Prudence, my 87 Town Car

[DerekTheGreat]

What Sly said.

But yep, I own that movie. Surprised you're just now watching it, I thought it was a rite of passage for a black box Town Car owner. I was pumping gas once when a dude pulled up to an adjacent pump, got out, took off his sunglasses as he eye'd my car and said, "Lin-coln aw-yer!" The way he said it made me chuckle.

I'd bet money the car in the film is a highly optioned '87 Signature Series. Had a digital dash and the JBL system, at least. Seeing as the JBL tweeters were all shot in the dash, I'd say it was repainted prior and perhaps the top was redone at or around the same time. I'm a big fan of the movie's opening Lincoln porn. Surprised they did that. "Ain't no love.. In the heart of the city.." Also surprised that scene is there, but then there is/are no scene(s) discussing the car and why he still has it despite being a lucrative attorney. When I looked at the books, I saw a picture of what looked to be a late 90's TC on the cover. Blech, glad they didn't go that direction with the movie.

[gadget73]

There is at least one scene where I think its got an 85 though. Pretty sure I remember the distinct sound of a CFI engine start. I'm also thinking I remember an interior shot showing the lower part of the dash in black. For reasons that I find completely unfathomable, they did that on the 85 models. Down to that mid-level trim it was all burled wood, the bottom panels were a satin black.

I do remember one scene where he's hauling ass somewhere and the sound of an ailing smog pump is very obvious.

[sly]

I remember the smog pump sound because of the noise the dying one on the 88 made before it seized up. That was trippy.

[Lutrova]

The smog pump sound goes to show that even on the big screen, these cars are all beaters to some extent.

Setting aside that they probably used multiple cars for filming, I'm not sure what trim the car was originally. If it was a Signature, it'd have the badge on the vinyl top. The style and color of the seats looks like a Cartier to me, but the exterior wouldn't be black. And the map pockets wouldn't be available on a base model. I couldn't find a good shot of the dash, other than a quick shot to show the digital instruments, but the center high mount brake light would suggest it's at least an '86.

[GM_Guy]

Usual movie cars, different cars for different angle shots as well. Rearview mirror position keeps flip flopping also.

[Mainemantom]

I love how the paint is like a mirror. especially the hood on one of the shots. Cool video, I never saw it.
Movie companies want a dull finish for filming. On camera the dull finish turns shiny. They also repaint vehicle when needed with the worst paint. Worse than scuff and shoot paint jobs. I know a vehicle supplier in Ca. All the vehicles he has are "weathered"
General rule is if you care about your vehicle, never rent it to a movie company then leave the area. Abuse happens especially if the owner is not there. Some people have good experiences and make decent money per day renting.
We have friends in LA that have rented their house to a movie company for filming. The house has the "look" they wanted. $1,500 a day plus furniture moving expenses and clean up.

[Lutrova]

We had our second child just after Thanksgiving, and despite the Army giving my wife almost four months of maternity leave, we've kept busy enough that I've had very little time for wrenching. There are several mechanical problems that really deserve some attention, but as this car is a hobby I think it's fair if I sometimes skip over the boring stuff to do something fun every now and then. And so I set out to color match the wheel covers to the car.



The 'luxury wheel covers' I'm running could be color matched back in the mid '70s, but from what I've seen it looks like most of them were left unpainted. I picked up a can of PlastiDip from Home Depot, just in case I want to go back to unpainted later. Masking the edge proved difficult. I initially tried using backer rod, but it produced more of a fade-out effect than a hard line. Electrical tape was more successful, but the geometry of the metal was a little too much for it and it popped up in spots. The end result is a pretty uneven edge, but it might be passable at five feet, which is about where the rest of the car is.



What I like most about the painted covers is how nicely the Lincoln star pops. Left unpainted they are much more camouflaged. And when not looked at head on, they have a much nicer, quasi-turbine appearance. If a set of lacy spoke wheels fell in my lap I might run them instead, but other than that I think I prefer these wheel covers to anything else.



Another fun development was my discovery of Bleche-Wite tire cleaner, also from Home Depot. Apparently the former owners had a real wonder product that Black Magic got a hold of and ruined, but in my experience it got the tires - and the white rubber especially - cleaner than I've ever had them before. And it cleaned them with far less effort on my part. Just a hose and a tire brush required, no sandpaper or brillo pads.

[87gtVIC]

That looks so damn good. I love that detail!

[Mainemantom]

You did a really nice job on the wheelcovers.

[DerekTheGreat]

They do look superb. However, I still think you need Lacy Spokes. From the side and how you've got the rear windows tinted, your car is almost a dead ringer to mine.

[VicCrownVic]

Looks good. I think I can see the edge you're talking about on the closer pics but not on the full car pics. It will bug you more than anyone though, LOL, most won't even notice.

Bleche-Wite does a pretty good at cleaning white walls but I don't like using it on the rest of the tire so I just put a little on a rag and clean only the white with it. It also is great at cleaning old sticker adhesive off of windows. I try to make sure it doesn't get on paint or interior bits when cleaning stickers off then wipe the area with water after all the sticky crap is gone to remove or at least dilute the Bleche-Wite residue. It might not be harmful to paint, interior bits, or glass but I'd rather not find out the hard way.

[Lutrova]

Thanks, everyone. My concern with the rough edge was whether the shininess of the metal underneath would highlight any inconsistencies from a greater distance than they'd otherwise be noticed, but in practice this hasn't been the case. Now that I've played around with PlastiDip, I have half a mind to black out the brightwork around the door window frames so as to simplify the greenhouse and draw less attention to the fact that the windows aren't frameless.

Derek - I continue to keep an eye out for some lacy spokes. Maybe I could buy another Box with them, swap them for steelies and my old wire wheel covers, and sell the car.

Vic - The instructions on the Bleche-Wite say not to leave it on wheels, so it probably is pretty aggressive on anything that isn't rubber. That's why I popped off the wheel covers before cleaning the tires.

***

A month or two back I noticed a lot of wobble in the smog pump pulley. Rather than try to fix or replace it, I figured now was the time to delete the whole secondary air system. It was already in a diminished state from when I replaced the cats and tossed the plumbing that ran to them. Getting the rest of it out was pretty straightforward. The hardest part of the job was just fitting a wrench by the firewall to unbolt the crossover pipe.





It's a good thing I wasn't planning on tapping the threads and running a bolt into the back of the heads. The passenger side port was completely clogged with gunk. The driver side still had a small passage for air and exhaust to pass through. I had ponied up for the LMR block off kit, which includes small bumps on the block off plates to help with locating them. But there wasn't a chance I was cleaning out enough carbon to make that happen so instead I flipped them around and installed them with the flat side against the heads.

The good: It seems my engine vibrations at idle and the slight jerk when letting off the gas have both improved or gone away. The smell of exhaust from the vents is also greatly diminished. Not sure whether this is due to fixing vacuum leaks or an exhaust leak, but either way I'm not going to argue with results.

The bad: I now have an intermittent belt squeal, which I believe is coming from my freshly rerouted AC/smog delete belt. In addition, the AC compressor just makes a constant buzzing sound when I try to turn it on

The ugly: I'm not chalking this up to my smog pump removal project, but I have noticed that the engine sounds a bit like a school bus when in gear. There's also a strange rattling sound that I think is coming from somewhere around the front of the engine, but I can't see anything obvious just looking in from above. I took two videos today, one with the wheels chocked so I could film it in drive.

When in park, the engine sounds much better and the rattling sound disappears.

[DerekTheGreat]

I did not know these had that crossover port stuff at the back of the engine like the truck engines do. And yeah, that's a lot of carbon cake! Aren't there supposed to be threads in the holes such that the plugs you can buy just thread right in? That's what I was planning to do with the 351 in our '93 F150, but that won't be possible if the holes have that much gick in 'em. Engine bay on your car looks great, very clean. I guess I missed where you did the '91 or so relay/electrical upgrade, 3G swap and whale intake upgrade.

[Lutrova]

I had read that the holes are threaded, but I'll never know for sure with all the carbon in there. And based on the way the engine sounds and the fact that it's approaching 200,000 miles, I'm wondering whether I should be buying an Explorer engine in anticipation of a swap. Car-part shows a couple at a yard up in Gettysburg for $450, supposedly running, so that might not be so far fetched an idea.

All the 3G, intake, vacuum reservoir, etc stuff happened while I was still in California, probably over two years ago now. It's all added up to make the driver's side much cleaner. Removing the smog pump finally has done the same for the passenger side fender, or at least started the process.

[Arquemann]

Sounds kinda odd, almost like solid lifters. Pull the belts and see if the sound is gone. Could be an accessory bearing that shuts up under more load. What's the timing advance at idle? Just throwing things to easily check.
Or it could be the timing chain merrily slapping around, is the timing set original?

Yes, there are threads in the backs of the heads, on my 120k mile heads it took about a minute per hole honing with a metal bottle brush to be able to thread a bolt in.