Progress Thread Daily Driver.... 89 GT - Front suspension rebuild

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.

manicmechanic007 said:

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

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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.

limp said:

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

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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.

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 said:

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

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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.

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