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Topics - joefriday

1
User Rides / My 1988 Thunderbird
Hey guys.  It's been ages since I last posted, but I figured I would update everyone on how it's going.  Today I snapped a few shots of my old white T-bird.  This old Bird was my first car, purchased back in 1998, and I've owned it for almost 12 years now.  It has sat for 4 years, from 2005 to 2009, and since 2002, has only accrued 2,000 miles.  I've since taken it out of hibernation and have put it back on the road.  I have a little free time this summer and might get around to doing some more mods on it.  If you want, swing by my new webpage I'm building, http://www.joedangberg.weebly.com and check out the background story on this car (it's a long read), or check out my other rides and how-to's.  Anyways, enjoy:











2
Drivetrain Tech / Picked up an aerostar driveshaft today
It's not out of an AWD, but does that really matter?  From what I've read, the AWD aerostar driveshaft are the proper length for mustangs, once modified with conversion u-joint and the proper yokes.  Since the turbo coupe driveshaft is longer, I thought it would probably be best to stay away from the AWD version.  Anyway, I picked up a regular aluminum DS out of an early 90s aerostar.  It's the welded type.  Just wondering, anyone got the length of a stock TC driveshaft handy, so I know how much it'll need to be cut down?  I figured that for 25 bucks, I couldn't go wrong.  Also picked up a mini starter for $15 and a couple odds and ends for the blue 87 TC.  If I had all my tools, I would have grabbed a ranger roller setup as well.

Joe
3
Lounge / The second best thing to sitting behind the wheel of your car...
I had a spare seat after replacing the front seats in my 87 rustbird TC.




Very comfy, and surprisingly painless to do.  Even had a small 12 volt power drill battery tucked up underneath to work the power lumbar.  Best gift I won't find under the tree.

Joe
5
Lounge / Saying goodbye to my old TC parts car.
I thought some of you guys would appreciate this.  This last summer I had a couple weeks of free time, so I finished stripping out my black 87 TC parts car, that I had originally purchased 5 long years ago.  The pics were taken with my phone, so you'll have to forgive me for the small size and terrible overall quality.


Here it is, all dirty from sitting in a quonset for the last 5 years.


The hand of doom about to lay grip on the poor old TC carcass


A Thunderbird that finally gets to fly.
6
User Rides / My most recent Ford purchase
Howdy all.  I hope the Ford Gods have blessed you all with good luck over the past summer/fall.  I decided to drop a line and let all those who still remember who the hell I am know that I'm doing well in med school at the moment and that my Ford family has seen a few members come and go over the years.

2 years ago I purchased a 99 Escort ZX2 5 speed for the wife, originally to replace her aging 93 Topaz.  The Escort is Toreador Red with black interior, with all the nice options I wanted- sunroof, spoiler, fog lights, CD changer, cruise, everything but power windows and leather seats.  I picked it up for the smoking price of $1,200, due to a massive dose of hail damage all over the car.  Mechanically, it was in great shape, and had just a bit over 100K miles.  To prove it's road worthiness, we drove the car from Omaha, NE all the way to Albuquerque, NM, and took it up Pike's Peak on the way back through CO.  Now, that Escort is pushing 140K miles.  I've put some work into it, but overall it's been a very reliable car for my wife.

Now lets get back to what I drive daily.  Well, with gas prices soaring at the time we bought the Escort, I decided to drive the Topaz and instead sell the 1995 Mercury Cougar V8 I had owned for the last 3 years.  It was a fairly quick sale, and went to a nice car-oriented buyer who purchased it for his grandmother to drive.  The proceeds made off that sale paid for the Escort twice over, and then some.

I drove the 93 Topaz, a black 2 door 5 speed gutless wonder mobile, for the next two years up till yesterday, racking up another 20,000 miles on the old girl, bringing the total mileage to an impressive 191,000+ miles.  All this time, the ugly thing would get 25-28mpg in town, and 35mpg highway, and it's been pretty  reliable to boot.  This weekend, I will be giving the car to an old friend of mine, who has helped me many times on my cars in the past. 

All this brings me up to today, where I'm here to tell you about the newest member to the Ford family.  I came across an irresistible deal on this 1994 Taurus SHO.  I was originally looking for a Ford Focus ZX3 hatchback, but when I saw this offer, it was just too good to pass up.  This 94 SHO has 124,670 miles on it.  What I like best about it is that it's one of the very rare 5 speed models for this year.    The car's body is in great condition and the interior, which is all grey leather, is pretty good considering the age and miles.  The best part of it all was the price;  $1,000.  The previous owner was the 2nd owner, and had owned it since 1996 and 24,000 miles, and had full records of all work done on the car since he owned it.  He was a nice middle aged man who appreciated fast automobiles, having owned a Buick Grand National and a fox body Saleen Mustang in the past.  He definitely took good care of the car, judging by the maintenance records and the car's garage-kept condition.  I'll miss the gas mileage of the old Topaz, but at least now I won't feel embarrassed driving to my rotation sites.  Here are the pics:








I plan to drive this thing for the next 2-3 years and rack up another 20,000 miles on it, and then dump it before I'd have to put any real money into it.  Should be a nice car in the meantime.

Joe
8
Lounge / Hello to everyone!
It's been a very, very long time, but I just want those of you who remember me to know that I have not abandoned the thunderbird faithful.  My Bird still sits in hibernation, along with the 87 SSP, while I drudge along in a lowly 93 Topaz.  Somehow life got in the way of my car hobby, dang it all to hell.:dunno: Someday.

Joe
10
Engine Tech / Is TwEECer still the best?
Hey guys.  It's been since last summer that I worked on the T-bird, as I'm now living in Omaha while the Bird is still at home (along with the SSP).  I'll get a little bit of time to work on the car in about six weeks , and I've been planning a method of attack to hopefully get to the bottom of the engine problems I had last summer.  I think a wide band O2 kit (any suggestions on brand?) and an engine management kit will finally allow me to "see" what inputs the computer has to work with, so I can (hopefully) find whatever sensor or solenoid is acting up, as well as make sure the speed density system is calculating the fuel correctly.  Since I've been out of the loop for so long, I don't know if the TwEECer is still be best choice for engine management.  Has anything new came out that is cost competitive that offers the same programmability?

Thanks

Joe
11
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars FOR SALE / 95 Cougar V8 f/s in Omaha, NE: $2500 obo
I'm afraid I've got to sell the Couager.  :(  Now that I live in Omaha, I find myself driving too much in town to keep it.  Anyways, here goes:

1995 Mercury Cougar, 4.6L V8, drk green w/tan interior (cloth/leather), 113K miles.  new tires at 100K miles and complete tune up at 90K.  cosmetically the car is in good condition.  It looks sharp and straight, but has the usual amount of dings and scratches for its age (the car had been repainted sometime before I purchased it in Nov. of 2002 though).  Interior is about the same:  a couple small stains and a tear in the leather on the driver's side bolster, but that's to be expected.  Mechanically the car is very sound.  Good brakes and suspension, strong motor, and the tranny behaves itself (no 1-2 acspoogeulator probs so far).  As is the case for all 94-95 4.6L's, this engine will burn oil.  Generally I'll have to had a quart between oil changes.

Things that will need attention:

- The biggest issue right now with the car is the transmision.  It leaks.  It's a very slow leak, I don't know if it leaks all the time, or if it's a running only kind of deal.  About a month ago when I noticed this leak, I replaced the tranny pan gasket, as it looked like that might be the culprit.  It has not stopped the leak.  My only other guess at this point would be the o-ring for the tranny dipstick tube, as I didn't see any leaking coming from any critical seals (ie output shaft, torque converter).  It will leave a nickel-sized spot on the ground overnight after I drive home from class.

- The water pump gasket is slowly seeping coolant.  I've confirmed that it's the gasket, not the weep hole on the pump itself.  The water pump is fine, but the gasket is ever so slightly letting coolant slip by.  It used to do this in the winter time when it was very cold out, but this summer it started to seep coolant.  I haven't tried tightened the water pump bolts or anything yet, b/c it's really not a threatening leak, just a very annoying one.

-Last winter when it was very cold out, I started up the car and heard the idler pulley making noise.  After a couple minutes it stopped.  The next day I bought a new pulley, but since it was so cold out I did not install it right away.  Since then the old pulley has not made any more noise, so I still haven't gotten around to putting the new pulley on.  I do have it though, and it will be included w/the car, as well as parts for the 1-2 acspoogeulator fix (new spring and piston), and the original set of plug wires and old serpentine belt (for emergency repairs).

-There's a loose connection to the fan motor.  Every once in a while I'll be driving along with the air on and I'll hit a bump, which stops the blower motor.  A well-placed hit on the center stack area next to the glove box will turn it back on.  This problem is only intermittent.  It may be days or weeks before it happens again.  Since it never gave me anymore grief than this, I never got around to fixing it.

Those are the only mechanical issues that I know of.  Here's the list of options:

- keyless entry w/2 keyfobs
- traction control
- 4 wheel disk w/ABS
- power driver's seat
- dual power lumbar
- systems sentry
- autolamp
- electronic climate control
- CD player (JVC aftermarket, small alpine amp in trunk, and two clarian two-way speakers in the doors, all installed professionally at soundworks.  The previous owner had it installed).

And of course the basics:  pwr windows/locks/tilt/cruise, etc, etc.  It's all stock.  The only "mod" to the car was the addition of a K&N and the subtraction of one air silencer :).

The car was my daily driver.  I did not race or run the car hard (I have an SSP mustang and an 88 T-bird for those things).  I did however take the car to scribner raceway once, to see if my cougar could beat my coworker's 94 V8 t-bird.  It a ran 16.2 in the quarter, if anyone was really interested. ;) 

Overall it is a nice car.  Not a show winner, but it looks sharp and is a good daily driver with lots of life left in it.  Call me at 402-658-0250 if interested.

Thanks

Joe
12
General Computer Forum / Celeron D 50% overclock
I simply couldn't resist trying out the new Celerons.  Hoping for more bandwidth and slightly higher clock speed, I tossed out my overclocked celeron 2.0 (@3.0 GHz) for a Celeron D 310.  I sort of had to pioneer a way to pin mod the Celeron D for 800 MHz fsb; as far as I know, there are no websites telling how to trick a motherboard into running a native 533 fsb socket 478 cpu on the 800 Mhz fsb.

I chose the 310 b/c I knew it would have no problems running on the higher bus.  It runs nice and stable at 3.2 GHz/800fsb.  If I had to do it over again, I'd probably have oc'ed the 315 (2.26 GHz) model to 3.4 Ghz.  I don't know how stable a 320 running at 3.6 Ghz would be.  Anything higher would probably require water cooling.  My 310 idles at 38 C and never seems to go above 41 C (wierd :screwy: )

PCmark04's cpu bench has my Celeron D being equivalent to a 2.6Ghz, 800MHz fsb, HYPERTHREADING Pentium 4.

For $65, I'm not gonna complain.

Joe
13
T-Bird/Cougar Parts & Cars FOR SALE / 20th Anniversary Cougar for sale in Omaha, NE. Excellent Condition.
Hey gang.  Just thought I'd drop by to say I spotted a -near perfect 87 20th Coug for sale at a car lot in Omaha, NE.  I don't know the mileage or the price, But here's what I did see:

1.  Absolutely no rust.  I checked the door bottoms and rear quarters, and it's all good (pretty rare around here).
2.  Moonroof equipped.
3.  Premium sound w/equalizer
4.  All turbines accounted for and in seemingly excellent condition (one may have a little curb rash on the lip of the rim, but no clearcoat peeling on any of them)
5.  Interior has the memory seat option, and the leather/cloth mix was very clean; leather did not appear to be ripped/torn anywear.  Wear was minimal.
7.  dash is in perfect, mint condition.  No cracks anywhere.
8.  Has factory window sticker inside car.
9.  A couple  minor scratches, and maybe one or two small parking lot door dings.  It doesn't appear to have been buffed, so the scratches may come out.  I did notice that it was frequently waxed though, judging by the amount of buildup trapped in the crevices of the cougar side emblems.
10.  20th ann.  badge on the trunk is there.
11.  All the tires look decent; good rubber all the way around.
12.  All stock; appears to be a clean original.
13.  V8 (weren't they all though?)

If anybody is still looking for a clean Anny, this is it.  I don't really care for these, but I thought I'd at least spread the word.  I wish I had my digital camera with me; it was seriously that clean.  Located at Northwest Auto Sales (some small-time used cars place) phone#:  402-457-4155

Joe
14
Misc Tech / Which fuel pump hanger assembly?
Hey guys, I ran into a dilemma.  It looks like the pump in the 87 TC tank had been replaced at one time (it's not a Walbro).  The pump assembly has several things about it that are different than the assembly I had layin' around out of an 88 TC.

The biggest difference is the design of the fuel line feed on the hanger.  The one in the 87 TC tank just has a short nipple on one end, where a rubber hose is used to connect it to the output on the pump.  The one out of my parts car (88 TC) uses a plastic flow tube with some sort of hemi-spherical deal on the side.  Which design should I use when I install the new 155 lph Summit Racing (Walbro) pump?

Joe
15
Engine Tech / Switched to mass air; have some problems, need help.
After switching to mass air today, I promptly got a check engine light.  I scanned the computer in KOEO and got a system pass for hard fault codes, and codes 41 and 91 for intermitent.  Codes 41 and 91, according to my book, tell me the oxygen sensors are constantly reading lean.  I cleared the memory and started it back up. 

I noticed the MAP vacuum tube I had plugged was leaking, so I plugged it better (no leaks this time).  Started the engine once again, and it actually seemed to run pier.  I could smell gas out the exhaust. 

I shut it down and covered the side of the conical K&N that faces the alternator (I've heard that the fan could cause the MAF to bug out with a big conical filter on it that's open to the engine bay).  After I properly shielded the filter, I started it once more....still running kinda py, and I still smell gas out the exhaust.  This time I take it for a spin around the block.  After about five minutes of driving, the check engine light comes on again.  Once again, back to the garage. 

I run the scanner on it and get the same scenerio....system pass, codes 41 and 91.  This time I run a KOER, and get code 92 (which says the right oxygen sensor is always indicating rich).  :crazy: WTF?  I run a cylinder balance test, and it passes on the first time around.

This is really starting to bug me.  The only things I can still think of that could be throwing the lights would be the old MAP sensor I converted to BAP.  It's part number starts with E7.  That or the weazing 88 lph fuel pump.  I noticed at idle the pressure was only at 35 pounds, so maybe a weak pump is causing the lean issues.  The oxygen sensors are brand new, as are the fuel injectors.  Maybe I got a bad oxygen sensor?  Of course, this A9L might just still be junk.  It's the one I repaired the other day.  It does run all the tests (which it didn't before), and other than throwing the codes and the engine running pily, it seems to be operating fine (the DA1 I repaired in the same way seemed to work well....better than this A9L is working anyway). 

I never checked the DA1 for codes before I disconnected it, so I don't know if 41 and 91 were also thrown with the speed density setup (the check engine light never came on, but from what I understand about speed density computers, they really don't ever turn on the light anyway).

Can any of you guys help me out on this one?  Could it be the MAP sensor?  A set a bad oxygen sensors?  The wiring seems fine on the O2's, and I believe they're grounded well, but I haven't checked that yet.  Bad fuel pump?  FPR?  A9L still ped out?  Maybe the MAF (I cleaned the MAF wires before installing)?  I don't know where to start looking.

Joe