kishy's 1984 Town Car

[kishy]

No question, KYB makes a good shock. My goals here are to try to get ride quality to OE-correct, however, within the limits of what is possible on replacement rear springs which contain Air Lift helper bags. The helpers are at 0psi but if the spring tries to compress, that obviously changes as they are not open to atmosphere.

I could certainly believe that Motorcraft has used multiple vendors. I found these shocks by looking at RockAuto to identify a currently catalog part number, and then looking on eBay for those numbers for both front and rear. For the front shocks, which were not priced particularly cheaply, the seller did agree to a 50% refund which made me feel a bit better. The rears were already ludicrously cheap and I won't be asking about it. Additionally, the front shocks were open box (box tab included but sent in different packaging) while the rears were sealed original boxes. The seller of the fronts should have recognized the oil leakage as a problem; the seller of the rears may legitimately have not known.

Not sure what's up with this brake business. It is possible there's a proportioning or front brake contribution issue. All plumbing on this one is still as it was when I got it, as well as old calipers, old rotors, just old stuff in general. It stops quite well, but if you told me the fronts aren't doing a whole lot, I'd maybe believe that. I have historically found that stock box brakes do seem to make the drums do a lot of work, so maybe if the fronts aren't biting much I'm doing most of my braking on the rears unless I really get into the pedal.

The hot brake smell is not every time it's driven, just sometimes, which makes it even weirder. Also, the noise is gone again. I dunno.

Tonight, I soldered in a replacement cornering lamp socket, and installed more of the AliExpress LEDs from China. Performing as desired.

I also swapped in a junkyard driver window switch, as the passenger window has a habit of only working up or down from that switch specifically, but not both in the same day, and the switch has to be really manhandled to work. Issue resolved.

Gearing up for a weekend camping trip. This will be the car for the trip. Thought about the wagon, but it doesn't have helper bags yet, and ground clearance with the hitch bike carrier is an issue.

Other discoveries of the evening include:
-The 3156 LEDs from the same seller as the 1156 I've come to love are not nearly as good. I put them in the reverse lights of the 83 and the Ranger (both had sockets swapped to 3156/3157 in the past), but honestly they kind of suck by comparison.
-The Ranger has a clutch hydraulic failure and the clutch will not disengage; the pedal went to the floor and stayed there. It's acting like it can't pressurize at all. Possibly using this opportunity to swap to the external slave arrangement if the problem turns out to be the slave cylinder. This will be a Fall project to be tackled in that vehicle's thread.

[kishy]

Gearing up for a weekend camping trip. This will be the car for the trip. Thought about the wagon, but it doesn't have helper bags yet, and ground clearance with the hitch bike carrier is an issue.

I've returned from my trip. 7 friends and I camped (tents; drive-up but unserviced; washroom and shower facilities nearby) on Pelee Island from Friday to Monday. Pelee Island is a place I've been before many times since I was a child and it's a really great place to vacation. It's where my current sig pic was taken, as well, and is where I found the wagon.

Taking two days off, a Friday and a Monday, has to be the highest-value way to make it feel like you took a week off without using that many vacation days.

We went over in two vehicles as well as a couple participants who walked onto the ferry (stayed for less than the full trip length). The Town Car was one of the two. This car went to the island on MV Pelee Islander, built in 1960 and in mostly continuous service since. Riding this particular ferry was a goal; a friend in the car's father worked on the boat in the 70s.

The ferry is why the ground clearance with the gigantic bike carrier is a concern. Where the ramp meets the dock is usually a pretty significant angle, and between the long wheelbase and long overhang, the hitch can get hung up on the ramp. One of my air bags has actually failed, but fortunately the car wasn't packed very heavily, and the other bag still held air, and this particular ferry's ramp angle was less problematic than the other two boats, so it worked out OK. Friend grabbed a quick potato-quality video just in case things got dramatic:



(the things, as it happens, didn't get dramatic at all)

The return voyage was on MV Pelee Islander II, built 2018. We had come across a paddle boat with some rudder mechanical problems and a sign saying "free", so we brought it home to try to refurbish it. Yes, on the Lincoln.

Some car-related photos from the weekend:















The Monroe-made Motorcraft shocks are giving the kind of ride quality I was hoping for. This is a good car for trips.

[gadget73]

paddle boat is getting an LS swap right ?

[87gtVIC]

Awesome! Looked like fun.

[sly]

paddle boat is getting an LS swap right ?

Hayabusa?

[jaywish]

I actually LOL.

[DerekTheGreat]

Looks like a good excursion. I remember that top being more intact and the decklid and roof having more paint on them..

[kishy]

The vinyl top has not changed much; all the splits that are there now have been there the whole time I've had it, but they're getting wider I think. There was no saving it then, and certainly no saving it now, once it splits it's done. Not sure what I'm going to do about that since there's evidence of pretty catastrophic rust underneath it. Maybe junkyard harvest a full-length ragtop (the fiberglass-backed type, like my 91MGM and 88TC have) and hack that onto it.

The roof clearcoat has been totally absent for the whole time I've had it, and the paint is thinning quite severely. It isn't just a matter of slapping some paint on it though, as there are the usual rust issues near the windshield, so there's metal work needed too.

The decklid is catastrophically rusted to the point of failure, from the inside-out, at the inward-facing surfaces near the bottom lip. There is no value in doing anything to try to pretty it up because it's going to fall apart into pieces whether I paint it or not. I need a whole new one, but haven't found any good ones since realizing it was unsalvageable.

[kishy]

About mid-day, I washed the car and attended a charity benefit car show with a few friends. There was definitely some contrast when we parked beside each other:



This evening, I decided to try to tackle a couple items that have been nagging at me, all related to the instrument cluster: some burnt out backlight bulbs, the only sort-of working clock, and the speedometer cable noise.

Got the cluster out, pulled out the speedometer cable expecting to find it fraying or otherwise not good based on the noise it makes, but found nothing. I cleaned the cable with brake cleaner, then shot a bunch of white lithium grease down the tube.

The clock took some investigating. The motor works, but a couple gears are missing chunks thanks to the mix of metal and plastic gears. I have the cluster from the 83 Town Car which I kept specifically for this, and cracked that open. I found its gears are all good, but its motor doesn't work. Swapped the motor over, gave it power and verified it keeps time correctly, then put the cluster back together.











The backlighting bulbs were just that; bulbs. Easily resolved.

I then "fixed" the gear selector indicator using a hose clamp (actually two joined together).



Took it out for a drive and found the speedometer noise is totally resolved, but it does still bounce at speeds below about 50kmh. Not worried about it. The clock seems to be working which is nice.

I plan to revisit the in-cluster temp gauge and delete my A-pillar mounted gauge. The problem with this was that the gauge would very gradually creep all the way across until it pegged on the hot side. Multiple senders including known good did the same. I gave up on it easily because I had bigger fish to fry (all those engine management issues in the first year).

Having now seen inside the clock, these clusters are probably an item that should be hoarded by those of us who have them if you want the clock to work forever. I suspect the clock mechanics are probably interchangeable 80-89 and will verify this.

[DerekTheGreat]

Guess it's been several years since I've seen it.

Awesome info about the clock. Mine quit working some years ago. Occasionally the second hand will twitch but that's about it, can't even adjust the time any more. I suspect it needs lube but seeing plastic gears mixed with metal ones does not instill me with optimism.

I've had pretty solid luck using ATF on speedometer cables. The van I bought was pretty bouncy. I took the cluster out and disconnected the cable on that where it goes into the trans. I lubed it from the front until I had ATF coming out at the trans- I think it was rock solid after that. Although I've heard speedometer bounce can be intrinsic to the cluster as well.

[GM_Guy]

Plastic gear on the transmission end can also cause bounce if it wears enough, the gear bounces around abit and gives you the wobble.

[gadget73]

At some point the clock changed, I think in 88 or 89. I believe they say Quartz on them. They are a twitchy-hand style instead of the steady sweep of the older models.

[DerekTheGreat]

Oh, great. I didn't know the older ones were steady. When mine worked, it was indeed twitchy. I did pull a nice cluster a few years ago, the same car which netted me the elusive CD player. Shoutout to Stidman for making me aware of that.