Sitting for an extended period of time did take it's toll on the cooling system (something I'm all too familiar with on 5.0 cars with ethylene glycol based coolant. Let them sit and wait for them to leak once you start driving it again).
The radiator was the first to go. Easy enough fix. Went with a Summit 2 row aluminum. My last LSC had a stock replacement style one row with aluminum side tanks. It was not as good as the stock brass/copper unit it replaced in that car. I actually priced out an all brass copper stock replacement. It was $10 less than the Summit piece. The Summit radiator works commendably well. I swapped out the fan clutch while I was digging around in there. Hayden part #2783. Severe duty clutch. A vast improvement over stock and even the old police package ones.
Shortly after that the water pump gasket sprung a tiny leak. I knew the pump was weak anyway so I wasn't too concerned. Then I looked at it. I decided I wasn't messing with 31 year old water pump bolts that pass through a timing cover.
It was the correct decision.
Apparently there was 5 hours of cursing and screaming involved in the removal of just those bolts by the shop I dropped it off to that did the work on that. Working a shift of overtime more than paid for the job. I've learned to pick and choose my battles. I have no doubt if I had tackled that job in my driveway I would have snapped a bolt. Not a good thing to do with limited tools and no lift.
New hoses and a new stock temp thermostat were installed as well. The heater core was tested to 30 PSI (which it should NEVER see in real world application) and was good. It now runs about 15-20 degrees colder than when I got it and doesn't leak.
After that I got a good look at the sway bar end links. Note to self. Next time just use a cutoff wheel to remove them. The fronts were in bad shape. Replacement improved tracking in the car. I still have to do the rears (yes, unlike other fox platform cars the Mark VII has rear sway bar end links).
Also on the agenda is new plugs, wires, cap and, rotor.
I'd like to put a good flowing yet quiet catback system on it as well as a larger throttle body. I had the intake tube from a 87-88 Cougarbird 5.0 and a 70mm throttle body on the last one. Didn't notice anything really top end, but tip in response did improve. There were zero idle issues as well. Don't fear the bigger throttle body on a stock head/intake/cam car.
As far as the catback; there's a rather reputable custom fab guy only about 3 miles from the house and his prices are reasonable. I was thinking 2.5" with Borla XS lers. The plan is to keep the stock h-pipe and all emissions components. Everything works properly on this car and I just want a decent highway cruiser.
Other than that I plan on taking those door moldings off and repainting them. They're notorious for fading on the lighter color cars. Interestingly enough the SE edition cars didn't seem to have that problem, but most were black or the deep red.
I have to respray the trim that bolts to the lower window felt as well. It's separate from the felt and comes apart fairly easily. SEM makes a good color match for it as well. I have new felt to go on it when that happens.
After that, drive the snot out of it. It now has 43k miles; about 5k on a new transmission. I think there's a lot of life left in it. I've already slogged it into New Jersey (cringe) via the dreaded GWB and a couple of other multiple hour drives. She's mechanically perfect. Just needs a little cleanup and ever so slight upgrades to suit my wants for it.
Pic of the Cougar for those that read the whole post!!!!
I know that sounds like you will need three hands .
What with all the other interior stuff that's been popping up on this car, I need 7.
New front windshield on Friday. I've been fighting (and losing) to a small leak during heavy rains. It's time to pull the glass. I noticed some delamination around the top edge. May as well replace it. Already took all the trim off along with the wiper arms, cleaned up the upper channel, and have all new clips ready to go. After that I get to reskin the headliner. The new sun visors I want to use have a smaller mount footprint.
22 years of owning this car. I think over that time It's ran great and looked great at the same time for about 4 of them. It's usually one or the other. It's never run better than right now. Figure out how it looks.....
I'd be up for measuring the voltage. I gotta pull the cluster again anyway (magically my parking brake light has decided to tell me it hates me by THAT bulb going out....)so I'll be playing dash bezel commando again. May as well....
I am guessing you have one lamp out warning light.
Correct
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I think you should have had the warning light from day one.
When the issue popped up about a year after the swap, I had the same thought.
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Maybe the warning light bulb socket has gotten crusty over the years and just starting working again.
The bulb rests in a twist lock which inserts into the bottom left on the full digital cluster. Looking at the tabs on the twist lock it appears and FEELS as if there's more play in that particular one than the others on the cluster. Perhaps it just fully seated after a bump. I have other spares in better shape.
Now that you mention it, there were times where before the swap I have had a bulb out and the indicator DID NOT light up.
I had someone tell me that perhaps one of the diodes got weak in one of the LEDs. He also suggested swapping one at a time to see which and also suggested starting with the rear.
As far as the hi-beam issue; I'm a gigantic idiot. I was digging through my copy of the 87 shop manuals last night. Came across a diagram that showed how the autolamp/autodim tie into the headlamps. After that I went to the car to make sure they were both in the off position.
Suffice to say my original multifunction switch is fine and the hi-beams are working. I did however find an NOS one for sale at a local dealer on their parts website. I ordered it to add to the "box of many Cougar parts"
The aftermarket switch is in fact bad according to the shop manual tests. Guess I'll be returning that.
Got a weird issue that popped up almost 2 months ago.....
--Parking lights on causes lamp out light to come on --Headlights on causes lamp out light to come on --With no parking lights/headlights on stepping on the brake pedal lamp out light to come on --With no parking lights/headlights on using the turn signal will cause the lamp out light to come on and then go out with every illumination of the turn signal. --With no parking lights/headlights on pulling the hazard light switch will cause the lamp out light to come on and then go out with every illumination of the hazard lights.
The flash to pass function has also stopped working. This occurred at the same time If I hold the turn signal stalk back the brights will stay illuminated.
I'll preface this with the fact that I did an ENTIRE LED bulb swap on the car and there were no issues for MONTHS. I swapped over to LED in October/November of 2018.
Today I swapped out the turn signal switch only to find the one I received is apparently bad because the brights are stuck on no matter what I do. I swapped the old switch back in for now. I know there's a circuit breaker in the fuse panel for the flash to pass function, but it also correlates to the horn which works. Ignition switch is approximately 2 years old and looks good and doesn't get warm or anything like that....
