I’m about 4 hours north, not counting the extra time required to get through Seattle. If you want to come up your welcome here.
Question; What does one do in Western Washington on a rainy day? The same as we would do on a sunny day, for the most part. I had an appointment to have the front aligned on this car today. So I had it towed in to town for that.
I have used this towing company many times and they have always done good. He showed up early and loaded her up
So off to the local Les Schwab tire center. Again a place I have used before and will again.
So up on the rack she went to check the initial numbers. As I thought not even in the same state. I did rebuild the front suspension and only did an eyeball adjustment so I could move it around.
In work getting it all where it belongs. It tool about a half hour to get it dialed in.
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I now have about 25 miles on her. I have to do a few things like fix the wipers so they will park(new thread) Itis shifting out of first too early, I think I can fix that by adjusting the vacuum modulator. And it has a slight hesitation.
It has been a long road getting this back on the road. Not so much due to what the car needed, but rather by the fact that I could not work on it day and night like I could have 35 years ago. But I am now ready to go have fun with her.
See ya on the highways folks!
I hope you can get the last few items ironed out before next weekend.
I know what you mean about putting in the long hours on these projects. I am having real difficulty in the recovery process. I haven’t worked on the cat since Wednesday, but I still can’t grip anything in my right hand. It’s better than Friday when I couldn’t much move my left hand.
Ah, to be back in my twenties when I was indestructible.
Looks great, Neal! Can’t wait to see it in person 
I took the 71 out today to our local hot rod show; Twin City Idlers show in Stanwood. Over 500 cars were in attendance with many more in the wings. I didn’t win any awards, but had a good time and talked to a lot of people about this Cougar. One guy even asked me if I was thinking about selling it. I told him I was but not for little while.
She is now a seasoned show car… Ya, sur, ya bet ya. I plan to take it to another show next weekend and several more before the end of the summer.
On a side note, I had noticed I had over 10,000 pictures of cars that I had taken at car shows over the years, so I started a group on Face book to get some of them out there. So far I have only posted pictures from cruses and shows I have gone to this year. But over the winter I will be posting ones from in the past. It is not Cougar specific, but has a older car requirement Feel free to stop in and enjoy. Join in if you wish at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1805462213082568/members/.
When I headed out Thursday afternoon to the West Coast Classic Cougar open house she only had about 300 miles on her. I had her in a local shop to work on the running issues and to replace the rear axle bearings that I had hoped would not be a problem. The shop said they found the condenser was bad. It was the 5th one I had had on this since getting it running(note 300 miles) But said they thought the carburetor has a problem. I concur. It had a minor flat spot and I feal was low on power. I put about another 500 miles on her driving to Salem Oregon from my place on Camano Island WA. Of course it was a hot day and what I affectionately call the Parking lot called Seattle was it’s usual pain int the engine heat. She did not over heat but was hot. I had hoped I had headed out early enough to miss that traffic, but it decided to start early. She ran at normal temp after that, funny thing is in Portland I also got held up in traffic and she didn’t heat up as much.
In the parking lot at my Hotel Thurday evening.
We met at WCCC Friday Morning and had a great time. We got to meat many of the people who restore Cougars and have a ton of knowledge. There were people fixing Cougars, talking Cougar and Ford and generally having a great time.
After a day of fun and being fed well we caravand over to Don’s favorite place for Pie and Ice Cream for desert.
Saturday Morning we once again met at WCCC in the morning, More of he same from Friday was going on, After a few hours we caravand out to Silverton for lunch, on the way one of the Cougars had a flat tire. But was able to get going quickly. We collected in a parking lot in Silverton and spread out over down town for lunch.
A little later we got back togetrher and headed out to Silver falls, If you have never been there you need to go.
On the way Don ran out of gas(gauge was not working) so we left him behind(help was on the way) and went on to the falls.
We spent several hours enjoying the park and hiking trails. There are quite a few and can be a bit of a challenge when coming back with the incline. But there are many great vantage points. I got a lot of decent pictures.
After enjoying the falls we met up and headed out for Brian Aust’s place for dinner. Brian and Cindy are great people who open up there place for this and do a great Bar B Que.
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This morning I headed out from Salem at about 7:30, I got her home about 2:00 this afternoon. She was not running very well. I have not looked in to why yet. But, last night on my way back to the hotel I found out the headlight switch has a bad circuit beaker. They would go out and a minute later they would come back on for a minute. I had noticed the exhaust was leaking at the manifolds, it got a little worse on the way home today, and it will back fire through the exhaust. It had a little flat spot before, now it is a big flat spot.
I had a great time and enjoyed all the great people. I want to thank the people from WCCC, Don and Rene Rush(who worked both days and I’m not sure she gor much of a brake), Cleve Helm, Brian and Cindy Aust and all the others who put this together and pulled it off. Bravo!
I’m a few days late here, but last Sunday July 28th was this Cougars Birthday. She is a sweet 48 years old now. Born on July 28, 1971.
I know this is an older thread but I just wanted say that i appreciate all the pics throughout your project. The car turned out great and gives me something to strive towards while I’m working on mine.
There she is, sitting in the sun looking good…
I took the old girl out for a drive this afternoon. I was going to go to a cruse in up in Mount Vernon WA. But about a mile away I ran out of gas. I thought I had more then I did. Love that reproduction fuel sender… It only took my Road side service 4 hours to get me some gas…
Well, I know I only need to pump out about 3 gallons to replace the crappy sender with the one Bill restored for me.
While you have the sender out you should use the rebuilt one to check the gauge. With the sender plugged in, add a ground wire from the sender to the tank. Then move the float arm and observe the gauge. It takes the gauge about 30 seconds to settle out so be patient
Looks like her big 5-0 is coming up next month! I found this ad for the striped interior on eBay recently. Nice car!
I have a copy of that ad as well. Is a good one to have with a car like this.
Thanks for posting it.
Time for a little update.
This car out getting some sun today.
I have been fighting a vibration issue with her. I had a Engine vibration, I fixed that this weekend with a new dampener. The one that was on it was new when the engine was rebuilt. I only have maybe 1500 miles on it. When I got it off I found some minor damage to the back side.
It does not look like much, but I now have no engine vibration. But still have drive line vibrations. Something was missed or messed up, the transmission was rebuilt the same time the engine was, I had new axle bearings installed, the drive shaft balanced and new U-joints installed. And the 3rd member rebuilt, with new gears, But I still have a vibration. I’m going to take it in and have the wheels and tires checked for balance next week. They are also new and were balanced.
This si getting frustrating. I don’t have much hope that the tire balance is the problem. But sure hope it is.
I’m open to thoughts…
Two things to check:
Pinion angle - make sure nobody altered the angle with axle spacers, wedges, incorrect leaf springs, or the wrong trans/motor mounts.
Transmission tail housing bushing - These can and do wear out, and the slip yoke can wobble around as a result. Had this problem on my '01 Suburban and it made a huge vibration (and transmission fluid leak)
Update. I took the car to my local Les Schwab tire center, Done business with them for years. All 4 were about 1oz out of balance. But 2 were out of round and nothing they can do to fix that. One was on the left front and the other on the right rear. At the moment both are on the rear. It rides much better, but still has a vibration, but it does feel different then before. I’m going to do a little test, I’m going to take the rear tires off Ginger and bolt them on to this car and go for a drive to see what happens.
While I was waiting this 1935 Brewster came in to have new tires put on it.
The guy who owns it said only about 35 were built
He also said the manufacture was going to use Rolls Royce power, but that fall through and they used Ford 85hp flathead V8s.
Updates at 11:00(or when ever I get to it)
Wow! Now that’s a classy old car!
Update, Swapping the wheels and tires from Ginger improved it a bunch, but now it feels like bad U joints. I’ll put it back on the lift Sunday and pull the drive shaft and see. I’ll also check the tail housing bushing.
The struggle goes on… For now, I will win!
Before you pull the driveshaft, try wiggling the slip yoke up/down & side / side. You shouldn’t feel any movement.
Also examine the surface of the slip yoke. If the bushing is bad, you’ll see uneven wear pattern on the bushing surface of the yoke.
I could not detect any movement of the slip yoke in the tail shaft before removing the drive shaft. I took it to the drive shaft shop that did the balancing. They checked the balance and found no problems.
I had a lot going on the last few weeks and just got back to this project, It is kind of a pain removing the tail shaft housing on a C-6 in the car, but doable, I had to drop the exhaust, disconnect the speedometer cable, support the transmission under the pan then remove the cross member.
I found the bushing looks OK to me, but I do think it is slightly out of round. I measured it at about 1.680 to 1.685 But do not like the tools I have for inside measurements. I think I’m going to take it to the transmission shop and have them do a measurement.
The Bushing…
As for the surface of the yoke, I have seen a couple that showed wear patterns from loose bushings. But this one I think looks OK.
Slip Yoke…
I do see, and feel some from the seal, but it was not leaking.
More when I have it.
I finally got a day to work on this today. It made a good Fathers day present to me. I got the tail shaft housing bushing checked out and it was fine. I bolted everything back together, using a new gasket to make sure I’d have no leaks. When I removed the tape holding the U-joint caps on the rear of the drive shaft I noticed the U-joint moved more freely then when I took it off. I installed the drive shaft, rehung the exhaust and topped off the transmission.
It had the wrong driven gear on the speedometer cable, I upgraded the rear gears from 2.75 to 3.25 and added a traction locker to it. I had ordered what I thought was the correct gear, but It was not the correct type. I put in one I had here for a 3.00 gear making the speedometer far closer to correct. I then too her out for a teat drive. SUCCESS! No more drive line vibration. I still need to do something about the tires. The speedometer is only about 5 fast at 55 now instead of 10 to 12 fast. I’m going to order the correct gear and get it closer. I’m also going to research retting the tires fixed, or replace them.