What I am trying to do is to duplicate the same checkered pattern that is on the dash of my 86 Cougar XR7. All I have on my computer is photoshop and word. Word will not let me make a grid that small. Does anyone know of another program that I can use? I am making a new plate up for the surround by the radio and wanted to try and make a decal for it so it looked original.
It has been a while since I have posted, but I have a majority of my 86 XR7 complete. Thanks to everyone from this board and from Tubotbird.com that have helped along the way.
Right now the car is stock except for a 255 lph HP fuel pump, K&N air filter, Ported upper and lower intake, and ported exhaust. I have an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and intercooler that will be going on soon hopefully. Future plans will be a 5-speed swap and a dual stage boost controller.
I bought my 86 XR7 about this time last year. I drove it around for maybe a month fixing the little problems it had. After I got the little problems worked out I decided to take the motor out and have the head rebuit because it was smoking a bit. So I found a pretty good shop that would rebuild the head for a rather good price. The next day he calls me back and say the head is cracked and he can't fix it. Then he tries to sell me a 2.3 head from a mustang saying that it will work on my car. For those of you who are not turbo people, you can't use the non turbo head without bad side effects. So began the 10 month long search for another head. I called place after place and everyone either did not have one or they wanted $500 for the thing. I finally found a place on the internet that said they had one and that they would ship it to me. So I wait a week for the thing to come and then find out it is the wrong head. Then I had to fight with this guy to get my money back and then after I had even shipped it back to him he charged more money to my credit card because he didn't charge me the right amount to begin with. So I have to call him back again and say what the heck are you doing and he gets mad at me and told me I should have been honest with him in the first place and told him he didn't charge me the right amount. So I had to be like whoa buddy I called you right after I opened it and told you it was wrong and I am sending it back. Then I have to go through two more people shipping me the wrong cylinder head when they promised me that it would be the right one. Well needless to say my dad and I got pretty sick of dealing with all this and started looking for a place that could possibly fix my head. So I finally find this guy in Akron who when I called him sounded like he knew exactly what I was talking about and told me it would be no problem. So I drop it off to him monday and got to pick up and perfectly rebuilt cylinder head wednesday. And the best part is it only cost me $350. The only thing that was cracked was two of the valve seats, so he machined them out and put in hi-nickel alloy seats and told me these ones will not crack again. He also did a 3 anlge vavle job, installed all new valve guides, and machined the head flat. The work that this guy does is just amazing. The head looks ten times better then all the other rebuilt heads that I have seen. I graduate saturday and have a couple weeks that will be dedicated to working on the car before the summer job starts. So everyone can expect some motor pics sometime next week.
Ok a friend of mine has a newer Trailblazer that they are looking to put front brakes on. He asked me my opinion on ceramic brakes and cross drilled and slotted rotors. Well I have no clue about them. I have thought that the cross drilled and slotted rotors were more for looks on such a vehicle, and not much for performance. Does anyone have any opions as to whether or not it would be worth it for him to spend the extra money to put those on?
I have a friend with a 93 Cougar that has a shot door hinge. As of right now she isn't even using the driver's side door because she can't close it by herself. Has anyone ever replaced a door hinge on one of these? I guess she had a friend of the family look at it and he couldn't figure out how to replace the pin. Does anyone have an idea of how to change the pin, or should I just get the whole hinge from the junkyard? Thanks Jim
Alright, so I was talking to this guy who has a hobby buisness building fords. He is mainly into t-birds and cougars. Well I was talking to him about my 86 that I am rebuilding the motor on and we got to talking about gaskets. He told me that when I go to put the exhaust manifold on I should not use a gasket for it, he said they just leak. Has anyone else heard of this or not use a gasket when putting headers or exhuast manifolds back on? Thanks Jim
