Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Topic: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon) (Read 3285 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #15 – November 23, 2023, 02:05:10 PM

That's awesome!

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #16 – February 27, 2024, 09:02:33 PM

So, a little update.

Life and winter has hampered progress, but here's where we sit at the moment.

In the bay with the 2015-17 intake.

All with the hood closed.

I went to a 96-04 Kmember, as I needed a little more drop under the oil pan. Still needed to clearance the back of the Kmember to get the pan down and foreward.

I have about 1/4" between the oil pan and the rack, but as you can see, the pan is still tucked up under the K-member

Right now I'm sorting out motor mounts. I have a couple ideas on what I want to do, but we'll see which one pans out. Ironically, I may wind up welding the factory mount pads back on, even if they're in a slightly different location.

The only real clearance issue is the u-joint on the steering shaft with the DS exhaust manifold. I think I can make it work OK with a little engine placement, a spendy steering shaft, and some clearancing (meaning grinding).

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #17 – October 21, 2024, 08:29:30 PM

Since the other site is down, I'll update here.

Been going in circles this past few months trying to work between several projects.

This one needed to get the K-member mods done and I accomplished that. (Pic of it in primer)

Relocated the FCA mounts inboard 3/4", since I was going to use the SN-95 arms, and the stock width between the control arm mounts was the same between the LTD and the Mod K-members. I was going to have fender contact if I tried to leave them as-is.

I talked myself into thinking that I needed to clean up the engine bay before I dropped the drivetrain back in the car, so I needed to address that, and got it knocked out this past weekend.

I need to remove a bunch of un-needed wiring and do a few more things, so it wasn't a bad idea to strip everything out.

I hit it with a couple rounds of scuff and clean with some grey ScotchBrite pads and treated any remaining corrosion areas with some Corroseal.

The primed and painted it with some Seymour MRO paints.

Next task is to get the drivetrain back in the car and out of my way in the garage.

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #18 – October 22, 2024, 10:58:01 AM

Wow! What a difference for the engine bay!

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #19 – October 22, 2024, 02:46:40 PM

its amazing how good of shap that lower rad core support is in. you amaze me with your quarky appreciation for the odd fox box platforms. im sure you will turn it into a gem!

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #20 – October 22, 2024, 06:58:51 PM

Quote from: jcassity – on October 22, 2024, 02:46:40 PM

its amazing how good of shap that lower rad core support is in. you amaze me with your quarky appreciation for the odd fox box platforms. im sure you will turn it into a gem!

Well, there is a bit of damage hiding on the bottom rear of the passenger side of it, but nothing I wanted to mess with. This is a car that is going to get DRIVEN, so I wanted to make sire things were sealed/fresh.

Truth be told. If I didn't have the '83 TBird, I'd be building up another 80-82 Box TBird/Cougar XR-7 in its place.

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #21 – November 09, 2024, 07:57:36 PM

Fighting for time, but I finally got the drivetrain and K-Member installed in the car today.

Not 100% happy with the motor mounts in the end, but I'll investigate more if I have problems.

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #22 – November 09, 2024, 11:49:27 PM

I've got to say, what some of you guys are able to do is really amazing. On the farm, I build and fabricate stuff all the time, but comparing my talent to yours is humbling. Well done! Thank you for posting.

Re: Oops, I did it again. I bought a new car. (1986 Ford LTD wagon)

Reply #23 – November 16, 2024, 05:59:19 PM

Back at it for a bit today. mainly sorting out wiring details and a couple other bits.

Trying to sort out all of the needed wiring I need to save or repurpose from the LTD stuff. Need to save things like power feeds, AC control stuff, and separating the lighting wiring from the other stuff that's not going to be needed.

For the lighting, I'm planning on doing an H4 conversion, like I did on the TBird, and run the headlamp power from the battery, through relays, and just use the old circuits from the headlight switch as triggers.

This is all of the front end light wiring. I'm going to remove the extra bits from the cornering lamps that aren't used and remove the headlight plugs, as I'll be replacing them with a new, uprated harness.

This pic may cause some folks a bit of stress, but there's a method to my madness.

Seeing as I'll be needing to add relays, etc for fan(s), lighting, fuel system, I thought I'd go a different route instead of piecing together another aftermarket set-up (like on the TBird)

I picked up a fuse box for a 2011 Mustang and will use that, to take advantage of some of the wiring and circuit protection already being in place.

The extra circuits/relays I can repurpose to run things like the lighting circuits, as well as repurpose some of the unused J-case fuses to replace the fusible links on the power circuits I need to reuse from the LTD.

Gonna be a little tedious to sort through, but I think I can manage it

To finish up, I bolted the later intake on with the throttle body. Just to have something fun to look at (and close up the intake).