kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[jaywish]

The trim is all imitation wood on the CV. The GM is aluminum with a wood/vinyl insert. Very different. Also the woodgrain itself is different between the two. Woodgrain is the same for GM 88-91 not sure how far back the 87 style goes.
probably would nout jump out at you if the tailgate was different or the right and left were different.

[BigMerc96]

The trim is all imitation wood on the CV. The GM is aluminum with a wood/vinyl insert. Very different. Also the woodgrain itself is different between the two. Woodgrain is the same for GM 88-91 not sure how far back the 87 style goes.
probably would nout jump out at you if the tailgate was different or the right and left were different.

I was gonna say. GMQ trim was aluminum for all years that I've paid attention too. I pulled trim from a '86 or '87 (SEFI but old front end, thats as close as I looked at the thing because it looked like a crime scene) colony park for my buddy's old '91 colony park. It matched. Only trim that was different was the front at the header panel, and maybe the fender pieces too, but the door and rear quarter sections he needed fit fine. His had been mildly sideswiped at some point, didn't do anything but put a small dent above the gas door and mangle the trim a bit on the rear door and quarter.

[kishy]

A couple quick updates:

• Ignition switch replaced with known-good-used. My suspicion that it had fallen apart was correct. However, the switch was not the reason why the starter relay was staying permanently engaged...
• The engine and starter are not seized. It cranked when I reconnected the (apparently constant hot) start wire to the starter relay. Now I need to figure out how that wire is staying hot because there's no apparent reason for it.
• I used a broken lock cylinder for which I had a key, to re-key the good (but missing key) lock cylinder in the tailgate. The power lock motor is seized as I more or less expected. After disconnecting it, the linkage operates and the power up/down tailgate window now operates by the key. But, the tailgate does not lock, so I'll need to screw around with the linkage a little more. Since the PO said they never had a door key the whole time they owned the car, this car hasn't been locked in over 10 years so stuff is probably gummy.

[gadget73]

Is the starter relay being energized by the wire on the S terminal, or is it just welded shut?

If its being powered, I'd be looking at the wiring to the neutral safety switch. The switch itself is also possibly suspect. There is a hot wire in there for the reverse lights. If that melted to the line heading to the starter relay it would do this. I had an NSS fail internally in a way that connected the start circuit to the reverse lights. When cold, the starter would engage when I put the truck in reverse.

[kishy]

Is the starter relay being energized by the wire on the S terminal, or is it just welded shut?

If its being powered, I'd be looking at the wiring to the neutral safety switch. The switch itself is also possibly suspect. There is a hot wire in there for the reverse lights. If that melted to the line heading to the starter relay it would do this. I had an NSS fail internally in a way that connected the start circuit to the reverse lights. When cold, the starter would engage when I put the truck in reverse.

Relay doesn't engage until the start wire is plugged onto the S terminal, so something upstream is energizing it.

Never would have thought of that (NSS), I'll look at that next time I can get under the car. Should be easy to find a solution if that's what it is. Unless it changed between 85 and 89, I have a spare NSS itself (though, no pigtail) on the spare AOD that lives in my garage.

[gadget73]

Thats just the first place that comes to mind where the start circuit and a power circuit are near each other, and in an area that gets little attention. It may not be the NSS itself, but the wiring to it.

[kishy]

Ha! I just taught myself how to re-key the glovebox/rear quarter panel storage compartment locks.

From the junkyard wagon, I was able to get the locks and keys for: doors, tailgate, glovebox, trunk floor, ignition
But, it was missing the lock for the rear storage compartment on the driver side.
I've since realized that it uses the exact same lock mechanism as the glovebox.

I had a few glovebox locks missing keys, but I understand Ford only uses a limited number of pin/tumbler lengths, so there's a good chance most of the same pins/tumblers will exist in two different-keyed locks, just arranged in a different order.

I took apart the glovebox lock for which I have the key, and the glovebox lock for which I don't, and laid the (not exactly pins but they serve that purpose) out in a row beside each other. I arranged the unknown lock pins to match the configuration of the known (have keys) lock pins. I had to leave one out since it was different, but 4/5 will do the job...

Put it all back together and now I have two keyed-alike glovebox locks, one for the glovebox, one for the rear compartment.

Although it's an incredibly insignificant piece of progress, this means I have finished re-keying the car.

[DerekTheGreat]

Progress is progress. At least you care about the small things. I certainly do.

[kishy]

Progress is progress. At least you care about the small things. I certainly do.

"Small things" on this car might be a good example of that "forest for the trees" idiom...

There is a hornet nest active still, as I still find the occasional one, and they're a type of hornet I've never seen around my home but were definitely living in the car when I collected it. Raid is great stuff. The projectile nozzle takes them out mid-air, 20 feet away.

I accidentally found the premium sound amp in its very not-convenient location in the driver rear quarter panel, while replacing light bulbs. And about those light bulbs. I really do wonder if this thing was underwater at some point. Flood car? Boat ramp incident? IDK. Half the damn bulbs in this thing have that milky white or solid black glass that typically happens after water exposure. I initially thought the turn signal flasher wasn't flashing because only one bulb per side. Turns out it's just stuck, period. Replaced that from the random parts collection that is my garage.

The non-working passenger door handle was just the door being locked. The lock motor was seized (of course), and the handle from inside could open the door because the rods all kinda flexed a bit even though the motor didn't budge, but the latch immediately "re-locked" when I let go of the inside door handle. Disconnected the lock motors in both front doors and now my newly functional key actually does something.

Chime is dead, probably that foam thing that happens to them. Illuminated entry works. Cargo area lamp works. Lighting circuits all work now that there are bulbs in them, except one oddity I'm not sure about. The inboard, dual-filament lamps on the front only light up the high brightness filament for the turn signal, they do not light up the low filament for parking lamps. Pictures online suggest all 6 of the amber lights on the front of the car should be on as parking lamps, but obviously only the innermost one on each side is the dual-filament bulb for turn signal use. Ground is clearly OK as bulbs otherwise operate.

Tailgate latch requires an abnormal amount of force to catch. I'm thinking, like happened to my 83's trunk, one of the springs in the mechanism is broken. I may go back for the complete latch assembly from the junkyard wagon. If so, likely on the day of the Detroit meet. I pulled it to take pics of it for future reference, so it's already pulled...won't need to get dirty or invest much time to get it.

I haven't heard the fuel pump lately. It may have given up on whatever it was trying to suck up. Too bad you can't just hammer in the side of a sedan tank to make it fit, they're half the price.

[DerekTheGreat]

Hmm. As for the lights, are you getting power to the low beams? When I put together the Mark VII I had the turn signal but no driving lights. Turns out the bulbs were both bad, maybe from the shock of getting hit.

Chime typically dies from the heat, theres like a little foam ring that suspends the wafer and when that dies, wafer no longer can vibrate and make sound. I think I have a couple if you'd like to try a few.

Raid is great, I'm not sure what's in that stuff but damn, the winged nasties go right down, stay down and then die. I kinda laugh when I think about all the chemists who research and work on ways to make things die, things of all sizes. So much science devoted to death... Then I think of the military.. That makes me shudder..

[kishy]

New bulbs in both, the chances of two new bulbs both having a dead low filament are pretty slim.

It could be poor contact though. Sockets are super crusty with that old waterpoofing goop they used to fill the sockets with. I actually get the impression based on how much of it there was that I might have taken out the original bulbs (which would tip the scale back towards the odometer not rolling over).

I'll likely end up doing the same thing I've done to everything else and switch to 3157 sockets instead of 1157. I hate the round bulbs with a burning passion.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, that's why I like to check for power at the socket before throwing new bulbs at something. That typically means I replace every single damn bulb so I don't have to do it again any time soon.

Yes, if the bases of the bulbs were old copper looking and said "USA" on them. It's all china now and has been for over a decade.

Doesn't that mean crimping and wire cutting? Or can you take the original socket apart and put the bladed type in?

[kishy]

I had to destroy the bulbs to get them out, so there's no telling what they say now lol. The glass was free-wheeling in the base on both of them and I vise-gripped the hell out of the bases getting them out. Looked like copper or brass though.

I snip, solder, and heatshrink when I do the socket swaps. Junkyard sockets with a bit of a pigtail hanging off, attach from that, don't bother taking sockets apart.

[DerekTheGreat]

Oh yeah, that. Been there done that. Fun times?

Oh, guess I'd try taking them apart to see if I could just swap the socket. I hate soldering. Have converted to crimp + heatshrink only now.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I've dealt with the push-n-twist sockets on a friend's '97 Caddy STS. Silly things had ground issues causing the filaments to pulse between each other when the turn signal was on causing fast flash. Swapping those over to the wedge bases was the biggest reliability improvement.

So the wedge bases of the '92+ cars just fit in the same way the older bases do? If so I may do that from a standardization stand point since I have a good number of 3157 bulbs.