The Lincoln Log: Daily driving a 23 year old luxobarge

In reply to GCrites80s :

Yeah, every few years the world needs another good berkeley you song.

I admit it was really the only song of hers I knew, but I liked her whole set and she has an album coming out soon. 

Really nice car you have there

Ive had 7 of which 6 ended up as parts cars...last one donated its heart to my volvo with a cobra T45 behind it

Last night, last show. My favorite band, the Dollyrots!

If you've never seen them, give them a shot. I don't think any band is better to their fans.

Made it back home today. Over 1,522 miles the car averaged 23.2 mpg. Should have been a touch higher--it was at an even 24 mpg when I left Louisville, but then I put the climate control on a setting that was running the AC compressor. Mileage got as low as 22.7 before I realized that today.

No problems from the car at all.

Saturday I went to another concert: Flogging Molly in Atlanta. The Interrupters were supposed to play, too, but one of them got covi and they had to miss this stop.

As part of the trip, I decided to hit some local junkyards to check out some Mark VIIIs and T-birds. Mostly I picked up some minor stuff that should make the car just a little bit nicer. Examples:

Console cubby door with a decent "chrome" button to replace the original with flaking chrome.

Also picked up a new intake tube to replace a broken one. 

And got a 16" spare w/aluminum wheel. The car came with one, but the tire wouldn't hold air.

Grabbed a new driver side door panel--no pics, since the old one looked fine, but most of the mounting tabs were broken and the previous owner had secured it with wood screws. Took home a set of taillights and a trunk LED. None are perfect, but they're good spares and no worse than what I have.

I also picked up a new air box (not pictured) because the original had some broken mounting tabs. Since I was replacing it, I decided to remove the factory snorkel that goes below the air box. Probably doesn't cost much power, if any, but deleting it won't hurt.

Removing it was something of a pain. I got mad, so while I was out it, I removed the air suspension compressor, since there are no more air springs.

Between the snorkel and the compressor, I pulled 15.4 pounds out of the car. Don't think I'll be able to feel that, but I get annoyed when parts become dead weight.

OK, so fun fact about the Mark VIII: One of the black boxes bolted to the compressor for the air suspension is the VLCM, variable load control module. You can see it in the last pic above. Here it is from another angle:

It doesn't interact with the air suspension in any way, but some guy at Lincoln thought that was a good place to bolt the thing.

Turns out the air conditioning won't work without it.

So...if you're going to delete your air suspension stuff, take this guy off and bolt him back to the inner fender.

I found this out the hard, er, hot way. 

I didn't weigh the VLCM before putting it back on, but whatever it weighs, it's worth it.

A while back the front brakes started squeaking and then within just a few days they started grinding. I had hoped to leave the brakes alone until I do the hub swap, but no such luck. The inside driver side pad was down to bare steel (which I kind of suspected from how it sounded/felt). Both pads on that side had a lot less material than on the passenger side, so it seems pretty likely that caliper isn't retracting properly. The car wasn't pulling to that side, so it's possible a previous owner replaced the pads on one side and not the other. But there's also a lot more brake dust on the driver's side wheel, so that seems unlikely.

There aren't any real performance pads for these calipers, so I just went with AC Delco semi-metallic pads and Motorcraft rotors. They stop fine and don't make any noise.

While I was in there I checked all the ball joints, etc. They don't look great, but the car drives fine. No clunking noises yet, but at hub swap time I'll probably replace all of those, the sway bar endlinks, tie rod ends etc.

For now I'll just keep an eye on the caliper situation, but if I have to replace it, there's a chance I'll swap in Cobra brakes when I do the hub swap. Will just depend on how much I want to spend at the time.

Long time, no update. For the most part I've just been driving the car, but my tires have finally worn to the point that it's time to get ready for the hub swap.

A few weekends back I did some suspension maintenance, replacing the upper control arms, tie rod ends, sway bar endlinks and a leaky rack boot. Only afterward did it occur to me that I could have lowered the car at the same time. For some reason by brain has been associating lowering with the hub swap, but there's really no advantage to doing them at the same time.

So today I had time to lower the car. Not the greatest pic, and it's dirty, but I was eager to get going, so I wasn't going to wait on beauty light. Before, it measured 28.25" front/28" rear from the ground to the bottom of the center of the fender lip:

I just typed "here's the stock stuff," but that's not quite right. This car had a coil conversion to replace the air springs. So here's the "before, but not stock" shot:

There's nothing too hard about this job as long as you replace the springs & shocks as an assembly. If you try to release the spring tension before removing the assembly, you'll need to disassemble the whole front suspension because the springs are so tall. To get the assembly out, just support the lower control arm with a jack, unbolt the sway bar endlink, then disconnect the upper control arm from the spindle. 

These are the Vogtland springs I documented buying earlier in the thread. Vogtland made 1" and 1.6" lowerings springs. Which are these? Guess I'll find out. Anyway, I paired them with some used Bilstein shocks because sadly, there are no good shocks available for these cars anymore.

New (well, used, but new for this car) stuff installed:

Here's what the rear looks like:

Disconnect the sway bar and shock from the LCA and support it with a jack. Unbolt the UCA from the spindle, then lower the jack. I wasn't sure I'd have enough suspension droop to get this particular spring out without removing the hubs/axles. But yes...barely.

Not much to say here, but the difference is obvious.

But wait, there's more! Since the rear sway bar is disconnected from the control arms, now's the best time to replace it with a better one. The stock sway bar is 22.5mm and hollow. I replaced it with a Supercoupe rear sway bar I got at a junkyard. Not positive of the year, but it's slightly thicker, at 23.2mm. It's also solid--it weighs almost twice as much as the stock bar. Stock top, Supercoupe bottom. Not as cool as an Addco bar, but way cheaper.

Got it all back together and added some new Energy Suspension sway bar endlinks (part # 9.8164G). Forgot to get a shock pic comparison, but the rears are also used Bilsteins.

Got the wheels back on and drove it around the block to let the suspension settle. New ground-to-fender measurements: 27.25" front, 26.5" rear. So it came down 1" in front and 1.5" in back.

I would have preferred a little more drop in front but i'm not going to tear it apart to cut a coil or anything. I'm happy with the way it drives, though. It still feels like a big car, but much firmer than before. Way less float.

Next step: alignment. Then comes the hub swap.

Oh, and I almost forgot: I disassembled that rear subframe I bought and sold the LPW diff cover for $125. So now my net cost for that purchase is $425.

I had dreams of progress last night. It didn't go well.

Since I bought it, this car has had a few issues related one way or another to the center console. Nothing too bad, just typical old car stuff. But since the center console had to come out to fix all of them, I was waiting until I was ready to do all of it at once.

Problem one: the cracked wood dash trim.

To remove the center console, the first step is popping out the trim panel with the rear defrost switch. My car is dusty. Don't judge me.

With that piece out of the way, there are only two bolts and some plastic clips holding the wood trim on. With it removed: cracked piece on left, slightly better junkyard piece on right.

Problem two: the leather (?) covering on the center console was coming off at the front of the driver's side. This was an easy fix with some headliner adhesive. But we'll see how long it survives the southern humidity.

Problem three: the OD on/off switch never worked. The dash light comes on at startup, so it's not that. The general opinion on the Lincoln forums is that it's usually the switch/harness--the wires break and lose continuity. But the continuity tested fine. I did find this coming out of the harness:

Unwrapped the electrical tape and found this switch. I have no idea what it is. Holding it down and pressing the OD on/off switch had no effect. Any guesses? This problem is still unsolved.

Problem four: the cigarette lighter never worked. I figured it was because it was just crusty as hell, but when I removed the console, the harness wasn't plugged in. This should have been a clue. More on that later.

Problem five: the rear seat ashtray in the back of the console. 

I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, but I have no need for an ashtray. However, the 93-96 Mark VIII got another lighter/power port instead of an ashtray. This seemed more useful. The plastic housing just pops out from the console. The lighter harness under the console even had some vestigial wiring for this lighter, though not the terminals.

What it looks like installed:

Unfortunately, after reinstalling everything and plugging the harness back in, it keeps blowing fuses. Stock lighter port doesn't work, either. I'm guessing this is why the harness was unplugged and not because I wired in the new one incorrectly, but that's a possibility.

So anyway, a mostly frustrating and unproductive evening. Oh well.

Update: The OD on/off switch works now. Could be that it just didn't work while testing it in Park in my driveway. But It worked today, and I haven't touched the car since the previous update. So at least that's one issue actually fixed. Still need to figure out the cigarette lighter issue.

Me thinks the Electrical Gremlin Godz have blessed yu.....at  least for this ...wink

Accidentally deleted my last post. Oh well, doesn't matter.

My plans have changed and this car will be for sale very soon. Will post an ad here as soon as I can get some up-to-date pics, but I'll also be putting it out by the road with a FS sign unless someone here really wants it before I do that.