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    #16
    Mainemantom: I'm in Richmond (just South of Augusta). I don't do the Classic/Antique plates; I do my own maintenance for the most part and I beat the pieces out of my vehicles. I want someone to look them over now and then and make sure I'm not missing anything.
    For a yard beater or weekend cruiser I'd get the classic plates, but I wouldn't be driving it at 70 on the highway with a trunk full of tools and parts. I don't want to blow a brake line pulling 2 tons of wood pellets because I saved a couple bucks on a sticker.
    Yes, I'm the jerk who drops my car at the inspection station and insists that the tech do a thorough job. It's no good if it just passes!

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by VicCrownVic View Post
      I forgot, you mentioned the heaviest thing you might tow would be the 800 pound sailboat. I don't think you'll have any issue with the CC817.
      The heaviest thing would be the trailerload of wood pellets (the F150 does 2 pallets + 20' trailer for about a 5200lb total weight), but I could do just 1 pallet (3200lb).
      I get them at the local Agway, which is 5 miles round trip, on fairly low speed roads with only minor inclines. The trailer is a dual-axle and although it has brakes, I never hooked the controller up in the F150.

      Comment


        #18
        Originally posted by bgreywolf View Post

        Silly question, is there a source for replacement vinyl half-tops, and is it worth it? This one has a bunch of small splits, and I think it would make more sense to replace than to strip, grind, fill, smooth, and otherwise prep for a complete paint job versus a new top. I guess I could break out the sewing machine and a heap of marine vinyl, but I'd rather not re-invent the wheel (or the top!). Where the top is otherwise intact this is a low priority for now.
        I had mine replaced. I did all the dirty work by removing interior (to remove the crown trim) and removed old vinyl top. Removed all old material and glue and painted the roof before getting the new vinyl installed. Mine was one piece of vinyl just stretched over everything. No seams like stock. Could not argue with the price....I was basically hands on for the entire thing.

        http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post535334
        ~David~

        My 1987 Crown Victoria Coupe: The Brown Blob
        My 2004 Mercedes Benz E320:The Benz

        Originally posted by ootdega
        My life is a long series of "nevermind" and "I guess not."

        Originally posted by DerekTheGreat
        But, that's just coming from me, this site's biggest pessimist. Best of luck

        Originally posted by gadget73
        my car starts and it has AC. Yours doesn't start and it has no AC. Seems obvious to me.




        Comment


          #19
          Worst I've done with my Towncar was another Towncar on a tow dolly. Twice. It pulled OK but dollies don't track real well so it wanted to wag over about 50, and in the hills it wanted to push pretty hard. It was sketchy. Mine does have big brakes but they are clearly not thrilled about stopping double the vehicle weight. ~3000 lb shouldn't be a problem but pushing 4500 with no trailer brakes is not a smart idea.

          The factory trans cooler is a cute little thing. Its probably what should have been on there to not tow, if you do any serious towing more cooler wouldn't hurt. Mine did 125k with no fluid changes before I killed it by catching the car on fire. I did change the fluid prior to that and it was pitch black. Still worked after I changed it though. I don't tow with it anymore so the stock cooler can stay. I usually use my S10 if I need to haul stuff. This year I did 2 tons of pellets at a time, it did a fine job but I'm not going real far and not doing over 50.
          86 Lincoln Town Car (Galactica).
          5.0 HO, CompCams XE258,Scorpion 1.72 roller rockers, 3.55 K code rear, tow package, BHPerformance ported E7 heads, Tmoss Explorer intake, 65mm throttle body, Hedman 1 5/8" headers, 2.5" dual exhaust, ASP underdrive pulley

          91 Lincoln Mark VII LSC grandpa spec white and cranberry

          1984 Lincoln Continental TurboDiesel - rolls coal

          Originally posted by phayzer5
          I drive a Lincoln. I can't be bothered to shift like the peasants and rabble rousers

          Comment


            #20
            Originally posted by 87gtVIC View Post
            I had mine replaced. I did all the dirty work by removing interior (to remove the crown trim) and removed old vinyl top. Removed all old material and glue and painted the roof before getting the new vinyl installed. Mine was one piece of vinyl just stretched over everything. No seams like stock. Could not argue with the price....I was basically hands on for the entire thing.

            http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post535334
            So he just put the vinyl directly on the roof with adhesive? No underlayment? It looks great!
            That looks like marine grade vinyl; I have a bunch of it from some headliner repair jobs over the years.

            Edit: I've been going through your build but just reading it will take me months! That's a lot of work (and an amazing car to show for it!)
            Last edited by bgreywolf; 11-26-2018, 07:11 PM.

            Comment


              #21
              Correct. No padding/underlayment.

              I would have preferred it to be padded and have a factory seam but at the deal I was getting everything I knew to keep my mouth shut. It still is quite nice, just not as nice as I knew it could be.
              ~David~

              My 1987 Crown Victoria Coupe: The Brown Blob
              My 2004 Mercedes Benz E320:The Benz

              Originally posted by ootdega
              My life is a long series of "nevermind" and "I guess not."

              Originally posted by DerekTheGreat
              But, that's just coming from me, this site's biggest pessimist. Best of luck

              Originally posted by gadget73
              my car starts and it has AC. Yours doesn't start and it has no AC. Seems obvious to me.




              Comment


                #22
                Originally posted by bgreywolf View Post
                Mainemantom: I'm in Richmond (just South of Augusta). I don't do the Classic/Antique plates; I do my own maintenance for the most part and I beat the pieces out of my vehicles. I want someone to look them over now and then and make sure I'm not missing anything.
                For a yard beater or weekend cruiser I'd get the classic plates, but I wouldn't be driving it at 70 on the highway with a trunk full of tools and parts. I don't want to blow a brake line pulling 2 tons of wood pellets because I saved a couple bucks on a sticker.
                Yes, I'm the jerk who drops my car at the inspection station and insists that the tech do a thorough job. It's no good if it just passes!

                I am in the Bangor area. I am all for safety and inspections can be a good thing. What I hate is the jerk who insists that something is wrong and it isn't. I used to enjoy working on my cars. Can't do it now due to health problems.
                If you are looking for another car, I have three to sell. All Ca. cars.

                Comment


                  #23
                  Big fan of safties, not a fan of the potential for cheating. We don't do any inspection in this state for 1995 and older, and its an OBD-2 code scan for 96+. When we did more, it was a basic lights, wipers, and brake function test. They'd also eyeball the tires and fail you if it was down to the wear bars. Sometimes the front end got lifted for a quick shake. The whole process was like 20 minutes end to end including the tailpipe sniff, so you can imagine how not-thorough that was.
                  86 Lincoln Town Car (Galactica).
                  5.0 HO, CompCams XE258,Scorpion 1.72 roller rockers, 3.55 K code rear, tow package, BHPerformance ported E7 heads, Tmoss Explorer intake, 65mm throttle body, Hedman 1 5/8" headers, 2.5" dual exhaust, ASP underdrive pulley

                  91 Lincoln Mark VII LSC grandpa spec white and cranberry

                  1984 Lincoln Continental TurboDiesel - rolls coal

                  Originally posted by phayzer5
                  I drive a Lincoln. I can't be bothered to shift like the peasants and rabble rousers

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Yeah, the Maine inspection is mostly safety items--brakes, lights, horn, wipers, etc. They're only allowed to charge $12 plus cost of repairs--so some of the shops do look for repairs as incentive to do them at all.
                    I have a couple local shops I trust, and I have them do my inspections and work I can't do. More importantly, I trust them to work on other people's cars, so I send them business. I know I won't be able to do my own work forever, I don't own tire or alignment machines (I align the F150 myself but for highway driving at 70+mph I like a more precise alignment), and so on.

                    Mechanics are like everyone else: there's good ones, bad ones, smart ones, dumb ones. I've been all of those at one point or another, though I tried pretty hard to avoid being the bad/dumb kind. Customers aren't exactly great either. When I was a vehicle inspector in Mass about 25 years ago, I failed a dangerously rusty Subaru because, although everything worked perfectly and it actually looked pretty nice from standing height, there literally wasn't any metal under the car. You could see the carpet in places. The customer had a fit and took it to another shop, who stickered it. He came back and told my boss I should be fired, etc--and after his screaming tirade, he went to pull out and the right rear suspension came apart and left the car on 3 wheels in our parking lot.

                    Wish I could say that wasn't common, but a friend came to me a couple years ago with a freshly stickered Taurus she'd bought--said it handled funny. It sure did. The front control arm forward mount was rusted completely through and the bolt was sandwiched with a couple fender washers to keep it from coming out of the bushing completely. I welded the fender washers in place and drove it straight to the junkyard.

                    A female friend of mine and I built her an '02 Mustang a while back--she did a lot of the work including converting it from an automatic to a T5. She didn't know a lot about cars, but she's an engineer and she's handy, so I mostly advised and showed her stuff in the shop manuals (since I have lots of them, and all the tools she didn't have) and showed her the easy ways to do stuff.
                    She finished the car and drove it to a shop where they immediately showed her a pile of things "wrong" with it that needed to be fixed immediately.
                    They punched a hole in her a/c condenser, told her the brakes needed to be replaced, said she had a leaking seal in the transmission and it was junk.
                    Well, I pointed out the dye I'd put in the A/C system, and showed them with a black light where their tech had punched a hole in the core with a philips screwdriver. The brakes were brand new Cobra items and had nothing wrong with them--they weren't even completely bedded in. And the transmission? I have the video where she and I replaced the synchros and seals before we installed it.
                    We got the shop to replace the A/C and she took it to another shop, got her sticker, and drove it for 5 years or so until she sold it. No problems with brakes or transmission; I don't even think she had to do the pads.

                    So yeah, good shops, bad shops, good customers, bad customers, good cars, bad cars. I like being alive, and I like my friends being alive. I collect good people, good shops, good cars in my life and let the bad ones rust away somewhere else. And that's probably enough rambling for now.
                    Last edited by bgreywolf; 11-28-2018, 02:34 AM.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Completely agree. There's good shops and bad shops. I'm not sure what I'm going to do once the shop I use closes. He's a guy my parents went to high school with so he's getting up there in age but is the most honest professional mechanic I've ever come across. It will be a real shame once he retires.

                      Here in "metro" (what I guess we're considered out here on Long Island) NY we get basic safety inspection for vehicles >= 25 years+ and OBI I. OBII I and > 25 years get a simple emissions and safety inspections and newer than 25 years and OBI II get the full blown inspection. Seems pretty fair. Honestly for being NY, I feel like it's actually pretty lax. Hopefully things don't tighten up too much or I'll have to rethink some things.

                      '78 LTD | '87 Grand Marquis | '89 Crown Vic (RIP) | '91 Grand Marquis (RIP) | '94 Town Car (RIP) | '97 Town Car (RIP)

                      Comment


                        #26
                        I wouldn't mind a reasonable vehicle inspection, but it's full-on gestapo here in CA. Papers please! Even old junk has to be smog-tested, visually-inspected, etc. They don't give a shit about if you have any brake pads or your tires are bald, long as it emits no more CO than a moth fart. Ridiculous. Anyhow, welcome to box ownership and all the bizarre fun we full-size nuts get to have. Also, i dearly love mercury zephyrs, although i prefer mine in wagon form. Gonna get another one someday...

                        Comment


                          #27
                          A Zephyr wagon was my first car. 200I6/C4 with the roof rack. I was looking for another when I found the Z7. The Z7 has a lot of goodies and I don't regret it, but some days I think I should have held out for another wagon.
                          I was looking at a Colony Park just before I got this Crown Victoria. It wasn't quite right, and it was triple the price, and as I was thinking I should skip it, I drove past this one. Sometimes our cars find us.

                          Comment


                            #28
                            NJ was state-run inspections so you might make the argument there was less chance of fraud. They weren't going to make any money on it. Of course there was always private inspection, which is what you did at 18 when your car needed $600 worth of new carbs to get through smog and your job paid $6 an hour. The place everyone went to had this partly crushed Malibu wagon in the back bay. No wheels, the roof was caved in from what looked like a tree fall, the front fenders were off, but it ran clean so it was the test mule for all the local turds. My Beetle's carbs were absolutely wiped out, the throttle shafts slopped around in the body and I couldn't find anyone willing to machine them for bushings to fix it. To make it run the fuel mix was way fat to make up for the big vacuum leak and the sniffer did not approve. This was a 1973 car in 2000.
                            86 Lincoln Town Car (Galactica).
                            5.0 HO, CompCams XE258,Scorpion 1.72 roller rockers, 3.55 K code rear, tow package, BHPerformance ported E7 heads, Tmoss Explorer intake, 65mm throttle body, Hedman 1 5/8" headers, 2.5" dual exhaust, ASP underdrive pulley

                            91 Lincoln Mark VII LSC grandpa spec white and cranberry

                            1984 Lincoln Continental TurboDiesel - rolls coal

                            Originally posted by phayzer5
                            I drive a Lincoln. I can't be bothered to shift like the peasants and rabble rousers

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Ahhh the good 'ol days of smog muling. They send out the guys in jackboots and shoot you against a wall for that shit here now. About 20 years ago it was a simple matter to find a guy to do a "special" smog, and usually cost under $100. It still exists but a lot harder to find and certainly costs a shite's sight more than a hundred bucks. I don't want to have a dirty, stinky, shitty-running car, but half the battle here is visual and they'll nick you on all kinds of stupid shit that doesn't effect emissions at all. It's all about the money here. You pay to get your stuff CARB E.O. numbered and they're happy.

                              Comment


                                #30
                                I can't believe they make YOU pay to pass THEIR test. I could almost understand them fining you if you didn't pass or making you pay for the retest or making you fix the damn thing (as they do already) but to make you pay for that shit on the first go around is just an insult.
                                1985 LTD Crown Victoria - SOLD
                                1988 Town Car Signature - Current Party Barge

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