Progress Thread Today in the shed........

[Don7Up]

Thanks for the heads up on the hardware. I'm sure I'll be needing some. Leave it to Ford to sell only the gold plated versions.

Another fun day in the shed. Took the moped out for a run. Been using it for living room art for the last 8yrs. and got it out a couple months ago. Clutch plates were stuck so bad I had to run it down the hill and hit 2nd gear to pop them loose. Stuck again this morning. Now has 1051 miles, so 44 years on it's time for the break-in service. Swapped the OE fish oil for some Rotella 15/40. It was nasty, and the sealing washer wasn't sealing, so got a new one. A few sparkles in the pan, but not more than I expected. ran it around the block, and do it again tomorrow to see if the plates stick again.

Hard to pick a band for such a mundane job. Been thinking about that, and last week came up with a fix. Had an old windows 7 laptop gathering dust because a bunch of bad sectors in the hard drive retired it. Gave it the full nuke reset to see what would happen. Loaded up all my.mp3's, and all my digital service manuals. Fortune smiled upon me. It plays tunes, and the Adobe reader still works. This is all it's good for as it won't talk to the interweb. Put it on random and the first song was by King Crimson. Score!

Car content. Ran more errands in the Comet. Was checking the p/s pump leak (still dry) and noticed the battery sitting a little awry. Hold down clip nut broke. Looked rusty enough to be OE, so I'll give some slack. All good now.

 

[Don7Up]

I'm getting to the end of cleaning out my late bro's shed, and started on the wheel/tire rack this morning. I need some help ID'ing this stuff. The set of SVE wheels have 275/40/18 tires on them. Would these fit the 90 7Up? Look too wide. They look mint, but the 09 GT is already sitting on an identical set of SVE wheels. If they won't fit the 90, not sure what he ran them on except the street Marauder. The rim on the floor looks like a stock wheel measuring best guess 19 by 9 wide. Would they be the stockers off the 09? The large units in the truck is the first set he ran when he back halved the race Marauder. Sent a couple stock wheels off to be widened. Probably boat anchors now, lol! Also found the mod motor blower intake manifold. Put one of those in the Comet? Hell no, lol! Wish I could weld like the person who built it. Beautiful work.

As far as my stuff, I had another trip around the sun a few days ago and was going to celebrate by riding a few I don't get out much but got sidetracked. The pre-ride ritual with the Norton is draining the sump. If it sits longer than a month it wet sumps too much to start without blowing the seals. I need to get to that ride soon as the shed cleaning is getting depressing.

 

[Don7Up]

Had some time to kill before the futbol game today so got a couple chores done in the bike shed.

New plate for the rat XS this year. Notice the paint scraped, caved in old one. Going to miss that, lol! Damn DOT leveled out the RR jump. I can't hit it hard enough to bottom out the back end anymore. Another sign of changing times, like picking up the land line and hearing one of your neighbors talking. Getting old I guess.

Had room in the corner for a shelf unit out of bro's shed. The 2stroke powered shovel always sat there in summer, and push mower in winter. Now have room for a few tubs of spares. You all know how precious shed space is.

Fired up the portable .mp3 speaker and Janis Joplin comes up. Fitting. All my friends get the blues seeing what I did to a perfectly good XS.

 

[Don7Up]

This morning in the shed, it's my least favourite work. Electrics. Nothing hard, electrics, I just don't care for it.

Got that ride I was jonesing for on the Norton. First ride went well, but it did fart a couple times at highway speed on a steady throttle. In the biz they call that foreshadowing, lol! The next ride (yesterday), I got almost out of town and it starts cutting out bad. Tried to limp it home but didn't make it. Could have been worse. It was only a 24 block walk home. Hot as hell though. That's why I was in the shed at 4:30 this morning. Started on it yesterday afternoon but after an hour of sweating a beer and A/C seemed a better plan. No sparks. The coils ohmed out OK, and the pick-up coil isn't shorted. I'm sitting here posting because temporarily stuck. It has the upgrade Lucas RITA ign. That hasn't been made for over 40 years, and my Chilton only covers the points ign. I need to do some web crawling to hopefully find a schematic and specs. If I don't find a voltage to the brainbox problem, I can see a new Pazon ign. in it's future.

The observant will notice I swapped the Comet for the 7UP last week. It also has an electrics issue. Forgot to pull the neg. battery cable and the parasitic draw flattened it in 2 days. DOH! Date code on it is 19. Had it on the charger all day yesterday and it topped out at 12.8V. S'okay, Wallyworld can fix that. I have fantastic luck with their cheap line. Always get better than 10 years with those.

Working on an old Brit, of course the tunes are the Beatles.

Update. Guessed right. When going to disconnect the brainbox plug, the power lead wire fell right out. Of course, my Jap pin connecters dia. was too big, so wired it outside the connecter. No biggie, saved me $$$. It's always been a magical mystery tour with this bike on so many levels, but I love it. That under square long stroke motor pulls like a nuclear freight train.

 

[Don7Up]

Not a shed pic today because the sheds are full already and they wont fit. My nephew finally got his dad's house sold so I had to move the last 2 cars back to my place. 09 GT/CS and 03 Marauder. Both needed a boost from sitting so long. I'd forgotten how nice the shifters are in these newer stangs. Better than the new Hurst unit I put in my Comet. Driving that Marauder was a trip. The cardan joint in the steering column shaft is fubar. Thankfully it was only 6 miles across town. I wouldn't road trip it until that gets fixed. It goes with another column, and a brand new steering shaft. They both need a new home.

 

[AeroCoupe]

Been a member on this Marauder site for a few years. Might want to post a for sale add on there or if you want to fix stuff on the car they are super helpful.

https://www.mercurymarauder.net/community/

 

[Don7Up]

A new adventure begins. My poor Ranger runs great, but rust is killing it. Don't trust it to road trip anymore. It's been demoted to wood hauler/winter hack.
Picked up this 90 E150 to pull the motorcycle trailer. Pretty solid unit with a few issues. 121K. Right rocker panel just starting to rot in front of the rear wheel.

Noticed brake fluid on the inside LF tire. The copper sealing washers have given up. Hoses look OE so changing all 3 is job 1. Job 2 is trailer light wiring. New hitch and no wiring. wtf? Job 3 is the rear gas tank. He said don't use it. Well, this will be no gas mileage champ so that needs fixed. This has the same driveline as the 7Up, 5L/AOD. He said the tranny would slip in OD sometimes. I checked the TV cable for slack and didn't see any. Might need some help on that issue.

 

[Qtrhrse23]

@gkomo - Man I think those two cracks are the dash. Take another look.

Yup, looks like too much Armor All. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. In my younger didnt know any better days, I sprayed ALOT of Armor All on all plastics, THEN wondered WHY they became brittle.

My 1st Mustang, 92 GT. Sad to say, Totalled it with only 45K miles. Ahole ran a redlight, OLD 78 CADDY got plowed by Foxbody. CADDY WINS.

OP Has anyone ever told you YOUR SHED LOOKS like a GARAGE??

 

[Don7Up]

Update on the E150. Looking into the rear gas tank issue, I see blue painter tape telling me the tank is bad, but not what is wrong. Yesterday siphoned 5gal. of the 2yr old Marauder gas and dumped it in. Flicked the selector switch, turned the key and the in tank pump fires up. Gas gauge didn't move so maybe just the sender? Nope. Crawled under it this morning and found a wet spot. Pin hole in the bottom. First Rock auto order includes a tank, straps, pump and sender unit, filter, front brake hoses, and wheel seals.
While under there spraying the strap nuts, and middle seat mount nuts with PB blaster, my sister pulls in. She measured the windows for the curtains she volunteered to make. She's a quilter and said the job looks easy peasy.
Ran it out to my tranny guy this morning. He said it was the OD band and drum. Around $2300. He'll be doing that in a couple weeks. On the way back, tried the cruise control. No go. A/C just rodeo cool. Another couple things to add to the list.

 

[Don7Up]

Van worked on today. Gonna get rain next 4 days, and don't want my quickjack lift getting wet so changing the gas tank is on hold. Jack stands don't care so got the brake hoses on. You're having a good day when the worst part of the job is tapping the frame retainer clips because they're rusted stuck. On the left caliper that was leaking, looks like whoever spot faced the sealing surface for the hose went a little deep. The really thin sealing washer that came with the hose got swapped for a thicker one. It can sit like this until the 1 man bleeder helper gets here Monday. S'okay, thats long enough to make sure everything sealed up.

Re: gastank. When working alone you have to get creative sometimes. Putting in the fuel pump, the rubber gasket needed a little more compressing to get the retainer ring started. Tie strap and 1/2" wobble to the rescue lol.

On a sadder note, my nephew couldn't find a buyer for the 08 Stang GT/CS. I don't have room to buy, or store it and it has to go. The local Ford dealer is giving him 5K for it.

 

[DadLife0724]

That really sux to hear about the GT/CS.

 

[Qtrhrse23]

Carbana?? Couldnt hurt to try. Definitely looks like its worth than $5K. ESPECIALLY nowadays with INSANE CAR PRICES.

 

[DadLife0724]

Carbana?? Couldnt hurt to try. Definitely looks like its worth than $5K. ESPECIALLY nowadays with INSANE CAR PRICES.

I think you mean Shaqvana.

 

[LILCBRA]

I see Black Hawk plates on the GT/CS - I grew up in the 'Loo! A buddy traded his 04 Mach 1 in for a newer 5.0 PP car though I don't remember exactly what his car's package is. Anyway, he generally babied his Mach 1 and I believe it only had ~40k miles on it (I don't remember what he said the mileage was, but it was way less than 100k) when he traded it. Deery gave him $17k. I don't know what condition the GT/CS is in, but it may be worth talking to them.

Pic of our cars from 2008 for reference:

 

[Don7Up]

LILCBRA We are from CF, and I never left. Witham got the 08 for 5K. Sad, but that's how things go. I only had room for 1 and picked the 7up;​

Back to work om the van. Tranny shifts good. Had the hd od band and drum put in it along with a valve body shift kit. OD hits at 47mph, about the same as the 7up. This was yesterday late but still had time to get the coolant flush done. Then I figured out how to pull the mid seats, and got the seat belts pulled.

Today pulled the rear gas tank. About the ass ache I expected. Rusted tank strap nuts and hose clamps. Fuel pump hose and electrical fittings that were never apart. The usual stuff. The 5000lb Quickjack didn't break a sweat. Whew lol! Had to get the prybar to get the inlet hoses off the tube. Tube looked janky, and I would have replaced it if I could have found one. Plan B. Found a little can of Eastwood rust coating in the box of Bro's garage chemicals I brought home. Knocked the loose rust off and sprayed it. The rubber hoses were janky also. but a scrub revealed no cracks so they go back on. A 1 beer and 1/2 of a Nickleback cd job. Now have to do some under dash diving to see if they did any switch "altering" when the bypassed the rear tank, and to make sure it feeds juice to the rear pump.. Anyway, progress was made today.

 

[nicholase]

Back in the day I worked at a Ford dealer. The 89-93 F & E series had recalls for the dual fuel tanks where they would cross flow and one would fill the other, or the fuel return would pump into the wrong tank. The hazard was it would overfill one of them and could leak out the filler cap or start a fire. So the fix was to re configure the lines and install a check valve system.

I took so many of those dang tanks out. It was really a pain on the E series. Even though they were pretty new then, the salty winters here are horrible and it was stipped nuts and seized straps all the time.

 

[Don7Up]

Got the fuel tank in yesterday. Left the old tank selector valve on to see if that's why they gave up on the rear tank. Went to the station and put 5gal. in the rear so they were both about 1/4 full. When I got home the front showed almost half, and rear almost empty. Guessing the return line pumping into the front tank. While lying under it idling checking for line connection fitting leaks, I prove one again no good deed goes unpunished lol!. Look forward and coolant is running out under the motor. Running coolant system flush cleaned out the crud keeping the water pump seal from leaking. I've seen that trick before. Oh well, better now than out on a road trip next year. Needing energy to wrestle with that tank, inspirational tunes provided by AC/DC.

 

[DadLife0724]

That's a lot of coolant!!