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Messages - Haystack

2
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Re: The dash is out
One day after I got my car all put together, I stopped by the car was in a hurry before work to just vacuum the car out. Had the windshield scrapper sitting in the front seat. When I got done vacuuming out the back seat, I went to push the seat back and somehow the scrapper flipped up into the windshield and spider webbed the whole windshield. I was so pissed.
4
Suspension/Steering / Re: Steering column loose. Yes, I've used the search function...
Remove the turn signal and hazard flasher stuff. There is basically a metal clam shell that all that stuff bolts to.

There are torx fasteners. Mine usually loosen up when the car hits 100-150k miles. Usually i tighten them until I find what all is loose, then I pull them out one by one and put lock tight in them then put back in.

Its really not all that hard, but a bit of a pain.
5
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Re: Ready for this one?
Quote from: thunderjet302 on
Quote from: Vintage on
It happens. Had a customer bring an 87 Xr7 over for engine vibration that she said was shaking the steering wheel badly. She was about 18 miles away, I told her to tow it in because I was afraid it might be harmonic balancer. If its slipped bad enough to nearly falling off, it can ruin the crankshaft, not worth risk to drive it.

Once off the flatbed, I checked the balancer out and it looked nearly new like it had been recently replaced. But the clutch fan was so wobbly I dont think it would have gone another mile much less 18 without hurling itself thru the shroud, or radiator, or both. Installed new, engine revved smooth as glass.

Huh. Never seen that one in person. Clutch was probably factory original.

For some reason when they fail, they seem to act like a ball and socket. The one I just pulled off was acting like the center hub was mounted to a row of springs. You could push it down and it would bounce back up.

Usually when they fail, its all at once. I blew apart the fan shroud and fan on my 86 around 310k miles downshifting to merge on the freeway, and it didn't put a single ding in the radiator. Just had a super wobbly metal shaft sticking out of the water pump with broken plastic everywhere when I popped the hood.
6
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Re: Ready for this one?
So long story short, I grabbed the alt and a few inches if the alt plug from my 88xr7 then went to swap it all in, fully expecting the plug to be charred and melted. It wasn't.

The inside of the alt was full if burnt black crap. I literally  just swapped the alt over, pulled the burnt Alt pins out of the connector and plugged it in. Afterword I was so pissed I just hucked the alt over next to a burnt up car in the dirt next to the freeway where I parked the car to work on it.

It was not the wiring, but something internal in the alt. Cut the alt plug off my car for no reason.

Then driving it home, the fan clutch failled and started vibrating rediculously bad. By the time I got off the highway (80 mph speed limit 13 miles between exits) it chewed three ribs off the belt and took a chunk out of the fan shroud.

Pulling over again, I removed the fan and cut all the long broken rubber strings off of the belt then drove it home.

Swapped the fan off my 88 Xr7 and got a new belt at AutoZone.

Then a few days later, I hit a pothole and had the most un satisfying thunk and metal on metal.

The ball joint came out. The $55 dollar lifetime warranty ball joint I put in past December. Get a new balljoint and the press, tear everything apart and the balljoint is oval, not round. It falls out of the a arm and the new one has zero resistance.

Shitty $55 balljoint ruined my a-arm... Or maybe the 30 year old metal was just too worn out, either way.

So now I am going to order all new front end stuff, hopefully new rubber bushings and hopefully rebuild it all.

This whole daily driving a 30 year old $500 car is starting to get a bit annoying.
7
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: LATCH System retrofit.
If you pull the rear seat, there are holes marked as "T". In the factory manual, there was a number for a part to order for a "rear car seat teather kit" which included straps to be attached at rear behind the seat.

Not sure how much that helps, but every time I've had the trunk carpet stuff out I've seen it and wondered what it was for and then stumbled into it in the owner's manual.
8
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Re: Ready for this one?
I actually have a 3g from my 86 cougar. What's even funnier, I thought about putting it in when I got done with my head gasket a few weeks ago (busted head bolt, don't even get me started on that one.) But I decided I did enough work on the car that weekend.
9
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Ready for this one?
Dead battery. No biggie. Got a jump box and cables. Pop the hood and jump it fires right up. Unhook the cable and she dies hmm... Check alt, plug wire totally melted. Try to up plug connector and both charge plugs from the alt break off.

Now I'm usually pretty well prepared. I even had spade connectors. Figures I was just gonna splice in a new spade connector so the battery would charge and then drive home.

The joys of daily driving a 30+ year old car I guess. Worst part, my work is 70 miles from the nearest town. 35 from cell service. So I use the gaurd shack phone and call the girl friend who's just getting off work.

Think I'm just gonna hook up the jumper cables till the battery is charged up then try to drive it back to the freeway. Then I can run home and grab a spare Alt off my 88 xr7 and try to get it home.
12
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Cracked my windsheild
So I was vacuuming out my 86 tbird. I had my window scraper in the front seat kinda wedged while I was vacuuming out the back seat, went to mean the front seat back forgetting about the window scrapper. Went to pull the window scraper out not realizing it was jammed and it kinda popped out, straight into the windsheild.

Big giant star on the passenger side.

Yeah, trying to be quick to save another $.75 I busted a $200 windsheild.