Whatever dark pantheon of gods rule over the automotive world, the one who oversees vintage cars must be the most capricious.
After almost two weeks of hair pulling diagnosis and nearly breaking down into tears over my inability to solve the charging problem on the Seville, a breakthrough was made.
I took the new alternator to Oakville Starter and Alternator to test and it checked out fine. I told the fellow behind the counter the symptoms of my problem. He said loose belt, what do I look like an idiot of course I made sure the belt was tight.
Nope supposed to be very tight so that you can hardly turn the alternator by hand. The Seville 4.1 has a screw type device to pull accessories tight.
Re-installed, tightened and 14 plus volts!!!!!
Idle still a little unstable but mobile again. Drove on the highway with no issues.
Meanwhile having the Seville mobile again let me turn my attention to the ever faithful Lincoln Mark IV, through rain or shine she keeps moving on.
During the fall I had repaired the exhaust manifold gasket on the passenger side taking nearly a month to gradually loosen the cylinder head to manifold bolts with various miracle penetrating oils (PB Blaster is the best). The eight bolts took nearly a month and a half.
Of course the LH bank then started leaking. For most of the winter I drove around sounding like a soviet tank. I mean really how embarrassing!
Nevertheless she still, managed to receive her fair share of attention from the general public.
Treated my youngest to McDonalds for lunch (yes I am a terrible parent) as she had to spend a rather dull day with me while I tried to get work done. At the drive thru the attendant wanted to know what I was driving as she had received a request from someone working in kitchen as to what was that cool car.
When picking up my oldest, a gaggle of eighth grade girls commented, “that’s the coolest car I have ever seen” I assume they had not just escaped from North Korea. I had been feeling rather self conscious about my daily driver so it is always nice to see other appreciate seeing an older vehicle still earning its keep.
Not bad for a vintage model with a RH side manifold leak and peeling paint…. enough about me the Lincoln does manage to get some serious attention despite its cosmetic and aural limitations. So a big thumbs up to Wes Dhalberg, designer of the Mark IV!
Fully expecting more tears and heartbreak when I started the ritual of spraying oil on the LH side manifold bolts. After a brief day of sitting with liberal doses of penetrating oil, I had all the bolts off in less than two hours! By the end of the afternoon the new gasket was installed, even the manifold to exhaust pipe bolts came off without a struggle, amazing. Car is quiet again, well as quiet as a 460 with duals can be.
I guess that I had accumulated enough brownie points in automotive Valhalla struggling with the Seville to be granted a special dispensation on the Lincoln.
Hugs,
April
PS. Here are two cool punk cuts for reading all that car stuff....
