Progress Thread New To Me 1988 GT - trying to set up vacuum lines for upper intake question

[hurlingmerlin]

Not a fan of the GT body style, but i do like the color combo though.

I've always been leary of hosing down the engine bay, but if done carefully it can be done. I'd wipe away as much crud ahead of time before hand though.

 

[Noobz347]

T-stat install cheat:

Turn the housing upside down
Place the T-stat into the housing in the correct orientation
Place two small dots of Superglue 180* apart to hold it in place and let dry
Install as usual

 

[89notchDude]

Dont get your hopes up on LMR seat belts being any better. They are very finicky about retracting/not retracting. I was pretty disappointed. I should have just dyed the OEM grey to black. I'd be happier and my wallet would be heavier

 

[hurlingmerlin]

I prefer to do all that water spraying etc.. on a cold engine.

Soak it down
Empty a couple cans in there and let it sit 20ish minutes
wash it down

Tell us more about those couple of cans, but tell us slowly...(the cold condensation slowly gathering on the outside...the crack of the pull tab...)

 

[Noobz347]

Tell us more about those couple of cans, but tell us slowly...(the cold condensation slowly gathering on the outside...the crack of the pull tab...)

Wut?

 

[hurlingmerlin]

Wut?

Oops. I thought the cans implied pilsner or a frosty beverage being consumed while soaking the engine bay. Now that i reread your post, maybe not so much.

 

[Noobz347]

Oops. I thought the cans implied pilsner or a frosty beverage being consumed while soaking the engine bay. Now that i reread your post, maybe not so much.

I was confused and had to check the octane of my coffee.

 

[pindude80]

Dont get your hopes up on LMR seat belts being any better. They are very finicky about retracting/not retracting. I was pretty disappointed. I should have just dyed the OEM grey to black. I'd be happier and my wallet would be heavier.

Dang! I did have my hopes up. I appreciate you letting me know the LMR seatbelts kind of suck. Maybe the best option is to find someone to repair the factory ones or if you still have your factory driver's seatbelt and it works ok I would be willing to buy it off of you.

 

[pindude80]

T-stat install cheat:

Turn the housing upside down
Place the T-stat into the housing in the correct orientation
Place two small dots of Superglue 180* apart to hold it in place and let dry
Install as usual

That is a good cheat. The last time I did a thermostat on a SBF it slipped during install, pinched between the gasket and housing. I filled the system and it leaked so I had to take it apart and do it again. I used a couple small dabs of silicone to hold in place the 2nd time.

 

[AeroCoupe]

Pretty sure there is a black cylindrical release below the door striker on the 79-89 cars. This can break and then the belt will not retract. Other issue can be the spring inside the retractor has come loose or needs more tension. Sometimes the spring just wears out. Another thing that helps is cleaning the webbing.

 

[pindude80]

When doing my research I found out about the black plunger below the door latch. I'm not sure if that is the issue with mine or not. I checked it, it's not sticking and seems to go in and out properly. I don't think that part is available anymore. I did run across some videos and posts about cleaning the webbing. I think that is more for if the belt retracts slowly or doesn't retract all the way. I'm just going to have to pull the seatbelt mechanism and see what I can figure out. I wish I could find a video or post of disassembling or working on the mechanism but so far I haven't run across anything like that for our cars.

 

[nickyb]

I can't find it now but there is a company that rebuilds the seatbelt assemblies and it was a reasonable price when I checked a few years ago.

 

[pindude80]

If you can think of who it was, please post up. I found and contacted two seatbelt repair companies. One company, Safety Restore said they could fix the recoil issue for $100 plus shipping. The other company, Seatbelt Planet, said they can not fix the recoil issue and tried to sell me new seatbelts.

I don't think the $100 repair is too bad but part of me says that is 40% towards the cost of a new set of front seatbelts. The next things on my list are to get the passenger's side window to go down and inpect the driver's side front seatbelt. If I can't fix it, I'm going to have to decide if I would rather get my factory seatbelt repaired or buy a whole new set for the front...

 

[pindude80]

I got the car back together and took her out last evening. The cooling system flush and new thermostat have improved the cooling system. I'm not holding my breath on the engine getting warm situation being considered "fixed." After driving the car for a while, I popped the hood and noticed the top driver's side of the radiator was barely warm to the touch and I could easily hold my hand on it for as long as I wanted. I don't know if this is indicative of a clog or not. I'm going to keep driving the car, watch the coolant temps, and if it gets hot again in the future I will probably have to decide if it's worth screwing with this radiator anymore or if I should just go ahead and buy a 3 core radiator.

 

[gkomo]

I think Safety Restore was the company i was referring to back a few posts.

 

[pindude80]

PASSENGER'S POWER WINDOW MOTOR


I took the door panel off of the right hand door to see if I could figure out what is going on with the power window motor. I hooked up my multimeter to the back side of the door harness that connects to the power window motor (see pic) I was getting some weird readings when I would activate the up and down switch. I was getting between one and two volts, positive and negative, depending on which way I pushed the switch.

I disconnected the connector from the motor and left my test leads in the same position on the door harness and hit the window switch again. Now I was getting positive 12 volts and minus 12 volts like I would expect. I hooked up the connector from the door harness to the power window motor again and got the weird reading of only one and two volts.

I rigged up a couple wires to the power window motor connector and connected it to my jump box. I was able to get the window to roll up and down.

Does anyone know why I am getting low voltage when I connect the body harness to the window motor? I wouldn't think it is a bad window motor since I can get the window to go up and down with the jump box. Could it possibly be a ground issue? If so, where is the ground for this wiring circuit that I would need to clean?

I guess I should also so mention the drivers power window works properly.

 

[pindude80]

DOOR SPEAKER WIRING.

While I had the door panel off to look at the power window motor I wanted to see why someone had a wire running from the door speaker to the rear speaker. While I was looking around on the door with the door panel off I saw a secondary harness that was taped to the main door harness. The tape looked factory. I am guessing this harness is if the car had speakers in the door from the factory. Is that correct?

I pulled the kick panel back a little bit and found a connector with nothing hooked to it and the same color wires as the connector in question on the door. I want to run dash speakers and door speakers. Do I run wires from the connector in the kick panel up to the dash speaker to wire the door speakers?

Itooks like there is not any factory wiring for the door speakers at the connector that goes into the radio. I'm guessing that is because my car did not have premium sound from the factory.

 

[limp]

I think Safety Restore was the company i was referring to back a few posts.

I am going to have my blue webbing rewebbed with black webbing so I spent a bit of time looking also... There is a seat belt place in Texas that advertises " owned by veterans" but I can't confirm that
The new belt assembly's at LMR are different than the ones in my 83 vert, so be advised to confirm your fit...

 

[pindude80]

I figured out the issue with the passenger's power window motor not working. Both control switches, the driver's and passenger's side, didn't work. I took the switches apart, cleaned the contacts, and adjusted the contact gap and now the passenger window goes up and down with either control.

 

[pindude80]

Seatbelt Update:

Last night I removed the inner quarter panel plastic trim so I could get to the seatbelt. I've never removed that trim on one of these cars before. It wasn't too bad but not a lot of fun either! I did have a problem with the metal piece that goes above the door and covers up the edge of the headliner.

I removed the seatbelt assembly and took it to the bench. I rotated the spool that the seatbelt winds onto a little bit and the seatbelt suddenly recoiled like it should. Basically it was stuck. I got to looking at it a little more and experimenting with it. My car is an '88 so it has that little plunger in the door jamb area. I took the cover off the mechanism that is activated by the plunger. It has a weird looking mechanism (see picture) When I was experimenting with the belt I was able to get it to get stuck in the full extended position a couple of times and it was because the little spring looking thing was getting stuck.

I took the whole mechanism off and I think I'm going to leave it off. The seatbelt seems to function properly, if not better, than when the mechanism was on it. I wonder if the 1990 and up cars were the same seatbelt design minus the plunger and it's associated mechanism? I bet they are the same and this was more than likely a problematic design and why Ford went away from it starting in 1990.

I think I'm going to re-install the plunger but leave the mechanism off that goes on the seatbelt assembly unless you guys see or think of something I'm not seeing or thinking of.....