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Messages - Kadams4458

1
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Good day on dyno
Awesome! And to think that I was excited to find a chrome driver's door mirror that looks decent from ten feet away for my '83 Heritage this weekend. Those are great numbers! I'm very interested in seeing how it does at the track.
2
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
Oh boy. I believe that I ordered and received 87-88 TC front struts, but perhaps I brainfarted and got them for the '83 by accident. Hmm. Good catch. If they are incorrect, I am likely stuck with them at this point. Pretty sure I recycled the boxes. If I need to swap them out, I am certain someone here can make use of them, so it shouldn't be hard to gift them to someone that can use them.

Heh. Can't say I have ever seen wheels alter caster. Glad to see I am not the only person that suffers ftom brain farts around here. :)

It's not a factor for this thread, but since it was asked, I am in fact running the 8.8" 3.73 disc brake rear from the same '87 I pulled the spindles from. You gotta love it when the parts you want are actually in the yard on a half-price weekend. I plan to pull it apart soon to address the leaking seals, and will sandblast and paint it with black epoxy while am at it.

Also unrelated, but I'm still working on the truck. Flex plate took out the tranny pump seal and bushing from the converter flailing around, so I had to drain and drop the whole thing. The PO didnt have any locating dowels between the engine, tranny, and transfer case. I sure am glad I got a killer deal on that thing, but I'm working for it, now. Lol!
3
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
I'm running '87-'88 17" TC snowflakes. It seems to have plenty of space.

Hmm, so I need to put fox ball joints in the SN95 control arms. Good to know. I can do that easily enough if it comes to swapping control arms, as I have a 20-ton press in my shop.

I will try slotting the lower strut holes and see how much adjustment I can get out of it, just because I am curious. I can always pull the stock control arms and weld up the worn end link holes if it looks like I can get the required adjustment from slotting the struts. Knowing me, I'll end up powder coating them, too.

Thanks for the wealth of info so far, folks. I really appreciate it!
4
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
Well, eyeing the struts, I don't think simply slotting them would give the required camber correction, but I would definitely gain a little. There isn't a ton of space between the back side of the spindle and the brackets welded to the strut assemblies. I used cheap 87-88 Monroe struts from O'reilly, just to have unblown struts for now, intending to use Mustang struts of some sort with the Monroe spacers at a later date.

I think I will try out the SN95 control arms, just because I want to get away from the stock control arms with horribly ovalled out swar bar link holes.

This is one of those instances where there really is more than one way to skin a cat, eh?
5
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
Well, I measured a bit, and darned if it doesn't seem like the original control arms are around 3/4" shorter than they need to be to get to around zero camber. So, I did a little reconnaissance at the local self-serve yard today, and their are several SN95 Mustangs there. I'm going to grab some control arms off one of them, and throw them on the 'Bird.

But first, I need to replace the broken flexplate on my '02 F-150 that I bought when I got irritated with the Thunderbird for developing - get this - a cracked flexplate. Huh. Seems like my destiny somehow revolves around failed flexplates this year.
6
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Voice alert module
Quote from: Vintage;455411
I can try to get the part prefix or any numbers off the voice module in mine if it would help someone.  I havent been under the dash of it in a while, but I would think its fairly accessible.

I think that would be very helpful, as it would give us voice alert nerds a number we could plug in to search engines, set eBay alerts for, etc..

I would certainly love to have that number.

Then again, if we just built one, it could have multiple languages! The idea of my car yelling at the girlfriend in Klingon for leaving the door open with the lights on, for some reason, amuses the hell out of me.
7
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / My $50 TRX Wheel/Tire score
That is an awesome score.

I like the TC snowflakes my '83 came with, but I entertain TRX fantasies often.

Of course, I just want to cut the barrels off a set and weld / bolt them in to normal barrels so I can run normal tires, but it is a fantasy, after all.
8
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
ISTLCRUZ, I would be very interested to hear your take on the MM caster/camber plates when you get them. I am almost inclined to buy them just for the advantage of having an easy to set adjustment point. The stock arrangement leaves much to be desired, in my opinion. Also, let's be honest, they just look cool. Heh.

As for the height issue, did you by any chance not get one of the springs situated in the correct orientation on the control arm?
9
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
You guys will have to take me at my word for this, and it being the Internet, I know how far from reality some claims can be, but I am a competent mechanic that has made most of his way through life turning a wrench. I definitely don't know everything there is to know about cars, and I never will, but at 40 years of age, I still love figuring this kind of stuff out and fixing it.

So, I am confident that the components are assembled properly. I really can't say that this car had proper alignment when I got it. It sort of drove straight, but ate tires like crazy. I bought a set of half-used Eagle GTs for it, marking probably the first time in years that the car hasn't been rolling on four completely mismatched tires, and promptly took it in for an alignment. (I don't generally do allignments, as I dont have the equipment, and it's a better use of my time to pay a tire shop $60 to do it than it is for me to run around my car with a measuring tape, plumbbob, and string tied to jack stands for two hours.) The alignment shop let me know it was way out of spec, with a ton of negative camber on the passenger wheel, and ridiculous caster as well.

I put it on a lift for inspection. Both control arms looked good, with no apparent signs of stress or bends. They were also both suspiciously holding on to black rattle can paint, and had ball joints which were obviously fresher than the rest of the front end components. The passenger spindle was clearly bent, so that is when I went ahead and installed the later turbo coupe spindles and upgraded brakes. I did not touch suspension or steering parts at that time, and only set the toe to "eh, it goes sort of straight" specs, then gingerly drove it for a while. I am uncertain if the camber was super positive at that point, but I am inclined to guess that it was. I do know that the caster improved drastically, as the wheel actually became centered in the the wheel well, where it was previously closer to the rear of the fender than the front.

Fast forward a bit, and I am ready to replace the steering, suspension, and whatever else is substandard. I had some trouble finding strut mounts through my usual sources, but eventually found some at Oreilly. Now, this is interesting, and if I understand Aerocoupe correctly, this might be an issue. The strut mounts, ordered for an '83 Heritage 5.0, were sold to me as a one part fits both sides kind of deal. If they were left/right specific originally, then maybe that's the issue? I will have to look the originals over closely, but the new mounts I received looked pretty symetrical, and of course the camber problem is identical on both sides of the car, so I obviously did not receive two lefts, or two rights.

I otherwise came to the same general conclusions as ways to correct the issue; caster/camber plates, slotting the strut mount holes (yuck), or slightly longer control arms to push the wheel back out.

I will examine things a bit further now that I know I didn't miss some obvious fact like my early car needing the control arms replaced for the 11" brake swap. Also, as much as I hate running string all over, I may need to do that to figure out how the track width is matching up front to rear, so I know whether to move the bottom of the wheel out, or the top of the wheel in.

Thanks for the help so far, everyone!
10
Suspension/Steering / '83 upgraded to 87-88 TC front spindles ended up with extreme positive camber
As the title suggests, I went through completely overhauling the front suspension and upgraded the brakes earlier this year, but ended up with some extreme positive camber, and I am just now getting around to trying to sort this mess out. Some specs follow.

'83 Tbird Heritage 5.0
Original K-frame
Original (I assume) Lower control arms
'88 TC salvaged spindles
'88 TC new replacement struts
'83 new strut mounts

All this added up to uncorrectable positive camber for some reason. I think I may have missed a step somewhere, even though I researched the swap/upgrade exhaustively.

The earliest aerobirds had short lower control arms identical to the Mustangs, as I recall, but I do not recall reading that I would have to swap lowers to the longer later aerobird style.

Do I need to obtain the later, longer lower control arms? Replace the K-frame? Sacrifice a chicken? Or is this not my fault for missing some detail, and something weird is going on?
11
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Voice alert module
Quote from: Trinom;455173
... Do you like it? Would you buy it if I make this thing work? I'd like to fit it inside the original case.


One of these would be relatively simple to construct, if not a little time consuming. Ideally? One would use the original voice,  but one would need a functional original from which to copy the voice. The hardware could easily be recreated from modern components.

I would absolutely do something like this, but I just don't have the time in my life right now, so yeah, I would probably buy one.

If it helps, I might be able to pull up the appropriate wiring information for each year car. My AllData shop computer coverage goes back to '83 for Fords, but I am not certain how much wiring info is included, as I have not looked. I know that the EEC-III CFI info for my '83 is pretty lacking, because I had to turn to obscure Google search results to even find diagnostic procedures, but the 84+ EEC-IV stuff is very well covered, as is the rest of the vehicle wiring for 84+ Fords.
12
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars WANTED / Wanted: '83 walnut brown interior parts
Oh yes, saved from a carport by the sea. There is a little surface rust from being right next to the ocean, but nothing too awful. I took the car in trade for the labour on swapping a motor in to a 90's Honda Accord. I wasn't shopping for a Tbird at all, and just planned to offload it for $400 or $500 when I brought it home. I drove three hours in it to get home, and decided that I kinda liked it, at least from the inside. Now I have about $2k sunk in it, and it is still butt-ugly, but I am strangely very happy with the walnut interior.

Yes, by all means let me know about any walnut interiored cars. As I recall it was an option only in '83, but some of the walnut brown pieces made it in to '84 models as part of a lighter brown package.
13
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars WANTED / Wanted: '83 walnut brown interior parts
Funny thing is, I found a crack-free brown dash a while back, but at that point in time my seatbelt shoulder point cover wasn't missing, and both seatbelts in that donor car had gone floppy from the plastic stiffening sleeve that jeeps the buckle ends upright from tearing. I guess I should start ding parts, but the problem is, I already d stuff for my 39 year old Mercedes and my 89,000 mile, 16 year old domestic convertible due to parts scarcity. Where does the madness end? I need a warehouse. Heh.

Now bear with me, because this is going to sound pessimistic, but it's all based on personal experience building and restoring cars for myself and others all of my life, and I swear I'm not just being "that guy."

The seatbelt shoulder point cover I could respray reasonably well, as it is not a high wear item. However, my preference when spraying interior panels is to shoot over the same colour, or black, either of which still look reasonable presentable if surface wear or damage occurs, so a brown cover would make me very happy. I'm mostly being particular when I say I want a brown one. (Also, have you ever dragged out the spray gun and mixed up paint just for a part that tiny? It's a pain!

Now, the seatbelt stiffening cover (that becomes more of a mouthful every time I write it) would never work well for a colour change since the waxy plastic it is made from is what they call a problem plastic in the refinishing industry. Anything I sprayed on it would come off in short order due to abrasion and flexing. I have some really good paints and the best spray guns in the world at my disposal, but there is only so much they can really be expected from paint applied to a chunk of plastic continually being bent and rubbed on my hip.

As for the pictures of the car, I am pretty sure there are a couple of it on here. The interior is a 9/10, even though it is brown. The exterior? Well, lets just say it could win the ugliest original paint job on an aerobird award by a landslide. It's a two-tone tan monstrosity.
14
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / Voice alert module
I had the Chrysler version in one of my old turbo dodges about 14 years ago, and I really, really got a kick out of how people reacted to it. When I learned that a similar system could be found in some Tbirds, I very carefully listened to the muted sound of my new to me '83 Heritage with great antition hoping to hear a voice, but was disappointingly greeted only by the faintest sound of ding-ding-ding.

I would add it to my car if I could obtain the parts. No doubt about it.
15
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars WANTED / Wanted: '83 walnut brown interior parts
My '83 Heritage with Walnut brown interior is missing the plastic cover from the seat belt should mount point on the driver side B-pillar. It was there one day, and then it just wasn't, and then didn't turn up during a thorough search of the interior. I believe the part is identical for the left and right side.

Also wanted, a walnut brown driver side seat belt buckle with an unbroken plastic cover that keeps the belt pointed up. I dont know if the buckles are side specific, but if not, then my best hope will be a less often used passenger side buckle.

Finally, a set of Ford walnut brown floor mats would also be great, and somehow I have one front mat in good condition that I found randomly laying on the ground in the salvage yard one day, but still need the three other mats. These are the heavy, thick, rubber backed carpeted mats with the metal bar molded in to them.