Oops I did it again.

[cleatus12r]

Bought another Ford something.

It's almost a "sight unseen" situation since when I worked on it 4-5 years ago, the owner nor I had any intentions of it changing hands. He passed in January and his kids (early 60's) asked me if I wanted it since I had often mentioned their dad's awesome collection of cars.

I'll put up some pictures when I drag it home. It's a surprise for now what it is. It might become a stepfather-stepdaughter project car. Hard to speculate at this point, but she wanted me to drop her off in front of the school today.....in the '73 F100.

[cleatus12r]

1983 Thunderbird with a 302.

93000 miles. I haven't taken it off of the flatbed yet.

[cleatus12r]

I spent two days getting it diagnosed and running. This included gutting the A.I.R. system so I could get to the spark plugs and removing the airbox to clean the mouse nest out of the blower motor and evaporator.

5.0L throttle body EFI with EEC3. It has 93500 miles - all documented down to every fill-up since 50300 when he purchased it from the original owner in 1995. It's been parked since 2015 under a carport because it died and wouldn't restart. A $50 crankshaft sensor and a wire repair on the neutral start switch and it roared to life.

Here it is!

[Jackpine]

Neat old car, sir. I once owned a 75th Anniversary T-Bird that I bought new from the Ford Dealership in Tucson. It was a pretty car and I enjoyed driving it.

- Jack

[cleatus12r]

I just put my 3000th mile on this car. It has run flawlessly being my daily driver. I took the 7.3L Crown Vic off of the insurance when I started driving this....not looking back. It gets the same mileage but the fuel is cheaper (slightly.....if you can call O'biden's Russian gas "cheap").

Only a few small issues.
1. Cruise control servo position sensor was rusty from having a mouse nest built on top of it causing bad surge when activated. NOS servo from ebay for any late 70's - mid-80's car or truck fits with just a small wiring modification (add pigtail instead of having connector mounted to the servo). It's located in the left fender so not a 5-minute fix.

2. R12 AC system has a leaky compressor seal behind the clutch. I only use AC when the wife and/or kid are with me (which isn't often) since I prefer to have the windows down. I've been charging it with R134 when I know I will need to use it - works just fine for $8 every 3 weeks or so.

3. It sounds like a farm truck. The stock cam and the 2 into 1 3" exhaust with a turbo muffler sounds horrible. I made it to get rid of the 2" single that was kinked and rusted out...Stock cams sound horrible - gotta fix that.

4. Driver's window leaks air at the rear edge....can't seem to figure out how to remedy that.


Besides the 14 inch tires that are going away next spring in favor of some more sporty looking 15s that don't use hubcaps, I hope to repaint it with a more 80's -ish look. Unfortunately there are only a couple colors I can paint it that will go with the bright red interior.

[cleatus12r]

I bought some decent wheels and tires for it. The little 195/75R14s are 16 years old and were one of my big hangups while driving it. I was always waiting for a blowout.

I picked up some 15x7 Bassett D-hole wheels and some 235/60R15s. They're in the shed waiting for installation as I can't see putting them on the car just to let them sit on the ground for 4 more months.

I also grabbed a 1991 5.0HO engine from a neighbor. It was in his spec-class AC Cobra replica. Since he's not racing it anymore, he bought a 347" engine from Blueprint and sold me this 5.0 for $600.
I think that going from 130HP to 255HP will be pretty sweet. It's got forged pistons, all ARP fasteners, balanced, and has some custom ground roller cam that isn't bigger than stock other than a little more duration on the exhaust side....it dyno'd at 205-ish RWHP.

I'm pretty sure the CFI (Ford's archaic throttle body injection) is going to not like it at all so I think a 2150 Motorcraft carburetor and a Duraspark II box are going to have to be used.

[cleatus12r]

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I drove it in the shop Wednesday morning and yanked the smog-era turd out. I got the HO roller engine stuffed in. I should have it running later this morning. Who would have thought that I'd have to wait two days for a set of vehicle-specific radiator hoses and water pump for a 40 year old car that was so popular?

I'm going to see how badly it runs with the CFI. If it's unbearable, I'll put a carburetor on it...easy swap.


I got the wheels and tires on too. Looks pretty bad ass....even for still not having painted it.

[cleatus12r]

It runs.

I am STILL waiting on a water pump and radiator hoses. Those should be at NAPA in the morning.

Curiously, it will not idle with the EGR valve position sensor unplugged and the MAP sensor hooked to vacuum. It'll start and rev fine but with a vacuum signal over 10" and the EGR sensor out of the loop, it cuts fuel and dies. Sucking on the MAP hose and maintaining 10", it will idle and run.

So, the EGR position sensor is now plugged in and laying on the back of the intake manifold.

I had to order some exhaust manifold ball flanges since I'm running the HO tubular manifolds but I should be able to move it under its own power around noon tomorrow and get a paying job in the shop!