My 1987 Mercury Colony Park

[jaywish]

Sorry no tits

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Do those fancy lamps have the Hoppy aiming tits on them?

hm, that sounds dirtier than it needs to.

Just like Jaywish said, they don’t.

However, I already aimed the old lights before putting in the new ones. The light cutoff is even, so they appear correct. The sharp cutoff also makes it easy to line them up for fine adjustment. Personally, I found them worth it since they look very similar to a sealed beam bulb. I didn’t want any of the projector or “diamond look” jazz on this headlight upgrade.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Today was a nice little work day. Went over to a friend's house to give him a little assistance with a radio install in his '14 Focus, and also so I could work on my stuff . Apparently this is a super recent dash kit since newer cars are using considerably more proprietary configurations, and the earlier kits available left you with your new radio, and then a small redundant screen that used to be for the radio, but wouldn't do anything. IMO, this is really nice. Plenty of features added, but nothing I really need in any of my cars.



That said, I also tackled some audio stuff, namely fixing the door speakers. I feared the worse for bad wiring, but in this case the 31 year old speakers had died. I swapped in some cheap Dual speakers from work since they were only $20. Audio quality improved! The dash speakers weren't cut out to provide all front audio and the rears had enough area to deal with, so it's much nicer having full sound again, with a nice touch of bass. No photos of that, since it was nothing real special. Before buttoning up the driver's door, I did make up a weather barrier out of some heavier plastic sheeting. I used duct tape to hold it in place and seal it up. Not exactly a pretty sight under the door panel, but it's functional, and that's important. The lack of the weather barrier caused mold to appear on the door panel backing and moisture started to warp it near the bottom. Nothing terrible, but something that needed to be dealt with before it became worse.

I moved on from that to what was supposed to be a mock fit of the new '90 Town Car air intake and related bits. Instead, that became an almost complete install. That said, there's a ton more room on the driver's side now.







As far as the air cleaner assembly, there's a bolt for the fender liner that is in a perfect spot for the front mounting tab. At the back, there's a hole that lines up with the back left hole, but it's got some distance. The back right hole is much closer to the liner, but needs a hole drilled in the fender liner. A little adjustment on the liner with get that mounted reasonably well. Fitment really is not that bad considering that air cleaner was not a consideration when that car was new.

Fan shroud and coolant bottle swap was straight forward. I removed the four bolts holding the fan on, unbolted the shroud, and lifted the whole shebang out of it, and installation was just the reverse.

Washer bottle is mounted where the relays belong, and is held in place with the fender brace. I did modify the area around the mounting hole on the bottle since the angle bits running up to it interfered with the fender brace. The washer bottle has a Ford Service Parts sticker on it with the part number. It looked like the donor car had a number of OE type replacement part stickers on the nose, so I assume that car may have been wrecked early on and got OE replacement stuff. The washer pump works great and seems to have better flow than the original. I forgot to get the low washer connector off the donor car, but I guess I won't die if I don't have a light to tell me the fluid is low.

Now the relays are in a strange spot. I don't know if they'll remain where they are now. I did apply loom to the angry spaghetti so it looks less angry. I have it bolted in place for now since I don't want it shifting around while driving. I'm considering the possible adoption of the '90+ type vacuum box+relay component in place of the coffee can and towers o' relays, but I'm not sure if I'm up for that type of work right now. The current placement doesn't seem any worse than when they were mounted up against the fender, so they might just stay put since I can't think of any other place to stick them that is relatively safe from road spray and other weirdness.

[DerekTheGreat]

So I dig and always have dug the '90 TC air cleaner box. What I don't dig is the restriction from the box to the flex pipe/tube. Is there something we can use which matches the diameter of the tube?

[Kodachrome Wolf]

So I dig and always have dug the '90 TC air cleaner box. What I don't dig is the restriction from the box to the flex pipe/tube. Is there something we can use which matches the diameter of the tube?

As some people have done, the ‘96+ intake tube from the 4.6 cars can be used along with their air cleaner box since it’s the same thing as the ‘90 TC box. Personally, if I were to use the newer style tube, I’d grab one from a ‘04+ police model since it’s fairly straight like the TC tube. The civvy models and earlier ones, particularly ‘96-‘02 have a bend in them to clear the oil filler cap on the valve cover for those years. The later 4.6 cars have the filler on the passenger side valve cover. However, the whole bend thing is a matter of aesthetic since those options will still work fine.

‘04 Police:


‘96-‘02 Style:



Edit: I misread your post the first time around and thought you said you didn’t like the air restriction of the pipe. I would think you could use a coupler off a ‘92+ 4.6 car, but I’m not sure if the tube would be large enough. I might attempt testing that theory next week since I could just snatch it off the ‘97 for a moment.

[DerekTheGreat]

Hey, good info man! I did not know that, and thanks for the pics for comparison. I like both tubes. Would be a tough call.

[gadget73]

Mine runs 96-02 stuff, but for me the MAF is functional. I may swap the hose for a later police one if I happen upon one in the yard. Looks slightly cleaner than the dogleg but I don't expect any functional change.

[87gtVIC]

Worked out nice!

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Worked out nice!

I definitely was visiting your build thread for ideas when you swapped in your later air cleaner. Admittedly I wish I had the ‘90-‘91 fender liner, but I’ll make do with what I have for now.

I might steal your relay setup to clean up the separate vacuum reservoir and relay towers since the current configuration is fairly cluttered.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Started working on pre-prep for stuff I'll be using on the top end refresh.

Getting the old Mustang spacer off was a proper PITA.


Bolted up the bored spacer and HO throttle body.





Still have a few things to do with this intake setup. I need to get the throttle body arm swapped with the one from the LoPo one. I've got to swap the vacuum port that's on the runner side around. The '87 intake lacks this extra vacuum piece for the PCV, but this '89 intake has it. I've also got to swap on the correct vacuum tree. Beyond cleaning it, this part is ready.

If anyone is curious about the bolts, I used 5/16-18 x 3" long bolts with standard washers. Applied anti-seize to the length of the bolts where they passed through the spacer and throttle body. All four bolts were tightened up to 240 in/lbs (20 ft/lbs). Seems to be plenty snug and seated the gaskets firmly.

[DerekTheGreat]

I must've tightened the nuts to 10 ugga-duggas when I did my TB gasket & such. What it took before the thing stopped leaking. Felt like an ear of the TB was going to snap or crack. So far so good.

[87gtVIC]

Your glove shares the correct sign language for the job you had at separating the bastards.

[gadget73]

I've always halfass wondered how much there is to gain by actually making the alignment of the upper intake bore, EGR spacer, and throttle body match. It doesn't from the factory, the holes aren't the same size and the stuff is all shifted this way and that. Might be tricky to get it to actually work short of bolting the parts up with the blade out of the throttle body and boring the whole works in one go.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I've always halfass wondered how much there is to gain by actually making the alignment of the upper intake bore, EGR spacer, and throttle body match. It doesn't from the factory, the holes aren't the same size and the stuff is all shifted this way and that. Might be tricky to get it to actually work short of bolting the parts up with the blade out of the throttle body and boring the whole works in one go.

I’d assume it’d probably help as far as air flow goes in reducing turbulence due to surface irregularities, but probably wouldn’t prove to do much on a near stock engine. I’m sure in a more performance oriented configuration it would free up some ponies.

If someone had the ability to check airflow on a bench, I’m sure that would yield some useful data, but I lack anything of the sort.

I personally just hope my current configuration is tight enough to prevent leaks going forwards. I’m not running the coolant lines through the spacer, so that’s not a concern. I figure the TB to spacer should be okay. I just hope the EGR passage side is sealed. I don’t want to overtighten anything going into aluminum.

[gadget73]

as long as the sealing surfaces are good and flat it should be no problem. I've not needed to make anything retard tight. Usually thats a sign that something is not right if it has to be reefed on to not leaak.