Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Topic: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS (Read 116058 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #90 – February 02, 2026, 08:43:41 PM

I imagine a bunch of the missing pics are from where hosting for the pictures moved or disappeared.

I know a lot of the pics in my older threads got broken when my original webhost shut down w/o warning.
I'd have to go back through each post and relink whatever was originally there.

Got the car dug out over the weekend, but the roads are going to be a yucky mess for a while yet.

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #91 – February 03, 2026, 08:13:13 AM

I'm just glad this board is still working. It's barely running as it is...we're just one PHP update from losing all functionality. Love to move things over to a different board software. Unfortunately that takes way more database magic than Alex or I can do. So we just keep limping along and hoping for the best...

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #92 – February 03, 2026, 08:36:44 AM

Yeah, all of the backend stuff is waaaaay out of my skillset.

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #93 – February 03, 2026, 02:02:24 PM

Well foureyedpride is now gone and all of the knowledge with it. It would suck for the same to happen here. Is getting this forum over to new software simply a bit enough time thing and/or a money thing? I’m super ignorant when it comes to this stuff so forgive me if I’m not asking the right question.

Also, do not mean to derail your thread Chuck.

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #94 – February 03, 2026, 03:39:03 PM

I've been following the foureyedpride saga from afar and definitely do not want our board to go the same way, not if I can help it. There's just too much accumulated knowledge to let it slip out of existence. I'm sure everyone here is in agreement with this.

I'll start another thread in the Lounge so we don't keep drive-by-pooping all over this one LOL.

Back to your regularly scheduled Chuck.

Re: Added another Fox to the fleet - 1985 Marquis LTS

Reply #95 – February 15, 2026, 08:33:49 PM

We had a big warmup and melt off this week, so it was much more conducive to working on the cars.

While I spent some time yesterday re-acquainting myself with where I was on the wagon project, I also had some time to sort out a couple of loose ends on this project.

At some point last year, I stopped being able to lock the driver door. I'd replaced the broken auto lock switch at some point, and all of that worked, but the driver-side just would not lock because something was binding and keeping the lock from fully engaging.
I took the door panel off and dug in to discover that the lock popper had seized up. This was preventing things from behaving.

I didn't have any spares, so I just disconnected the rod from the latch/lock assy for now. The only hitch is that if I unlock the pass side first and engage the auto unlock, the driver side won't pop and it needs to be open manually. A minor annoyance, but better than leaving the car unlocked.

Also, I took the time today to figure out what happened to my tach signal. I had rechecked the wiring on the harness I removed and altered, and that was all fine. I also knew that nothing on that side of things should be affecting the tach signal.

After a bit of tracing and ringing out wires, I found the culprit.

On the DS there is a 6-pin connector that contains the wire to the tach. Now, bear in mind, the wiring diagrams for these show almost nothing for a tachometer. They were a rare item in the LTD/Marquis. Took some digging and interpolation of things to find what I needed.
What I think happened is that the signal for this was tucked in with the TAB/TAD smog solenoids, which were removed. I probably pulled the wire out and de-pinned it from this connector when I yanked all of that garbage, not realizing what it was.
I wound up running a new wire to that connector and we again have a working tach.

Other than some tuning stuff and eventually swapping to a NBO2 sensor, this particular project seems to be wrapped up.

Now to get some good weather and clean roads!