What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

Attachments

  • IMG_0134.jpeg
    IMG_0134.jpeg
    2.8 MB · Views: 17
XR7-4.6 said:
Speaking of bulbs, there’s so much space between the header panel and core support now it’s almost as if MN12s were designed to use 9005/9006 bulbs in the first place😆
Click to expand...
Now hold on just a second. Are you telling me you can replace the headlight bulbs on these things without removing the front bumper cover, left front fender and both doors? I've been working on too many late model cars lately.
 
Got my headlight relay harness in (partially, I need to run the battery wire/fuses) I made it with way oversized wire so I probably added all the weight in wire back I shed 😆

IMG_6289.jpeg

IMG_6290.jpeg

Can you see the harness to the bulbs? Nope? Exactly. It’s run between the crash bumper and header panel, damn near hidden! See the old 9007 and inboard parking light pigtails? Nope? Yeah it wasn’t just ABS junk I yanked!

Was hoping to get the brake lines swapped today with much much poking around and staring but it’s going to suck getting the two lines that go to the rear lines in. I do know it’s possible! I got these out of a car, but I don’t want to scratch shit up on my car 😆

KevinVarnes said:
Now hold on just a second. Are you telling me you can replace the headlight bulbs on these things without removing the front bumper cover, left front fender and both doors? I've been working on too many late model cars lately.
Click to expand...

Yes!

IMG_6291.jpeg


And yes the ABS stamping on my datatag will annoy me from here on out lol
 
Well I WAS actually going to put in the brake lines tonight, even loosened up the brake booster to ease the pita of feeding the rear lines from the bottom( btw the clutch pedal makes getting the left most booster nut out a joy!) but where I remembered to flush out the lines I’m putting in I didn’t think to check the proportioning valve, and this was the sight in a few of the ports

IMG_6300.jpeg

Ick.

So I sprayed them out very liberally with brake clean and they looked fine… but I smartly decided to bust them off the bracket and peek inside and these were the results

IMG_6295.jpeg

IMG_6296.jpeg

It took a ton of effort to get this valve out

IMG_6298.jpeg

So pretty much all the gunk I hoped to flush out with brake clean just shoved it out of sight, so I’m glad I took it apart to see.

So clean it out and throw them back together? Well…


IMG_6301.jpeg

That’s AFTER rigorous cleaning, nothing is taking that white stuff off and I’m strongly suspecting it’s corrosion, and given it’s particularly bad where the valve’s seal ring sits I’m thinking they may be kaput. :bangwall:
 
Yes that is aluminum corrosion. You would have to pick all that out of there and chances are they are pitted pretty badly.
 
97 30th said:
Yes that is aluminum corrosion. You would have to pick all that out of there and chances are they are pitted pretty badly.
Click to expand...

Good reminder to change your brake fluid! I’ve had this thing in a sealed bag since I pulled it. So this must have happened in the course of the car I pulled it from’s lifetime.

Happen to have a spare? 🤣
 
It was probably from sitting in the bag and absorbing moisture. Should always flush out brake parts you're going to store.
 
97 30th said:
It was probably from sitting in the bag and absorbing moisture. Should always flush out brake parts you're going to store.
Click to expand...

I did flush it out but I think by the nature of being a valve it probably retained some old fluid inside and it pulled in moisture. I did the same flush to the lines and they’re still mint.

The good news is I soaked them in penetrating oil for a few hours tonight and scrubbed the bores with a tiny brush and got rid of the vast majority of it, to the point I might actually roll the dice and run it. All the rubber is good and there’s no pitting where the external O rings seal against.

My biggest area of concern however is the internal seal on the valve itself, there’s definitely some pitting in that deep section but I’m not sure how it would effect brake performance, as there seems to be some deliberate controlled flow through there as the rubber seal has grooves(like a tire tread) to let high pressure brake fluid pass to begin with. In fact it’s the only possible way for pressure to go to the rear brakes; the master circuits enter from the top, there’s unrestricted flow to the front calipers from the sides and the rears on the bottom are physically separated by that treaded seal(controlled leak?) hydraulics aren’t my strongsuit so I’m probably huffing copioum somewhat but the only thing that acts on that spring is the rear brake circuit so… We’ll see. Right now I kind of trust what I have despite its wounds over another used one after tonight’s dissection.




Oh on the full topic of the thread at hand I also gutted the last remaining ABS wiring to the rear sensors! That’s actually a shitload of wire! I know it’s not going to be impressive in the grand scheme but I from the start intend to weigh the FULL wire + HCU + sensors of the ABS system to see what they add to this platform down to the ounce… minus the dashboard harness, since that’s a pain in the ass, marginal and ALL MN12 dash harnesses are prewired for the couple of ABS circuits within. I for one am curious enough to see the tally that it’s motivated this pointless project of mine 😝
 
Last edited:
The white crystals are a glycol hydrate; you might get the white crap out by baking it in the oven. It should decompose back into water and glycol, and evaporate, 250-275 should work. Those al pieces are anodized, and brass rust is green. Tin rust,lead rust and al rust are white. copper,brass and bronze are green. (bronze and brass are mostly copper.)
A few drops of battery acid in water would eat the corrosion, and brighten the brass.
 
XR7-4.6 said:
I did flush it out but I think by the nature of being a valve it probably retained some old fluid inside and it pulled in moisture. I did the same flush to the lines and they’re still mint.

The good news is I soaked them in penetrating oil for a few hours tonight and scrubbed the bores with a tiny brush and got rid of the vast majority of it, to the point I might actually roll the dice and run it. All the rubber is good and there’s no pitting where the external O rings seal against.

My biggest area of concern however is the internal seal on the valve itself, there’s definitely some pitting in that deep section but I’m not sure how it would effect brake performance, as there seems to be some deliberate controlled flow through there as the rubber seal has grooves(like a tire tread) to let high pressure brake fluid pass to begin with. In fact it’s the only possible way for pressure to go to the rear brakes; the master circuits enter from the top, there’s unrestricted flow to the front calipers from the sides and the rears on the bottom are physically separated by that treaded seal(controlled leak?) hydraulics aren’t my strongsuit so I’m probably huffing copioum somewhat but the only thing that acts on that spring is the rear brake circuit so… We’ll see. Right now I kind of trust what I have despite its wounds over another used one after tonight’s dissection.




Oh on the full topic of the thread at hand I also gutted the last remaining ABS wiring to the rear sensors! That’s actually a shitload of wire! I know it’s not going to be impressive in the grand scheme but I from the start intend to weigh the FULL wire + HCU + sensors of the ABS system to see what they add to this platform down to the ounce… minus the dashboard harness, since that’s a pain in the ass, marginal and ALL MN12 dash harnesses are prewired for the couple of ABS circuits within. I for one am curious enough to see the tally that it’s motivated this pointless project of mine 😝
Click to expand...

Doesn't hurt to try. The worst that would happen would be messed up biasing.
 
Grog6 said:
The white crystals are a glycol hydrate; you might get the white crap out by baking it in the oven. It should decompose back into water and glycol, and evaporate, 250-275 should work. Those al pieces are anodized, and brass rust is green. Tin rust,lead rust and al rust are white. copper,brass and bronze are green. (bronze and brass are mostly copper.)
A few drops of battery acid in water would eat the corrosion, and brighten the brass.
Click to expand...

I’ll definitely try that! It’s actually anodized aluminum, the gold color just makes it look brassy
 
Drained the oil while it's in the air waiting for fuel pump parts, going to put in a new FL820s. I bought a box of 12 fl820s in 2019, they were $4.19 each back then. Guess that was a good purchase since they are about 8$ each now.

Here is a picture of my fancy exhaust setup :LOL:... It's a Dynomax mid pipe, and muffler delete. IDK why these cars came with a mushed mid pipe from the factory?:unsure:

exhaust.jpg

Was going to change the exhaust setup, but decided to just get some new tips to replace the rusted ones. Maybe ill even be cheap and get the steel wool out and see if they clean up
 
Took the LSC for excercise. When I was parking at say 1 mph, the steering resisted a bit then froze up completely - the engine appeared to have just stopped. A check engine came on, I took the key out and started it again. The check engine light went away and I drove it home. Not sure what that was about
 
Kenz said:
Drained the oil while it's in the air waiting for fuel pump parts, going to put in a new FL820s. I bought a box of 12 fl820s in 2019, they were $4.19 each back then. Guess that was a good purchase since they are about 8$ each now.

Here is a picture of my fancy exhaust setup :LOL:... It's a Dynomax mid pipe, and muffler delete. IDK why these cars came with a mushed mid pipe from the factory?:unsure:

View attachment 10070

Was going to change the exhaust setup, but decided to just get some new tips to replace the rusted ones. Maybe ill even be cheap and get the steel wool out and see if they clean up
Click to expand...
Hey Kenz, take 20 min and some steel wool and polish up those pipes!

Cat back Exhaust.jpg
 
Today (actually yesterday) I ran codes on the car. I noticed that the idle was low after finishing the exhaust and it seems to be missing every once in a while at idle. the codes came back that the idle was correct (and has not been an issue after running the tester) and that I still have 137/173 codes and I bet its the injectors are just crap and dumping fuel into into the intake, or at least one or two are crap.
 
Followed up on @Grog6 ’s suggestion to cook out the corrosion so I threw them on my hot plate and it actually kinda worked! All that white shit is gone! Still plenty of corrosion in there but where the seals go actually looks smooth and clean, so I think I’ll be sending this proportioning valve. Gonna try to find new seals first though, they all look fine but better that than dump a quart of brake fluid on my cars virgin inner fenders!

IMG_6306.jpeg


White Lincoln said:
Today (actually yesterday) I ran codes on the car. I noticed that the idle was low after finishing the exhaust and it seems to be missing every once in a while at idle. the codes came back that the idle was correct (and has not been an issue after running the tester) and that I still have 137/173 codes and I bet its the injectors are just crap and dumping fuel into into the intake, or at least one or two are crap.
Click to expand...

It could be an exhaust leak too, if the O2s are getting outside air they’ll indicate lean and overfuel to compensate.
 
White Lincoln said:
Today (actually yesterday) I ran codes on the car. I noticed that the idle was low after finishing the exhaust and it seems to be missing every once in a while at idle. the codes came back that the idle was correct (and has not been an issue after running the tester) and that I still have 137/173 codes and I bet its the injectors are just crap and dumping fuel into into the intake, or at least one or two are crap.
Click to expand...
I had read in an article while researching mis-firing, the issue could be the coil, wires or plugs. I got to thinking that I was messing around the plug wires disconnecting and reconnecting my O2's so I went around and pushed all my plug wires in. I ran the car again and the mis-firing went away, but I do have a hesitation, slight, but if you listen, you can hear it. The idle is staying at 750 and the car does act up sometimes, but I blame age more than anything. :P

exhaust.jpg
 
Last edited:
Apparently the Focus wanted to join in on the fun of brake projects. Did only the left side in the summer and put off the right because it seemed… okey… and well I was lazy. Well it went bad bad this morning! Real bad!

IMG_6313.jpeg

IMG_6310.jpeg

Drove it home for 5 miles using the handbrake, when I was using the pedal it smelled like car fire

All fixed though. Gotta love the sight of fresh steel on a salty car

IMG_6308.jpeg
 
By the time you get home tomorrow that will no longer be fresh steel.
 
Kidd-7 said:
By the time you get home tomorrow that will no longer be fresh steel.
Click to expand...

I was almost tempted to spray the thing with header paint which I do do to the Cougar rotors which has preserved the areas the pads don’t touch, but the Focus is where I like to exercise lazy maintenance 😆
 
XR7-4.6 said:
Apparently the Focus wanted to join in on the fun of brake projects. Did only the left side in the summer and put off the right because it seemed… okey… and well I was lazy. Well it went bad bad this morning! Real bad!

View attachment 10086

View attachment 10087

Drove it home for 5 miles using the handbrake, when I was using the pedal it smelled like car fire

All fixed though. Gotta love the sight of fresh steel on a salty car

View attachment 10088
Click to expand...
sometimes things go that way..
 
White Lincoln said:
I had read in an article while researching mis-firing, the issue could be the coil, wires or plugs. I got to thinking that I was messing around the plug wires disconnecting and reconnecting my O2's so I went around and pushed all my plug wires in. I ran the car again and the mis-firing went away, but I do have a hesitation, slight, but if you listen, you can hear it. The idle is staying at 750 and the car does act up sometimes, but I blame age more than anything. :P

View attachment 10085
Click to expand...
Try resetting the eec, and let it relearn with all cylinders working.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top