My 1989 Crown Victoria.

[slack]

Driver's Side Dew Wipe Installed

So, it looks like the passenger's side is installed a bit too high. I installed the driver's side last night and closed up the door panel. It looks great! It actually lines up exactly with the inner dew wipe when the window is open and makes a real good seal against the window.

This time I lined up the dew wipe's little outer lip thing with the little lip on the trim that sits on the inside of the door. The bottom of the new dew wipe basically sits in the exact same spot as the previous dew wipe. (Not any higher).

Fully installed, it's a pinch lower than the factory dew wipe but some varying is expected as they're not the same exact shape. All in all, it's awesome. The only thing that sucks is I have to now go back and take the passengers side apart to fix the height on that side.

Pics of it installed:

[slack]

Going to try Poly bushings on the front control arms tomorrow....

Wish me luck! I have no idea what's I'm doing lol.

I know I need to burn the old ones out..... Hopefully no control arm nuts or bolts snap in the process.......

[87gtVIC]

If you feel like any of those will snap while you are working on them heat them up as well.

[slack]

Control Arm Bushings...

Soooo... the bolts didn't snap. I was actually able to get the whole upper control arm out in maybe an hour. I had to use a big pipe to get the bolts free and lots of PB blaster.

Problem is, I messed up the threads on the outer tie rod when whacking it out of the spindle. Even though they're less than a year old they already started to become "one" with each other. That said, I can't get the crown nut back on. I'm guessing I have to replace the tie rod now?

Also, as everyone said months ago to replace the brake lines when I was doing the caliper and I didn't... Welllllll... I busted the rusty brake line. I barely touched it and it started leaking all the fluid out. Good news is I was able to get the old line out. I'm now in the painful process of making a new line for it. (I'm absolutely terrible at making brake lines and flaring them.)

I didn't even get to the bottom bushings yet. So all in all, I was able to replace two of the four bushings on the driver's side. Ugh.


Spindle disconnected:


Loosening Control Arm Bolts: This one was a 24mm. The ones to the frame weren't 7/8s like I've seen posted. They were closer to a 22mm/23mm iirc.


Upper Control Arm Removed:


Busted Brake Line: You can see the fluid leaking down the frame


Burning the Bushings out:


One thing I can say about burning the bushings out... they didn't snake out or ooze like I've heard. Mine fell apart and came out as rubber crumbles. They weren't sticky either. Maybe the burned out that way because they were so dry rotted to begin with?

I also gave the control arm a good coat of paint before reassembling with the new poly bushings. Poly bushings went in fairly easily. I used a bunch of that nasty sticky grease they give you and pressed them in most of the way by hand. I used the nut and washer to push them in the remaining 20%. No pics of this or the reassembly because it was starting to get late and I had to put the car together enough so it didn't look like a mess come today. I did use the red thread lock on the bushing nuts as I read that you have to do if you don't replace them.

[87gtVIC]

Always keep the nut on anything you are smacking with the BFH.

Regarding the brake lines you can get lucky bending alot of it by hand. Just be careful to not go too far and kink. A wooded broom stick handle helps out for tight bends.


I personally only ever burned out the rears. The fronts Ivan and I pulled BB swap arms and Ivan popped the ES bushings into them for me. Good thing you didn't get the gooey sticky mess. I still remember doing the rears. I was behind the garage in a super small tight spot. I was a scared!

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Brake Line Fixed

I'll definitely keep that in mind and try that in the future. I never even thought about giving it some good whacks while the nut was still on. Last time I used a hard rubber mallet and completely forgot this time when I went swinging the carpenters hammer on the thing. oops! The good news is I was able to get the nut successfully threaded onto the outer tie rod and get everything back and connected. (Wew! Unfortunately it has to come out one last time for the lower bushings but at least I can continue to drive it in the mean time. )

Broom handle probably would have made the brake line go in easier today. I ended up using the generic circle pipe bender "tool" and ended up with a rather large loop. It just fit and thankfully the rest was able to be bent mostly by hand. The flaring wasn't nearly as bad as I remember from the times I've done it in the past. I practiced twice on some scrap pipe and then went for the real deal. I managed to get a good flare on the first try on the fabricated pipe. (Thank god. There was only room for maybe 1-2 mess-ups before having to rebend it).

After the line was made, my friend helped me bleed the brakes and the car was good to go. The brake line over to the passenger's side front caliper and from the master to the proportioning valve are the last of the original brake lines in the car. I will probably end up replacing those sometime in the near future as well.

Here's some pics of the new line in place:

The first one is the new line to the caliper:


Here you can see where the line comes out of the back of the proportioning valve (I think that's what it is). Top line goes from master to valve and bottom line goes to passenger side. Other new line you see in the front goes to the rears. Also, I think there's a new return gas line or something there as well. I'm not really sure as the previous owner only said the lines to the rear brakes were replaced. It's a thick gas line looking thing in the back.


With burning the bushings, I was surprised to see the crumble myself. I don't think I've seen that reported yet. I could see that being scary in a tight space. I originally started in the driveway in the front yard but figured it wasn't good for all the cars to see me literally burning rubber as they drove by and finished up in the backyard. I was nervous that one of the neighbors were going to complain of the smell and black smoke though.

[sly]

I used a propane wide heat torch... if you used a welding style torch, it'll probably carbonize it much easier. When you spread the heat out, it tends to melt before burning. Next time I get a torch, I'm gonna get one I can focus the fire with.

[slack]

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense then. Yeah I used MAP gas and a focused tip. I switched from using propane because I felt like propane sometimes never gets things hot enough.

[slack]

Passenger Front Dew Wipe Height Fixed

Yesterday I finally fixed the passenger's side dew wipe height.

It's amazing how easy it is to disassemble these doors after you've done it a bunch of times.

I also used a little JB Weld to fill in the previous holes I drilled. I know it probably wasn't necessary but I didn't like the idea of water possibly getting in from my old bolt holes. (As they are higher up than the new holes). You can't see the old holes anymore once the dew wipe was installed.

Anyway. Install went without a hitch.

Final product:

[sly]

[fordnmerc]

I remember the first '88 that I ever saw when they first came out. We had an '82 tudor at the time. I didn't really care for the styling change right off. Thought the tail lights looked too much like a Cadillac Seville. Then we bought a new '89 and I got accustomed to the design and was okay with it and years later bought a '91. Never did care for the trunk lid on the '88-'91 CVs though....just flat and without character. I've always much preferred the trunk lid on the '88-'91 GM....hit my head less on 'em, too!

You've done a hell of a great job with the conversion!

[slack]

Thanks!

I agree. I like the older style rear as well. Back in the day, I actually sort of preferred the 88-91 rear as I wasn't a huge fan of the taillights but to be honest, they've grown on me quiet a bit. That said, I've always like the older front end much better. I think my love started back in high school and my neighbor we passed in the bus each day owned a 88-91 box CV in their driveway and I saw it each day. After that, my ex-gf owned an '86 box one for a short time before getting ripped off by her mechanic. I wanted to buy it but she was.... I hate to say it... a bitch and wouldn't sell it to me. It was running rich and she sold it to her mechanic for $50 credit towards another car he was pushing (an 87 delta 88) that she went for. (She drove that for a few months) I tried buying the Delta off of her but she wouldn't sell that either.. that thing got junked before it's prime as well... It was mint and maybe died somewhere in '06

[slack]

More Control Arm Bushing Fun

So last weekend I attempted to tackle the remaining control arm bushings I have left to replace. Previously, I was able to get the driver's side upper replaced. This past weekend I was able to get the driver's side lower as well as the passenger's side upper before it got too late. I only have the passenger's side lower left to do! That said, the car needs a good alignment bad. The upper arms control the caster/camber with their two mounting bolts on the frame and I know it's now way off.

Anyone know any good alignment shops on the island? I've been to multiple Mavis shops and they have never touched the camber/caster.

Here's some pics of the progress:

Disconnecting stuff. Remove shock, spring, outer tie rod from spindle, upper and lower ball joints from spindle, remove spindle. Use a jack to keep pressure on the lower arm unless you like risking your life with that spring. Once the spring is compressed, lower the lower arm and remove. Then remove the bolts for the lower control arms. The bolts on the lower arms are awkward to get enough force on because they're on super tight but they're not impossible. I used A LOT of PB blaster and some heat.


Here's what everything looks like once the lower is removed:


Here's a pic of one of the cracked original lower bushings:


Burning the bushings out. What's nice about the lower ones is they don't have that bar going through them so after they're hot enough you can use a pick or a screw driver and pry them out cleanly instead of having to wait until they're almost completely burned away.


Removed bushings:


Installing the new bushings: I used a ton of that assembly lube. I actually bought a second larger tub of it because I knew with the way I was using it those two little packs they give you in the box was not going to be enough.


Lower arm reattached and painted for good measure:


Here's with the driver's side reassembled: Things are tightened with load on the suspension.


More to come in next post. Ran into attachment limit.....

[slack]

More Control Arm Bushing Fun Pt2

Continuing with the progress pics!

Here's two close ups of the new bushings installed on the driver's side lower: I went with the black Energy Suspension poly's because they're "Graphite reinforced" where the red ones weren't. I don't know if it actually makes a difference.


It started getting dark and late on the passenger's side so they're not many pics here. It's basically the same as the pics I posted for the driver's side upper. I had to use a lot of heat and pb blaster on this side. I was really worried that the adjustment bolts on the frame were not going to come off. I used a huge breaker bar with an extension after using heat and I still felt the thing flexing. Thank god they did come off. Also a word of warning with the heat, the fuel lines run right there so don't set yourself or your car on fire when trying to heat the bolts.

Removed!


Here's a shot of the wheel well with the upper removed: I had to finage the picture a bit because it was too dark to see anything. Now it looks like bad night vision. haha


Burning the bushings! (Looks much cooler at night)


Here's the last pic I took of the day. It's how I press in the upper bushings. I use the nut and washer to push the bushing in with the assembly lube and then back it out again for the install. I used the red thread locker on these nuts because I've read they're actually one time use and can back out on you. If they do after using thread locker, I just get new ones at that point.


After that, gave the upper arm a good coat of paint and reassembled everything. The upper arms are easier to remove as you only have to remove the two bolts to the frame as well as the upper ball joint from the spindle to get the thing out. I loosen up the two nuts on the bushing while the arm is on the car because they basically require a breaker bar to get them to loosen up. (Good luck doing that on the ground. )

Woo!

[Louis]

Nice work!