My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[Arquemann]

Latest round of exhaust paste seems to be still holding up on the Y-pipe flanges, or atleast it's not visibly blown out yet.

Last week I bought 90° grease fittings for the inner tierods to avoid stupid gymnastics to get grease in them. Apparently the tie rods are 1/4"-28 SAE-LT, so the common 1/4"-28 non-tapered fittings don't thread in properly.
So, today I installed the new grease fittings and greased every joint in the car. The 90° fittings on the inner tie rods are pretty tight to the crossmember, but shouldn't touch. Both outer tierods squirted out some horrendous rusty gooch juice when I greased them. Safe to say the torn boots aren't just an eyesore, they seem to let water in too.

Also resealed the front oil drain plug while under the car. The plug had been seeping since the oil change and snugging didn't fix it, so now it has a new copper washer and some sealant.
When I was under the car the previous time, the power steering return hose was wet, which I wiped dry. It was dry today, so I guess it's not leaking then?

I've been playing around with the tie rods to get the steering wheel straight, today is the third time adjusting. These things are ridiculously touchy to adjust, when I shortened one side and lengthened the other a single turn, the steering wheel turned like 60°. Then I did a half a turn backwards for both, and the wheel was still a bit crooked, so today I adjusted them a bit under a quarter turn more.

The latest tank of fuel was a bit more highway-oriented than most, and it netted a consumption figure of 13.9L/100km / ~17 MPG. Also taking in the consideration of speedo error (that I recently calculated) of about MINUS 5-7% which means the actual fuel mileage was somewhere around 13.0-13.2L/100km or 18 MPG.
My speedometer has always showed a bit less than actual, plus I have 225/70 tires instead of the factory 215/70. Currently at 90km/h indicated, the GPS speed is about 95/96.
Recently I got flashed by a speed camera at an 80 zone while I was doing a touch over 80 indicated, so I decided to whip out a GPS speedo and see what I was actually doing.

Inspection coming up on the 27th. Maisa turned 40 this year, so the future inspections are gonna be biennial instead of annual.

[Tynnerstroem]

It's fascinating with the passage of time - when I discovered these cars in Miami Vice in my early teens they were "20 years old". Now they're closer to 40. Nice to get those biennial inspections though - here we get them at year 30. Does the inspection approve of red turn signals on your car or do you have to work out some aftermarket orange turn signal solution?

[Arquemann]

It's fascinating with the passage of time - when I discovered these cars in Miami Vice in my early teens they were "20 years old". Now they're closer to 40. Nice to get those biennial inspections though - here we get them at year 30. Does the inspection approve of red turn signals on your car or do you have to work out some aftermarket orange turn signal solution?

The whole automotive lighting legislation has been a shitshow for decades, but I don't think red rear indicators were ever illegal. Somewhat recently the legislation has changed for grey import vehicles, where they only need to apply to the standards of the origin country, i.e. USA in this case. So everything DOT-approved is fine now.

I've watched Miami Vice too, but I've also been enjoying the Narcos show on Netflix, there's quite a few box panthers in that, and a whole lot of them in the Narcos: Mexico series.

[gadget73]

Only way I've found to grease the inner tie rod ends is either run the steering to each end and fish the hose across the lower control arm, or use one of the 90 degree adapters that also tend to squeeze as much grease past them as they manage to get into the fitting. Either way the process sucks.

[sly]

I took the zerk out and put in a 90 degree zerk. Much easier.

[gadget73]

Why do that when you can bitch about it for 20 years instead?

[sly]

Cause I like being lazy for 20 years.

[gadget73]

I just haven't really driven it in 5 years. Don't have to change the oil or grease anything when it doesn't move.

[sly]

There's also that option.

[Arquemann]

As discussed in the Random Questions thread, my door gap weatherstripping is kinda falling apart and seems like it's not really salvageable without generous use of double sided tape. And the rubbery bits would still be rock hard. Haven't found good replacements yet either.

A friend of mine brought the CFI air cleaner adapter V2, as the V1 didn't hold up to heat long term and kinda molded itself around the air cleaner and made it hard to remove.
New one is made of ASA, which should be completely fine with underhood / carb temps.

[Arquemann]

She got washed and inspected yesterday, passed with no issues. Mr inspector complimented on having a 40yo Ford with zero leaks. I am proud indeed. Unfortunately I didn't get 2 years of roadworthiness, because the 40 year rule is written in complete nonsense and I'll get 2 years next year.

Hood and roof needs a bit of fresh wax applied and then I'll be off to a friday cruise night.

The exhaust paste on the Y-pipe flanges is still holding somehow, which has kinda taken out the urgency of me wanting to upgrade the exhaust. Still want it though.
I also have a completely different upgrade in mind for about 30€, but I do not know when if or how it will come to fruition.

[gadget73]

so its not a 40 year rule, but an older than 40 year rule? goofy.

[Arquemann]

so its not a 40 year rule, but an older than 40 year rule? goofy.

Apparently the model year needs to turn 40. So an '85 can get 2 years on 1.1.2026.


Also I halfway forgot about the whole "initial timing and hydrocarbon emissions" -thing I was wondering about on page 103. Last year's inspection this had about 12° of initial timing and the HC emissions at idle were around 250ppm. This time around with 25° of timing at idle, the HC was about 300ppm. Though the previous time was with a still breaking-in engine.
A somewhat substantial increase, but the limit is 1000ppm, so absolutely no problems there!

[Arquemann]

Finally got around to installing a relay harness for the headlights, motivated by the fact that the premade H4 harness was on sale. The extra light output is welcome, but I did this mainly to avoid melty bits and disappearing headlights. Though my headlights have randomly shut off only once.

Just to make sure anything wouldn't be too easy, I had to do some cleaning up of horrible splice connectors and other bullshit that were used to wire the white/yellow parking lights back in the day, and the Biltema relay harness I got is made for 2 H4 lights, so I had to splice in 2 power wires and made 2 extra grounds for the inner high beams. Also the protective sleeve on the harness is a horrendous bright yellow and for some reason the harness is double fused, 2 ugly inline fuses and fused relays. But for 17€, can't really complain.

Mounted the relays out of sight but somewhat accessible, tied all the wiring (old & new) up nicely to prevent chafing and such, a lot of the stuff is right below the hood and header panel gap, so I had to keep in mind the wiring will get wet. Would've loved to rip out the old headlight harness and do a cleaner job, but the indicator/parking/ditch light wiring all stays which'd complicate it alot. Now that there's basically 2 headlight harnesses, the wiring looks like quite a mess, even though it's pretty organized and tidied up. There's just a lot of it.

I had already bought a marine grade power distribution terminal thing and I intended to install it next to the starter solenoid to clean up the huge bunch of ring terminals on the positive post of the solenoid. I just wasn't vibing with it this time, the idea looked way better in my head vs my mockup. Will probably install it if/when I get to replacing the starter with a PMGR unit.

Also replaced the crappy battery hold down (doesn't work well with european batteries) with a quick lock strap. Looks hella clean, works alright, but I might get a proper J-hook clamp for it some day anyways. A tiny ratchet strap would be great, but I couldn't find any.

Aaaand I got my rear tires rebalanced yesterday, they were a bit off so the ride ought to get smoother and hopefully it cures the odd wobble I have at a certain speed below 80kmh.

[gadget73]

I think I've got that same harness on the Continental. Cheap AF but it works fine, and bumped the voltage at the headlights by about 2 volts which makes a huge difference in light output. Its been on there like 5 years now and no issues.