I've made the leap from wagon lurker to wagon owner

I dug out my Factory Service Manual and I'm going to give it a deeper going over tonight. It shows some pretty good diagrams for getting it out and back in again. I'm just nervous about driving it, even in and out of the garage, with that clutch swinging around like a New Years noisemaker. The manual, of course, is based upon replacing the compressor. It shows how to get the clutch off but doesn't say what will happen if the car is run without it. Since the clutch sits on the compressor bearing (which is undoubtedly destroyed now) and is pulled in electromagnetically, I don't see any reason that I couldn't remove the clutch of of the front of the compressor pulley and run without it until I get it fixed. The only hitch, in my mind, is if the bolts don't hold the clutch to the pulley but instead hold the clutch and pulley to the compressor body.

I'm also not sure yet about the legislation. I'm assuming that I stand a pretty good chance of venting refrigerant when removing the compressor which should make it a done deal and I'll have to take it somewhere instead of doing it myself.

 

Yank the fuses so the AC clutch can't kick in. or disconnect it.

I got the refill kits from CTC with the gauge, and cleaner and the sealant sprays (like about $55 for a 3 lb refill) Mine was already empty anyway.

 

Interestingly enough, I found a blown fuse in the engine compartment box labelled AC. Not sure why the AC was working at all. I think I'll try pulling the clutch off and remove all of the AC fuses. If that will let me drive it while I'm figuring out whether or not I can or want to replace the compressor I'll be happy.

 

Well, the wagon's on the road again. After that A/C clutch fell off on the way back from Barrie I had put it in the garage until I decided what to do about it. I wasn't able to get the clutch off myself so I decided to take it in to have the clutch removed. I want to take out the seats and carpeting this year to get it all cleaned and address the rust on the floor panels before it gets serious. I wasn't comfortable pulling the wagon in and out with it the way it was. I found that if I centered the clutch plate just before starting the car, it would stay centered until the next time that I shut the car off and gravity would cause it to fall so that helped me get it to the mechanic. I pulled the wagon out and noticed a pretty fair sized puddle under the car but I had the car running and didn't stop to analyze it.

It turned out that the compressor oil, and apparently the refrigerant had all leaked out while it was in the garage. I found a line down the driveway when I got home from the oil pouring out as I drove away. I opted to fix the whole shebang. New A/C parts all around! Compressor, condenser, dryer, etc. I don't need to tell anyone here that it was an unpleasant bill. At least this time I had a choice about whether or not to repair it. It was a long walk from the service counter to the wagon thinking about the size of that bill. Just driving that wagon for the 10 minutes it took to get home again was enough to boost my spirits. I really love this car!

It'll be a lean summer for us this year, but when we don't have cash for anything else, we can pack lunch in a cooler and go for long drives in a sweet wagon with a frosty interior. :2_thumbs_up_-_anima. The Mrs. got conned into going to Mexico to attend her sister's wedding. I don't like the sister enough to go with her.(Just kidding, we couldn't afford for both of us to go and I didn't want to leave Cleo with anyone so I'm staying home with her. ...we've spent half as much on attending her sister's wedding as we spent hosting our own!)I'll attend the pre-wedding wedding tomorrow before they go to Mexico next week for the wedding. That trip and the wagon bills mean that we won't be doing much this summer. Luckily, the Mrs will have used up most of her holiday time going to Mexico so she won't have any days left for anything else anyway.

My folks love to shake their head about "how much Kevin has had to put into that car". Frankly, when I do the math (...and I do!!), I've spent less money in repairs on this car than I did on last one PLUS I paid 5 times more for the Grand Marquis than I did for the Buick once you factor in interest on the car loan vs having bought the Buick outright. I'm still well ahead of the game, it's just unfortunate that all of these repairs have happened so close together, that's all. (I'm choosing to ignore that the repair totals for the Grand Marquis were over a 5 year period while I've only had the wagon 7 months. ) I've also been able to get one heck of a lot of enjoyment out of doing repairs myself. Not sure I can put a dollar value on that.

 

Congrats with your nice ride!

 

Well, The Mrs just left for Mexico with her Mom and her husband. I'm officially a bachelor for the next week. I booked a week off of work and I'm planning on spending as much of it with my wagon as possible.

I just received my order of Rust Bullet so I'm going to remove the seats and carpeting to get a coating on the floor pans. The seat frames and mounts are pretty badly rusted too so I'll get those re-coated while I have them out. I think I'll lay out the carpeting on the garage floor and give it a good going over with a steam cleaner. I'm hoping to find the problems with my power seat wiring while it's all apart too, although it seems pretty likely that I'll find that in the door jamb and not under the seat. I also noticed some rust starting on the top of the rear wheel wells but only from the inside. Not entirely sure how that happened but I guess I'll take out the fender trim in the cargo area too. I suspect it's due to just how wet the floors and carpeting were when I got the wagon. I bet it was like a steam room inside the car on a good hot day. Hopefully I can stay on track and get all of these things done without wandering off track when I discover oddities while tearing it all apart.

Now if only I can avoid getting called in to work for the next week.

 

I got started on my floor work yesterday. I thought I would put together a quick description on getting seats out for anyone who's interested.

I started with the back seat as I figured it would be easier with the rear area freed up when I started work on the front seats. Having never removed seats from a car before I was blown away by just how little trouble it was. The back seat is held in place with some hooks that are on the elevated portion of the floor where the back seat sits.


Removing the rear seat is just a simple matter of pushing on the back seat at the lower edge. Shoving the seat towards the back of the car will allow the seat to pop free. Once the seat is out, the seatbelt bolts will need to be undone and the seat will simply lift out. A large size Torx bit is required to undo the bolts.

The front seats are bolted directly to the floor and covered up with some plastic caps. This is also where you'll find those french fries that so often disappear in the seats. It appears my wagon's previous owner was someone less than meticulous.



With those plastic caps removed, the bolts holding the seats to the floor will be exposed and can be removed.

I was anxious to get all of these seat brackets out and get them all cleaned up as is evidenced in the below picture.



With the bolts removed, the seats can be rocked backwards in order to get at the power seat connectors. In my case, disconnecting one electrical plug allowed the seat to be lifted out the door.



With the seats removed, the door sill and pillar trim can be removed to allow the carpeting to be removed. ...and you have enough room for a barn dance.

 

My intention with removing the seats and carpeting was to clean up the rust on the floor pans. When I did some wiring repairs a few months back I noticed that the pans were starting to rust. I picked up some Rust Bullet and was going to clean the pans up and seal them.

Unfortunately, once I got the carpet pulled up I found several holes in the floor. The undercoating had gotten wet at some point and has stayed that way, gradually rusting out the pans.

I took the car down to the local body shop to have the pans repaired and got to work cleaning the carpeting and cleaning up the seat mounting brackets.

I'm still battling with trying to get the carpeting clean, it's really a mess, but I'm making some good headway with the seat brackets.

Some of you may recall me mentioning a few posts back that I was really impressed with a product called EvapoRust. This stuff really works well. I figured I would post up some photo evidence of just how great this stuff is. I disconnected the drive gears from one side of the power seat assembly to work on it one side at a time. The seat frame was really in bad shape. I gave it just a quick pass with a wire brush to remove the scaling and set it to soak in EvapoRust for a while.

Here's photo of the piece that I've worked on sitting beside the one that still needs to be done.



A little bit of priming and paint and I'm almost ready to reinstall it.

 

I've seen a few detailing videos describing this same ordeal for other vehicles. I have to admit the Roadie makes it very simple. I hope that rust stays away. If not, maybe a pair of seat tracks from a southern vehicle would be a good find!

I'll be doing the same on my Torino here shortly. I took the lazy way of removing the carpet. Grab a torn portion and pull hard, then throw it away, then yank on some more and throw it in the trash, then fish out the pieces from behind the trim and under the seat and dispose of it.

I'm going to measure some CV/GM/TC carpets and see if I can cheat and use one of those for $25 or so from a junkyard rather than spend $140 on a new set from eBay or $190+ from more reputable places. If it can get me by for awhile it means it's a Ford part and it'll last longer anyway and I might just pull another set if it ever gets too bad. This will also give me an excuse to try and fit a dark blue vinyl 88-91 CVPI bench. Might work. The back seats are tougher to fit to the frames but they can be done. Might look better than a $550 set from Dearborn!

 

The oven-baked painting system (Can't recall the word) would keep the seat brackets purty and rust free for longer time. Andy got a local to do his wheels for $15 each. Those brackets would be less. I've heard you can do it in the oven, when you know the wife is out for a whole day.

Occupant, what other Ford shares the Torino floorpan? Cougar? At least Ford used the same carpet colours for most models in each model year, back then.

 

Yup...that EvapoRust is great stuff, Wiz.
This is a great pictorial. It should help many who want to take their seats out for any reason.
I think Norm is referring to powder coating and it is a good process. Not sure you would need to do those brackets that way...depends on how particular you are, I guess. If you have a cheap source to have it done it couldn't hurt, though. The process gives a harder coat than just painting the part. On those brackets I would likely just do as you did and do a good prime & paint job with quality products. Unless I had a cheap powder coat source.

 

Powder Coating! Thanks Mike.

CRS always creeps in when I search my mental dictionary for that coating system. Maybe I should powder my nose and try it on the beach. Worked for Rudolf!

I think I posted some DIY article links about doing this in the oven. If the parts are small enough, it might be worth it to get an old used electric oven and hook it up in the garage, buy the powder coating and do up all the usual rusty suspects!

Here's a few, that I just found:
http://www.powderperfect.com/diy.asp

http://www.alternatorparts.com/powder_coating_main_page.htm

http://www.fourwheeler.com/howto/129_0612_do_it_yourself_powder_coating/index.html

 

If I had a dollar for all the CRS times I have anymore I would be a billionaire, Norm!

 

I put those in the Memory Bank, just can't find any interest payers! I lost the list, somewhere.

 

I pondered powder coating them but I think the tolerances on the three pivoting pieces of the power seat rails are too tight. Not only would I have to pop out all of the rivets to get it done, the coating would likely wear at the pivot points. Even the paint scraped off once I had it all reassembled. When it comes right down to it, I didn't figure it was worth the cost of powder coating and taking it apart, cleaning and recoating it was kinda fun anyway.