bummer. I''d love to get my hands on a car like that.

 

Forgot about you mentioned having a new pump.. Don''''''''t do the brake fluid thing!!


Hardened valve seats would be the correct term.. You need to have those for unleaded gas as well.. PRetty much by 1975 (beginning of emission controls) everything had them... Some earlier engines woudl burn vavles on prolonged unleaded fuel use..


It''''s s shame you gotta let it go, but understandable.. Unfortunately in that era engine quality was poor, especially when it came to bottom end oiling.. I believe 10w40 or 15w40 was what these called for.. Most of them ended up on 20w50 just to get some oil pressure out of them.. The 351M & C as well as the 400M were known for bottom end failuse long before 100,000 miles... The 351W had a better oiling system, but a cheap pump... Rumor had it for a year or two in the late 70''s ford used a plastic rotor in the pumps so that the aluminum housing wouldn;t wear as fast.. That was even more disaterous I would imagine.....Edited by: maxfax3

 

update on the cougar front, after long doubdting and finally fixing the startproblems, the choke valve was not fixed so kept closing.


and you don''t want a working choke on a car that runs on lpg, he still is going out.


discovered today by a simpel trick that the bearings are worn out too, fullthrottle and when i release the throttle you hear a slight knocking sound.


and he''s slow like hell i have to set the ignitiontiming way back to get any acceleration, and than i mean way back so far the starter almost chokes in it''''s work.


i will lose money on it but hell everybody is entitled to make some stupid mistakes in his life.


i will go on searching for an deacent and affordable usa car, i dropped my eye now on a 1979 ltd, 5.0liter engine i believe.(320?)


are these any good?


he''s in good nick outside and inside and a landau version with full options and all working, and cheap for an american car over here,2500 euro is the asking price with new MOT.


the guy has a hard time getting it sold because of its colour,a kind of apple/kawasaki green, not everybody want''''s to drive in a car with that colour, better said almost no one.


i don''t care that much,always liked green cars somehow and i work in a garage with an own paint shop so respraying it would be cheap for me.


if i''m lucky the cougar is sold next week and i''''m going to check that car out.








Edited by: wietse

 

The 5.0 liter is a 302 cid..It should have a c-4 transmission (Maybe a c-6 but doubtful) as the overdrive wasn;t available yet..


A new motor is a big plus!!! The 79 5.0 liter still didn;t get the best of bottom end oiling..(Cheap oil pumps) They also used a plastic toothed timing gear on the cam.. Chances are the replacement motor had all these issues taken car of so you shoudl be okay with that...


I''m not sure what your rules are over there about emissions equiptment, but the catalytic converters could be getting somewhaqt clogged at this point too.. Age and carburated engines seem to be hard on them.. Here we''d probably just remove the emissions stuff since they don''t check older cars that close, but you''re rules may be different.. Dual exhaust is a great way to pick up some more power and economy though..


One thing I never liked about these cars was the lack of gauges.. In 79 all they had wasone red engine light that came on for overheating and loss of oil pressure.. I personally like to know what''''s going on out there in the engine.. Of course some aftermarket gauges will solve that...


Either one of the transmissions this car camewith were pretty good.. Aside from potential leaks from aged seals,all they really require is occasional band adjustment and fluid/filter changes. They would keep going till the engine blew or the car rusted apart.....


One other thing to look into is the type of carburator used on this.. Ford used a Variable venturi carburator back in those days that was a piece of crap.. Most people opted to change over to the standard 2 barrelcarb like the one that woudl have been used on the Cougar...


The LTD/Crown Victoria was a pretty popular car over here.. Virtually unchanged from 1979 - 1991.. Fuel Injection, and an overdrive transmission were probably the biggest technical changes..There are some odd and ends from this platform that are still used today...


Green cars always ran about the same as any other color cars for me! Although my niece had a bright pink Mercedes that I find myself reluctant to drive unless it''''s dark enough for no one to identify me..Edited by: maxfax3

 

i know of these varaible venturi carbs, ford used them over here too, man what a piece of crap,everybody i know replaced these with the older type carb,no problems and a higher mileage was always the result.


catalytic converters they had never heard of over here at that time, so most likely they already are gone, only when there is a remark cat on the cars papers than you have a problem they have to be there for the MOT.


the Co value is alowed to be 4.5 for cars of that age over here, so quite high, another benefit is that you don''t have to pay any road taxes for cars older than 25 years, and i don''t want to pay the extreme high roadtax you get with a car like that on lpg.


nice to hear that they were made for that long, so parts wil be easy to find and affordable.


the lack of gauges is also a thing in don''t like, at least a temp meter and you know what is going on when the red light starts working.


the capri and the cougar are the only cars whit an oilpressure gauge i''ve owned so i won''t mis it on another car.


the colour doesn''t bother me that much my capri is also green but an different kind of green.


an orange car i wil never buy, that''s a color i hate due to the soccer craze that surrounds it, and i hate soccer.

 

Ahh you guys got the privledge of the VV carburator too.. I think the theory behind those was good, just executed poorly.. All the side draft carbs that were used on cars, and motorcycles and such worked pretty well..


Our emission standards vary wildy over here.. In this area it''s a visual inspection.. Everything from 1975 and up has to look like it''s there, but not necessarily work.. (Cat convter with a pipe welded though it) Most people don;t really remember what older cars were supposed to have on them so it makes it pretty easy to get by.


If you drive50 miles down the road they actually test the exhaust.. As long as the exhaust it clean it does not matter of all the equiptment is in tact... If you have a diesel engine you are exempt from any sort of emissions rules..


Oil pressure gauges were rare back in those days.. I would suspect mostly because oil pressure wasn;t that great back in those days and they didn;t want to deal with all the warrenty claims over low oil pressure... Then when they started running engines hotter than the normal 190 degreef F (about 80 or 90 deg C????) They got rid of temp gaues for the same reason I believe...


You should have an easier time with getting parts for the LTD than you would have with the Cougar because of the lenght of time they made them.. Even over here it''s getting harder to find parts for somthing like your Cougar... A friend of mine has a 1975 Ford Elite which is sort of a cross between a Cougar and a Torino.. He''s been having a heck of a time finding a good fender for it..





I used to have a dark blue 1975 Gran Torino 4 door.. Loved that car and it ran excellent.. Unfortunately rust took it''s toll on it and I had to park it in 2001.. I''ve been on the search for a replacement and as of about a month ago I finally found one.. It''s sort of a lemon yellow with a dark green interior and dark green full vinyl top.. Color never bothered me much, but I feel as though if we do make a deal on this one I will have to change the color.. Most likely it will be some shade of green to match the top and interior.. I swear people must have been color blind in the mid 70''s...


If the LTD works out for you post us some pics!!!

 

i now read that the timing gear used plastic cams, is this easy to check wif these are still in place?


and will it do any damage when they break?


i used to have a ford taunus coupe with a V6 and these have a fiber distribution cam,fiber tooth,steel centre,on that one the fiber also broke once no problem for the engine i had the most work getting all the rubbish of it out of the carter.


after setting the timing right and replacing it it ran like it always did.


but what is overal the better engine the 351 cleveland or the 302, bith can be mounted in that ltd, the seller didn''''t know for sure which engine there was in.


i now had big problems with the 351 C so i don''t want to buy another lemon.





Edited by: wietse

 

The 1979 LTD would have come with either a 302 or a 351 windsor.. The 351C was pretty much gone after 1974ish, and the 351M wasn;t available in the 79 and newer LTD''s.


The 302 and 351w are identical engines, alot of the pars will interchange between them....Unless you really look close they look the same at a glance..The 351 was about 1 inch wider, 3/4" taller with a longer stroke and a different firing order and larger head bolts, as well as larger crankshaft journals.... The easiest way to identify whether it''s a 302 or a 351 would be to measure the width of the intake manifold.. The 302 is about 9" valve cover to valve cover, the 351 is about 11" valve cover to valve cover..


It is quite possible that the timing gear does have the plastic teeth, replacements are generally steel but I;ve seen a few plastic ones pop up..


If it breaks it will cause no other damage other than pieces of plastic needing cleaned out..... Just like your Taurus.. About the only way to check for sure woudl be to tear the timing cover off and look... You could check the timing chain for excess play, that may give you some idea.. TO check the timing chain remove the distributor cap and durn the crankshaft clockwise till the dist just starts to turn.. Put a make on the balancer at the timing pointer and turn the crank shaft counter clockwise until the dist just starts to turn.. Put another mark on the balancer and estimate how many degrees you could turn the crank before the dist starts turning.. If I remeber correctly 15 degrees or so is the limit...


My personal preferance is the 351w over the 302 but the 302 is a good engine, and was the corperate workhorse for many years.. I like the 351w because it''s generally more heavy duty.. Larger crank journals, wider rod angle which helps cut down on cylinder wear, and of course the additional displacement.. Generally though they both have similar oiling to the bottom end, so checking oil pressure (especialy in the 70''s and early 80''s) is a good idea...

 

thanks for the info, but if i start opening the engine there he won''t like it.


i try to get a guy to check it out with me who knows all about ford V8''s.


otherwise i go and look on, was the oilpressure problem a typical ford problem?, or did other brands alsostruggled with that problem?


checking oilpressure is a thing you just can''t do when buying a car, you have to do that at home and need the right equipment for it.


and it wasn''t a taurus but a taunus, a european ford.








a coupe model like this, the biggest engine for these was a 2.3l V6 with 140 hp, enough for a car of only 1200 kg.


a friend of mine build a cosworth 2.8 in one, 300hp in such a light car, you can imagine how fast that went.

 

Now that is once nice ride.. Sort of looks like a mini late 60's Torino... I drove a Mustang II with a mildly built 2.8 that was lost of fun, I could only imagine what that woudl be like with half the weight..


THat's one thing I always hated abotu looking over an older used car.. Especially if the owner is very fussy and I start pulling the air cleaner and dip sticks.. I guess your best bet on the oil pressure is just to listen for noisy lifters and knocks when it's warmed up... AS far as the timing chain checking for play would be your best bet since that isn't too invasive..

Just about all American manufacturers had quality control issues back in the 70's..

Ford's issue seemed to be oil pressure on the small block and mid block engines, most of which stemmed from a poor quality oil pump...THe 351M, 351C, and 400M has oil pressure problems by design flaw (they oiled the camshaft first basically).. I'm sure bearing quality and poor tolerances were part of it too.. THe oiling problems with these engines can be remedied, usuanlly involves a teardown though... The 302 and 351W got better oil pumps and I would suspect more attention to quality in the 80's and both were decent engines that were widely used for years..

General Motors (Mostly the Chevrolet Division) had valve train problems.. Camshafts & lifters wearing out, valve guides and valve seals wearing.. Once again this could me remedied with some updated parts..

Chrysler had severe rust problems (Brand new cars came with rust and parking lot dents) There were some carburetor issues here and there.. (stalling on a right turn was pretty common)

All the manufactuers had problems with fuel systems and emission controls, but then again that stuff all pretty new at that time..

We seem to be going though another era like this right now.. I see too many broken "new" (under 10 years old and 100,000 miles) in my garage.. They are now introducing emission controls on diesel engines (Specifically the Dodge Trucks with the 6.7L Cummins) Talk about a nightmare!!! It sort of makes the variable venturi carburetor look reliable and simple to repair...