Workin on the Wagon and One thing leads to another!

I'm not sure but back in the day Mercury's were a little better equipped than Fords. Maybe Zephyr's had stainless that would be a bolt on for the Fairmont.

 

tbird, they aren't Canada Geese, they're Quill or Snow Geese. Apparently, those geese are a major problem in both Canada and the US, too!


http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/snowprob/index.htm

http://www.mb.ec.gc.ca/nature/migratorybirds/dc00s04.en.html

But this is a Canadian Floor (That white stuff is our early December 2006 Snow. Brrrr!):

 

Yaba - Daba - Doo!

 

man tbird them floors is nice!!!!!!!! thats what i like to see,,,,,,and you know i dont know what them birds are but they taste like chicken yum yum

 

My neighborhood used to be made up of many Ukrainian and Polish immigrants and refugees from WWI and WWII. There's still many of the old grannies living around here. Our neighbour right back of us is a spry old 84-year old lady (they call themselves Babas - Uke for granny) who buys one goose every year and boils and save the goose-grease for cold medicine. I have a bandsaw, so she buys her goose and has me cut into pot-sized chunks while its frozen, and then does her medicinal trip with it. Well one time, she came over with some fresh home-made goose soup. Even after getting the goose fat off, it was still too much.

She's a fiesty old girl, but she prides herself on her cooking skills, so who am I to say anything but "Um-um good! "

But she told us which of the local mennonite farmers have the best range-fed chickens, pigs, fresh eggs and milk, cream and home-churned butter. I'll tell you that no store can match them. I mean fresh! Yummie to the tummy!

But Goose? Not high on my list. You must have a super recipe to cook them well-travelled birds. Obviously, when God said "Go Forth and Multiply" they were using Exponential Math!

 

TBird! Have you seen this Cougar site! I've got those seats, and I'm drooling for those bumpers!

Very nice!

http://www.americangranada.com/rolands.html

 

Ah... drooling less - I found some Cougar Wagons (1981 and '82).
If the VIN has a 78 in it, that's a wagon. Other Fords use a 71 to ID a wagon:
1981 Cougar Wagon VIN: 1MEBP77B2BG621656
4dr- B=1981
1982 Cougar Wagon VIN: 1MEBP783XCG607027
SW- C=1982
http://www.gmv-registry.com/

More Cougar links:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/bkeevil/mercurymonarch/links.html

I found one with a 'rusty' bumper, but that's because the car was parked under a drain where the trunk lid went rusty and stained the stainless steel bumper:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2321679

 

You're right. The pesky things are cross-breeding with the Canada Geese and their dumb little brains have them migrating to the same spots as the Canada geese! Who knows where the wild goose goes?

If you ever go to Vancouver, Canada. Cross over to North Vancouver via the Lions Gate bridge - they actually have a Goose Crosswalk! And they take their time waddling across, especially in the early rush hour, when the fresh dew worms are still coming out - a juicy breakfast snack. um, um!

 

Final Update

I'm tired. My back hurts. But I got those pesky valve stem seals replaced Friday. Friday morning I still had eight more to do. I did have to pull the carb off to get it out of the way. It was the main cause of having the #3 intake valve lifter pop out of the hole. The intake valves were a bugger. They have an extra part which the books say is a valve rotation thing. The spring compressor wouldn't compress it with the spring so I added a large washer to get it to compress with the spring in order to get the keepers out. What a pain. The engine's all back together, running well, cleaned the spark plugs and regapped them. No more smoke from the exhaust on start up or hard acceleration.

I even installed a new gasket forward of the catalytic converter to eliminate a problem leak there.

I should be good to go for the 2008 emissions test which now includes failure for smoke.

I think I'll take a break for a while on the ole buggy. It's going back up to 107-109* again this week.

 

My boss has visited up there and somewhere there is also a bridge for the elk to cross and I've seen pictures. The elk bridge gets busy at times.

 

Hey! I noticed that the Grenadas have the same front end as the Cougars for 81-82. They were popular up here!

 

You've probably been up to Northern California to see the big redwoods, right? Well, on Vancouver Island (take a car ferry from Seattle), drive up through to the Cathedral Forest, there's a 1,600 year old tree there that you can drive through. Then about 100 feet north, you can park your car, get out and lay down on the pine needle forest floor and look straight up. You can barely see the sky, because the trees are so thick and tall! Amazing! And talk about wildlife crossings! They cross whereever they want, on that island, but the main highway on Vancouver Island is nothing but Deer and Moose crossings!