Project 1990 country squire resto/modification by andyfanshawe

15 minute(s) of a 418 minute read

Valve lapping in time.

Here's a first view of an inlet valve and the seat have i spent a few mins lapping it in

Now thats not a valve that has done 165k miles. These have been before.

Notice the milling marks on the head surface also. This has been skimmed before. No way am I going to risk having it skimmed again. This would be taking it too thin for the waterways. It checks out very well for flatness with no pitting or scoring at all.

Exhaust valve

Looking clean also. May have hit lucky with these heads!

11-13-2009

After numerous boring hours lapping valves in and degreasing surfaces and changing 2 core/freeze plugs, the passenger side head is ready for paint

Etch primer on

Heres a photo of the plate blocking the exhaust passage in the head for the old thermactor system

Finally in red

Then installed the harmonic damper and crank pulley. Looks good now!

11-18-2009

Finally got the heads on and torqued down!

Now I've got 20 head bolts rather than 19 and a sheared one!

Onto the intake:

Heres the filthy thing

Then it was stripdown time. 3 of the injectors wouldn't come out of the intake at all. It took an hour of persuasion to get them loose! Not sure if they'll work again though!!

Here it is ready for media blasting

Here it is degreased and media blasted ready for etch primer tomorrow

11-19-2009

Managed to etch prime the intake.

I am always amazed at what appears under the grease and oil and corossion.

These letters appeared:

Just to the left of the FORD logo is a circle with 1989 written in it. Really hard to see in the photo, but neat nevertheless!

Better get this engine together and finished and plan to get the frame removed asap.

11-23-2009

Final few engine jobs before we plan to get the frame down and out.

Heres the AC support rod primed before it goes black

Heres the intake coolant pipe painted black and the water pump pulley after 1 hour prep!

Installed on the engine. Poor photo-sorry! Doesn't do it justice. Chrome valve covers ordered.

Onto the exhaust manifold/headers. The studs are well rusted and I may as well change the 02 sensors so out they come. Sensors came out easily, but the studs wont. So, heres a procedure to guarantee their removal! Call is stud removal 101!!

Clamp in vice

Cut top of both studs off ..................

so I can get a deep reach hex socket on (14mm)

Warm around the stud with an acetylene torch (not too much though).........

and at the same time use a breaker bar and a bit of gradual persuasion. As soon as it starts to move, remove the heat and employ the good old 1/2" ratchet

Heres the manifold awaiting prepping for por15, with the threaded holes still intact

And heres the old studs.

Just got to order the new ones now!

Now the interesting bit starts.

The frame will be removed with the car outside the house-half on the road and half on the pavement! I'm on a very quiet road, so should get away with it!! All work to be done outside!

The plan is to support the transmission (like this).....................

raise the car up on 4 railway sleepers under the wheels, remove the trans and prop and fuel tank (my Wife wants the fuel!). Remove all seats to loose as much weight as possible. remove battery and anything else that can be removed easily to save weight.

Then design and build a cradle that will sit on uneven ground to hold the car aloft. I'll post up the design soon. Then remove steering intermediate shaft, rear axle and front suspension (may be difficult and dangerous with the weight of the engine and trans not there). Pull the frame out, put it on the garden on stands (got to work outside you see), strip it of any pipes etc, cut out and weld up any corrosion, get it media blasted and paint.

Then move back to the shell and replace the rocker panels and inner rockers with fresh steel-paint and rustproof. Media blast any corrosion that will be difficult to get to with the frame on, then reinstall the frame, all suspensioncomponents with new bushes, and all running gear. Fire engine up, and then strip out the dash and passenger front door. repaire stress cracks on upper hinge area and paint. weld up all locks and handles, remove all wood effect stickers and drive the bodyshop and get it painted. Tow bar fitted, stainless exhaust designed and fitted, glass limo tinted, stereo replaced by mp3/hard drive one, and we are cruizin!

All before the end of next april!!! Car shows to get to!!

11-26-2009

Heres a box of injectors waiting to go off for ultrasonic cleaning. I wont do this until the engine is going to go back in because of the risk of sticking pintles after cleaning and lpng term storage. Oh, and a couple of O2 sensors.

Heres the remnants of the exhaust header studs. Into the bin we go.

Heres the design of the cradle that will sit under the rockers and support it while the frame is removed. May put 1 more under the front and another under the rear, but with slightly different design.

I plan to build this in 2 weeks and get it under and the frame out by the start of my xmas vacation. Media blasted, modified, painted and back under 2 weeks later!!

All working outside-in the lovely UK xmas weather.

11-28-2009

I'm now fed up of mucking about with the engine and bits, I can finish that off when the weather is so bad that I can't work on the frame.

In the meantime, prep for frame removal.

While tidying up to create some space, I dug out the old exhaust system that was on the car

As you can tell, the cats are still on it, but there is no support for the exhaust except for the 2 studs on each side where they bolt to the headers! Thats a lot of weight and leverage.

I now need the car up in the air on safe stands so i can remove the fuel tank and transmission and driveshaft. So onto railway sleepers it goes.

This is where the car will stay even when the frame comes off! I've warned the neighbours already!

There's loads of fuel in the tank so I used my power probe to run the fuel pump via the fuel pump test circuit connector on the LH inner fenderwell

Heres a pipe I connected from the fuel line to the tank of my daily driver. 20 mins later and the tank is dry.

As soon as the floor dries out a bit, I will remove as much as I can from the car to cut down the weight, but still leave it looking decent so as not too attract too much attention.

Heres a first view of a frame to body bolt, nut and washer!

11-29-2009

Pouring down today, so couldn't do much outside. So, I had a look at the seized AC compressor.

Had to pull the field coils off with a puller

after removing a sad looking hub

This is the view when it was removed (or when part of it came loose!)

Don't think I can fix that!

And, just to add insult to injury, when the centre shaft of the compressor is turned it is really rough. So thats the end of that then!

Put that to one side for the moment and its onto the power steering pumpcleanup and bracket paint.

Heres the pulley being removed 

And with it off

Clean up and paint time next.

12-3-2009

As promised, prepped and painted the power steering pump (red) and bracket (silver).

Got home from work today and it was actually dry but very cold (3 degrees). But I can easily cope with that as long as I stay dry, So, underneath and remove the transmission. And, boy was that heavy. The heaviest trans I have ever shifted. Especially on my own. Couldn't even take a photo since I was a bit busy and manily covered in trans fluid! And I had to cut the top line through with a hacksaw because I couldn't shift it. I am going to replace them with kunifer 10 anyway.

While I was under there I had a quick look and photo of the frame on the passenger side rear near the axle. And I'll tell you, it is rusty!

Heres the end of the trans x member

So removing the frame is a damn good idea before it is too late!

Fuel tank out next, then seats, then fabricate the support frame and get it all supported under the rockers and its down with the frame.

More photos to come.

12-5-2009

Onwards and upwards then. Prepping for frame removal.

Fuel tank removal next.

Does anyone else have this build up of water in the fuel filler neck opening?

By the way, how does the gas tank filler neck come out of the opening? Won't go out forwards or backwards!!

Anyway, after not much struggle at all, the tank gave way

Bit of a rusty mess, but we'll see if it cleans up.

Heres the straps and pins-also rusty

I received the deox c rust removal crystals in the post a couple of days ago, so lets try it out. Supposedly amazing stuff. See Bilt-Hamber Laboratories - Corrosion Removal - Deox-C for full impressive details.

Heres the bottle

Pouring into a bucket of hot water

Heres the rusty power steering pulley before it goes in

And here it is in the mixture

Leave it for a couple of days and I'll post the results.

Heres a photo of the rusty frame now its visible without the gas tank being there.