My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[friskyfrankie]

Is that harness a "plug and play" or do you have to cut and splice?

[Arquemann]

Is that harness a "plug and play" or do you have to cut and splice?

Plug n play, if you use it for the correct application, as in something with 2 H4 bulbs.
All the lengths worked out pretty well for a box, used all factory ground locations.

The harness I used is not a conversion harness for sealed beams or such, it's an H4 to H4 relay harness designed to be able to use high power bulbs, like 100W+

[Arquemann]

- I got my rear tires rebalanced yesterday, they were a bit off so the ride ought to get smoother -

And here's where things went to shit...
Tires got balanced just fine, mechanic (my friend) told the tires aren't "the best". On friday I took the car out on bigger roads and the vibrations above 90 kmh were horrible.
Over the weekend I yeeted the spacers, got the wheels back on, which resulted in slightly less vibrations, but definitely more than before balancing.

Got the rear of the car on jackstands with the engine on and in gear, at first it looked like the wheels were a bit bent, but upon closer inspection the wheels have very minimal runout, but the tires are pretty horrible in that aspect.
The rear tires are DOT 21 Nankang white walls, which have been blooming brown for probably 2 years already, seems like they are deteriorating internally and increasing in runout. Until this week, they haven't been balanced since they were new. The poor balance they had might've been working as an accidental road force balance, so now that they're actually balanced weight-wise they vibrate like hell.

So I kinda need two new tires for the rear, almost preferably 4, as the front tires are over 9 years old and quite hard. Stupid thing is that the fronts are the same make and model and 5 years older than the rears, but they haven't aged nearly as much and seem to be actually round still.

Thing is, I'm still broke and I want to get the turbine wheels redone with new tires for next summer, so spending a couple hundo for two tires I'll use for a few months seems like a huge waste.

[Arquemann]

Problem: mechanical fan is loud
Research:fan and related parts in full operational capacity, possible room for improvement in fan design
Hypothesis: change fan, make things quieter
Prerequisites: fan needs to closely match dimensionally, in direction of rotation and be inexpensive to acquire
Experiment №1: replaced original metal blade fan with BMW E65 7-series fan, which is more modern in design and materials
Results: new fan is even louder at an elevated RPM
Conclusion: fan design affects noise levels, but experiment №1 provided the opposite of desired results.

TLDR, I had an idea, it didn't work out and I'm out about 30€.

[friskyfrankie]

Problem: mechanical fan is loud
Research:fan and related parts in full operational capacity, possible room for improvement in fan design
Hypothesis: change fan, make things quieter
Prerequisites: fan needs to closely match dimensionally, in direction of rotation and be inexpensive to acquire
Experiment №1: replaced original metal blade fan with BMW E65 7-series fan, which is more modern in design and materials
Results: new fan is even louder at an elevated RPM
Conclusion: fan design affects noise levels, but experiment №1 provided the opposite of desired results.

TLDR, I had an idea, it didn't work out and I'm out about 30€.

Good reason NOT to mess with the OEM unless there is a damn good reason to do so. In this case I do however see your reason for trying it.

[gadget73]

I remember putting a 7 blade fan and clutch on a Vic once. I think it came off a 460, but was the same size and whatnot to bolt up to the Vic. Damn thing sounded like a tornado. It was something laying around in Scott's stash and it went on a visitor's car that had to go back home and he didn't have money to replace the clutch. I don't remember why we didn't use the Vic fan on that clutch, maybe it didn't bolt up or something.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Guess I'm used to the mechanical fan noises. The '97 was noisy if it hadn't been run in a while, but settled down pretty quick. The '79 had perhaps the loudest original fan, since it came with a factory flex fan being an A/C car, so it was a bunch of noise all of the time. It's been much nicer after converting it to a later Box 5 blade clutch fan.

Still, interesting to know one could graft such a fan onto a Box with a little work.

[Arquemann]

Guess I'm used to the mechanical fan noises. The '97 was noisy if it hadn't been run in a while, but settled down pretty quick. The '79 had perhaps the loudest original fan, since it came with a factory flex fan being an A/C car, so it was a bunch of noise all of the time. It's been much nicer after converting it to a later Box 5 blade clutch fan.

Still, interesting to know one could graft such a fan onto a Box with a little work.

I'm well used to it too, and with the factory fan it isn't obnoxious, but on acceleration and highway driving the fan is most of what I hear. Makes it feel like the engine is wound out even though it's barely over 1500rpm.

I like the reliability and simplicity of a mechanical fan, but these cars do make alot of noise from the engine bay, most of which is the fan. I know a guy with a '60 Cadillac that runs incredibly smooth and quiet, almost silently gliding at low speeds. And another one is a '64 Comet, which is even more impressive to be so quiet being a much cheaper can. I feel like the straight-cut whine of the first gear in the AOD is louder than either of those cars.
I guess the focus of R&D was completely different in the 80's, bean counters and emissions...

Finding a suitable fan wasn't that hard. I browsed sites with used parts, by images I could see which spin the right way, approximate size and if the clutch mounting would work out at all. Most modern stuff rotates CCW. Some Hilux, Pajero and Mercedes van stuff were pretty close but my thinking was that nobody cares of those things are loud, but a 7-series beemer on the other hand... Also the BMW fan is used to cool up to a 439hp V12, so I thought it might be adequate for my small block too.

If I go E-fans at some point, the 98-00 or 00-02 whale shrouded single fans look very appealing. Whole deal off RockAuto for not that much money, and the shroud is the same size as the one for boxes. They have 2 speeds, which is handy for AC.

But that stuff requires a 3G upgrade first.

[Arquemann]

I was just gonna pop off the side panels of the trunk and jam some felt mat over the rear wheel arches and stick some bitumin mat scraps on the quarters.

Instead I ended up pulling the entire trunk apart:
- Brushed off scabs & surface rust, applied anti-corrosion primer and then some paint around the bottom of the trunk.
- Cleaned out the trunk extensions on both sides, found that there are drain holes in there. No wonder there was alot dusty dirt all around.
- Sprayed the trunk extensions and trunk lid insides thoroughly with cavity wax. I was expecting to find rust inside the trunk around the bottom edge, but it seems like rust is just on the outside.
- Jammed some thick felt insulation with the factory insulation "bags" over the wheelwells. I feel like alot of tire noise is coming through the trunk.
- Put dad's bitumin mat leftovers on the insides of the quarter panels. I really should buy a pack of that stuff to get any sort of actual result out of it. Can't believe how little sound deadening there actually is from the factory.


I've been looking to get a left side tailpipe and another muffler off RockAuto to get a dual exhaust on the car. For some reason the shipping costs have been lately rising from ridiculous to astronomical. Currently it'd be 220€ for shipping the tailpipe and muffler. ~50€ for the pieces themselves.
The factory type H-pipe disappeared of RA some years ago, but its suddenly back and available. Shipping that alone is a hundo...
I could do snail mail over the winter, but it'd require a third party to ship to Finland.

Getting tired of the boomy, toneless and asthmatic exhaust and the single 2" definitely isn't helping in performance. I don't want anything loud, I just want to hear that it's a V8 in there.

[Arquemann]

On to the next random things I felt like doing:

I finally removed the floppy broken piece of weatherstripping above the driver door seal. I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat disappointed that without the piece the wind noise is basically unaffected.
For shits and giggles I jammed waterproof egg crate foam up there above the door seal, maybe it'll absorb some noise, maybe it'll push the door seal down a bit, as over time the door seal isn't aligned with the window frame as well as it used to. If the foam makes extra noise, I'll take it out no problem as I didn't peel the sticky backing.

I have a new trans filter and pan gasket on the shelf, but my transmission doesn't leak a drop and the TV cable mounts to a pan bolt (it'd need readjusting if the pan was removed). And I'm lazy and want to avoid a mess.
So, I got a hand pump for changing oil in boats and sucked the oil out through the generously sized dipshit tube.
Got about 3.5 liters of quite dark and smelly fluid out of it, and put in the same amount of new Mobil ATF 320. Fortunately the old fluid didn't smell burnt and it wasn't cloudy either, but there is an uncomfortably large possibility that the stuff I extracted is the original 115k mile fluid.
I will do the fluid extraction and refill probably twice more to feel good about the fluid condition.

[kishy]

Speaking from experience, assuming you will use any aftermarket muffler (which are generally much shorter in length than the stock beasts), you want the Lincoln H-pipe. It's longer as the Lincolns have a longer rear floor pan. Walker number is 40492, not that I'm specifically endorsing Walker but it may be the only option that exists. Look up a 1985 or so Town Car.

Even using all stock replacement parts I found the Ford/Mercury H-pipe (40483 maybe?) was too short to get the required amount of pipe overlap so you will need to use sleeves/couplers and weld for decent results if you go that way.

With outrageous shipping cost I can't help but wonder if you'd come out ahead having a local exhaust shop with pipe bending capability make something custom for you.

[Arquemann]

Speaking from experience, assuming you will use any aftermarket muffler (which are generally much shorter in length than the stock beasts), you want the Lincoln H-pipe. It's longer as the Lincolns have a longer rear floor pan. Walker number is 40492, not that I'm specifically endorsing Walker but it may be the only option that exists. Look up a 1985 or so Town Car.

Even using all stock replacement parts I found the Ford/Mercury H-pipe (40483 maybe?) was too short to get the required amount of pipe overlap so you will need to use sleeves/couplers and weld for decent results if you go that way.

With outrageous shipping cost I can't help but wonder if you'd come out ahead having a local exhaust shop with pipe bending capability make something custom for you.

To me it seems like a stock replacement muffler and tailpipe would be the easiest and fastest way to get more flow without breaking the bank. RA is my only source for stock replacement stuff.

From RA, an AP 700006 muffler and AP 64706 left side tailpipe is around 260€ shipped, which goes over 300€ with VAT and duty. I can probably scrounge the pieces to go from cats to mufflers for a hundo or so. So, somewhere around 450€ with the RA muffler and tailpipe.

I doubt an exhaust shop will cook up another tailpipe and an H-pipe for that or much less, even if I provide the muffler myself. Though getting a quote won't hurt.

Whether it's 450€ or 500€, it's still alot of money for me, feels like a bit too much tbh.


What'd I love is redoing the stock single exhaust but in 3". With a big honkin' muffler so it'd be quiet but flow very well.
Size might make the over-axle and tailpipe a total nightmare, can't even find a 180° bend to borrow to mock up over the axle.

[DerekTheGreat]

Dual exhaust will sound best.

[MelvinH365]

I love your Mercury! It looks kinda like a Mercury version of my '89 Town Car.



Those early '70s Ford wheel covers look good on literally anything.

[Arquemann]

Dual exhaust will sound best.

Dunno, a larger diameter single exhaust works on every V8 quite well. Even the Modulars that sound like raspy ass most of the time are alright with single pipe.
A classic carbed small block will sound good with a dual exhaust anyways, but H pipe is kinda the only way to go about duals. X is too raspy and true duals often sound odd at idle.
But considering I want the sound level to stay stock or close to it, I dunno if all that matters much.

I love your Mercury! It looks kinda like a Mercury version of my '89 Town Car.

Thanks! I'll let you on a little secret; my vinyl half top was dark red from the factory. But I definitely agree with whoever painted it white