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

Just a street car for fun. I take it to a couple of shows. I may take it to the local 1/8 mile one of these days,

 

Replaced all the springs in the rear drums. I'll get a spring hook before I do that again, hoo whee. I'll be replacing both fluid cylinders but I left them for now.

 

I can use the proper tools, or use a large pair of needlenose Vise-Grips. Oh, and a recent trick someone showed me, works really good: use a cheap ratchet strap to hold the shoes together, against the pivot and the adjuster. If done right, it frees up your hands to manipulate the parts.

 

When I was working on my Ranchero last year, that's when I found out about using the strap, because the darned shoes were totally frustrating me by not staying in place as I tried to hold them AND install the parts.

 

When doing brakes, always remember that the short shoe faces front.

 

Yup, "Big to the back" is how I learned it.

 

78 ltd the clock stopped working after fixing it twice. I found this small tach that fit the hole perfectly.

 

^^^ That ups the performance quotient considerably......

 

Adds five HP, don't'cha know? What sucks is I have a clock that works that would've fit there. But the tacho's cool.

 

It was only 12.00 and I did not cut anything. It does seem faster

 

Well, I have done quite a bit to the old dark cherry roadmaster this fall to help get it through another nasty midwest winter.
1) patch up and repair the front wheel housings to keep the parts in and water out. (computer module and battery where falling through)
2) new front brakes
3) new front shocks
4) new tires
5) hood paint was cracking and peeling so bad I ground down and painted low gloss black.
6) Did the same with roof between moon roof glass and windshield
7) repaired driver side rear well housing ( again real bad letting in a lot of water)
8) did the quick fix to shut off the pass key light (put a resistor in the circuit)
9) made the PO430 engine code go away too (so check engine light stays off)
10) replaced stuck open thermostat
11) put in a small 8 in subwoofer box to give the sound system a little thump.
12) changed oil and checked steering rack and greased.

Should be ready now for winter (I hope). I do need to take care of a broken seat spring in the passenger side front seat. If you sit on the edge of the seat it will poke through and tear your pants and cut you a nasty cut. The car now has 317,000 miles on the clock it still runs pretty good but the body is falling apart so bad that I know this will probably be it's last full year on the road. Most folks would have let this car go a long time ago. But after all the work I know it can safely go down the road with no trouble no matter how rough it looks. I used to call this car the "rollin sofa" now it's the "big ugly" But it runs good and will take me on my 55 mile round trip to work and home for the next 6 months plus some other small local trips.

 

took the Volvo around the block on its own power. SUPER sketchy!!! Needs a bunch of wheel bearings, brakes etc...

 

The life of a motor head.

 

Dropped the the rolling shell of the wagon off at the body shop today. Can't wait to see it with new paint.

 

I took the 90 Grand Marquis out, filled it up with E0 (90 octane) and now it's ready for winter. Now I've switched to using E0 in this car so long as it's not driven much; there will be little fuel degradation and corrosion in the fuel system.