Hello all, Hope to start participating in this community! My journey to ownership of a cougar started by me seeing a car on a TV show… i think it was some buffy-the-vampire-slayer like series. I didn’t even recognize it but thought it was the classiest looking car so started the googling to find out what it was. --Mercury Cougar. Time passed. Randomly I searched on Offerup to see if any of these fine-looking cars were out there, and one was posted. One thing led to another, and I ended up buying it and towing it to my house because… well of course it didn’t run. I promised the guy I bought it from that I would bring it back to life.
So now I am the proud owner of one of these cars. I did manage to get the car running! But then I immediately decided I need to redo the front suspension, swap out the front drums, get lower springs, and do a shelby drop on it. (like pulling on that sweater string)
I don’t know how to do any of these things and so I’m definitely on a journey… Not even sure you should do all these things. but i’m pot committed now.
I’ve been making progress, but the most recent 2 blockers are that the booster I got in a kit though advertised to fit this car, definitely does not fit this car… ordered an original, and crossing my fingers.
The other blocker is the new strut rods that also came with the kit left me questioning if i should press in some bolts to the new strut rods or just use normal bolts. I’ve no clue. I took the bolts and struts to a guy with a press and he’s pressing them in. Guess i’ll see if that all works out.
I “think” then I may see this travel out on the road again most likely to my friendly neighborhood mechanic to inspect my work and tell me i’m a dumb ass.
Anyway, hope to learn from this community. Sounds like this group knows just about everything.
I press in the original bolts. We need to know the year as there are some other strut rod issues you may run into.
Every Cougar owner has a shelf full of parts that “should fit”. Even if you don’t buy from them West Coast Classic Cougar has the best web site that you can learn from for parts applications.
1967 Cougar used an articulated strut rod that was unique to Cougar. If those are still there you may want to switch to the later one piece design that was shared with the Mustang. This also makes selecting lower control arms a lot easier as you don’t have to find the special '67 Cougar only version.
Of note here, when changing the lower A-arms to 68 and later, you need to replace the strut rods too. The holes that the strut rod bushings go thru sometime are missing the metal “sleeve”. Plumbing tail piece for sinks make a near perfect replacement. Use this bushing kit from Rock auto
QUICK STEER K8157 ( used to be Moog) The lower control arms used to be avail from Moog, but they are now showing RK8123. Poor repop quality. The “R” must stand for “retail” as the original yellow & blue box was just “K” series- Pro or Commercial, is no longer avail sadly…
The bolts are “fluted/knurled” same goes for the upper control arm bolts. Use a round file on the holes to help them fit.
I also use a couple 3 washers (w/ a little grease between them) & a touch on the bolt threads as you pull them into place.
There are a lot of Cougar people around the area. I’m north on Camano Island. A good shop south of you is Cascade Classics. http://www.cascadeclassics.com/
