Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

95BlueStallion said:

The doctor in Lubbock tell you thats what it was?

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IDK about Raider Rash, but I've had tater hash.

.......that was some good stuff.

Two pages back overnight.
I tell ya,............the noobz onslaught has taken over. It's like a successful version of World War Z.

This was a good day!!

Despite the fact that it doesn't look like I got Jack done,......I got plenty done. Although it took all day.

First, let's qualify what had in front of me this morning:

1. For the last several days,..I've been dicking around with my cowl panel. The cover that I glued to the panel still needed to be bodyworked. Didn't seem to matter what I did,....when I put the damn thing in primer, there was always something wrong with it. One time there was a scratch, the next time a chip. r a paint reaction, or a wonky line. I tell ya for a stupid little piece of sheet metal,....this damn thing must've cost me 8 additional hours towards getting the engine compartment back in paint.

After the 7th time I found something wrong,...I just said F uck it.



This is engine compartment repaint 2.0.
There are still things wrong,..but I'm finally OK with it. The first time around, I had the gun pressure set too high, and got a whole bunch of dry spray. This time, I got the opposite...........Sags.

But,...the sags are strategic.
One is behind the turbo.

I don' give a rats' ass.

One is on the drivers' side apron.

It will disappear behind the dual oil filters.

The other is actually on top of the driver's side cowl. Visible to God and country......

Bite me.

If you look at the pic, You'll notice the cowl.

This Cowl panel:

It always amazes me how much sh it the digital pic picks up that my eye manages to let slip by.

This stinkin' cowl panel is actually a piece of 20 ga. that I glued to the ribbed urethane substrate. I thought that all I'd have to do was drill some holes, prime, and paint it.

But nooooo.

The satin black paint I sprayed on here may as well be a flashing blue light. I seriously regret using this paint. Not for any quality reasons,...mind you,.....

It's actually more like.............................trying to hide a zit on the middle of your forehead.

A really big,......ooozing,......glowing,....zit.

But I finally got it good enough.


Stupid lowes didn't have enough of the screws I chose to fasten the panel down,..so I'm two short in the pic.

You gotta be wondering,.....

You spent all day, and all you got done was that cowl panel?

Uhhh,.....That be a Wrongo Ghost Rider.

#1. That panel is hiding the wiper mechanism that was yellow this morning.
But in the pic, it's factory natural,..stripped to the way it came in 1978.

#2. The wiper motor:

Completely disassembled so i could clean, and paint a 35 year old part to make it look new. But, because I used stinkin' aluminum paint,...and because I wanted to get it together before it was dry enough,..the silver part of the assy is now covered in my finger prints.

I'll have to wetsand it toorrow, and repaint it again.

The wiper motor was good for two hours by itself.
#3 The flying saucer factory power brake booster,...badly needing to be stripped, degreased, and painted in stainless steel paint.
My brand new Cobra M/C acvtually was the single fastest thing I did today,..I think it took two minutes to bolt it to the PB booster.

#4. The K member is bolted in place now. Despite the fact that it has been sandblasted for months now,..it still needed priming, and paining prior to installation.

It's not like I do this everyday. The question is,..How do you know it's square, and straight in the engine compartment?



I don't know either. I guess you just measure for center between the frame rails,...use a plump bob to mark it,..then triangulate and measure from the front of ea. control arm mount bolt hole, to that string.



All of this black stuff was rusty stuff. It took forever to get it clean enough to paint.

You gotta know that it's a sorry state of affairs when you are getting so much junk from Summit every other day, you don't even bother to open the boxes.

And there is still stuff coming on Monday.

7991LXnSHO said:

Never hurry painting. Fingerprints and having to wait are why they use "watching paint dry", but you knew that.

What is the radiator cooling thing with fans in the front of the trunk in that last picture??????

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The radiators are heat exchangers for the A2W I/C.

RacEoHolic330 said:

Mike, you can use the maximum motorsports k-member install instructions to plumb yours. Their method is very thorough and will ensure its square.

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Thanks. Yeah, I got that recommended to me over at FEP as well. A little more involved, but much more precise than my triangulated method.

Lets talk about the wiper motor. You know the one.

The one that I fingerprinted.

In truth, the one I finger printed wasn't the one that came on the Fairmont. I got that one off of the Donor 89 GT I've been using for parts. The one that came on the Mont was either broken,...or I broke it trying to take it apart.

Sooo after sucessfully taking the Mustang unit apart, cleaning, painting, and reassembling it (twice), I attempted to mount it.

Don't fit.

The Mustang piece mounting flange has a different hole pattern than the old Fairmont flange,...and they don't swap over. A "correct" new replacement for the Fairmont only gets you the motor,...I broke the gear mechanism. So I had to make it work.


Fortunately I got a plasma cutter, and fairly decent plasma cutting skills.
Transferring the 3 hole motor mount part of the Mustang flange over to the three hole firewall mount Fairmont flange has proven more of a hassle than I wanted,..but I don't really have a choice at this point. I want to use the Mustang motor, as I am also using the same Mustang column w/ intermittent wiper control,..( something the Fairmont didn't have)

The stand off on the newer flange is deeper than the Fairmont flange, so there is an "interference" when the motor makes a complete revolution. I tell ya,....

madspeed said:

measure twice, cut once

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Thanks.

Kiss ass once,
F uck off twice.