My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[87gtVIC]

The new exhaust

Factory Ford stuff...h pipe looks brand new to me!







I'd rather have the high flow cats but all of this is still an upgrade compared to stock exhaust.

[86VickyLX]

sexy

[87gtVIC]

Painted Radiator Hold Downs

Yesterday I painted my radiator hold down because they were looking flaky...now they don't!

Just a quick sand down, prime, base and clear job. I like it.

Before:



During..one sanded and one not:



Painted:



And installed this morning:



Also a shot the the engine coolant temperature sensor I installed last week. What a tight area to work in.

[johnunit]

Nice work on the hold-downs, they came out a bit nicer than mine. It's amazing how big an improvement them being a nice black makes visually. Mine were so bad that I had to really search to find any original paint at all (to make sure they were black from the factory).

[87gtVIC]

Thanks. Yes much better being black for sure. They were an eyesore before, now an eye catcher lol.

EDIT: My dad just informed me that the h pipe is in fact brand new. Yay for new parts. Exhaust job is on hold because I need to purchase some intermediate pipes and flanges.

[87gtVIC]

I pulled an exhaust manifold bolt out this morning to check if the new bolts I have fit and of course the ones I have are too long ON the bright side, the bolt I pulled came out like butter!

[86VickyLX]

I gotta repaint mine, I was in a rush putting the thing back together, I smudged the paint.

[87gtVIC]

Haste makes waste. Let it dry a good day in nice weather and then still be cautious while reinstalling them.

IN other news I received my intermediate pipes from rock auto this week along with some flanges to bolt up those pipes to my NOS h pipe. May start things this weekend or next weekend when my father is on vacation.

[marquisman]

hahaha...a robo cop II movie bit...haste makes waste...i rolling stone is worth two in the bush... hahahaha

[87gtVIC]

Started the header swap. What a PITA! Drivers side was easy....I got all of the bolts/nuts off EXCEPT the stud BEHIND the oil dipstick tube...I will work on getting that stud off behind the tube tomorrow. The passengers side kicked my ass good. The bolt all the way next to the firewall was a bitch to reach...so was every other one. That one way smog pump valve welded itself to the stud of one of the exhaust manifold bolts. I took a long screw driver and hammer and broke the mount for that valve and then unbolted the stud out of the heads. So I have all of the bolts/nuts off of the exhaust manifold except the one behind the dipstick tube.

Tomorrow I will unplug the oxygen sensor harness and sawzall off the cats and remove the manifolds and hopefully get the headers and h pipe and smog shit hooked back up with only the intermediate pipes to worry about.

Oh and I did this all by myself. Dad helped very little so far. Good thing I am 'strong like bull' otherwise nothing would get done.

[87gtVIC]

My dad helped me remove the cats today. Took MAPP gas to the cat-manifold nuts and with a breaker bar they broke loose then my dad zipped them off with the air gun. Then we fished out the stock manifolds and replaced them with some headers. Bolted up the headers with a special spacer for the dipstick tube, and making sure to put the new one way valve/ air injection pipe on the last bolt against the firewall. Next up will be installing the H pipe and mating the intermediate pipes to my current mufflers.

[87gtVIC]

Some progress pics.

All of the old crap removed, one of the smog injection pipes leading to the cats were completely rusted apart:



And headers installed:

You can see here the spacer my dad made for the dipstick tube.





And the new location of the mustang air injection pipe and smog valve near the bottom (way against the firewall):

[gadget73]

Did you fire it up with open headers yet? Gotta do that at least once.

[87gtVIC]

No. I really really want to though. I imagine it would sound good. Funny thing...my dad just walked in while I was reading this..he didnt seem opposed. He said there should be no problem having it run a little bit like that...so I may do it!. Just have to connect some vacuum lines i disconnected to access header bolts and I should be in the clear

[87gtVIC]

Painted Power Mirror Bezels

Since my car will eventually be painted I decided to go ahead and freshen up the power mirror bezels. Not sure of the original color but they are now black and look great! They were so sunfaded that they looked light gray. I just didnt think they would look good up against a new paint job so out came the paint! Plus they will match all of the other bits of painted black pieces that will get installed once paint comes.

To remove the bezels you need to pop off the mirror glass. Just pry on the shorter end with a door panel removal tool and rag and it will pop right off. Just a little cross thing holding it in place along with the power tilt pegs. Then remove the four screws and you can remove the bezel.

I sanded the bezels down with a 3m medium sanding sponge. They work really well and last really long and get into places easily. Just a lot easier to use than sandpaper.

After I sanded them down I washed them off and dried them and applied a coat of Duplicolor Professional Flexible Primer. Then top coated with Duplicolor Trim Paint black in color.

I will install them tomorrow after they dry thoroughly in the shade. I cant wait to install them.

Mirror glass removed:





Backsides of teh mirror glass. Apparently there is a left and right side. Probably because one has the warning about objects:



Bezel-less mirror buckets:





The bezels:



The bezels ready to be painted accompanied by the products. I screwed the bezels into a piece of cardboard so I can lift them up and get into any area paint needed to get into:



Primed:



And complete:





I also polished up the mirror buckets...though they are pitted they still shine up. Tomorrow I will get pics of them installed.