kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[kishy]

Photos!

8/08 with friend's Bonneville



8/12 engine bay general/overview
Heater core still bypassed, AC brackets absent. Junkyard parts will be needed to make AC happen in this car. The way I got the car, there was no provision for a tensioner pulley.
Yes, I loosely ziptie my plug wires to the control arm to keep them off the exhaust...one day I will get better at properly assigning the wires to their correct homes. It would be nice if the replacement sets would come in the same lengths as the factory ones, but they never do.







8/13 put hands on the tailgate door card. It is broken, all the tabs for the retainers are broken, and it also smells oddly like BO. It must be replaced.





8/19 headlight relays! This has hopefully made it so I'll never need to replace the headlight switch. Light output is significantly improved, didn't think to check voltage before/after. Amazon relay sockets definitely lied about having 14 gauge wire but I made the affected length as short as possible and it seems to be doing fine. Notably, the high beams no longer have two intensity levels (normal high beam vs holding flash to pass while high beams are already on), which speaks to the drop that was happening in the headlight switch area of the circuit.







8/20 impromptu photoshoot

[gadget73]

I was thinking for the hinge pin thing, make a new pin with a threaded or tapped end so it bolts together but has a proper length shoulder so it doesn't rely on the nut being set just so in order to work. If done right, the old part could just be cut out, the new installed with a nut and some loctite to hold it in place. Bonus points if its just a commonly available shoulder bolt that could be bought from McMaster-Carr or whatever.

[mitymerc]

If you do not get the right sockets they dont fit. I figgered this out after a nice neat shrink tubed solder job...

BTW, the Mega Merc's front door panels have been off for at least 2 winters, kinda drafty LOL

[kishy]

Nice! I just got the Blues Bison's doors finished up, I finally found the correct sockets for the armrest lights, wires have been dangling since spring. On the MegaMerc the door panels have been off since last fall. LOL

Don't feel too bad about that, I think my 3 years with the doors taken apart beats you

I am so very glad I decided to pull these good junkyard door parts back in 2017 when they came up. The originals from this car were totally unusable. Pics from this thread, 2018:





With the border being closed due to the pandemic, I would still be without door cards had I started fixing the door issues at the same time, but didn't have the junkyard ones on hand.

Since the wires to feed the armrest courtesy lights are present, terminating in a connector, I will ideally come across the connector/socket pigtail bits to just plug in. If not, I may have the parts to make them myself. But the lenses are also MIA so I'll need to figure out where those went. The dome light lens is also missing, I believe I never put it back on because it was in poor condition, but I don't like the way brand new ones look.

[mitymerc]

Nice! I just got the Blues Bison's doors finished up, I finally found the correct sockets for the armrest lights, wires have been dangling since spring. On the MegaMerc the door panels have been off since last fall. LOL