer is a lighter color than everything else. I'd repaint it, but I intend on trying to find a cheap HO upper intake/EGR spacer/TB someday soon. Of course, I decided that AFTER the upper and the spacer were painted..
(http://img150.exs.cx/img150/3397/blueenginerightsidefront01sm7d.jpg)
Front shot:
(http://img150.exs.cx/img150/1884/blueenginefront01sm3pr.jpg)
And here's a pic of the taillight reflector painting in progress. I painted two of them, took the pic, then painted the rest.
(http://img150.exs.cx/img150/9379/taillightreflectors01sm9by.jpg)
Next on the list:
- Vacuum out car, get parts out of back seat.
- Buy cheap seat covers, since the leather on the front seats has been removed. (it was awful.. falling apart in chunks)
- Put taillights back together on L side. (need some of whatever the rest of you have found to be the best sealer for putting the lights back together)
- Take apart R side taillights, give similar treatment, reassemble.
- Buy new TPS, or call around to junkyards and ask about getting the TB/EGR spacer/HO upper and hope that it has a working TPS. (should be the same TPS, right? ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.. heh)
- Buy a few more cans of Deep Jewel Green metallic and paint up the quarter panel I sanded down and primered, as a test run for that color on the car.
- Buy LEDs for instrument cluster bulb replacement.
I need to change the oil on it, but I'm unsure what I wanna do. When I had the valve covers off to paint it, I saw just how much was inside that engine.. looks much worse than the inside of my V6. I'd like to do a flush with maybe some cheap 5w20 for as long as I have to run it here to burn off the tank of old gas. (I put stabilizer in it, at least) I am of the mindset that I don't want to flush out the motor TOO well, in case there are some deposits in it that are of some benefit, like any deposit that might be stopping a potential leak. :D
No matter what I try, I cannot seem to get a good picture with this camera of the green on the grille.
(http://img195.exs.cx/img195/5083/88greengrille01sm0mu.jpg)
No pic I take does the color justice.. even when I find lighting that makes it stand out, the camera can't pick it up well. (although that ideal lighting is NOT in this picture.. heh)
Looks good what paint and what color is that you used to paint the intake and valve covers looks sharp.
That's just DupliColor engine paint, the 500 degree version, in Ford Blue.
Some don't like Ford Blue on engines anymore.. but I like how it looks putting an older engine color on a relatively newer engine.
I was torn between Ford Blue and Ford Red, since I had painted my first Ford engine ('64 390/300-horse) Ford Red.. but if the car is going to be mostly green, I felt having a Ford Red engine would be too holiday-ish. Maybe if I ever get a third T-bird/Cougar or other Fox body, I'll do that engine in Ford Red. (already painted the V6 in the '86 semi-gloss black)
Started it a couple more times.. runs for about 5 seconds then s out, and the exhaust stinks worse than usual. Lemme guess.. gas went bad, even with stabilizer or whatever. (I was expecting it would go bad again, just hoped I was wrong)
Got those turn signal housings painted.. got a couple more dash pieces painted, too. Unfortunately, my camera has ped out on me, apparently for good.
Smell is like rotten eggs? Or something else?
Hard for me to describe, but there might've been a bit of a sulfur smell to it, yes.
I'm about to toss the Y-pipe in the trunk of the '86 and head to a friend's house, to try to get this last bit of catalyst out. Long story. But I should be putting that pipe back in tomorrow.. then I'll try to run it for longer than 5 seconds.
looking good bird
So was the y-pipe on the car when you tried to run it? And if so i'll make the assumption you know (by the sulfur remark) what that possibly means about the cats. If you're gonna bash them out then that should clear the smell up. How long was the gas sitting with the stabilizer in it?
The Y-pipe was off the car when I ran it. (did not run it for long like that.. like I said, maybe 5-10 seconds, a few times)
The gas has been sitting since about the last week of October, but I put the stabilizer in awhile back.. at least 2 months ago, probably more like 3-4. Like I said, I pretty much expected the gas would be bad by now. Heard it started going bad after 30 days, without stabilizer in it.
Well that definatly rules out the cats being being the prob. As for gas being bad, i've still got my other car out in the parking lot, it pretty much sat all winter without starting. Just recently gave it a jump and it started right up, didn't smell anything weird. But as for gas going bad that quick, well take from my experience what you will.
I doubt the gas is the problem, my red TC hasn't had any gas put in it since I got it in '01. It hasn't been started since last fall, but still ran fine at that time(maybe I ought to get it out this week and put some fresh in it though)..
The blue 5.0 Bird hasn't had gas put in it since last fall(or before), it runs fine as well..
Stuff I know:
- TPS is bad. Read 5v when I tested it. When I ran it this time, I disconnected the TPS on Shawn's advice.
- Gas is old. 2 gallons of it were in the car for well over a year. The other ~20 gallons are 92 octane (hoped the extra detergent might help a little) and were put in around the last week of October, along with two small bottles of gas treatment. The stabilizer was added somewhere around December or January, when I had to put some in the tank of our generator.
- We pulled one plug soon after I got the car here, and it was not fouled or damaged in any way.
- Y-pipe precats are cleaned out, and are going back on the car tomorrow.
- Smog system has been removed between the pump and that tube that connects to both heads. The tube is in place with the check valve on the end of it. I can plug it if need be. (also have a couple junk spark plugs I can stick in the holes if needed)
- Looks to have new, but cheap, wires on it. Dist. cap looks new-ish, but I haven't pulled it to check condition yet. I believe the previous owner told me he had replaced plugs/wires/cap/rotor at the same time, to try and get the car running again.
- Has one known set of bad rings.. I believe he said some mechanics told him #2's rings were shot. It blew a LOT of oil up into the throttle body via that hose connected to the oil filler tube. Although, when I ran it today, that hose was disconnected. (I had to go buy new hose pieces to reconnect it)
- Has new vacuum lines connected to most of the intake manifold, based on the picture floating around here from when I asked what goes where. I've done a reasonable amount of tracing of the lines, and saw no obvious problems with my reassembly of the system.
- New fuel filter.
- Already reset the switch in the trunk.
Any other info needed?
Looks like your goin good keep up the hard work it will pay off somtime LOL
I musta missed the funny part.
Anyway, got a couple pieces of 3/8" hose to put that little line back on from the TB to the oil filler. Y-pipe's ready to go, except I need to cap off the old air line somehow. (I have a way, just won't try it until tomorrow) Now I just need to kick myself for being out there at 1 AM mounting the rear view mirror button.
if you bend the clips back outward, it'll hold itself. Then just use any sealant such as silicone to make it airtight
It's feeling more and more like a car again. With a project like this, even the little stuff like gluing the rearview mirror back up feels like real progress. Now if I could just make up my mind on whether or not I'm going to put the Y-pipe in first or paint the quarter panel first..
Back to square 1 with the car. Takes 5-10 seconds of cranking to start it, it slowly starts, sputters, sometimes flares up in revs, tries to level off and run right, then dies. Just killed the battery trying to start it long enough to move it.
Charged up the battery a bit more and had another go at it.
The more times I try to start it, and get it to run for a few seconds at a time, the more it wants to stay running.. but by the time it starts getting easy to keep it going, the battery is dead and I have to give up. Last time before the battery ped out, it started hard, ran smooth, sputtered, recovered and ran smooth again, sputtered/recovered one more time, and ped out after about a minute total.
Needless to say, I'm back to charging the battery on 6A.
Just for the hell of it, I disconnected the IAC, (TPS is already disconnected/bad) stepped on the gas just a tiny bit, and tried to start it. Had no problem running it at over 1000 RPM for several minutes. Reconnected the IAC, pushed the pedal in again just a little bit, and tried to start it again.. did nothing but chug along barely running.
So are all my problems related to this TPS being bad? Or is it something else in addition to that?
Looks like my transmission is also leaking now. I guess I left it on jack stands for too long.. 'cause once I let it down again, it started to drip. Bummer.
On an unrelated note.. just some of the cleanup work I've done to the car.
The silver paint in the front lights came out a little better than expected. Now I just need lenses for 'em. (I have one lens in the back seat, pretty cracked up tho)
Also threw in a shot of the different colored dash pieces taken in a better light.
Decided to copy the engine stuff over to a thread in Engine Tech to try and solve this.
http://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/showthread.php?p=23619#post23619
The Engine Tech thread is more up to date, with some of this stuff edited where appropriate.
This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but you can see the difference between a taillight assembly that's been rubbed down with polishing compound and had the reflectors re-sprayed with silver paint vs. one still showing 16 years of weathering. Every light is noticeably brighter. (esp. the license plate light, which did not have any sort of reflective surface in there)
EDIT: Oh yeah, on an unrelated note, I cleared up my instrument cluster lighting problems. The fuse that controls the clock, rear reading lights, and the trunk release button was burned out. When I replaced that, the base lighting in the cluster came back. Go figure. Found out the trunk release is shot, though. Oh well, that's wut keys are for.
Got some seat covers yesterday. The day before, I took a scrub brush and some Simple Green to the stains in the carpet. Looks like a LOT of coffee and/or soda was spilled in there. But anyway, even though the stains are still visible in some spots, the interior feels like a completely different car. Once I get new clips put on the windows, I can put that door back together. Still gotta figure out what I'm going to do about that broken shift indicator you see hanging down.
On the engine side of things, I've put in a couple more new vacuum lines, new dist. cap and rotor, new coil, new TFI, new TPS, and re-gapped all the plugs. (the gap was a bit small) Car starts easier but still doesn't run right. The thread in Engine Tech seems to either have people stumped, or ignoring me for being an idiot.. I can't tell which. :p (but neither would surprise me.. hah)
Next I need to find a replacement for that little metal grommet/washer/whatever that helps hold the TV cable into the throttle assembly.. and possibly an EEC, since the friend helping me locally thinks I might wanna try to find one on Ebay in case this one's messed up.
But enough talk.. this was just an excuse to add another pic. :p
looking good man. I know when I fix something or clean something on my 300 dollar junkyard mobile I feal like a million bucks! But it looks like I'm having a little better luck, I drive mine everyday.
I'm waiting for the money to get new O-rings for the injectors, a new fuel pump, a new FPR, and a fresh fuel filter. We're having a yard sale this weekend, so maybe after that I can start working on it again.