Hi: I live in WI and recently purchaed two wagons 1983 Custom Cruiser Woody 1987 Custom Cruiser I drive around town in them with the kiddies and am planning a Route 66 jaunt next spring. I bought the woody first and then ran into the 87 - it was in such good condition that I had to buy it. I plan on removing the third row seat from the woody and putting it in the 87. Anyone with tips or tricks?? I will be selling the 83 Woody shortly as space is tight and as we all know these things dont "scrunch up" when you put them away. Any ideas on where best to sell the woody? I do not want it ending up as a derby car!! The 90 year old lady that had it could no longer drive and hated to see it go. Its marron - interior is mint. Just very light rust starting THe 87 was babied its whole life and has 80,000 original miles Talk to you soon Mike Wisconsin
to the wagon train, cc. I'm from WI too and we also share the same name. You must have bought that 83 in Port Washington. I looked at that car...if that's the one you got, and I'm sure it is, you got a good deal on it. Post up some pix of those wagons...we love to see pix.
Cool. How much of it are you planning to drive? As I understand the current state of Route 66, most of the best parts that still remain are in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Are you planning to head that far from Wisconsin?
Route 66 May sound adventerous but I would like to make it as far out west as possible - have you ever done that trek? I want the kiddies to see the WEST in a WAGON!
I have been on a small part of it, mostly in Arizona. It's Arizona and California where there are the longest stretches of the highway still driveable, although you're certainly not driving on 1930s or 1940s pavement. But along some of these stretches, particularly in California, there's not really a lot to see other than the desert. When the interstate highways went in, the towns along the old Route 66 died. In many areas, I-40 through New Mexico, Arizona, and California actually went right over the old pavement, so all that's left are the small sections that went through the various cities along the way. Drive through those towns, like Winslow, Holbrook, Williams, Seligman, and Kingman, Arizona, and you can drive on what was at one time US 66. In many of these towns, it's the "business route" off of the nearby interstate. The same is true in New Mexico, Texas, and other states it went through. It's actually very difficult to drive on any length of the old pavement in the eastern states through which it ran. The various websites about the route say things like "look to your west as you are passing Exit 145 to see a small section of the old pavement" or "exit here and turn left to drive on two miles of the old pavement, but it dead ends" or "it's in disrepair" and things like that. There's no long, continuous stretches of the highway anymore, except in a few places in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Pretty much every town along the old route celebrates the fact in some way, so there's lots of signs and it's easy to find the old stretches of highway as they pass through the towns. For example, here's a photo of a storage tank in Kingman, Arizona I took on trip there earlier this summer. Not too subtle, is it. Here's an old 1930's era bridge that was left in place when the new bridge was built next to it. The old one was not torn down, but you can't drive on it, even though it looks to be in pretty good shape. The new highway is to the left. This photo was taken about 10 miles northeast of Seligman, Arizona where the route veers to the north of I-40 and then curves back south to Kingman. It's a nice 60-ish mile stretch of the old highway (called Arizona 66) that can be driven with a few old attractions to see along the way. Here's a photo from a couple hundred feet before the bridge. You can see the old pavement here. Certainly not driveable, and fences wouldn't let you, anyway, but you can walk on it. Also keep in mind that route 66 itself changed over the years. For example, in New Mexico, prior to 1937, it actually veered north and went through Las Vegas (New Mexico) and Santa Fe, then came south through Albuquerque and turned west south of town. In 1937 it was realigned and went straight through Albuquerque, bypassing Santa Fe altogether. Some websites refer to "pre-1940" and "post-1940" eras, but those are very general dates, and the road changed its route many times in small ways between Chicago and LA over the years. So you sometimes have to decide which era of Route 66 you want to try to follow. You can find some of the old attractions and motels along the way, if you look carefully and know where to look. A route 66 guidebook would be very handy to have. Many attractions are now abandoned and falling into disrepair or long gone altogether, but some along the business routes and so forth are still going. By the way, I have a Custom Cruiser myself, but from the first era of them (1973, to be exact). Here's a picture.
I checked the Fisher Body Manual and the whole load area needs to come apart. The load floor section behind the second seat needs to come out to access the screws that hold the third seat module in place. Some of the other screws appear to be under the rubber gasket that goes around the edge of the module, below the cover. I suspect you'll want to remove the side panels as well. Note that you also need to transfer the seat belts and the release cable and handle assembly for the seatback of the third seat. It locks in the upright position and there's a handle and cable to release it.
Remember how the yellow schoolbus seats were held down with a galvanized loop? Many of the original 3rd seats were like that, 8 hex screws and done! This sounds like brain surgery. Another reason to love my Fox wagon. Not that fullsized Ford wagons are any simpler, of course. Great explanation Joe! Even I, a diehard Fox man, could work my way through it.
Good info, as usual, joe. I had heard that adding the jump seat to a non jump seat wagon was a lot more work than simply bolting it in. Your post pretty much confirms that. Another thing....I have ALWAYS purchased the FSM for any car I have or have ever had. BUT...I never actually heard of the Fisher Body Manual....is that different than the factory chassis manual?? If so, I have found a new thing to get for my cars.
Yes, it is. The Fisher Body Manual covers the parts that Fisher was responsible for. Typically, that includes the sheet metal aft of the firewall, roof, glass, doors, seats, and trunklid/tailgate. For example, the FBM covers the adjustment of the two-way tailgate on my Custom Cruiser. The FBM also has body wiring info, including power windows, power seats, and power door locks.
Thanks, Joe...I don't mean to hijack this thread but...where do I find the Fisher Body Manual? Is this something that can be found on eBay too?
Yup. That's where I got all of mine. Resto houses often sell CD-based copies, but I always prefer orginal paper copies. I hate lugging the laptop into the bathroom...
I know what you mean, but I've gone the CD route with the manuals for my '02 Dodge Dakota and my daughter's '05 Nissan Sentra. Why? Because the things are so big now. The Sentra manual is over 3,500 pages long. The Dakota manual is 2,300 pages long. The CD version of these manuals are less than $10 on ebay, and, once you pay for the thing, you get a link from the vendor and can download it immediately. I then just store it on my computer, search it when I'm working on a particular problem, and just print out the two or three pages that relate to that problem. It's actually nice because I can put that piece of paper right in front of me when working, and I don't care if I get it dirty, spill something on it, tear it, or anything else because I can alway print out another one. I don't know where these CD versions come from, but the two I have are very high quality. They're most certainly not made by a guy taking the paper version and scanning all the thousands of pages one at a time. You would be able to tell as the pages might be tilted or poorly scanned from time to time. Not so with these. They're in color and include the cover of the manual.
Well, CSMs for newer cars apparently are only available on CD now. CDs didn't exist when our older cars were new, so you know THOSE aren't factory authorized. I've had bad results buying one from ebay for a 1986 BMW. This WAS a case of some guy making bootleg copies using the office scanner with document feeder. Sections were left out, quality was bad, pages were out of order, etc.
