Progress Thread Daily Driver.... 89 GT - 4th time is the charm

[limp]

throw a hitch in their gettyup, tell them you want your radiator back

I like this, lets find out if they did find YOURS???? Or they can't and are trying to sqeeeeeeeeze out of it........

 

[manicmechanic007]

I would be thinking heavy duty cooling (3 row radiator)
It may have that anyway with AC
I would be thinking lifetime.
New radiators do not last that long these days
Yes, your old brass radiator is worth about 10 - 15 bucks at the salvage yard easy

 

[TIGGER]

I looked at the Jmac web site and it looks like they are only in Utah. I did not call though. Unfortunately, I don't want to deal with lifetime warranty stuff and having to ship it back and wait for them to ship me another one. Much easier to take it back local to where I got it and get another one. I already ordered the one from Napa. It should be here tomorrow.

I would be thinking heavy duty cooling (3 row radiator)
It may have that anyway with AC
I would be thinking lifetime.
New radiators do not last that long these days
Yes, your old brass radiator is worth about 10 - 15 bucks at the salvage yard easy

I think the radiator I am getting is 2 row which is the same style that came with the car when I got it. It seemed to cool the car just fine for the first part of the summer. I did not see the temperature rise till after I swapped in the "lost" radiator. I am not too worried about it as we do not see many triple digit days here in Oregon. With a new heater core, water pump, fan clutch and radiator the cooling system should be happy.

I like this, lets find out if they did find YOURS???? Or they can't and are trying to sqeeeeeeeeze out of it........

That remains to be seen. I did not get a call today that is back on my side of town. I will be able to tell if it is mine as it was an original Ford 5 speed radiator (no bungs for the tranny cooler). Probably rare find these days as I think all radiators are dual purpose. Manager told me that if they did not find it he would order me a new one free of charge. He also is not going to charge me for the inspection. I plan on stopping by again on my way to work tomorrow and see if they have it.

 

[nickyb]

With the new heater core did you install the reduced in the coolant line?

 

[TIGGER]

Good point. I didn’t check to see if the restrictor was there before I attached the hoses to the new heater core. I assume the original one is still there. Heater core I replaced was the original one from 1989. I can’t believe it survived that long and 216,000 miles without the restrictor. I will check though. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[manicmechanic007]

Good job, Snappa has a warranty anyway right?
That restrictor made them less noisy
Ford used to have us put them in the Lincolns et al. for complaints of water running sounds TSB
With the restrictor, you should have no loss of heat

 

[TIGGER]

Good job, Snappa has a warranty anyway right?
That restrictor made them less noisy
Ford used to have us put them in the Lincolns et al. for complaints of water running sounds TSB
With the restrictor, you should have no loss of heat

Yes lifetime warranty from Napa. Funny you mentioned the running water sound, I was hearing that when I started the car in the morning for a short while before the heater core let go. I thought it was because it was leaking and there was air in it when I started it? I will still look, just have not got to it. I have a reducer if there is not one on this car. I bought it when I did the Saleen but I did not end up using it as there was one already installed.

 

[TIGGER]

Been a while since I updated this. I ran into a bit of scope creep. I ended up doing a way more than I originally anticipated for just a heater core replacement. The car basically has a brand new cooling system. Fan clutch, radiator, heater core, belt etc. Been driving it for a couple weeks now. No issues so far with it. In addition to the cooling system and MM quadrant, I did a bunch of other little things while the car was in the garage but I won't bore you guys with that.

The MM quadrant allowed me to adjust the pedal a little more off the floor but unfortunately it did not solve my hard shifting into first from a stop issue that happens randomly. I think the pilot bearing is bad/going out because it does not happen all the time and it does not grind at all in any gear. Every thing I have read tends to point to the pilot bearing. I only have the issue with first and sometimes with second when down shifting. Clutch has about 120K on it and the clutch fork cover has been gone for who knows how long so there is a lot of grime in there from what I can see. I got a repro cover now but the damage is done so to speak. First couple days I drove it after its short hibernation in the garage, the first gear thing was bad. I got discouraged and let it sit for a bit again and then decided to take it to run errands one night and it was fine. It has been decent ever since. I am going to change the clutch when the weather gets a bit warmer. Hopefully it stays working decent. If not, I will do it sooner than later because I do not want to damage the transmission.

So now I am working on installing a stereo. The car is getting a bunch of used stuff that I had saved. Only thing I bought new was a set of separates for the doors and dash. The car was a premium sound car. I have the Metra adapter cables but I did not get the kit that came with the plug for the amplifier. I even bought the adapter cables for the speakers so nothing is butchered. I remember reading that there was something that needed to be done to get both the door and dash speakers to work. I will have to look that up again before I get too far with the wiring.

That is all for now

 

[General karthief]

When was the last time you changed trans fluid?
I do mine about every thirty thousand miles.

 

[TIGGER]

When was the last time you changed trans fluid?
I do mine about every thirty thousand miles.

I changed it Labor day weekend. It probably has ~1500 miles since I changed it. No idea the last time it was done. The fluid that came out of it was brownish. Not terrible though. I have seen worse.

 

[90sickfox]

With the radio Pease don't screw one of thos install plates in the dash. There is no need to do that. The cubby on the bottom of the factory radio cam be removed and glued or placed under the new radio. Most factory radios are long gone. I'm sure yours has probably been replaced before. Might be too late.

The dash and door speakers both run on the front output from the radio. It makes the front speaker output a little lower than the rear speakers.

 

[TIGGER]

Thanks for the advice. This car was pretty much stock when I got it so it had the factory radio and speakers in it up till I did the heater core. It didn’t work when I got the car(amplifier was bad) but I had a spare amp and used the radio with a cassette adapter till the heater core puked its guts out.

I plan on basically doing what you said. I don’t like the metra kit. I have a spare cubby and will modify that to fit in the recessed part of the console. Then I will install the radio via the cage. I loosely mocked it up and it seems like it will work just fine.

 

[TIGGER]

I think I figured out my wiring tonight for the premium sound and how to make all 6 speakers work. From the wiring diagram it looks like if I connect the speaker outputs to the amp plug it should get both front speakers to work. Unfortunately I don’t have that plug from the wiring kit. I bought the standard radio wiring kit not the one for premium sound

I think I am going to cut the plug off the dead amp and use that.

 

[90sickfox]

The premium sound harness should be just a jumper harness. You could run your own speaker wires to the connectors under the corner of the dash for the dash and door speakers. This way you keep the factory connectors untouched other than plugging in the one for the power and ground wires. One connector ( black ? ) is power, ground, dimmer, ign power. The other gray connector ( I believe ) is all speaker wires. The colors say which speakers they are. The dash and door speakers share the gray and white wires for their side.

All ford's had the same connector from early 80s until about 95. Easy to cut the harness from another car or truck in the yard.

I hate altering stuff, too. My car is put together so it could go back to a stock 5.0 car. All the connectors and wiring is untouched and present even though it was originally a 4 banger. I just can't hack up a good harness.

 

[TIGGER]

I'm with you, I hate hacking stuff. I am just going to cut the mating plug off the dead amp and use that. I think it will be a cleaner install. I took the dead amp apart to see if there was anything obvious that went bad and I didn't see anything. Unfortunately I am not an electronics debug guy even though I build circuit boards for a living. I have another amp that works that I will keep in case I or someone else wants to restore the car back to original. It all should plug back in like the factory did it when I am done.

 

[TIGGER]

I didn’t have a lot of time to dink with the car this weekend as it rained most of the time. However I did manage to get the deck and cubby mocked up between a rain storm like I want it. I filed the sides of the cubby till it fit inside the console opening. I think it will work just fine for what I want without altering anything original to the car.

On a side note. One thing I noticed since I did the heater core is that the hot/cold dial is hard to turn towards the hot side. I did not disconnect the cable but I think I got it going the wrong way as I don’t remember seeing the cable from under the dash. Can someone confirm please?

 

[manicmechanic007]

I am no help from memory
I do not remember seeing it on the bottom either
I think it may run up and over the plenum?
Or maybe along the bottom by the glovebox and then back up?
I can find a picture on all data at the library maybe
Either way, you should be able to fix it without pulling the plenum back out

 

[AeroCoupe]

I am pretty sure they route the same in the 86 and down cars but I could be wrong. In any case this is a pretty decent write up:

HVAC Cable Clip

Hey, out of curiousity, I need a 4-eye guy to look and see if your blend door cable has this kind of clip holding it to the lever on the door itself. https://i.imgur.com/1Zf7pHN.jpg I'm mostly just trying to learn more about these things. The one I ordered says it's for a Mustang II (my...

vb.foureyedpride.com

 

[90sickfox]

That radio install looks clean. I really like seeing this done without that ugly radio adapter that screws in the dash. I just remembered that years ago folks used to put a strap of metal from the back of the radio to the center rear of the cubby to keep it from tipping out. There used to be a screw hole ( for extra radio ground ) in the center of the back of the aftermarket radios. No idea if new radios have that anymore.

There's an angled bend in that cable that can get flipped around. It's in the wire end that connects to the flapper dilly.

 

[General karthief]

Flapper dilly