What have you done to your wagon lately? (Let's keep the thread going!)

I put it on jack stands (2 on each side) and took the rear wheels off to inspect the brakes. I have no idea what issues I'm supposed to be seeing but I'm going to replace the springs and whatnot, it's pretty cheap doing so.

 

I'd be carefull about replacing the ones that are on there with "cheap springs". You never know where they originate from, these days. If the brake shoes retract, through visually inspecting them with the drum off, I'd leave the springs alone. Time doesen't have any influence on spring performance. I'd focus more on the condition of the self adjuster mechanisms, instead

 

The Fury had recently developed a shake while driving at certain MPH. I thought it might be a wheel out of balance, so I had that checked out. No problem there. I speculated that perhaps some of the suspension components were the culprit. I had most of the front end widgets replaced. Still had the shake. Then I thought that perhaps it was the old tires, maybe one of them had separated and was causing the issue. So I bought four new tires. Still didn't solve the problem. I had the brakes looked at and we thought that we discovered the problem when we found that one of the pads had come loose. Replaced the pad and took it for a spin. Still had the shake.
Finally, upon close inspection it was determined the the drum was no longer true. It wasn't able to be turned anymore, so I ordered two new drums. I figured might as well replace both of the fronts at the same time.



Nice shinny new bits:



I'll paint the new drums at some point I think. I like the way it looks with the drum fading into the background instead of blending in with wheel.



So I drove it to work today and there is still a small vibration it feels like, but nothing close to the shake that was happening before. I think this may have solved the issue.
Finger's crossed.

 

Detail done!!!!!!

 

That's nice! And that Frigidaire compressor is a great candidate for R134a conversion.

 

What's that new refrigerant cost, over there? Over here, they want big money for it. R12 was cheap

 

R12, if you can get it, is expensive and requires a license. R134a is fairly inexpensive and no license needed.

 

Here, they want around $450 for 30 lbs: https://www.amazon.de/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...qmt=b&hvbmt=bb&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4qv5mddu17_b

 

That's about the going rate for R134a here, and it works to $15 wholesale. I'd imagine it would go for 50-100% of that, retail.

 

I'm looking into an R134 conversion for the F-100 and eventually the Fury. The conversion is going to be the expensive part.
The refrigerant isn't hard to come by.

 

R12 is very hard to find and bloody expensive. Soon as R134a came on the market in '93, there was some 1.3 million pounds on the market. by '00, just under a million, but by 2013, the last year I was employed at a shop, less than 150K pounds, and almost nobody was buying it at $120/pound.

 

I fixed a short in my AC control head that caused the fuse to blow. I now have working cold air again!

 

Recently, I just cleaned out the rear brakes and adjusted them a bit stupidly loose then put everything back together and a few days later I drove the Mercury to Walmart and back. I may have to re-adjust the brakes to be tighter but at least for now they didn't make the whole car vibrate.

 

Visited the GM Engine plant in Tonawanda New York for a private tour with some guys from our car club today. Took my Custom Nomaro Wagon and got a free power wash from Mother nature. Despite the heavy rain when we reached Buffalo we had a great tour and saw some amazing technology that they use for manufacture and assembly of a variety of GM engines.

 

What did the GM engineering weenies say about your Nomaro?