The Colony Park is in Michigan!

[1987cp]

Finally - I FINALLY drove the Colony Park to Michigan with me! Made the trip pretty well except for a couple of funny noises. I'm going to mess a little with valvetrain geometry just to make sure everything's A-okay (guy on allfordmustang.com told me he's using longer pushrods with my cam, as well as lash caps), and then see about finishing up at least a temporary solution for a dash.

I picked up a set of 16" police wheels with good Eagle RS-A Plus tires from a CVN member near Indy right after discovering some rubbing issues with my wide Westerns and Yokos, so I threw the cop wheels on for the trip. They actually drive really, really well. The plan is that they'll be more summer wheels for the ol' LTD .... though I realized that there might be the possibility of a brake upgrade if I run the larger rims full-time, so I'll have to be thinking on that one. Might have to rethink the plans for rear-disk swaps - as in, where I'll put what when the time comes!

I also took some pictures of a nifty '70-ish Cutlass wagon that an older lady parked in front of the house one morning while I was there. I ended up moving the Merc out in front of it so the guy painting the house next door would have more room (the houses share a driveway), but then the old lady came and got the car while I wasn't looking, so I didn't get to ask her about it. I did see an older gentleman sitting outside the insurance company two doors down in a 1963 Studebaker truck. I hadn't known Studebaker had made trucks, and the guy said it had a 289-cid Studebaker V8 (I hadn't known they did V8s, either!) with a three-on-the-tree and that the sheetmetal forward of the bed was identical to the Studebaker Lark. I didn't get any pics, but had a great chat.

[1987cp]

This post includes pics of a couple of color experiments I did with the Western turbines. I figure as long as they're off the car, I'll take the time to clean 'em up a little so they look nicer. I tried semi-flat black between a couple pairs of spokes, but it didn't look quite right, so I put some Cast Coat in the gap on the right of those two, and it looks better, so I might go with that.

[roompainter]

Looks nice! I like the flat black on the wheel.

[mrltd]

Looks good with the steelies. I'd like a set myself, with full covers. And with some quiet mufflers, I'd have a complete sleeper.

[1987cp]

Thanks! I actually didn't touch the wheels except to clean them a little with Bleche-White, followed by some sort of foamy wheel cleaner by TurtleWax or someone. For some reason one wheel is shinier than the other three, and other one has a little faint surface rust thinking about popping through the factory finish. Might have to give 'em all matching coats of Rust Tough at some point, but for now the grody alloys for the Merc and the recently-funky-acting multifunction switch on the LTD kind of take priority.

[zwack88]

Looks sweet.

[1987cp]

Originally Posted by mrltd

Looks good with the steelies. I'd like a set myself, with full covers. And with some quiet mufflers, I'd have a complete sleeper.

What's funny is that during the trip, I discovered that the exhaust really isn't quite as quiet as I'd originally thought. The exhaust on the LTD, which I had thought was louder, is actually quieter. I might have to think about eventually going ahead and getting QuietFlow mufflers for the white car since the Soundmasters don't seem to be *quite* cutting it. Or I guess I could throw the Flowmasters under there for a while just for fun, but aside from having to do the switch-a-roo work an extra time, I don't know if my nerves could handle it! Now that the new motor has over 500 miles on the clock, it'll be interesting to see how the exhaust note changes when I bump the timing up to where it should be (the LTD got quieter last time I did it).

[Nathan in MI]

That thing looks NICE with the steelies! I gotta get a set of those for the CV...

[Enigma]

A white wagon with blacked out trim.
Man, that looks sharp.!

[Lincolnmania]

looks good......love them old cutlass's

[torquelover]

I like the new wheels. Looks like you've got a lot of tread left on there. I wonder what the car would look like in a darker color? Probably pretty mean.

[1987cp]

Yeah, the Eagles have a few miles on them, but they should be good for quite a while. I kind of like the white on the Colony Park, but I'm thinking of re-doing the LTD's paint, sans woodgrain trim, at some point in the future. Especially if I get some trim rings, I'm anticipating that these cop wheels may look even better on there. I've been thinking of trying to match the original burgandy metallic, but your black-on-bad looks awfully good!

I'm actually starting to think since the LTD, being a '79, is kind of cool and unique, that it should get some special touches in the event I go through and repair the rust and stuff, probably starting with rebuilding the original 351W (currently languishing in the shed) to the tune of 350hp or so, and going from there.

[FordInPossession]

Originally Posted by Nathan in MN

That thing looks NICE with the steelies! I gotta get a set of those for the CV...

Nathan, U-Pull-R-Parts, North or South location. Taxi's up the yang there

[1987cp]

Update: Today I drove out to a place called Johnson's Speed Warehouse and ordered one of those adjustable pushrods to use to check for correct pushrod length. There's more slop in the valvetrain than I'd like (especially considering it's a "zero lash" design where I'm told you shouldn't be able to fit a feeler in between the valvestem and rocker tip with the cam on its base circle), and a guy on Allfordmustang.com said he uses both lash caps and .115" longer pushrods with the Crane 444211 cam in his car. Of course, he's also using Crane roller rockers, which I'm not, so I want to make my own measurements and make sure of what's right for my engine. Turns out this speed shop also has a limited selection of Edelbrock jets and metering rods in stock, and can order more, so I know where to go if I decide I really need to go more than the three stages rich overall on the carb tuning.

While at the speed shop, I inquired after places to go for transmission mods, and was told about a guy who teaches transmission classes at Lansing Community College, so I'll look him up once I'm ready to go forward with the shift kit and 5,000-rpm governor on the transmission. Maybe I can also get the C4 set up so it'll run the engine to higher RPM than it does currently in Drive. Finally, I asked where to go for a good alignment and got the name of another shop, so I'll be looking them up in the even nearer future.

Finally, finally, I spent a little more time with one of the Western alloys. On a whim, I decided to go with a hammertone gray Rust-Oleum in the recessed areas, and I think it's looking pretty good. I've spent some time with 220-grit sandpaper as well, cleaning up the raised areas for a respectable look. I'm thinking I wish I'd stopped my buddies from letting the gloppy paint stripper fall on the wheels while removing the fender flares from the Mach 1 they'd been on! Pictures to come soon ......

[1987cp]

Here are some shots of the police wheels installed on the ol' '79. I think they look pretty nice, better than they did on the white car. I also got a shot of the two cars both sporting police wheels on the front, as I've gotten the rear wheels for the white wagon cleaned up but not the fronts.

[1987cp]

And here are some shots of the two Westerns I've done some cleaning-up on. I scrubbed the whole things down with brake cleaner and a Scotch-Brite, then put some gray hammertone Rust-Oleum in between the spokes and cleaned the raised bits up with sandpaper. Incidentally, I did check the wheel sizes, and the rears are 15x10 and the fronts 15x8.5. Looking pretty good now, though I think some of you will agree that it'd almost look better with a 295/50 tire out back instead of those tall 275/60s. Anywho, I also included a couple pics of one of the not-yet-cleaned front wheels so you can see what the rears looked like when I started.

[zwack88]

Wow cleaned up they look sweet. Nice work.

[Blaze86Vic]

I didn't know yours were unilug.

Nice mang

[1987cp]

Thanks to all for the compliments! I've enjoyed taking some funky antiques and making them look nice. Yeah Blaze, these are most definitely drilled as unilug (Uni-yuk?), which is why I was surprised that yours aren't.