What did YOU do today?

[Rick W]

That's my step mom. I'm not sure if I should pass on the compliment to her or feel insulted because you think I'm older than I am.

All women love it when men complement what they’re wearing. Go for it.

 

[Rick W]

I have a very large maple in my front yard that is home to a squirrel. Since there are no acorns to drop, he snips off small branch pieces and drops them in the yard. I've had multiple discussions with him about this, but he continues to do it in spite of my protests...

When I first got injured and sick, and some of the trees had overgrown by the house, I had a squirrel in my attic. He was there long enough that I named him Steve. When he wasn’t in the attic, he used to hang around on the deck. I’d go out, and sit on the far side, and we’d have conversations.

Now that I have Lincoln, Steve no longer lives in the attic, but he still likes the deck And Lincoln sure does love chasing him. Steve runs like a lightening bolt to the ivy on the side of the driveway, and then up the fence and up a tree. When Lincoln gets to the ivy, he looks all over for him while Steve sits in the tree above and laughs at him.

 

[Rick W]

Lincoln 302 help please & thanks:

88 Town Car, very low miles, excellent condition 5.0/302

It was running perfectly, I moved it from one spot to another in the back of the house, and it died.

If I spray Starting fluid in the breather, it will kick over a little bit, but I believe it’s dieseling, no spark.

The distributor cap and rotor are almost brand new, but the cars been sitting for about six months with only driveway movement. I did a very light wire brush on the pivot point and on the nose of the rotor, the points inside the cap look like brand new.

I checked it with a Harbors freight spark checker light thing on one spark plug, at one spot on the distributor cap, on the coil wire on top of the distributor cap, no spark.

I replaced the coil with a new coil, it was easy to do when it was six dollars. Then, I pulled the distributor to change the ignition control module (ICM). (Ford geniuses used a 5.5 mm screw that sits at the bottom of about a 3/8 inch deep hole that can only be accessed with a deep socket. The front one comes out OK, but on the back one, you have to pull the distributor to get it the screw.). No, Sparks, and I had to quit for the day.

I had checked all the fuses before, but I will do that again next. The old Hanes manual I have for this thing says there are a couple of fusible links on the left fender. I’m not even sure what the fusible link looks like.

One last thought, I cycled the ignition three or four times and I hear the fuel pump for a few seconds. The car is fuel injected, and I learned a long time ago to do that every time I started if I haven’t driven it in a while.

It’s my understanding, the Only function of the condenser Is to eliminate electronic noise on the radio and such but a bad condenser will not keep the car from starting or running. But I’m not sure on that, and I don’t have a spare yet.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or what to check would be greatly appreciated. There’s very little online or on YouTube about the town cars 302s. A lot about Mustangs and some on trucks, but they’re slightly different.

And let me close by saying again this is not some old garage find, this car is in pristine condition, it just quit out of the blue.

Edit: I have an identical 1987 that I bought everything to tune it up a while back, but I never did the tuneup. So I have a cap, rotor, plugs and wires, and I’ll check them tomorrow. The 87 runs, so I can quickly swap the condenser and see if that’s the problem, but again, I don’t think so.

Thanks in advance.

BTW, Hot date with a new redhead tonight. Redheads have always been spicy trouble for me. I’m hoping that continues…

 

[jballard81]

Got the driver's side O2 sensor replaced today. Only needed a 7/8 wrench. The passenger side has too much in the way that I can't get a single turn on the wrench before it hits the exhaust.

Bought the O2 sensor socket and it doesn't fit.

Have a different style delivering tomorrow from Amazon to hopefully finish it.

 

[MT_PLS]

Lincoln 302 help please & thanks:

88 Town Car, very low miles, excellent condition 5.0/302

It was running perfectly, I moved it from one spot to another in the back of the house, and it died.

If I spray Starting fluid in the breather, it will kick over a little bit, but I believe it’s dieseling, no spark.

The distributor cap and rotor are almost brand new, but the cars been sitting for about six months with only driveway movement. I did a very light wire brush on the pivot point and on the nose of the rotor, the points inside the cap look like brand new.

I checked it with a Harbors freight spark checker light thing on one spark plug, at one spot on the distributor cap, on the coil wire on top of the distributor cap, no spark.

I replaced the coil with a new coil, it was easy to do when it was six dollars. Then, I pulled the distributor to change the ignition control module (ICM). (Ford geniuses used a 5.5 mm screw that sits at the bottom of about a 3/8 inch deep hole that can only be accessed with a deep socket. The front one comes out OK, but on the back one, you have to pull the distributor to get it the screw.). No, Sparks, and I had to quit for the day.

I had checked all the fuses before, but I will do that again next. The old Hanes manual I have for this thing says there are a couple of fusible links on the left fender. I’m not even sure what the fusible link looks like.

One last thought, I cycled the ignition three or four times and I hear the fuel pump for a few seconds. The car is fuel injected, and I learned a long time ago to do that every time I started if I haven’t driven it in a while.

It’s my understanding, the Only function of the condenser Is to eliminate electronic noise on the radio and such but a bad condenser will not keep the car from starting or running. But I’m not sure on that, and I don’t have a spare yet.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or what to check would be greatly appreciated. There’s very little online or on YouTube about the town cars 302s. A lot about Mustangs and some on trucks, but they’re slightly different.

And let me close by saying again this is not some old garage find, this car is in pristine condition, it just quit out of the blue.

Edit: I have an identical 1987 that I bought everything to tune it up a while back, but I never did the tuneup. So I have a cap, rotor, plugs and wires, and I’ll check them tomorrow. The 87 runs, so I can quickly swap the condenser and see if that’s the problem, but again, I don’t think so.

Thanks in advance.

BTW, Hot date with a new redhead tonight. Redheads have always been spicy trouble for me. I’m hoping that continues…

Maybe Steve the squirrel has been snacking on the wiring for your hot rod Lincoln?
Squirrels and other rodents love to chew on wiring harnesses. That is why I keep an air powered .22 handy. Keeps the population to a minimum.

 

[racsan]

went to a auction this morning, brought home this curio cabinet for $35. As you can see , she has already cleaned it & put her collection of willow figurines in it. The owner of the property has a nice ‘79 F150, Id love to bring that to my driveway! I’ve posted it before in “truckspotters” but here it is again, can never get enough ‘70 series fords!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Got home at 2:30AM so slept in understandably... then went to the inlaws for a bit and got home and jumped on the tractor to move the mound of free fill dirt that arrived a week ago friday... I got what I paid for as there were 3 tractor buckets of rocks 1/3 baseball or bigger that I could easily grab on the top the couple times I stopped to do it, one 3' piece of T post and one 2' long odd bolt and some scraps of landscape fabric, a wine bottle, the bottom of a wine bottle and a couple pop cans...

Anyway, about 3 hours of moving dirt around to the pond berm and flattening that and I made progress... got tired of that and running out of daylight so stopped for the night, will smooth the transitions tomorrow...

 

[Rick W]

Maybe Steve the squirrel has been snacking on the wiring for your hot rod Lincoln?
Squirrels and other rodents love to chew on wiring harnesses. That is why I keep an air powered .22 handy. Keeps the population to a minimum.

I hear you and I’ve been there, but no chewing on these wires, no mice accommodations. Ole Blue was kept in a heated garage most of its life without little critters unlike the Rangers where I had to clean out all the mouse houses all around them as I got them going.

The day it died, I had moved it around in the driveway to put it in a certain spot to top off the AC a little. It’s when I was doing the 97 A/C, and I parked the 88 and big diesel close so I could top them all off with one can. The car moved around fine and it was fine when I was putting the freon in. When I was done and it was just idling, it just quit out of the blue.

I’m showing a property in the morning, and then I’m going to head back on it and the silver fox (87) and get one of them roadworthy. It shouldn’t take much on either one. Then I could pull out the real hot rod, the 78 Mark V, and do some damage to the local gas stations with that thing running.

It never ends. All troubleshooting tips are welcome

On a different level, the redhead math teacher was good company. Jury is still out, but it’s worth another probe.

We went to a baroque performance of some Chopin, Gershwin‘s Rhapsody in blue, some Dvorak stories in music, and a couple other pieces a guy played on an immaculate 9 foot Steinway grand piano, gave me a woody the whole time, and the baroque quartet had three vintage violins and a very nice cello, and all the folks played brilliantly.

Not the side of me I usually share with TRS. I know none of that is probably your cup of tea, but maybe we could get four or five around a campfire if we do it someplace closer to here. Not as crazy as it sounds.

I’m off to meet the doctor again in the morning, showing his space for his move to Atlanta. Keep your fingers crossed could be a nice paycheck finding him a place, and then doing all the consulting, organizing and engineering to build it out for what he needs.

No rest for the weary for the time being.

EDIT: I fixed what I could, I’m going to have to stop dictating after I take my Ambien at night

 

[mhoward]

BTW, Hot date with a new redhead tonight. Redheads have always been spicy trouble for me. I’m hoping that continues…

I married a redhead. It's been an "interesting" 27 years. Amazingly, I'm still alive... not sure how that happened.

 

[Rick W]

I got too ride in an almost new KENWORTH today! You guys must know how much I love big trucks. So cool.

Of course it’s because the piece of crap Road Ranger blew out a rear brake cylinder and I had to get towed. $200



If I can break one more vehicle, I will have a true junkyard.

 

[Snoranger]

I got too ride in an almost new KENWORTH today! You guys must know how much I love big trucks. So cool.

Have you ever seen pics of our big tow truck at work? It’s fun to drive it in a snow storm towing a tri-axle dump truck way overloaded with salt.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Buy a long bed truck so you can haul big things they said. It will make you feel tough and manly they said. It will be fun they said.

 

[Curious Hound]

Buy a long bed truck so you can haul big things they said. It will make you feel tough and manly they said. It will be fun they said.
View attachment 117539

That thing can haul a house!!!!


Well, maybe a chicken house/coop.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

That thing can haul a house!!!!


Well, maybe a chicken house/coop.

A second one... we already have a huge one.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Been on the tractor for almost 8 hours today... got all the dirt moved, picked up a bunch more rocks which my back and knees are not a fan of then switched to some lower impact tractoring by putting the rear finish mower on and mowing pretty much everything behind the house aside from the lower stuff that the finish mower doesn't like... I don't feel like going in first low for hours...

I'll try to get pics of the finished dirt work here after a bit...