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Topic: My current '86 (Read 2332 times) previous topic - next topic

My current '86

Reply #15 –
Quote from: 5.0willgo
The same pictures as the small ones. Looks good. Have you managed to get that thing unearthed yet?:giggle:

Like someone else said, dig it up, give it a good bath and a tune up. How long has it been since it was last started?

Pretty much the same ones as the small ones, yes, but I did add a couple of the motor as well.  No, it's not unearthed yet, although I'm hoping it will be soon as I'm getting ready to put it on blocks and store it till spring when I have money saved up to get it running.  Needs more than a good bath and a tune up, needs new paint and more than likely a new motor as well, cuz the guy that I had do the motor swap destroyed the old harness, so as you can see, it's a mess of cut and spliced wires under the hood.  It ran fine right before it was pulled from an '86 T-Bird, which was last summer, since then, nothing.
'86 cougar gone to the big yard.
'86&'88 Jeep Comanches.

My current '86

Reply #16 –
Quote from: venom_cat_86
the guy that I had do the motor swap destroyed the old harness, so as you can see, it's a mess of cut and spliced wires under the hood.  It ran fine right before it was pulled from an '86 T-Bird, which was last summer, since then, nothing.


I had a similar experience. When I swapped inthe H.O. in my car, I had no idea what I was doing so my dad found some guy to do it. Well he did a lousy job and screwed up a few things. I was looking into replacing my harness as well but the car is now running fine. I just had to go through and look for things he screwed up. It was long and frustrating but now the car runs better than ever. I did all of my other modifications myself so I even found some other things along the way that the "shadetree mechanic" screwed up.

Your motor may be fine but just look over that harness. Replace the entire thing if you have to because it could just be bad wiring. There's a whole list of stuff if the motor runs rough or whatever but if it won't even start or crank, that doesn't mean the motor's bad.

A little side note, once you save your money to fix it up watch so you don't throw it away on things you don't need. I've done quite a bit of this and if I could only go back...

Good luck with it

My current '86

Reply #17 –
Quote from: 5.0willgo
Your motor may be fine but just look over that harness. Replace the entire thing if you have to because it could just be bad wiring. There's a whole list of stuff if the motor runs rough or whatever but if it won't even start or crank, that doesn't mean the motor's bad.

A little side note, once you save your money to fix it up watch so you don't throw it away on things you don't need. I've done quite a bit of this and if I could only go back...

Good luck with it

I've been trying to find another harness, preferably with all the sensors, but it's not an easy task, especially when the closest year T-Bird/Cougar in any junkyard or anywhere around here for that matter is all the newer stuff from say '90 and up.  I'm almost certain that it's the harness, but I'm no electrician by any means, and dont really know what goes where, and what plugs are missing off of the harness....... etc, etc.  All I know for sure is that the motor and computer are from an '86 bird, and the harness is from an '87 cougar, and that everything seems to be somewhat in order, just that no fuel is wanting to go through the injectors into the motor.  I pulled a couple plugs out just today in fact and put a couple drops of gas in each cylinder and put the plugs back in and it wanted to start, so........  I'm just at a "what do I do" stage.
'86 cougar gone to the big yard.
'86&'88 Jeep Comanches.

My current '86

Reply #18 –
Quote from: venom_cat_86
All I know for sure is that the motor and computer are from an '86 bird, and the harness is from an '87 cougar.


That there may be your problem. I think you will need an 86 harness. The 87's were different in some places with connectors and such. I really don't know all the ins and outs on it but I'm sure if you made a new post about this issue, some others will be able to shed light on the problem.

I know what you mean about how difficult it is to find the right parts. There's one junkyard not 15 miles from me that must have about 30 fox bodied birds and cougars. Nobody else has any decent ones. Unfortunately the owner prices his stuff rediculously high and has ripped me off in the past. If it wasn't for the really big dogs guarding the place, I'd go get myself some five fingered dicounted items. Instead I'll just wait until he dies and it changes ownership. That shouldn't be too long from now.