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    #16
    It may have sorted itself from simple use. CO is Circuit Open, thats the usual fault you'll get. Dirty spots on the resistor in the tank will make it flash that. Sometimes running fuel through it so it moves across that spot will be enough to polish it. My Continental does that randomly, used to be a lot worse but I still occasionally get 'CO' between about 11 and 20 gallons.

    One thing I've noticed with mine, if I fill it with the engine running it takes a long time for it to increase. I once drove for 2 hours and it "made" about 6 gallons of fuel. I put in 14. Shut it off for a few minutes and suddenly it was up 11 gallons, which is about right if you account for fuel used during the drive.
    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


      #17
      I spoke too soon on the fuel gauge. It's still reading all over the place. Maybe it's correct sometimes, but it's hard to tell.

      Went to a junkyard today to look at a very intact 86 Town Car. This thing still had the original floor mats and the little black pieces on the ends of the intake plenum. I honestly felt bad pulling parts off of it. But I eventually got over it and grabbed a keyless entry module, trunk pulldown motor, 'Premium Sound' head unit, and digital fuel sending unit. The keyless module and trunk motor are already installed and seem to be working. It feels like quite a luxury being able to open the trunk without touching a key. I don't really understand what's so special about the soft close, but I guess it's a cool party trick.

      Hopefully this sending unit will do the trick for my fuel gauge. I measured resistance between 0-196 Ohms, which seems like it's in the ballpark of the 5-205 I saw posted somewhere, and the resistance seems to increase smoothly. Are there any other things I should be checking or doing before swapping it in? And how low should the tank be to keep from making a mess? Half? Less?
      1987 Lincoln Town Car - Signature, "Prudence"

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        #18
        I put one of the trunk closers in my base model that didn't come with it. Its entirely a "oooh, lookie at the fancy car" thing. Functionally the latch I removed is probably a better idea.

        make sure the float floats.


        Well under half would be appropriate. Probably 1/4 would be safe. Replace the O ring under the sending unit too, they seem to grow when removed and never go back together neatly.
        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


          #19
          I opted for the trunk muncher on my vic as I added new weatherstripping and I could no longer get the trunk to close and have the correct body lines. This gently sucks the trunk down the properly adjusted height where everything lines up. And its cool.
          ~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


            #20
            I've been digging into the fuel gauge issue some more and I'm starting to think the problem may not rest with the sender. Resistance on the sender currently installed reads correctly based on how much I figure is still in the tank. The connector at the sender also looks clean; I had my mechanic look at it a year ago and he must've added some dielectric grease. Turning the key to accessory - not triggering the fuel pump - will give a different reading at the gauge every time. The distance to empty estimate seems to remain consistent with whatever the fuel gauge is showing.

            Because the fuel gauge reading changes without any possible movement in the tank or sender, I figure the issue must be somewhere else. My EVTM says there are two connections between the sender and gauge, one "behind left hand side of instrument panel" and the other right at the fuel gauge/speedometer. Plus the ground in the trunk by the antenna. The connector to the fuel gauge would require, I assume, pulling the instrument panel. But is the other connector accessible from below without pulling apart the entire dash?

            I assume the troubleshooting procedure would be to check resistance at both connectors leading to the gauge for similarity to the sender? Or will resistance between these connectors at the dash and a body ground differ from the sender? And if resistance remains constant all the way up the chain then the gauge is faulty?
            1987 Lincoln Town Car - Signature, "Prudence"

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              #21
              I'd honestly check the ground in the trunk first, probably the more accessible item. Also more likely to be at fault if the resistance directly at the sender reads normally.

              Might also have to check the IVR output. Thats normally done with a test light or an analog meter since it pulses on/off. If its not pulsing reliably the gauge reading will go funky. I think that one you have to pull the cluster to access.

              not sure on the other connector. There are several down in that area, and accessibility is questionable at best. Lots of crap packed into that space.
              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


                #22
                I grabbed the instrument cluster off the same junkyard Town Car that I've been pulling all sorts of other goodies from. My plan is to swap out the fuel gauge and message center (which is fully functional but sometimes dims or displays random characters), or if the printed circuit looks bad then the whole cluster sans speedometer/odometer. There's a good deal of rust behind the dash, and coupled with various component failures previously noted in this thread I think the amount of moisture in the air over 30 years in the Pacific Northwest took its toll on the electronics of my car. Swapping out what I can from the donor junkyard Arizona car seems like it might do the trick.

                In other news, the mirror thermometer light randomly started working tonight. First time I've seen it lit in the year and a half that I've owned the car. So that's interesting. It comes on with the running lights, which I assume is normal. Will have to see whether it continues to work.

                I completely removed the driver's mirror to do the weatherstripping and dew wipe. I guess the fault must've been at the connector in the door.
                1987 Lincoln Town Car - Signature, "Prudence"

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                  #23
                  On the mirror thermometer light, sounds like a thin layer of oxidation on the terminals. So, as you said, the issue is likely at the connector. Unplugging and plugging it back in likely scraped through that layer of oxidation creating a better connection. If it stops working again, unplug and clean the terminals. The oxidation might not be obvious, but if you scrape at the terminals you might notice they appear more shiny where the oxidation layer was scraped off.
                  Vic

                  ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
                  ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
                  ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
                  ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

                  Comment


                    #24
                    heat may be an even bigger problem for the electronics. My Mark VII is a Florida car and all of the electronic stuff has been rebuilt or replaced, sometimes more than once. The caps blew up in everything and leaked nasty goo everywhere. My Continental sat for a decade in Buffalo, NY which isn't exactly the driest place on earth and everything in it works fine.
                    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


                      #25
                      I swapped out the fuel gauge and message center display. The message center was dimming occasionally, so I guess it'll take a week or more before I can tell whether that's been fixed.

                      The fuel gauge appears to be better than before, but still somewhat erratic. Switching to accessory a half dozen times in the garage produced fuel levels within 3 bars of each other, although sometimes it read as flashing empty - not the open circuit flashing. It seems to be a tossup whether on any given attempt the gauge will read correctly or empty. My wife and I went on a short road trip today, maybe 80 miles round trip. The gauge started out empty but after a few minutes started ticking up to the correct level, where it seemed to keep pace with fuel consumption for the rest of the trip.

                      So while things aren't quite fixed, if it continues to either work or malfunction in a way that's very clear, I suppose I can live with that. It's possible this replacement gauge is defective in new ways that I'm now running into. And now that I have two I feel less apprehensive about opening up one and checking capacitors and such.
                      1987 Lincoln Town Car - Signature, "Prudence"

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