Third time was the charm. This shop didn't freak out that the car was old and modified. They found I hadn't tightened the lower strut bolts tight enough, but other than that had absolutely no problem. Keep in mind that shop #2 actually had the legal disclaimer in their write-up about the car not being road-worthy and they recommended I tow the car. Shop #3 even dialed in the specs for the caster-
camber plates, then put the original Ford specs into their computer and measured the difference, just because they thought I might be interested in that.
So last night, I got groceries. No, it isn't an 11-second quarter-mile, but we lesser mortals have to take our victories where we can. The crazy thing is that the car was almost normal; after not running all day, I just hopped in, started it up, and drove off. No warm-up session, no easing off the driveway trying to avoid the soul-destroying crunch at the end, nothing. I even put the groceries in the hatch, which un-latched like it should and latched like it should; no groceries littering the roads on the way home. Amazing!
Although I do have to confess that the groceries had lost their neat stacking arrangement by the time I got home.
If I'm ambitious, this weekend might be time to drop the tank again. I'm still leaking from what looks to be the vapor line when the tank is full. I went ahead and bought a new vapor valve and grommet; I believe the rubber from the grommet is likely the culprit, and figure the other new part can't hurt. The vapor line itself is probably the only other possible cause, but that's easier to replace without waiting on shipping.
Also, I need to figure out what's up with the sending unit. The gas gauge readings seem to have some correlation with the actual gas level. I'm hoping that this isn't related to an actual problem with the tank; I've read sad stories of detached tank baffles causing trouble. So far, the fuel pump has held up, and there's no weird knocking when making turns or anything like that.
Oh, yeah, one other thing that happened for the first time yesterday: I got an offer to buy my car on the spot by a random stranger.
No one ever did that to me when I was driving a minivan...