What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

Is it upside down or is it an updated design where the snout is now on the opposite side?

If not, that's a pretty big whoopsie on their part!
 
It’s upside down. The good news is it should just be a matter of pulling the snout/rotors flipping them and bolting them back up
 
You'd think that this would be something that only goes in "one way".

Like, the snout should have an indent or something that makes it impossible to fit any other way except for the right way, no?

But, what do I know...
 
Replaced the UCAs on the Mark (again) - last time was 2018 and ~90,000 ago. One side was rattling and the other was OK but I figured "replace them both."

Should have only taken 20 minutes or so a side, but the darned air solenoid boss was in the way of the bolt so I had to remove the shocks from their upper mounts to get them out. :rolleyes:

But hey, now that the entire front end has been refreshed I better be good past 300,000 miles!
 
I adjusted the Transmission Shift Control Cable and Bracket (#4 in diagram) by loosening and re-fastening the nut (#5) to the Transmission Shift Cable Bracket (#2).

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VideoCapture_20250112-131506.jpg

Note this tiny gap in the overspray of the old black underbody coating. This minuscule adjustment makes all the difference. (The wetness is just WD40 I sprayed to loosen the nut.)

20250112_132356.jpg

Why all this?

My shifter was ever so slightly misaligned with the transmission. Latched in D, if you pushed the release button on the shifter, it immediately moved backwards slightly, indicating that there was some pressure on the shift cable (possibly it stretched over time?).

Following this procedure, when shifting to D, the shifter wants to be exactly where it latches.
 
There's a piece on the inside of the lever called the rooster comb,that sets the detents you feel. the actual valve slides freely.
I've taken those loose with every trans I've swapped; all the donors use a different lever, so you have to keep the original.
 
Yeah, this thing:

4R70W-4R75W-Ford-Transmission-Linkage-Park-assy.jpg

A spring-loaded roller rides on the teeth:
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Interesting side note: the 97/98 Mark VIII shift lever has an additional one of these in the lever itself:
s-l1200-1.jpg

Pre-97 Mark levers as well as MN12 levers don't have it, though they all have the locking mechanism. That mechanism looks somewhat similar to the rooster comb, the difference being that the teeth aren't rounded. I couldn't find a good picture, but you can get a glimpse here:
s-l1200-1(1).jpg

The procedure I did was to align the locking mechanism in the shift lever with the rooster comb in the transmission.
In other words, prior to the procedure, when my shift lever was latched in D, the spring-loaded roller in the transmission was not fully centered in the respective valley of the rooster comb, causing a persistent pressure on the shift cable.

Again, it was a minuscule adjustment, but I could feel it in the lever. This adjustment procedure is also spelled out in the Ford workshop manual; I didn't make it up.
 
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Interesting detail on the mark; neither the TC or GM trans have them; must be a luxury item,lol.
 
Grog6 said:
Interesting detail on the mark; neither the TC or GM trans have them; must be a luxury item,lol.
Click to expand...

It might be more difficult to implement such a rooster comb in the column shift lever itself. Plus it really seems redundant.

I imagine that it makes the lever feel like having a more solid click in your hand.
 
From the factory 4r70 manual, it holds the valve in place; a worn one causes random shifts, if the valve moves too far.
I need to scan those, and add to the articles; Ive got the updates too.
And a CD4E book,for a contour I no longer own. A manual swap in those cars takes a new engine And transaxle,lol.
 
I let my cat out, and at last glass of tea,he was sunning on it. :) 48 degrees high today.
 
Today, I went out to the garage and wondered when will I ever get my Cougar back on the ground?!

Cougar on blocks.jpg
 
Over the last few days the Mark has seen some action...

1) Packed the RF caliper slide pins full of fresh grease (apparently it was a little on the dry side and was causing a rattle reminiscent of bad endlinks)
2) Took the car through a car wash in a futile attempt to reduce the speed of salt-induced decay... :bawling:
3) Had Wal Mart replace the battery I bought 2 years, 363 days ago under the 3-year, free replacement warranty
4) Had to tighten the negative battery terminal because Wal Mart "tech" only finger-tightened it, causing all sorts of wonkiness while going down I-71 at 75 MPH! :eek:
 
No, It's Still not running yet. If I ever had to drive one of the others, I hit the car wash on the way home, and spent money washing it off the underside. I drove Lazarus in our crap many times, and the irs ties are starting to get a film of rust, after 550k miles, and 25 years of it. With minimal precautions our cars don't rust here.
 
Could be worse; a buddy had a car with a good .25" gap, and he'd hit the carwash with a carload of us, on the way to the lake. :)
"hey,at least you're wearing swim trunks!" He stopped doing that after we threw him off the bridge we used to jump off of
unexpectedly,lol. ~80'. It's apparently way less fun being thrown. :rofl:

We had a rope swing that was almost that high.
 
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