kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[sly]

Highly possible. I had a pip get a little loose and grind itself away on the reluctor wheel. Car ran fine for a long time for the most part but did eventually die after the sensor was ground down through the package to the internals. Ran better with the new dizzy. The bearings (or is it bushings?) in the dizzy were shot as well. When I pulled it out it would not spin smoothly at all. It was rather crusty. I think this was on the Lincoln I sold to Nick. Might have been the 93 F150 I sold to a day laborer. Both had dizzy troubles while I had them. One was TFI, the other was PIP and both were crusty as when I pulled them IIRC.

[gadget73]

everything runs off the PIP signal so if that was funky it will make everything run funky.

The distributor from the black Mark VII gave John trouble when that engine went in his 85. Ran fine in the Mark VII but he ended up fixing it with OEM parts. The aftermarket stuff was apparently being bitchy. I think some tunes or ECMs may be more sensitive to it than others but no idea why.

[VicCrownVic]

At the suggestion of Wagonman in Grand1's '79 MGM thread: "Use a MOPAR gasket part# 03404451." We did end up going with that gasket when we replaced the junk float on Grand1's sending unit a few months ago. Wagonman had suggested that gasket 4 years ago when Grand1 first mentioned the sending unit not working. Grand1 bought a few of those gaskets 4 years ago when the suggestion was made, but we finally used one on the car that sparked the suggestion.

That gasket is wider and maybe thicker than the Ford one, and we had no issues installing it, and as far as I know no leaks reported from Grand1.

[kishy]

Yeah, so, in the wake of this I kinda went a little nuts on RockAuto. Ordered a reman distributor (has PIP but not TFI, and no cap adapter/rotor/cap) of both the 86+ variant and the 85- variant, since RA had closeouts (probably CarQuest) for 60ish Canadian bucks each. These can be my road trip spares. Also replenished my shelf spare PIP which is the part I've now installed in this car. Annoyingly, the reman older distributor takes the absolutely bonkers rotor design that my Town Car uses but that the wagon does not. Round plastic rotor that screws on. Maybe for fleet standardization I should swap one car or the other so they both share the same design. I do have shelf spares of both types of rotor.

The shaft actually has a groove machined in it, presumably to allow a small amount of oil to find its way up through the bushing. Mine was totally caked with crunchy oil/carbon stuff, which I cleaned out with a pick. Reassembled with just WD40 to make it go in a little easier and found it spins nicely. But I'm sure they cook those bushings when the oil groove is packed for long enough. I also bet it doesn't take long like that to start wearing enough for the reluctor wheel to eat the PIP, but I believe mine was just a freak failure of the adhesive that is presumably on the backside of the magnet.

Not only did Grand1 buy some of those gaskets but he also sent two of them to me. One is installed in...something. I don't recall what. Maybe it's this vehicle. The other is somewhere, probably in my tote of fuel system parts. I am concerned that my leak might not be the gasket but may be through the sending unit itself, as I may have damaged/disturbed it when the tank was laid down upon it. A moment of carelessness I could have avoided easily, but didn't.

[gadget73]

The grooves are almost always packed solid with crap. A proper refresh on one of the distributors would involve cleaning up inside the body and cleaning the crap out of that groove.

I don't know what the deal is with that goofy rotor but I've seen it a few times on CFI cars. Not sure if it was something they superseded or what.

[kishy]

I put the car on ramps today and:

1. Zip tied the fuel pump connector above the tank on the frame. I remain suspicious that this connector is a problem waiting to happen but at least the number of ways it can mess up my day are reduced with the zip tie present.

2. Removed the sending unit, inspected it for evidence of fuel leaking through it, found none, did identify a failure of the gasket (appeared to roll over), and then reinstalled the sending unit with a new gasket.









I did test-fit one of the Mopar gaskets (this car did not have one in it, so it's probably in the 83 MGM) but I found one of the Ford-design ones was thicker and seemed to provide more resistance for the lock ring, so I went that direction with it. I also noticed that my plastic fuel float (an Omix-ADA part marketed for assorted older Jeeps but this size of float is nearly universal) has taken on some fuel so will eventually probably sink, but it's fine for now.

Filled the tank and verified no leaks. Problem solved.

On the distributor bushing and oil groove:
It occurs to me that the bushing running dry probably gets hot. It might be worthwhile for anyone who has experienced repeat TFI module failure to pull the shaft and check out the bushing - or buy a cheap reman.

The round rotor seems to be a 1984-1985 thing, so yes CFI, but it seems to be completely equal in function to the pointy style rotor seen on the SEFI cars. I am certain that, if the correct gear is on the end of the shaft, either style distributor can swap in place of each other.

[gadget73]

It definitely works but it just seems like they were using both the round one and the triangle one at the same time, and I don't understand why.

[DerekTheGreat]

+1 for the reason to keep a spare dizzy in these things at all times.

[gadget73]

I have two distributors in the trunk.

of the Continental. Because thats clearly where they are most needed.

[kishy]

Today was a day of doing things.

I swore that one day I'd put air conditioning back in this. During all the work to get it roadworthy initially I removed the compressor and brackets, and hoses, to have more room to work on surrounding stuff. I believe I recall that the front/upper bracket was totally missing when I got the car, as well. Since then, I've bought at least 3 sets of the brackets to do this, but I haven't been able to put my hands on all the required hardware and brackets in the same place at the same time, so I recently grabbed another iteration (with all bolts and miscellaneous pieces) from an 85 MGM in the junkyard and this time kept it all together.


(tensioner didn't come from the 85MGM, may actually originally be from this car)

Results for the day:

Tangentially related to AC:

• Installed a manual heater core bypass valve. This is a ball valve with 2 inlets and 2 outlets, where the valve can "loop" the ins and outs to stop flow through the heater core. My thought process here is that if I prevent the engine heat from even making it into the heater plenum and passenger compartment at all, there's that much less heat available for the evaporator to absorb and the AC is likely to work a tiny bit better as a result.
• In manhandling the hoses I broke the CFI EGR spacer coolant tee, which I replaced with a new one I had on the shelf.

Unrelated to AC:

• Installed the long-absent "electric bimetal" (in common use, choke thermostat, but CFI doesn't have a choke) that is used as the high idle timer. It's set pretty conservatively to just barely hook a step above curb idle at current weather conditions, but this will allow me to bring the pretty high curb idle down to a more correct level by no longer compensating for the dead high idle stuff.

AC-specific:

• The condenser and evaporator have been chemically flushed with AC flush solvent
• AC compressor brackets have been cleaned up and mounted to the engine
• A decent tensioner pulley has been located and installed (original part off whatever car donated it, but it's not noisy - I did remove the cap from the bearing with intent to replace the pulley but determined this one is of a weird design that I don't think is replaceable with the parts I have on the shelf)
• A reman compressor pre-filled with PAG oil and equipped with a new clutch has been installed on the brackets
• Junkyard-harvested FS6 inlet/outlet manifolds have been cleaned up with a wire brush, equipped with new O-rings, and installed.
• A new accumulator/drier has been installed with a new pressure switch (but, when pulling a vacuum I determined this switch or at least its threads/seat leaks so it has been removed)
• A new orifice tube (blue stock replacement) has been installed.
• The car's original (or at least its own previous) liquid and discharge lines have received new O-rings and been installed. I couldn't separate the original/previous suction line from the old drier so I used a new hose I had in-stock.

Left to do:
Verify that the system held vacuum acceptably overnight. I shut everything off and sealed it up in the void between 25 and 30 in-hg on the gauge. The pump ran a long time trying unsuccessfully to counteract the effects of the leaking pressure switch, which with the pump turned off was audible from near the car and then pinpointed with a stethoscope.
Install a pressure switch that doesn't leak (might try thread sealant on the one I was using but I also have a couple used ones kicking around that should be fine).
Maybe try to pull a little more vacuum once the pressure switch is sorted.
Throw a belt on it (believe I have one - 6K560 sound right for a smog delete belt?)
Throw some refrigerant in it - the product I have on the shelf being HC12A.

[gadget73]

56" sounds right for the belt

Was the O ring in the low pressure switch? Supposed to be one up inside, if its missing or damaged they leak bad.

Is that HC12A compatible with PAG oil, or does it need mineral oil like the original R12 system would have used?

If its one of those tensioners with the metal cap over the center bearing, those are usually not really designed to allow replacement of the pulley. The center post where the bearing goes is sort of a rivet, it goes through the mounting plate and gets swaged over. When the bearing fails you replace the whole thing. If you're really feeling ambitious you can grind that thing off to get the pulley off. At that point you have to drill through the standoff to allow a bolt and self-locking nut to go through in order to hold it all together. Not much point in all that so long as you can just get one. I had to fix the one on the Continental that way though, parts for that are of course not available.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Left to do:
Verify that the system held vacuum acceptably overnight. I shut everything off and sealed it up in the void between 25 and 30 in-hg on the gauge. The pump ran a long time trying unsuccessfully to counteract the effects of the leaking pressure switch, which with the pump turned off was audible from near the car and then pinpointed with a stethoscope.
Install a pressure switch that doesn't leak (might try thread sealant on the one I was using but I also have a couple used ones kicking around that should be fine).
Maybe try to pull a little more vacuum once the pressure switch is sorted.
Throw a belt on it (believe I have one - 6K560 sound right for a smog delete belt?)
Throw some refrigerant in it - the product I have on the shelf being HC12A.

I remember using a K060563 belt... or one that was 56-7/8" long for a smog deleted setup. Long enough it's not hard to get fitted on whichever side of the tensioner you opt to use, but short enough it'll tension up with adequate room to spare.

Is that HC12A compatible with PAG oil, or does it need mineral oil like the original R12 system would have used?

AFAIK the HC based refrigerants are supposed to work with PAG or mineral oil. I've got a mix of ester and mineral oil in the '79 and it has played nice with that so far. I'm sure Kishy has better experience with the stuff in other systems though.

[kishy]

Oh man, there's supposed to be an O-ring in there? Yeah, OK, that's the problem. The O-ring kit also includes a few of a size that don't get used seemingly anywhere, and on reflection, I bet they're for the stock low and high side caps and the pressure switch. Big dumb moment. But also big dumb for the switch not being supplied complete or with a note saying it isn't complete.

The tensioner pulley is a third design (vs the bolt-on pulley and the permanently-installed pulley variants). The pulley is on a pretty standard looking bearing, which itself is retained by a simple snap ring in addition to being press-fit. It seems serviceable enough, but I'm not sure at the moment if the ID of the bearing is the same as the replacement pulleys on the shelf, or that the backspacing will be correct.

Yeah, my understanding is that HC12A works with whatever oil - leftover mineral oil, POE/ester, and PAG in the various grades used in AC systems. I actually am not super well versed in the use of this product and this will only be my fourth application using it, with the previous one that I took apart as extensively having been a colossal failure (91MGM - seized the compressor and damn near lit the clutch on fire, but I am pretty sure I know what I did wrong and I've been careful not to do it this time). Focus and 84 TC were both strongly non-recommended simple top-ups mixing with the existing system contents, and both are performing adequately but definitely shy of factory fresh correct. Increased condenser airflow seems to be a requirement for this product to perform and since bumper to bumper traffic is an extreme rarity for me, I'm not bothered by this. I've certainly considered just preparing the systems for refrigerant here and then filling with R134A where available - e.g. USA - but a modest increase in performance (which may not even be seen when using the original tube-style condenser) is not worth the added complication of any future service needs when I can't easily get some of the stuff on short notice.

If a comfortably-sized belt is slightly larger than what I bought, that makes sense. It was a super pain getting the belt wrapped when I did this on the 91 as the belt was slightly too short, so I'll assume similar here. I know I bought a few belts at the same time so what's on the shelf will be the same as what's in the other car.

I spent the day tied up with a handful of stuff and did not even look at the wagon, so with any luck it's still holding the same vacuum and tomorrow evening I'll know how it did. Longer test is better, anyway, I suppose.

[gadget73]

I figured out there was supposed to be one in there when i changed a switch and had it leak, then noticed in the bad switch I had removed that there was an O ring that wasn't in the new one. I don't know why they don't ship with one installed either, its pretty dumb.

[kishy]

Developments:
Monday evening, I reattached the low side gauge and found the needle returned to seemingly the exact same spot in "the void between 25 and 30 in-hg" as where I had left it on Saturday. Good stuff.

As that had been left with no pressure switch installed, I put the pump on it again, studied the switches (a couple used and one new) for an O-ring, and then realized the O-ring actually gets installed on the accumulator. I had replaced the accumulator and it did not come with a new O-ring on it, nor did the switch come with one included to use, but one of the sizes included in the O-ring kit was correct so I installed the O-ring and the used switch which was previously installed on this same car. As expected, installing the switch did cause the vacuum pump to draw out a little additional moisture (from the system sucking in some outside air while threading the switch on). I let it run for a while longer and made sure no more vapour seemed to be coming out before shutting it down. No hissing near the switch anymore.



About the belt business:
Indeed, a Continental 4060560 aka 6PK1420 (which should be aka 6K560 or a nominally 56" belt) is what I had on-hand. I had purchased 3 of them in 2019, and the other two are in the 84 Town Car and 91 Grand Marquis. In each of those cases, I had found fitment issues with the belt being too short. The aftermarket replacement pulleys for the idler/tensioner are smaller in outside diameter and they make it possible to use the 56" belt - but with the stock larger pulley especially the version with the tall edges, it's impossible. I will do a 563 instead of a 560 for the next one to be touched.
Some relevant remarks located here and here.
I was able to get the stock pulley off (my earlier remarks here that it was different were wrong) and put one of the aftermarket ones on, with some minor effort (a 2-jaw puller for the removal and a hammer for the install). The bearing size was correct and the pulley ended up at the correct backspacing to line up with the belt.



One can of the HC12A I used is stated to be equivalent to 510g of R12. The system capacity is 1.5kg of R12, therefore about 3 cans of this stuff. Accounting for the fact that some product is lost during can changes (best I can tell, an increasing amount with each subsequent can because the low side pressure is higher the fuller the system is), and the fact there was a lot of clutch cycling with 3 cans, I did use 4 which should have amounted to at most a modest overcharge.



Results were 40 degree Fahrenheit vent temps and a clutch that seemed pretty content to remain engaged. Not too bad. I put everything away and left the car for the night.

I'm being intentionally vague with this because I don't trust my diagnosis yet: I think the evaporator core might have a very small leak. I need to investigate this further. The evap cores for the threaded hose years are not currently available so this might need to be addressed by dunking the core in water with pressurized air in it and maybe solder the hole. RockAuto does occasionally get them, but doesn't have stock currently. I'm not super keen to open the system again immediately so I need to verify there is a leak (suspect yes) and that it is the evaporator (suspect yes).

Interestingly, the switch that I used which had previously been on this car has seemingly been adjusted as it opens at 25PSI, which is a fair bit lower than stock if I recall correctly. That could certainly jive with a slow leak in a difficult-to-change part, because adjusting it lower would buy you a longer time before it leaks down too low to run, and the previous owner did mention he knew about AC systems.