Huge yank shite - odd jobs.

[eddyramrod]

As I was saying about a 1978 Cougar.....

It's an XR7, which by then was just a trim level, but still nice.  This was on a used-car lot next to the motel where we stopped for one night in Fresno, CA, on the way between Las Vegas and San Francisco.  It was up at 2999, which I thought was an absolute bargain.

I wonder what happened to it....

[danthecapriman]

That is lovely, great colour combo too. You should have bought it!

[eddyramrod]

Yes.  I should.  If I saw it again I would.  But I won't.

 

I just hope it's been preserved, not lowridered, or even restored.  It deserved to be kept exactly as-is.

[danthecapriman]

Yes.  I should.  If I saw it again I would.  But I won't.

 

I just hope it's been preserved, not lowridered, or even restored.  It deserved to be kept exactly as-is.

Agreed, much nicer left original.

That actually seems to be just as bigger problem as rust with finding old yanks. Everybody seems to modify them or make low riders/hot rods or put ugly big modern wheels on everything.

They look way better the way they were built. There's some really good looking old wheels and wheel trims on yanks. I can't understand why people take them off in favour of big modern alloys?

Seems to make finding a good straight original car even harder.

[Timewaster]

I just sat and read this whole thread.

 

Don't know what to say really.

 

 

Wow.

[danthecapriman]

I just sat and read this whole thread.

Don't know what to say really.

Wow.

If I wasn't the one who wrote it I'd say 'what a fucking idiot!' Still, it keeps me off the streets.

 

Since I've not updated this for some months.

It's been completely fine. It continues to drive and run faultlessly. I did a 100 miles in it the other day on a mix of roads and it really is an absolute pleasure to be in and drive. If anyone's thinking of getting something like this, I'd say do it! It's great fun!

 

The only little issue is a small leak on the auto box. I think it's the dip stick tube or something. At the moment I'm just keeping an eye on the level and keeping it topped up but I've got a full gasket kit for the C6 transmission so when it goes back to the place that do all my heavy work for it's check over and oil change I'll get them to sort this too.

I've also recently bought a new custom made outdoor cover ready for winter. Finding a suitable sized garage is proving difficult so far so this will do for now. It's a really soft stretchy material and although it's highly waterproof it's fully breathable too.

 

 

 

And with it's new cover fitted. I try to only fit the covers when the weathers wet and shitty. When it's dry I take them off then at least the car breathe and dry naturally.

[Junkman]

As I was saying about a 1978 Cougar.....

100_0662.jpg

It's an XR7, which by then was just a trim level, but still nice.  This was on a used-car lot next to the motel where we stopped for one night in Fresno, CA, on the way between Las Vegas and San Francisco.  It was up at 2999, which I thought was an absolute bargain.

I wonder what happened to it....

 

This was mine.

 

 

 

 

Not XR7 and a '77, though.

And yes, 2.6 Carlton and rusty Riva were also mine.

[chaseracer]

And yes, 2.6 Carlton...

 

Manual or auto?

[Junkman]

Sadly manual, which was the main reason it was sold.

That and that it was shit.

[Captain Furious]

Also just sat and read this from start to finish. (Monday morning successfully dispatched)

 

Wow, I admire your commitment, wallet, balls and driveway.  That is a pretty top little collection you have going on there!

[danthecapriman]

Also just sat and read this from start to finish. (Monday morning successfully dispatched)

 

Wow, I admire your commitment, wallet, balls and driveway.  That is a pretty top little collection you have going on there!

Thanks!

I think I'm at the stage now where I'm about happy with the cars I've got. I don't think I'd want to sell any of them. Of course I'd like to add to the collection, but realistically I'm out of space and after the financial outlay on this and now the full restoration of my Capri I think it'll be time for a quiet year or two once the Capri comes back, spending as little as possible.

[tooSavvy]

...spending as little as possible.

You have the makings of a religion there m8

 

.... I have started early....

 

 

TS

[purplebargeken]

Is it just me or can anyone see Ford Cortina doors and roofline in Junkman's old brown car?

[eddyramrod]

There is an echo of the Mk4, certainly, but the Mercury is significantly bigger, so I think that's where it ends.  Transatlantic design-studio input?  Quite possibly.

[danthecapriman]

You have the makings of a religion there m8

.... I have started early....TS

It's funny, I seem to remember saying 'I'll have a quiet year once this comes back' before about this car! Of course straight after it did come back I started the Capri, which quickly got out of hand.

 

I mean it this time...

 

 

He says as he disappears off to ebay looking for an AMC Gremlin...

[Captain Furious]

Thanks!

I think I'm at the stage now where I'm about happy with the cars I've got. I don't think I'd want to sell any of them. Of course I'd like to add to the collection, but realistically I'm out of space and after the financial outlay on this and now the full restoration of my Capri I think it'll be time for a quiet year or two once the Capri comes back, spending as little as possible.

Is there a thread about the Capri on here? I still have tomorrow morning free in my calendar

 

I didn't 'like' posts as I went but assume 'like' to all of them!

[danthecapriman]

Is there a thread about the Capri on here? I still have tomorrow morning free in my calendar

I didn't 'like' posts as I went but assume 'like' to all of them!

Ask and thou shall receive!

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/23691-project-capri-capri-gets-naked-pics-pg3/

 

Bear in mind this started out as a tidy up the shitty bits and repaint it sort of restoration. In fact originally I'd intended to do it on my driveway.

Plans change of course, and it got just a tad deeper than that!

[AMC Rebel]

I've just read all this and am coming to the conclusion that the similar symptoms (you had pre-rebuild) I have on my AMC are from a similar cause - i.e. the V8 is knacked.  

 

Not too sure what to do really - they are uncommon and the 290 is the "baby" and least popular engine anyway.  I don't want to go drag racing or anything.  I know some people have fitted crate Chevy 350s - in theory a Rover?LR/RR/TVR lump would fit and the BW auto is the same one Rover used - but not sure they'd have the same effortless torque.....hmm sorry - thread hijack musing. 

[danthecapriman]

I've just read all this and am coming to the conclusion that the similar symptoms (you had pre-rebuild) I have on my AMC are from a similar cause - i.e. the V8 is knacked.  

 

Not too sure what to do really - they are uncommon and the 290 is the "baby" and least popular engine anyway.  I don't want to go drag racing or anything.  I know some people have fitted crate Chevy 350s - in theory a Rover?LR/RR/TVR lump would fit and the BW auto is the same one Rover used - but not sure they'd have the same effortless torque.....hmm sorry - thread hijack musing.

 

I really hope your problem isn't the same as the one I had.

 

With mine, it would idle perfectly ok but with any sort of load it didn't want to know. I tried everything I could think of to try to overcome it but in the end there's only so many things it can be. A few times I managed to tweak it enough to work but the problem would never go away permanently.

I don't have a compression tester at home so I couldn't check it, but if I were you and you've already tried most things getting compressions tested would be well worth doing.

 

Is there any chance it's a cylinder head problem? Burnt or non sealing valves maybe?

Does your engine breath much? Mine used to chug through it's crankcase breather very obviously! Of course now it doesn't at all so maybe worth a look.

When mine did get compressions checked, they were way down and varied massively between cylinders. This coupled to the heavy breathing meant my bottom end had gone. Looking at the rings on the old pistons after the rebuild they were in a shocking state!

 

If the engine is worn, with a car like yours I'd be inclined to stick with the original engine and repair it.

Just my opinion of course, but I think ripping it out and sticking something non original in will take away from the car. Easy for me to say though as I'm not the one paying the bill!

[AMC Rebel]

Thanks Dan - I am thinking it's buggered - it will idle, but as soon as you need to set off it chugs and coughs, then it picks and sets off (most of the time - it occasionally stalls and needs to be restarted).  

 

I do have a compression and leakdown testers so I will give them a try, but there is quite a bit of vibration and a bad rumble - also there's a cloud of oil smoke on starting from hot sometimes.  

 

It also leaks oil from the crankshaft seal - and it does a clever trick when you move it back and forth a few times on my drive (or elsewhere) where it dumps a massive slick of oil.

 

I don't really know if it's breathing - it has a similar PCV setup to yours so I can't really tell.

 

I think I've been ignoring the truth for ages on the basis I only do a few hundred miles a year in it.

 

I have a "spare" engine in my spares car - that's covered 40,000 miles and is of unknown condition.

[danthecapriman]

I really hope it's something else, but a compression test will tell all. I wish I'd bothered to do that to mine right at the beginning.

 

The most visible place on mine to see the heavy breathing and chugging was by pulling the breather pipe off the side of air intake/air filter housing. With the engine idling it would chug out oily vapour and smoke. Increasing the revs made it look like a steam train! It was very very obvious. There was also a lot of oil residue around all the breathers.

When mine was cold it would drive ok, but I think that was only because it was running on choke which gave it the extra fuel it needed to keep going. As soon as it was off choke, you could select gear and as soon as it picked up the gear the revs would just drop really low and the engine died. It happened if you were even braking, whenever you took your foot off the gas pedal it would splutter and die.

On mine aswell, the engine oil would become very dirty very quickly. I changed it once before the rebuild and within a couple of days it had gone black and dirty like it hadn't been changed. It also smelled strongly of petrol. The insides of the rocker covers etc also were covered in burnt on oily crud, lots of it. All bad signs!

 

I'd definitely try the compression tests before anything else, at least then you have some idea where the problem is. Maybe do the same with your spare engine and then try to build one good engine from the two.

[xtriple]

It does sound like that engine is a bit 'tired and emotional' so a rebuild would be the easy and cheap way. Spares from the USA are normally easy and cheap to get unless your engine is a rare one? Oh, and of course, if you get caught by the customs bods, that tends to hurt a bit too!

 

I have never worked on any American CAR engines, but built a few boat ones: bigish 5.7 and 7 litre marinised GM stuff and it is so very straight forward. Nice to work on as well.

[danthecapriman]

Shit shit shitty shit shit!

 

As mentioned in the grumpy thread this is now dead again! Oh yes, after all that work and expense it's stuck on the drive not running.

I'd gone to start it up and found it wouldn't fire. On looking at a few things I'd noticed the clear plastic fuel filter was empty even after lots of cranking.

I knocked the bottom of the fuel tank which sounded empty, I didn't think I'd used so much fuel last time it was used though but this morning I found there was still a quarter tank in it.

I've tried squirting a bit of easy start down the carb and it fires straight away so it's not electrical. No matter what I do I can't get fuel to the carb so I pulled out the fuel filter which has revealed the cause of the trouble.

 

Turning the filter upside down the entire bottom half of it is full of thick sandy rusty sludge! So it appears that I've got a blockage somewhere. I've undone the rubber hose between the tank and pump and there is petrol coming out of that so I think the blockage is either inside the mechanical pump or the pipes up towards the filter and carb, or both.

But it seems the fuel tank is the cause of this, it's full of rusty gunge so even if I sort the blockage out it'll only happen again.

 

So to sort this out I'm going full on again and leaving nothing to chance.

I've just spent £350 odd on Rockauto for a new fuel pump, brand new fuel tank and tank strap kit. The new tank is a great find as it means I won't have to wait for it to be removed, cleaned, inspected, repaired and refitted. It can come out, go straight into the bin and the nice shiny new one go straight in.

Delivery expected by 8th September so it shouldn't take too long.

 

This car is going to bankrupt me!

[tooSavvy]

Stupid Input Alerrt

 

If a fuel supply is coming through with $hite in it >> would a filter the size of a jamjar be less prone/take longer to be fubarred?

 

Are really big ones available??

 

 

TS

[danthecapriman]

You can get bigger filters but it shouldn't need it. It's the sheer amount of shit coming up from the tank that's getting caught in the filter, there is loads of it.

It won't be doing the fuel pump any good either having all that shit through it.

 

 

It's not anything to with the work it's already had though. If they did the work and got it running they wouldn't have any reason to suspect the tank being full of shit.

I think it's a case of all the shit in the tank being stirred up and moved around now the cars being used again which has created this problem.

[danthecapriman]

Fit a big filter there?

 

Ben

I think it's too late to save the pump unfortunately. The rubber hose just before the pump is right down the bottom of the engine bay but what I might do is fit an inline filter between the tank and pump in this hose, then fit the new pump. This should protect the new pump and enable the car to be started and driven.

That way I can get it back to the garage for them to fit the new fuel tank and clean out the metal fuel lines.

 

Either way the tank needs to be replaced or repaired/cleaned out. The old filter was minging and if it's clogging up like that in less than 500 miles there must be a lot of crud inside the tank that's starting to get sucked through. It will happen again if not.

It's like rust coloured sand that's coming through. Horrible stuff, but it's formed a solid lump in the old fuel filter so no surprise it's blocked it, it's probably done the exact same thing inside the old pump.

[Squire_Dawson]

Don't throw the old pump and tank away! Keep them as spares, especially the tank which I imagine are hard to find.

[danthecapriman]

Don't throw the old pump and tank away! Keep them as spares, especially the tank which I imagine are hard to find.

Good point.

The pumps are easy to get hold of, the new one was only £25.

The new tank was the last one left with the supplier so will probably be worth keeping as long as it's not completely shot.

The tanks in these are common to the Ford LTD, Mercury Monterey & Marquis, Lincoln Continental and a few others so it may come in handy if not for me but someone else.

[Tonka]

I had a 77 LTD 11 sedan with the twin stacked rectangular headlights running  a 302, it was sat on slot mags with just the cats and side exits...loud as fook it went well for such a big car as most of the emissions crap and air con had been ragged off, down side there were multiple big rusty lumps under the vinyl roof above the screen and it leaked like a sieve...... but I swapped it for my Mum's old Renault 5, six months later I swapped the LTD for a Torino 500 sedan which originally  had a 427 in it......sadly came to me sporting another 302......those were the days when the sound of a big V8 and LHD was easily bought for £500 or less.....    

[Squire_Dawson]

I imagine that, after removing the sender unit, a good swill round with a handful of nuts and bolts and a few pints of petrol will soon remove all the shit inside. This is my plan for my spare fuel tank.