Today is a major milestone for me and my 1985 Mercury Cougar XR-7. I turned 40 years old last November, and in January of this year, I passed the 20th year of ownership. Today, April 11th is the 14,769th day since I was born and the 7,385th day of ownership of my car.
So as of today, I have officially owned my Cougar for more than ½ of my life!
My story:
I was wowed by the style of the '83 T-Birds when they first came out and of course was drawn towards the Turbo Coupe since it was their performance version. I was impressed with what Ford had done with the SVO Mustang and I really liked the refined nature of the Turbo Coupe and what it offered in comparison to the SVO.
In the spring of 1987, I had my heart set on buying a black '87 Turbo Coupe but I just couldn't quite swing the payment of a new one. I still wanted a TC so I started looking at used '83 or '84 since they were in the price range I could afford. After test driving an '84 I decided that I needed to save a little more money and look for at least and '85 or newer car because I liked the design of the interior much better than the '83-'84 style.
It was the summer of ’87 when I saw it. It was a 1986 Mercury Cougar XR-7, 5-speed, Medium Canyon Red Metallic over Charcoal Grey. As soon as I saw this car I fell in love, this was THE car I wanted. It was owned by a guy who was dating a woman from work, he had bought it new. He let me drive it and that sealed it, it was just what I wanted.
I then set out on a mission to find another XR-7 with a 5-speed in that same color combo. This search was of course limited since Mercury dropped the 2.3 turbo/5-speed combo for 1987 so that meant I would have to find either an '85 or '86 XR-7 if I wanted to get the color & power train I was wanting. It took many months of searching but in December of ’87, I found a guy in the Detroit area who had an '85 with 39,000 miles on it that fit the bill perfectly. I made him an offer and after some negotiating and the paperwork trail, car was officially mine on January 22nd, 1988.
So although I haven't owned it since new, I am the second owner and I bought when it was 30 months old. As soon as I brought it home that January, it was cleaned up and put away for remainder of the winter and is has been stored each winter since.
It's currently got about 80k on it.
It’s undergoing a complete driveline & interior overhaul at the moment, but I hope to have it back together and on the road soon.
I recently had some issues with Quicktime & ITunes and had to manually delete the files in order to get either program to re-install. I followed the directions on Apples site to the letter and was very careful not to delete any files that were not called "QuickTime" or "QuickTimeVR". After doing this, ITunes & QT were re-installed and are again working properly and everything seemed fine.
Then a few days later, I went to retrieve a photo from one of the folders in My Pictures file and found that every .jpg in every folder was gone. The folders themselves are there but no pictures. I did a deep search for them on the hard drive but nothing.
I didn't loose any .jpg files that are in folders on the desktop though, just those in the My Pictures section.
At this point I think I have no choice but to try one of these Data Recovery programs.
I’ve looked everywhere I can think of but I still can’t find my EVTM.
If someone can post a pic of the wiring diagram for the Premium Sound radio without the EQ and the same radio with the EQ, it would be much appreciated.
I have seen many key sets sold on places like eBay that claim to be original NOS factory keys when most of them are aftermarket replicas. The question of what is the difference is between the O.E. factory vs. aftermarket Turbo Coupe / XR-7 keys was asked in the Marketplace section so I thought I would try and clear it up.
The material that the factory keys have is made of a charcoal black rubber type of material that when new has a "soft" feel to it. It is difficult to describe but I would say it is similar to the density of a new tire's sidewall.
The aftermarket keys are made of a hard black plastic that is...well...hard black plastic.
Once you have had a set of new factory keys in your hands, you will immediately know the difference but for those who haven't there are a few differences that can be picked out if you know what ot look for.
In the first photo, there are 4 ignition/door keys. The two outer keys are O.E. "rubber" and the two inner keys are the aftermarket "plastic". The easiest way to spot an aftermarket key is if it has "CANADA" molded at the top in small print (3rd key from the left) however this is only on one side so look at both sides. Not all aftermarket keys have this imprint though.
But there is one thing that the aftermarket keys cannot do; because they are more tapered thant the O.E. keys, they cannot stand on their side by themselves. In the second photo you can see that the factory keys will stand on there side. The aftermarket key is only standing up with the help of the other aftermarket key.
In the third photo are the trunk/glove box keys. The key on the left is the aftermarket "plastic" key which has two visible circular mold marks that the factory "rubber" keys do not have. However these marks are only on one side.
I bought a PS3. I was going to wait until spring to buy it hoping that they would have a PS3/GT5 package but my son really wanted the new Star Wars LEGO game for Christmas so I broke down bought it. In the meantime while I am waiting for GT5 to come out, I was thinking about getting GTHD.
I had some time to play with the Cougar yesterday and did some k-member swapping.
The first picture is all stock components. (k-member, lower control arm, spindle, 15” x 7” 10-hole wheel & 225/60-15 Gatorback tire)
The second picture is with the stock k-member, lower control arm, ‘94/’95 Mustang spindle, 17” x 9” FMS Cobra R, & 255/45-17 Comp T/A tire.
The third picture is the same components as the second picture, except the k-member is from a 1987 Turbo Coupe (thanks Chuck !).
It’s kind of hard to tell from the picture, but there is some positive camber on it right now, a set of caster/camber plates should take care of that and bring the top of the tire in even more.
This was just a temporary mock-up for now to test fit things. I will be pulling it all apart again to get the engine compartment ready for paint. The wheel & tire combo I plan on using a 17” x 9” with 2mm more offset and a 245/45-17 tire.
Like every project on my car, what started out as a small project has blossomed into a major one. I had originally just planned on replacing the headliner and carpet, but I gutted the entire interior. Years ago I put some Dynamat on the inside of the doors and was very pleased with the results, so I am going to continue with the rest of the interior and "improve" on the job the factory did with sound deadening. I will be adding it to every bare spot that the factory missed.
Does anyone know for sure if I can use a HVAC unit out of any ‘85-’88 Cougar/Thunderbird with EATC or are they specific to certain years? I know the later panel controls are different but for originality sake, I want to keep my ’85 style panel.
