Hello all; the TMH Chicago Cat project

Cougar Community The Project Forum
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First off to get the car running again, hot wire it. Get an aligator clip lead and run it from the battery side post of the starter solenoid over to the + side of the ignition coil. You can use the key to start the car, but to kill it you have to disconnect the wire.

Next, on an XR7 the tach in in series with the ignition. That means that the power to the coil passes through the tach. There are two wires coming out of the back of the tach: one each male and female bullet connectors, the wires are only about 6 to 8 inches long. To get to the wires you need to remove the ash tray. You will need a very short stubby screw driver or a right angle driver to get the one on the left side. Simply unplug the tach and then plug the male lead going to the tach, into the female lead going away from the tach. This takes the tach out of the circuit. If the problem is fixed, then you know you need to repair or replace the tach. Usually all you have to do is to touch up the solder connections. IF this doesn’t fix the problem you need to verify that you are getting 12 volts out of the ignition switch during both start and run.

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Here’s a simplified picture of the tach wiring.

If your tach is burnt out, you could try to by pass it. Just disconnecting the tach won’t help.

Please don’t interpret my previous post as “RTFM”. I was trying to be helpful.

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do you have a tilt steering? if it’s a bit out of alignment, if it’s not locked straight, it won’t start up.

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BINGO! Thanks all for your help and especially Bill for walking a noob through it.

I skipped the hotwire part and went straight to bypassing the tach. Worked like a charm, fired right up and kept on running.

I measured the resistance across the tach and it comes up as an open circuit. So, fingers crossed that it’s just refreshing some solder connections which I’m pretty well versed in.

Driving with the tach bypassed, is there anything wrong with doing that for any length of time? Like, several hours of driving over the course of days, is that ok? From what I’ve read the resistance of a properly functioning tach is very low, but then again so is the resistor wire, right? So I’m concerned about changing the loading of the coil by any significant amount.

Now the question is, to work on the tach… I gotta pull the dash, right? It’s overdue anyway, I need to get a better understanding of what all is going on back there already. So I guess this is my cue.

For pulling the tach, and I assume the dash, should I go to the shop manual, or a thread here or on the site which shall not be named, or somewhere else? As usual I’m much more comfortable jumping into something like this informed rather than just trying to plow my way through. :slight_smile:

Oh, and no tilt steering here, vacuum-based or otherwise. Just a plain old straight column.

Thanks again so much guys, you are awesome.

Oh and holy crap can a nice clean car get covered in stuff after a half day of sitting outside? Here’s a pic showing how much pollen congregated on her after less than 24 hours. Can you tell where I already used the California Duster and where I didn’t?

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Glad that worked for you!

Dash removal, Shop Manual…:thumbup:…fairly straightforward on a Standard, though. (Your XR7 is probably a bit different!)

Pollen…don’t you hate it?? My car had a nice yellow-green tinge to it a few weeks ago!

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'67-'68 instrument clusters come out easily,…a few screws(don’t forget the one on the left face of panel) and a few connectors and it’s in your lap. Only wish my '69’s was as simple!

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TMH nice car, I started reading the first unread post on my computer and wondered why I didn’t remember your car. Then I realized, Holly Molly I reading for October of 2011, then a bunch of problems mostly solved and then a bunch of nice pictures and bam! I’m in April of 2012 and pretty much caught up. Ignition gremlins can be troublesome I spent 6 months on mine last summer, mine would run but would sputter and backfire. Glad to see your enjoying your ride. SalD

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Don’t worry about fixing the old one - go here and get a three wire tach that eliminates the ignition issues

http://www.rccinnovations.com/index.php?show=menu-tach-all

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Wow. G1X6 with a core refund charge seems pretty reasonably priced, for expert American labor and attention and whatnot. I love the look of the gauges in my car, and their lighting is just so great. But having a gauge in series with the ignition just doesn’t make sense to me. So yeah, thanks for suggesting this!

Based on the popups that talk about moving to the new location, it seems like it’ll be a while. Maybe I’ll try and refresh the solder joints to get through the next couple months.

Still curious if I’m doing any harm driving the car with the tach just totally bypassed. Haven’t yet, except to rotate and back her into the garage. But I have a feeling I’m gonna wanna get out on the road soon, like, tomorrow soon. :slight_smile:

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Bob’s move has been in planning for a while and he has already moved a bunch of stuff to his new location. He is still available on email

You can still drive with the tach by-passed

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Just send Bob an email, he may have one accesable to send you. If not he will let you know when hes back up and running.
Dont know if hes on his way to TX or already there and starting to get settled in.

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No harm in driving the car with the tach bypassed. It’s just like a car that never had one.

Ditto on Rocketman’s products and services. :thumbup:

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Welcome Jimmy, what do you have?
You should update your location as well.

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Good to have ya Jimmy, you will find that the people on this site are a great bunch and you will glean much. Look forward to seeing what you have.
Dennis

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Jimmy was spammer. Thought this was good place to spam for purses and handbags… Account deleted and posts now gone.

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Even though he only posted once… he felt like one of us. :boohoo:

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What’s that line?? “Alas, poor Horatio, I knew him well”…or something like that… :bloated:

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But this IS an excellent place to spam for purses and handbags! Right here on this thread! I didn’t want to show my cards but now I gotta come clean. I don’t even own a Cougar. This is just all one big long setup for me to start shilling my collection of purses and handbags I designed. But I guess that’s all just ruined now.

Oh well, back to the ruse.

I’m gonna have some time over at awesome dude’s garage with the lift and tools and with both of those guys’ sets of eyes and know-how and all that. I’m curious as to folks’ input about which of my forthcoming tasks I should tackle alone and which I should address with that situation in play. But here’s the thing, time is of the essence, I can only go for what can be completed by me driving out there, spending a few/several hours, and then driving home. Can’t leave the car there overnight.

So!

  1. Replace fuel tank and lines. Think I can handle this on my own with help from a neighbor when it comes to lifting out and dropping in new tank.

  2. Add missing fan shroud (which I’m buying from garage owner guy)

  3. Add hood pins (already have)

  4. Route vacuum line through firewall to feed manifold vac to gauge I already installed in place of rally clock

  5. Replace valve covers and PCV valve (already have the parts). I’m certain I can do this myself, but like the idea of having these two guys who know their stuff looking at what’s going on there when the covers are off, just because something might catch their eyes that I would miss since I don’t know what I’m looking for.

  6. Replace current ignition with Pertronix Ignitor II (which I’m buying from dude)

  7. Rebuild power steering system. I have all hoses (big block config) and a rag joint but don’t have the two leaky components, the control valve and pump/reservoir. The steering box may also need attention, not sure at this point. I looked into buying the kit to rebuild the control valve (one of the hose seats was cross-threaded so needs replaced for sure, main leak source) but have been warned that it is probably beyond the scope of what I’m ready for. So there it looks like sending mine in as a core and getting it rebuilt might be the way to go.

  8. Freshen up the wheel bearings (probably all four wheels) and address what are believed to be leaking bearings on the rear wheels. He’s got the gear to pull the axles, which if I remember right is the tricky part in that job.

Those are the main ones on the table for the near future. The tach issue that just popped up, I’m not even listing because I’m certain I can handle that on my own no problem.

So if you were a noob like me, with this access to awesome garage and two guys who know their stuff, for a few hours in a drive-there-do-work-drive-home kinda situation, what would you go for?

Thanks!

Scott



Btw based on the direction it’s gone, is this thread in the wrong section? If so, can someone move it to where it belongs? Cheers!!

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It all sounds good, but the hood pins are something that I would tell you to think twice before installing. It looks like you have a very nice grade A hood, which will be ruined when you cut those holes in it. There are no more Cougar hoods being made. That is an expensive part to waste. It’s your car, and your call. The safest mods you can do at the ones that are easily reversible. Everything else falls into that category.

Why not start a new thread on this series of projects? It all looks like stuff that pretty much every Cougar might need.

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I would take advantage, and do the rear axle work there, myself…others may have different opinions, but seems most everything else is home-garage worthy. Well, with the exception being the power steering rebuild, but you said you didn’t have all the components yet!
SO…

Axles/seals
Pertronix
Fan shroud

Should be able to do that in a few hours time!

(Oh, and do you have a Louis Vitton satchel bag thing? Wife is driving me NUTS for one…LOL )

Continued success, Scott!