1968 XR7-G Hertz Restoration by XR7-Gry

6 minute(s) of a 214 minute read

I have had a few people asking for updates on my XR7-G restoration, and here it comes
For the last 5 months my Cougar has been sitting under a cover and I have not done anything at all to it. The last thing I did last fall was to try to install a new vinyl top, and I screwed up totally and had to order a new one from WCCC.



Late November my near 10 years old Doberman got cancer and died and then we got an unusual long and strong winter making it kind of hard to get much done to the car itself.
That does not mean the xr7-G project has come to a halt. The winter is a good time to hunt for good parts on the internet. Also my rebuilt 428 engine block has arrived from the US.
And I have got a new puppy, a wonderful brown Doberman girl named Hera, which of course takes a lot of time

Regarding the engine I had the 390 GT heads rebuilt with new K-line stem bushings and the valve seats reconditioned. When I got them back from machining I installed 16 new valves and they were ready to be bolted on the engine block.




While searching the Internet for Cougar parts I was lucky and found a 1968 Cobra Jet C6 transmission for sale in Oregon. The seller was asking $500 so I figured I would just as well upgrade to this transmission instead of a regular C6. The seller was very helpful and delivered it to a transmission shop where it has been totally rebuilt with a few improvements, a new torque converter installed and finally it was bench tested before it was shipped to Norway. As you can see the drivetrain in my XR7-G will be a little more fun than I planned, but I think this will be a nice upgrade to the car.



And there is more to tell, but that will have to wait until later

July 17th, 2011

Finally here are some updates on my Cougar. As I have mentioned before this restoration takes directions I did not make plans for just by coincidences. While I was waiting for my C6 CJ transmission to arrive from the US, I stumbled across a set of date correct Cobra Jet cylinder heads and exhaust manifolds for my car. So even if the engine was built and ready to be installed in the car I decided to replace the 390GT parts with these parts to make it even more fun to drive.

When I bought the CJ heads I was told they had been rebuilt not long ago. It turned out to be true, but the job were far from the quality I expected so I had to take them to the machine shop and had the work done right this time.

Unfortunately the intake that came with the heads was for a 390GT so I had to start looking for a matching intake as well. Original CJ intakes are not easily found around here, but I knew that a local guy with a 58 Edsel had a CJ intake on the top of his FE engine so I called him asking if I could buy it back. He did not want to sell it, but if I was willing to give him an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake in exchange he was willing to give up the CJ intake. Fortunately I had a RPM intake laying on my loft....

While the heads were at the machine shop I also had the exhaust manifolds sandblasted and painted.



Here is the rebuilt CJ head standing beside the GT head I just had removed from the engine. It is easy to see which is which by the size of the valves.

July 17th, 2011

My new CJ heads had the holes for the smog system so I decided to try to find the parts to get a functional smog system back on the engine.
After a few searches on ebay and at some parts vendors I realized that this was not going to be cheap. In fact all correct smog parts are insane priced so I decided to build a smog system, but not to care about all the correct number matching stuff.
Not only the smog parts are expensive, I found out that almost anything for these engines cost more than I like to think about. And then I also found that my complete A/C set up from a 67 Mercury was wrong, so I had to get all those parts. Of course the brackets I had for the alternator was wrong as well. Oh well, I could have done it easier for myself on this by using most of the 67 parts I had, but for me some of the fun is to get things as correct as possible for the money I can afford to put into this.

In the first picture here is the transmission already installed in the car and the engien is ready to go in.



A few days later it looks like this. Of course there is a lot more work into this than what is shown in this picture. All semi gloss black parts have been painted, power steering pump has been rebuilt, and even the brake booster has been totally apart as it was leaking.
While I test installed the pulleys and belts I soon realized that something was wrong as the belts didn't fit. It turned out that the the crack pulley I have is from a regular 390, and that the correct pulley for a 390GT/428CJ is different. So far I have not been able to find the correct pulley so if you know about a pulley for a 428CJ with A/C with the number C8AE-6312-A I would be very interested in buying it.