TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

I wish it were only a quart every 1,000 miles :o Try 250miles if I'm on the highway, maybe 500miles if I'm putting around town at low speed. Obviously could be a valve guide seal, I don't have any reason to suspect the valve seats, and with the 10.5:1 compression on crap gas for the last 25+years I figure rings. The thing pings A LOT at low elevations even with the timing backed waaay off. Up here at 6,500+ feet elevation it runs good on 91 octane and full timing, and decently on 85 octane and slightly backed off timing. This is my next engine project a few years out. Thinking about keeping the compression and going with Aluminum Heads, alternative idea is dropping the compression and going with a turbo (if I could/can fit one under the hood), the EFI makes it easier.

[milner351]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Al heads certainly give you a bit more insurance against detonation because they tranfer heat more effectively.

That is a cool project and there are several FE guru's out there to help you out with it. Cam research is a great place for a custom cam if you decide to go that way. I'll probably have them set one up for the stroker 428 in my mustang, when I get to that point. For now - I'm just spraying penetrating lube on it when I remember to - hoping it will soak in and get it to rotate by hand sometime soon.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

I'm now replacing all the A-Arm Bushings and Ball Joints on the Thunderbird. The A-arm bushing are shot and I got a lot of clunks out of the front end. The real motivation to get this job done is the lower ball joint on the driver's side has a lot more play in it than I am comfortable with. So with the crap set of tools I keep around here I began with the passenger side. I'm fighting 41 years of accumulated rust and grease :'(

A starting out shot.


Brakes are looking slim, no noise though, good thing I bought a new set a month or so ago, they'll go in as it goes back together.


Cleaned off about an inch of grease, I had no idea how thin the spindles actually were. Sorry about the picture quality.


Same deal as above but the lower ball joint.


The shock required some persuasion to come off. The rust was just too much for it. I used some WD-40, and it was going well until it really binded up and started stripping out the top of the shock's threads. Then I broke out the vise grips to no-avail. Out came the grinder, and violia! The nut is on the right there.


The upper ball joint gave me problems coming apart, but I eventually got it.


Pulled the A-arm off next.


Here is the A-arm, tomorrow I'll get the ball joint and bushings off of it and put it back together but now it's beer-thirty.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Well I didn't even get close to where I wanted to be by the end of today but at least I got to a good stopping point. I don't know how you Rust Belt folk do it, but the little rust on mine was a pain. The upper ball joint refused to come off, I grinded the rivets on both sides, then drilled through them when it wouldn't separate. You can see marks on the third picture where I ended up using a small pointed chisel, as the the flat chisel wasn't getting me anywhere. But it came it finally gave. The lower ball joint was equally as fun =/ The upper control arm bushings went as smoothly as I guess any 41 year old bushings would. Here are some pictures, I think I've cut 20lbs off the front end by removing the grease and dirt.

The Upper Control Arm apart. It was a pain.


Think the bushings are shot? That's all that was there.


Despite both grinding on both sides and drilling the rivets out the ball joint refused to come apart. They were rusted and grease cemented in.


The control arms removed.


The greasy lower control arm.


Top all cleaned up.


Bottom all cleaned up, the brown streaks are reflections of my porch light.


So hopefully I'll get it back together tomorrow and start the tear down of the other side. I'm going to go four wheelin in the hills tomorrow and check out some ghost towns, so I'll see how it goes.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Ok, I got the passenger side back together and the ball joints all greased up. I'm going to set the car up and pull the tire off on the other side then go out and play in the hills. I expect the other side to go quicker as I now know what I'm getting myself into.

Putting it back together. I ended up pulling the spring back out to get the strut rod back on there.


Think I needed new brake pads? Interesting thing about 4-piston calipers, you push one side in the other comes out. Get a pad in one side, push one piston in and the other pushes out! =P


Back together!


New brakes in place.


From the front.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

I like how you use up your brakes to the last stop.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

I like how you use up your brakes to the last stop.

They came with the car when I bought it two years ago (I did pop the tire off and see how much pad was left at the time), bought a new set that sat in the basement for a few months :P Funny thing is they never squeaked or grinded even though on that side the rivet just barely kissed the rotor. The other side had probably a 1/16th of an inch between the rivet and rotor.

[milner351]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Randal just believes in getting the most for his money when it comes to brake pads - you can't fault a guy for that.

It's when you do like the biology teacher did in my highschool when she drove her car into the autoshop because her brakes had been making a "funny noise for a while" She was not just through the pad and into the rivets - the rivet heads were long gone, she was on the backing plate - and the rotor had been ground down to the cooling fins! :o
Man I wish I had a picture of that, and the picture of the autoshop teachers face, and the owner's face when she saw that rotor and finally understood what she was really looking at. I still don't know how she could possibly have stopped that car.

[squirrel]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

heh...that's only a problem when the piston finally pops out of the caliper! no pressure

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Long Post Alert!!!

This thread hasn't been touched in almost a year :'( The last update was I TBI'd the car but then ran into problems and swapped the Autolite back on "temporarily" and hadn't gotten back to it. The TBI conversion was really meant to be a practice run at MegaSquirting the Skylark, and it did that very well I'd say This install and troubleshooting taught me a ton about MegaSquirt, which I applied to the Skylark. And now since I've gotten the Skylark running, reading back through this thread I realize how much I've learned since then. Two things I learned since this original install is the various circuits for the ignition input (different circuit board parts for neg coil trigger vs. HEI Tach sig vs. VR sensor) on the MegaSquirt and finer tuning processes.

Near as I can tell (and DieselGeek ) the problem I was running into in my initial install (of the relay clicking real fast, aka MS resetting) is the power supply circuit in my MS1 is goofed up, probably has a bad component in it causing erratic behavior. I've since gotten a MS1 3.57 (thanks DIYautotune!) and hopefully soon I'll get back to TBI'ing this car for good I have to check to see how the 3.57 is set up for a tach signal (I'm guessing not coil neg like my old one) and re-wire accordingly. But I know these things now ;D

Since my original picture FTP got suddenly annialated, and I had a hard drive crash around the same time I lost the orignial build pictures of the TBI install :'( I contemplated starting another thread from scratch, but this thread still had some value I figure since the front end work was still up. And for some of our newer members I'm going to post some replacement pictures I took today. I think re-reading the thread is worth it with out pictures if you're interested in the car

So going over the Car, it's a 1967 Ford Thunderbird, 4-dr with Suicide Doors and a 428FE. The car is fully loaded with very few options left off the build. I apologize for the poor lighting and the dust everywhere.

First the outside of the car:










The Front Seats.


The Back Seats.


The handles to open the doors was the second thing I noticed (behind the suicide doors) when I first saw one of these cars. Pull back just like an Ejection Seat handle ;D


Power door locks (vacuum operated) and Cruise Control.


AM Radio with 8-track. I have an 8-track to cassette adapter in there, with a cassette to headphone jack connector in that so I can hook up my MP3 player or Satellite radio ;D


The Passengerside Dash. You can see the Power Window controls in the center of the console.


The Cockpit View. I have a Summit Tach/Temp/Oil pressure/Voltage gauge there. Not sure I like it enough, I'll probably install the clock back into that pod.


The Cruise Control buttons. I was impressed with the options on that alone. Set, Speed, Resume, Retard. The Speed button accelerates the car and the Retard Button actually hits the brakes :o It's funny to be able to accelerate and brake the car with buttons on the steering wheel. I've brought the car to a stop using the "Retard" Button.


The overhead console warning lights.


The Head liner is in perfect shape.


The Trunk Release Button, it's vacuum powered, it's the only vacuum operated thing on the car I haven't gotten working because the vacuum leak is under the console/carpet some where. The vacuum solenoid at the trunk release works when I hooked a vacuum pump to it.


There is plenty of trunk space. That's a polyglass tire, I should pull it out to see if there is a date code on it tire.


The stuff that makes the Sequential Blinkers work. When I bought the car they were bypassed so the lights all blinked together like a regular car. It was one of the first things I fixed on the car.


For an old car there sure are a ton of relays and wires. One of those relays is the "Low Fuel" relay, I'm not sure about the others.


Under the Hood.


The Leaky Autolite 4300. I was looking for a 4100 until I scored a cheap TBI.


All the EFI wires are ran and in black wrapping. That's a 670cfm Holley TBI to replace the 600cfm Autolite.


The Innovate LC-1 Wideband Oxygen sensor controller. If I EFI another car I'll take the LC-1 and O2 Sensor off this car.


Where I ran the EFI wires into the firewall. The Relay board is on the other side of the firewall in this car.


Where I placed the TBI electric pump. I had it un-hooked, but my mechanical pump failed on me in September, and while on the side of the road I plumbed this one in to get me home. The line above the pump that is plugged is the return line for the TBI. I'm going to make a surge canister like the Skylark's for this car now that, that system has proven to me it works.


The vacuum operated headlight doors were operated by the thing with all the ports sitting at the top of the picture. The diaphram in it gave out and I basically destroyed it internally trying to "fix" it :-\ So using a relay and two evap vacuum solenoids from mid-80's GM cars I got a "functional" system (no cracks about the wiring, it's supposed to be temporary :P). I'd like to eventually find a working unit for under $250.


For the MegaSquirt Computer I decided to place it in the center console.


It can be slid a little farther up. The Storage compartment doesn't fit in there with the MS, so I'm planning on making a control panel there with a MegaView and perhaps for other things like and Air Ride Controller, etc. Then it should all be hidden when the door is closed.


Sorry for the blurry picture, it was the best of the ones I took from the passenger floor looking up behind the glove box. That's the Relay Board for the MegaSquirt. The black things to the left are the Vacuum Door Lock controllers.


Then lastly, at the beginning of the thread I talked about the tank being rusty when I got the car and having to replace it. This is what I pulled out when I went to replace it, haha. I have no friggin clue what happened to it.


A home made patch job. High quality, 3 cent repair :P


Think I was missing a few gallons?




Now that I've gotten this all up to speed I can start updating it The passenger front window hasn't worked since I got the car. The motor buzzes but the gear must be broken. I have four new power window motors and two good gears (and two new bad ones >) and I'm going to attempt to replace the motor and gear in at least the non-working window tomorrow. The gears it turns out can be found in the Help section at parts stores, so I should be able to get two more "good" gears. Thats all for now.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Two YouTube Video's of the T-bird running on the TBI.

Starting it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvIBAqTb_-M

Running, I had the idle set high to check something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh50uG540XA

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

hmmmm.. bullet holes in the tank, bashed up tank.... oh if cars could talk 8)

[Scott Liggett]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Something tells me Granny backed into a high curb pretty hard to get it squashed like that. I should get pics of the dents in my quarter panel, frame and gas tank from looks like backing off a curb.


That is one of my all time fav crew cab cars.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Yeah if cars could talk I'm sure many would have very interesting stories. This car I believe was owned by a Doctor or a Salesman from things that I found in the car. The title work shows it was owned by one guy until it was sold to the pawn shop, then me. The car appears to of lightly rubbed things on all four corners, but nothing devastating, nothing to indicate what the hell happened to the fuel tank. It's smashed up on the backside of the tank not the bottom like I would expect if it were jacked up there or high centered on. The trunk appears to unmodified/damaged/fixed from underneath.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: TheSilverBuick's 1967 Thunderbird

Found a couple build pictures.

The TBI bolted on and a spread of wiring.


The TBI bolted on and all hooked up.


And a much much much better picture of the Relay Board taken when I had the glove box out.