78 Mercury zephyr wagon

too much of this

Means not much progress on the wagon. good news is im a midpipe and Now a track bar away from hopefully being done with this car so i can get back to the wagon.

Those wheels are amazing.

im going to assume its a stab at the pontiac rims on the sundance, there ugly as E36 M3 and say pontiac on them but they came on the car!

dropstep wrote: im going to assume its a stab at the pontiac rims on the sundance, there ugly as E36 M3 and say pontiac on them but they came on the car!

I was actually being serious. They fit the design of the car very well, IMO.

My taste is questionable.

Powar wrote:

dropstep wrote: im going to assume its a stab at the pontiac rims on the sundance, there ugly as E36 M3 and say pontiac on them but they came on the car!

I was actually being serious. They fit the design of the car very well, IMO. My taste *is* questionable.

Ahhh i get a lot of crap for them because there pontiac! Wouldnt be so bad if pontiac wasnt actually cast into the wheel.

dragging this back up because i finally got my hands on a factory v8 k member as part of a deal gone wrong. the turbo dodge has distracted me most of the summer so the wagon has been stuffed in the garage.

More wagon!

Finally got off my ass and decided to see if changing the inner tie rod end was going to be worth it or if i should just buy a new rack and pinion. managed to move the car over far enough to work on it. not very roomy in the tiny garage. Pulled the wheel and slid the boot off the inner tie rod just to find out its bigger then 1 1/4 and i dont have a larger wrench! Going to look through the tools at work tomorrow and see what i come up with.

not alot of progress on my day off!

the old ones off but nothing exciting just a quick question for anyone reading this, Have any of you used rock auto for parts? theres a big closeout sale on the tie rod ends for my car i just hate ordering offline!.

Order from them often. Their close out stuff is usually pretty good.

ended up getting new inner and outter tie rod ends for both sides, put it back together and drove it for 3 weeks before it went away for the winter. When its cold out I lack motivation too freeze my nuts off. still torn on what I want to actually do with the car so the v8 k member is propped up in my garage doing nothing.

Tis a shame you are not near Annapolis MD... Turbo 6

yes the blowthrough set up on the stock 6 was a choice at one point. lincs thread on ford 6 made me ponder it for a while. just not sure I want all the extra plumbing over the simplicity of a 302.

not much of an update but I ended up with a 300 i6 powered f150 so I decided to take some measurements. looks like a smallblock will be the powerplant of choice. as cool as the big six idea was it would require some cutting up I would rather not do.

while looking for a driveline donor for the car i stumbled upon an 89 f250 with a 351/auto combo. turns out the trucks really solid so it got plated and is getting a few updates and im going to use it for hauling and towing. ex gas company truck with a rock hard heavy 3/4 ton suspension. needs a tune up and the propane conversion taken off. since its just a mini project ill likely keep it in here with the wagon!

wagon gets pushed back even further. got the f250 running well thankfully since my daily decided to start puking out of the radiator today. im really looking forward too spring!

What is the daily driver again?

I know how that goes..... A k car might be added to the fleet soon, and of course I intend on doing horribly wrong things to it.

Vigo wrote: What is the daily driver again?

right now my wifes old daily. 98 s10 extended cab 2.2 auto. its been stone reliable for 3 years aside from one fuel pump and the tires have less then 8k miles (we don't drive much) so as much as I don't need a mini truck I hesitate to get rid of it. Wagon gets new plates Monday, I started it today after 6 months of sitting and it fired right up. gives me time to save some money and order the trucks radiator off rock auto instead of paying 50 more for it at advanced.

2.2 auto s10 has at least one great quality, which is that it doesnt tempt you to waste your talents doing anything more than necessary to it (i hope?), so that you can get back to fun stuff as much as possible.

Vigo wrote: 2.2 auto s10 has at least one great quality, which is that it doesnt tempt you to waste your talents doing anything more than necessary to it (i hope?), so that you can get back to fun stuff as much as possible.

yeah the only thing that gets done too it is basic maintnence and replacing broken crap. im still browsing craigslist daily for a wagon driveline donor since I decided to keep the f250 in one piece. being derby country and the fact scrap went way up there isn't a lot of cheap donor cars around!

well i finally actually bought an upgrade for the car. deal was too good to pass up so we piled in the turbo van this evening and i bought this.

8.8 with the factory trac loc and 3.08 gears. ordering shocks and a few other parts tomorrow so i can actually put it in the car. But getting it too the garage is progress right?

rear ends cleaned and painted, have to measure bolt spacing on the pinion yoke. theres conflicting info out for a 78 since its pre mustang foxbody. might have to track down a driveshaft yoke but not sure yet. ordered new shocks so aside from the possible driveshaft issue its ready to be swapped next weekend. put 200 miles on the car this weekend and was going to do the swap tuesday but my f250 blew a brakeline today and that takes priority. Really need to quit letting my wife drive my vehicles!

well finally some progress, took a bit longer then expected but the car now has an 8.8 with new shocks and hardware.

started with this....

then it was this....

some extra persuasion