I actually did this about a month ago, but anyhow I decided to tell the story. I've had aftermarket fog lights in my air dam for a long time. They're Pilot PL-220C fog lights, which I think go well with 87-88 non-TC T-Birds, and it's a shame that they're not available anymore. They take standard H3 bulbs, and I've been happy with them.
Well, almost. They don't put out squat for light. They look good, but are in my opinion otherwise useless. So I decided to try to get at least something functional out of them. A good comparison would be my Explorer fog lights; those actually do something useful (*cough* shed light *cough). Fog lights should be useful.
First I did some re-mounting. I moved the lights way forward, and that didn't do anything. Then I moved them back to a middle position, and tilted them slightly outward so they match the profile of the nose. Still nothing.
I bought a pair of Sylvania Silverstar H3 bulbs, and put those in. If I stood outside the car I could at least tell that the fog lights were on when I looked at the street, but it was barely noticeable (read: useless).
So I went to the nuclear option. I bought a HID kit from retro-solutions. Now, I've read on quite a few sites that putting HID bulbs in non-HID housings is illegal, because the housings aren't designed for the HID bulbs and cause too much glare for oncoming drivers. I did a lot of research on this, trying to find out the exact issues behind it. I learned the following:
1. Halogen housings are designed for bulbs with a specific filament position. The point here is that most, if not indeed all, light housings are parabolic, and the filament is supposed to be at the parabola's focus. This ensures that the emitted light will be parallel, that is, not divergent. A filament that is too far forward or too far back will inevitably cause the light to diverge and create glare. The fact that HID bulbs don't generally have the filament at matching positions as halogen bulbs is the primary objection to putting HID bulbs in halogen housings. In fact, the DOT doesn't actually decree, "you can't put HID bulbs in halogen housings", they decree "you can't put bulbs in your housings that don't have matching filament positions". This actually makes good sense.
2. Light from the front of a vehicle, whether halogen or HID, has to meet certain luminosity requirements. Color temperature plays a big part, but it's more complex than that; what the DOT considers truly important is the overall spectral distribution. It should be even rather than comprised of narrow peaks that average to white light.
So having learned all this, here's the decision I made: I ordered the Digital HID kit with the H3 mini bulbs, at the stock 4300K color temperature. I'm not interested in that blue look the kiddies go for; the reason I did this in the first place was so I could see better, and 4300K is stock for a reason: the human eye is most sensitive to that wavelength. I don't know if bluer bulbs have less lumens, but they will *look* dimmer (as will anything they illuminate) simply because the eye isn't as sensitive to the light they produce. Moreover, the DOT considers anything over about 5100K to be unacceptable -- for the same reasons. So I went with near-stock light output. Silverstars put out 4000K light, so these are very close. As for the H3 minis, that's all that were available, but it turned out to be very fortuitous as you'll see below.
When I received the kit, I found that the bulbs were adjustable, with the default filament position 1mm nearer to the rear of the housing than for the Silverstar bulbs. I was able to move the HID bulbs forward by 1mm until the filament position was the same with respect to the bulb's stop ring. The bulbs themselves, from a size standpoint, are a very close match to stock bulbs, though they are about 2mm shorter. Correct placement of the filament position is what's really critical, though, and I spent a lot of time making sure that they were correct to within the thickness of the filament itself.
The fog lights have shields built in so that no light is supposed to escape above horizontal. I did my best to make sure they were oriented correctly, which is something we're supposed to do regardless of the bulbs inside. However, with something as bright as HID's, it's especially important to get it right. I'm satisfied that they're not pointing too far up, though I think my driver's side is pointing just a bit too far down. I need to revisit it.
As for the ballasts, it was a really enjoyable project, and the TC header panel turned out to be a godsend. The wires to the housings are only about a-foot-and-a-half long, but the optimal mounting position turned out to be the horizontal crossbrace behind the bird emblem. Each ballast has two mounting screws. I had to drill one hole in the crossbrace on each side, and I reused the mounting screws for the crossbrace itself for the second screw. I had to use some nylon spacers on the crossbrace's original mounting screws because they're a little too wide to fit on the ballasts, but it wasn't much of a problem.
Okay, pictures:
The first one has the car off, and I had just turned the headlights on. It's normal for HID's to appear blue until they warm up, which takes about 30 seconds. The passenger side one was buzzing, not wanting to turn on until I actually started the car. My guess is that the ballast needs a substantial amount of "turn-on" current, though when fully on they consume less power than stock lights. This would be a good point to note that I got the normal 35W kit, and from what I've seen, the new 55W kits would be WAY too bright.
The second picture is about 30 seconds later, with the car running. The fog lights are very close to the stock color now.
The third picture is about a minute after I turned on the lights.
The fourth picture is looking forward, of course. The fog light pattern is clearly visible, though it cuts off well before the headlight pattern -- as it should. Actually, my headlights are out of adjustment -- they're pointing way too far down.
I'm very happy with them, though I should point out that my digital camera makes the light from both the headlights and fog lights appear a little whiter than they actually are in person. My headlights are Sylvania 9004LL bulbs. I'm thinking that if I switched them to Silverstars they would be, from a color standpoint, indistinguishable from the fog lights. When one burns out I might buy a pair and see.
Auto Custom Carpets made these for me. They were the only ones I could find who licensed the feathered bird logo:
I had looked into Lloyd mats, but they only use the 2002-2005 script Thunderbird logo. This would have been okay, but they can't put it on an '87 T-Bird mat (it won't fit and they're not licensed to put it on anything other than a 2002-2005 mat). Making matters worse, their 2002-2005 mat is WAY too wide for an '87 (I had them send me the outline schematic so I could measure it). So this was the only option. Nonetheless, they're quite nice. These use the Esshag material, in 1045A Maroon, with silver-thread logo. The Esshag material is EXTREMELY dense.
It turned out to be a productive day. I had a vacuum leak somewhere that was forcing the air to come out the defrost no matter what I did. After a couple of hours investigating, I found that the vacuum line from the A/C controls had come off the defrost vacuum motor (or whatever it's called). Luckily, that turned out to be an easy fix.
Then, while I had everything apart, I decided to try to figure out why the Hi setting for my blower motor wasn't working (it hadn't worked in years). It turned out to be a bad switch, and luckily I had a spare. Another problem quickly fixed.
While I replaced the fan motor switch, though, I noticed that the connector was slightly melted. In fact, it wasn't even the original one...THAT one had totally melted a long time ago, and I had replaced it. Apparently it's a problem with these cars.
So...I took a look at my 1997 Explorer EVTM. It turns out that Ford changed the design at some point, and now they isolate the Hi setting with a 30A SPDT relay (the larger 1"-square ones). It turns out I had a spare relay, and decided to do some rewiring. Earlier this year I had upgraded my Explorer to heated mirrors, and to do the job properly (using the right pins in the connectors) I had bought some Taurus left and right door harnesses to cannibalize. There were plenty of connectors left to cannibalize on them, many with heavier-gauge wire. The short of it is that now my T-Bird now has the 1997 design, with the relay isolating the Hi fan speed.
I was running out of light just as I buttoned everything up, and I'll revisit it later on as the wire job was just temporary. I have a proper relay block on order that I'm hoping to be able to use to do the job "right". I also need to take a closer look at the med-hi, med-low, and low settings, as I'm not detecting much difference between them in terms of airflow. It could be my resistor block, and I have a spare that I can try tomorrow.
Still it's so nice to have the Hi setting back, although one downside is that, with the lights and radio on, the alternator is barely keeping up; the LED voltmeter on the dash is reading around 12.2V when I'm driving. I wonder what the biggest alternator I can put on my stock bracket would be...
I have a set of Mustang rotary heater controls coming, and I already have a Mark VII rear-defrost switch. I'm seriously considering switching over to them, depending on how painful it looks to be, but this was a good first step. If nothing else, I learned a lot, and I'm pretty sure that I can switch to the rotary block without cutting any vacuum lines. I just have to use extra vacuum lines and lots of junctions.
I'm interested in upgrading my 1997 Explorer to a memory seat. I have the seat track that supports it and a new memory seat switch, but I need the memory seat module and seat harness that go with it. They're both under the driver's seat, and so far I haven't been able to find them on ebay. Anyone interested in pulling them on your next JY run? An Explorer Limited will definitely have them, and Eddie Bauer might.
I don't know what years will match what I'm looking for, but 95-01 Explorers should be a safe bet.
I was bored so I decided to create some XML of a circuit from my 1987 T-Bird/Cougar EVTM. I only mapped one circuit, but it's machine-readable. I don't know if there's any use for it, but feel free to do what you will with it. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, of course....
My engine tends to run a little rich and idles rough, so I'm wondering if moving to an Explorer intake might help matters a bit. Currently I have the following:
19# injectors 65mm TB + EGR spacer AFPR aftermarket cam (don't know what...maybe '86 HO cam?) Stock 5.0 upper ground out to match TB inner diameter
I don't think I should need one, but who knows what the inside of my upper intake looks like, I figure it can't be flowing nearly as well as one made for the TB would. My mechanic neighbor is playing with it, he thinks there's a vacuum leak somewhere (which would make it run rich anyway) so the first order of business is to nail that down, but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask in case that doesn't resolve the problem. Everything else is stock (heads, lower intake, exhaust, etc.). Plugs, cap, rotor, coil are all new, 9mm wires are in good shape, etc.
I went up to the 11" brakes and I absolutely LOVE them, but I was curious...now that I've bit the bullet with the spindle and strut change, is there anything better for 16" T/C rims? Would 12" brakes be even better? How about dual-piston calipers? Better brake lines or master cylinder? Brake booster? Now that I'm off the 10" rotor handicap, I'm just wondering about what's possible while keeping my T/C rims.
I'm getting tired of cleaning my snowflakes (as a lot of us must be). Does anyone know if there are dust shields available for our cars? I also have the 11" conversion, if it matters.
