Progress Thread Let's try this again...

Sounds like your getting things worked out! That’s great! The more you get fixed up and right, the more you’ll start enjoying the car...... and doing more wrenching yourself!

Slowly but surely :D

I do plan on doing some more work myself in the future. The shop I use does good work and they've been pretty straight with me as far as prioritizing jobs and minimizing cost, but part of the reason I got the car was to learn how to do stuff to it. I'm starting to get a little more comfortable working underneath the car, so I think I can do fluid changes and general maintenance myself so long as I block out a day to do it. Everything I read about this diff fluid change said it would take an hour to 2 hours, but I knew knowing myself and the car that it would take far longer to get the job done properly because I'm inexperienced and the car is old and nothing seems to come apart quite as easily as it does in the videos.

It's been really fun though, not just from learning stick and fixing little stuff but from meeting new people and participating in some events as well. The buddy from work that was helping me out has a beautiful 88 Corvette that he put together, so we've gone to a cars and coffee meet and gone on a couple of drives. I've also had a lot of people talk to me about it, both random people at the gas station as well as some family friends that I had no idea were into cars until now.

I also got a big thumbs up from an old guy in an f-body Camaro, which I thought was pretty damn cool.

After it warms up good it's fine. I dont worry about it. Figuring it's a product of old car and who knows what small problems I have that I'm not aware of.

This is pretty much where I'm at at this point. When I first got the car, I freaked out about little rattles or if the engine sounded a little different sometimes but now I've kind of just accepted it as something the car does. Once it gets up to speed and warmed up it runs like a top most of the time.
 
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Checked for codes recently?
Cold stumble may be the plug on the coolant sensor on the heater pipe not making good contact or the sensor itself. It would through a code.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the smaller gray connector that goes with the larger one for the OBDI, so unless I can still pull codes without it, I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. That harness by the drivers side firewall is a real sphaghettified mess though, so it's possible that connector is tucked in somewhere, but with the wires being so brittle I don't want to dig too hard for it.

It seems to stumble consistently once as I'm pulling away from my house. I'd say about 15 mph in second gear it just loses power for a second and then pops back in. After that, it never does it again for the remainder of the drive.
 
Thats exactly what my car does. I'll be watching to see if you figure something out as it might apply to my car as well. I've got a scanner but haven't been able to get it to throw codes. Been to busy messing with other stuff to take the time to try to fix it.
 
Thats exactly what my car does. I'll be watching to see if you figure something out as it might apply to my car as well. I've got a scanner but haven't been able to get it to throw codes. Been to busy messing with other stuff to take the time to try to fix it.

Hopefully I'll figure something out or it just turns out to be nothing. Like in your case, it's not severe enough for me to feel like I have to really worry about it yet. I probably will mention it next time I have it in the shop though.

Finally managed to get those headlight covers on properly today, they really clean up the front of the car nicely. Hopefully they won't pop off, they came with screws for permanent installation that I'm thinking about using, but the double-sided tape seems to be holding for now.
 
Hopefully they won't pop off,
One popped off in the garage overnight, so I took both of them off until I figure out a more secure method of attachment.

I noticed today that the drop in power is joined by a hissing noise. This kind of feels like what I had before with the vacuum leaks, I wonder if the shop missed one or if it blew open another one somehow.
 
One popped off in the garage overnight, so I took both of them off until I figure out a more secure method of attachment.

I noticed today that the drop in power is joined by a hissing noise. This kind of feels like what I had before with the vacuum leaks, I wonder if the shop missed one or if it blew open another one somehow.

I would learn to live without the covers before you start putting screw holes where they don’t belong. JMO.
If they are they are the black ones, you can’t see at night anyway!
 
I would learn to live without the covers before you start putting screw holes where they don’t belong. JMO.
If they are they are the black ones, you can’t see at night anyway!

They are the clear ones. I had another go at it just now, and I got the passenger's side on, but the driver's side just won't fit. The brackets don't extend far enough in to hold onto the edges of the covers securely. As soon as I get one side of the cover in, it pops out as soon as I put in the other side.

Unfortunately, since I had them both on before and the passenger's side fit, I did put in the screws on that side. Luckily, I tried test fitting the driver's side first and spent a good hour trying to get it to fit before I gave up, so I haven't messed up that side.

I pulled both covers off, stuck the drivers side brackets on with double sided tape so it's at least symmetrical and called it a day. I just ordered a set of new ones to see if it's a manufacturer defect or something, because it's only off by a milometer at most. I can't return them because I trimmed the rubber surround to try and get them to fit right.

If those don't work, I don't know what I'm going to do. The guy I bought it from has a set of original ford racing covers, but they're blacked out. He did say he could cover up any drill holes if I decided I didn't like them, so there's that option. I've looked all over and it seems like this company is the only option I have for clear covers.
 
I'm rocking the GTS covers myself but don't have the fitment issues you speak of.
Seeing as you have the brackets,cutting a set using your existing ones as a template(just a smidge larger)would be any easy project.I know my local hardware store also has the rubber channel that can be glued around the outside edge.
 
Depends....if the seal/shift boot is bad you can get heat through the tunnel. You can pull the upper boot up and take a look. There are two seals on a 5 speed. A lower boot that seals to the floor, and the upper which just seals to the top of the plastic console. Make sure both are good.

Chris
 
I picked up a MAF sensor and an A9L recently. The car was wired for MAF by a previous owner, but the guy I bought it from said it always ran like garbage on it, so he put it back to speed density. I figured somebody just forgot to splice some wires together, and the LMR video made it look easy, so I pulled the old computer and was greeted by a mess of tape and wires pouring out of the back of the connector.

LMR said to look for a red wire going to "either pin 37 or 57," but I can't see any of the numbers and I don't want to yank it around it too hard for fear that I'll pull out something I shouldn't. Is there a trick to doing this? I'll post some pictures once they get uploaded from my phone. There are several spliced wires from the connector.

I did plug it in and start the car just to see what I was dealing with, and predictably, it ran like garbage. Really rich, the idle was super low, it was pretty unpleasant. I also can't pull codes since I can't find the gray connector for the obd1.

I guess the good news of all this is that I can just plug the old computer back in until I figure this out, right?
 
Here’s the numbering if that will help?
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I believe the numbering on the connector side would be the same for all?
 
I converted my ‘86 to mass air probably 25 years ago. I used a Ford kit, complete with a new computer. It was tedious but not all that difficult. I didn’t splice any wires, but instead bought a tool to release the pins from the connector so wires/pins could be moved to the appropriate pin hole.