Bought a Cougar

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Bought a Cougar

July 22, 2008, 07:00:14 PM

I just picked up my first Cougar a few days ago. It's a 20th Anniversary Edition with about 150k miles, it's seen better days but I hope to change that. Right after I bought the car I found CoolCats and this forum. For now though I'm going to keep it stock, fixing it's problems and driving it until I have the time/parts to do the HO conversion. It runs great, drives pretty good, and has ice cold A/C which is a nice thing to have with the normal 95+ temps in Florida. I swear this has to have been the dirtiest car I've ever seen. Just to give you an idea of how dirty it was I've spent the past 3 days cleaning the interior alone. I've still yet to tackle the engine, which is very dusty, but I'll get to that with some simple green tomorrow. The only problems I can find with the car are that the valve covers are leaking a little (which I'll fix in the next couple of weeks), the interior needs a little bit of attention (including the gauges), and it's got some damage to the driver side fender. I'll probably end up just replacing the fender if I can find a suitable replacement, if not I might just fix it.

And the slowest car in the yard is.....the fox! Hopefully not for long though.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #1 – July 22, 2008, 07:47:47 PM

Welcome
Nice car,
I'll bet the backhoe is slower

Bought a Cougar

Reply #2 – July 22, 2008, 07:52:27 PM

Welcome, Florida Cougar and were glad you brought another :oldcougar: back to this Forum.

:burnout:

Bought a Cougar

Reply #3 – July 22, 2008, 10:43:00 PM

Welcome! Looks like you have a great platform to work on. And don't worry, there are lots of ways to make a 5.0 faster

Bought a Cougar

Reply #4 – July 22, 2008, 11:13:04 PM

Quote from: daminc

I'll bet the backhoe is slower

I don't know. I'm going to see if we can line em up a bit later. :p

I've been doing alot of research these past few days. After I've got a little cash saved up it'll be on to the HO conversion. I may decide to rip the whole motor out of a GT so I don't have to worry about the flat tops, then I'll move to MAF unstead of the dreaded SD. I've got plenty of plans for this car and a majority are to keep it as stock looking as possible - on the outside. Right now though I'm just focusing on basic maintenence. I changed the oil a couple of days ago, Castrol GTX High Mileage 10W-30 with a Motorcraft filter. Next is air filter, distributor cap and rotor, coil, plug wires, and plugs. I'll probably take it in to get the transmission filter and fluid changed too. Freshen the car up a little before I move onto bigger, better things. This car has amazed me though - it runs perfect. Starts first lick, no smoke EVER. The reason it's so amazing is that I payed 900 bucks for a car that runs great, has many new parts, and has recently converted/charged A/C. The only problem that's bothering me is I can't get the nice looking factory equalizer to work, it lights up, but pressing the power button does nothing. Also the radio seems to have a short because when you use the s it exhibits static. I'll pick up a Pioneer deck a little later, but for stock the radio doesn't sound all that bad IMO - if you can deal with the tape player (which might as well be 8-track).

Bought a Cougar

Reply #5 – July 22, 2008, 11:30:23 PM

Hey, welcome to the few, the proud, the 20th Club :hick:

On the equilizer, often the latch on the on button breaks and thus the amp never comes on. I try to get rid of the static in the s by exercising them (spinning them back and forth) as often there is build-up on the pots that needs to be rubbed off.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #6 – July 23, 2008, 01:07:09 AM

Well I checked out the trunk and I found some wires unhooked.

These are some more that I found under the dash while cleaning.

The wires in the 2nd to last picture I'm pretty sure are to the mystery switch/button, so that may answer my own question. I think it's a kill switch for the alarm or something like that since I've got an alarm remote in the glove box. The yellow and red wire look newer than the others so they may be to something that was added to the car after the fact and was probably removed (unless I've missed something). The other wires though look to be stock and cut, along with the wires in the trunk. Although to be honest the wires in the trunk look like the wires going to the switch too. Tomorrow I'm going to do my best to trace some of these wires and find out what exactly they go to, but if anyone has an opinion let me know. I'll take any help I can get.

While I'm thinking about it I figure I could go ahead and mention this. The gauges are very dim and from what I've read it could be a host of things, but the owner said that since it was constantly up and down a dirt road the bulbs vibrated out several times and needed to be put back in alot over the span of time. He could be lying, but I'm going to pull the cluster to check. Anyway, the odometer is the real question. I was told the car had somewhere in the vicinity of 13?k miles. I'm not usually one to buy cars without knowing the mileage, but this car ran way too good to pass it up. The odometer reads "ERROR" for some strange reason, which doesn't deturr me from the car because it runs so well, but it's very annoying. Any ideas as to why it's saying this? Even if the mileage is over 200k I don't really care, no blow-by or nothing so I'm not too worried about an obscene amount of mileage being on the car. Even if it were I'd still trust driving this car from one tip of the US to the other.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #7 – July 23, 2008, 03:23:43 AM

Nice cougar i wish mine was that nice now but its still needs a ton of work. Should be a good car and easy to fix up.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #8 – July 23, 2008, 06:20:35 AM

Welcome to the site.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #9 – July 23, 2008, 09:38:44 AM

welcome bro .its good to see a fellow floridian

Bought a Cougar

Reply #10 – July 23, 2008, 09:48:56 AM

Quote from: FloridaCougar;228618

I'll pick up a Pioneer deck a little later, but for stock the radio doesn't sound all that bad IMO - if you can deal with the tape player (which might as well be 8-track).

Hey Eric!!!!!

Cool that you found the place. that's a nice looking Cat and I'm sure it will be great once you get it finished.
Don't forget about Cat Jam next year!! (You can read about it at Coolcats.net if you haven't already!

Bought a Cougar

Reply #11 – July 24, 2008, 12:39:17 AM

Thanks for the comments and the warm welcome. Right now I'm just interested in finding out what those wires go to so if anyone has any ideas let me know. I didn't get a chance to take a look at the wires today, but I plan on it tomorrow (so if no one has any ideas I'll just trace them). I know people say this alot, but the pictures make the car look alot better than it does. It's not perfect, but over time I will be making alot of changes. I haven't decided yet whether I want to keep it cabernet red or move to black, but if it stays red I will get the interior reupolstered to match factory light sand beige.
One place it won't stay stock is underneath though ;). I found a GT in a junkyard a couple of towns over so I have something to pull parts from. I still haven't decided what I want to do for brakes though. I may end up going the SN95 route. I have lots of ideas crawling around in my head so we'll see where I end up.

Well I'm already tired of the whisper quiet stock exhaust. After doing some reading I found that it would be wise to stick with 1 1/2" primaries, but given that I'm going to go HO at some point in the near future I don't think it would be wise to limit myself; then I go back to thinking about losing what power I do have. The plan was to go with some headers (LT if possible), 2.5" O/R x-pipe, two Moroso spiral flow lers, and then two turn downs. Given my situation what would y'all recommend? I hate to upgrade and then have to turn around and s what I bought before in order to upgrade once again after the HO conversion.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #12 – July 24, 2008, 07:28:12 AM

While your under there with the exhaust, put some subframe connectors in too.

Bought a Cougar

Reply #13 – July 28, 2008, 06:06:20 AM

Which subframe connectors do you recommend? UPR, Steeda, or any old weld-in, box style sfc?
I encountered a strange problem earlier. I was sitting in my driveway and started the car after first tightening the battery cables. I let it run for a couple of minutes and then the oil pressure gauge went to 1 bar, flashed, and made a beeping noise. I had the A/C on at the time and shut it off, then the oil pressure went back to normal. The A/C could have just been a fluke thing, but I figured I'd at least mention it. I turned the car off, checked over the engine as far as appearences go, it looked fine. From inside the car at the time it occurred everything sounded fine. I restarted the car and everything once again checked out OK. I'm beginning to think it was either a short in the wiring for the oil pressure sending unit or the unit itself. As it stands I'm going to have a look at the car one more time tomorrow, but it seemed fine the last crank. I understand that the oil pressure sending units are different amongst the various cluster types and since mine is a fully digital which unit would I need (Part number)? If it turns out to be linked to the oil pump how hard of a job is it to replace it? If I replace the oil pump I'm going to go a little further with some preventative maintenance and go ahead and replace the water pump and thermostat too.
Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Also if anyone has any ideas on what any of the wires go to on the first page that would be helpful too. Thanks for your help.