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(This post was last modified: 03-12-2019, 11:21 PM by Thunder Bard.)
Hello!
My name is Jorge and I live in tiny dirt road town Wyoming (which just happens to be most of them).
I own a 1987 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe with the manual that I bought about a year ago with a blown turbo. (Bad oil seal, at the least) The shameful part is that I was specifically buying it to steal the engine and scrap the rest. However, as soon as I sat in it, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill such a beautiful beast. Sooo, I ended up adding a fourth car to my collection. Whoops. Repairing it with a spare turbo I had laying around (cause that's normal), I was on the road and happy to be there. Next week, it was back in the shop cause of a bad starter solenoid, which I replaced with a spare I had laying around (I own four 2.3 foxbodies, course I had a spare) and was back on the road! Two weeks made it past and I've got the thing back in the shop, cause the thing acted like it was out of gas on a full tank. Replacing the computer with a spare I had laying around (I'm sensing a pattern here), I seem to have solved the problem. Haven't had it since at least. On my next venture, both fans died due to being old with bad bearings, and they took the fan controller relay with them, so I've got a $100 Napa fan and a fan controller hooked up now. A few months go by with nothing more major than a bad tensioner pulley or a blown radiator hose or a lumpy tire or a dead headlight switch or a leaky radiator reservoir or a dead alternator or replacing the transmission or restoring the straight piped, fart can enabled exhaust to stock. Nothing too bad. Of course then my boost starts going away and I'm suddenly bogging down like no tomorrow. On the way home from college to diagnose the thing, all my boost goes away and a horrible noise emanates from under the hood. popping the hood open, it turns out that the Idle Air Controller has stripped its bolts and fallen off. Zip tying it back on, I drive the thing home and replace the throttle body with a spare and am on the road again, although with only being back to the low boost scenario. (and my turbo suddenly sounds metallic, I think I overspun it when the IAC fell off, but it hasn't blown up yet) Just this last month, I finally built the Boost Leak Diagnostic Tool ™ and figured out that my intake manifold gasket died when the fans went and the engine got a little warm. Of course, taking the intake manifold off to replace it is easier said than done, and it took two weeks to replace (needed to remove the oil cooler to get that last bolt, and most of the rest of the engine to get the second to last one.) Finally being back on the road with a mechanically sound car, I've noticed that the radio is dead, the seats are in terrible shape, the speedometer is jumpy, the cruise control is haunted and my turbo still sounds metallic. To top it all off, I've got no budget to fix those things, and no current project, so I'm back to looking longingly at The Experiment which I'd like to get running again. With a budget of nothing.
Anywho, I've rambled long enough. Just wanted to officially join this forum cause I've used it for most of my (correct) diagnostics.
I'm not sure how, but I've managed to never take a picture of my Thunderbird. Have a picture of The Project instead and why it's better known as The Bomb.
My name is Jorge and I live in tiny dirt road town Wyoming (which just happens to be most of them).
I own a 1987 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe with the manual that I bought about a year ago with a blown turbo. (Bad oil seal, at the least) The shameful part is that I was specifically buying it to steal the engine and scrap the rest. However, as soon as I sat in it, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill such a beautiful beast. Sooo, I ended up adding a fourth car to my collection. Whoops. Repairing it with a spare turbo I had laying around (cause that's normal), I was on the road and happy to be there. Next week, it was back in the shop cause of a bad starter solenoid, which I replaced with a spare I had laying around (I own four 2.3 foxbodies, course I had a spare) and was back on the road! Two weeks made it past and I've got the thing back in the shop, cause the thing acted like it was out of gas on a full tank. Replacing the computer with a spare I had laying around (I'm sensing a pattern here), I seem to have solved the problem. Haven't had it since at least. On my next venture, both fans died due to being old with bad bearings, and they took the fan controller relay with them, so I've got a $100 Napa fan and a fan controller hooked up now. A few months go by with nothing more major than a bad tensioner pulley or a blown radiator hose or a lumpy tire or a dead headlight switch or a leaky radiator reservoir or a dead alternator or replacing the transmission or restoring the straight piped, fart can enabled exhaust to stock. Nothing too bad. Of course then my boost starts going away and I'm suddenly bogging down like no tomorrow. On the way home from college to diagnose the thing, all my boost goes away and a horrible noise emanates from under the hood. popping the hood open, it turns out that the Idle Air Controller has stripped its bolts and fallen off. Zip tying it back on, I drive the thing home and replace the throttle body with a spare and am on the road again, although with only being back to the low boost scenario. (and my turbo suddenly sounds metallic, I think I overspun it when the IAC fell off, but it hasn't blown up yet) Just this last month, I finally built the Boost Leak Diagnostic Tool ™ and figured out that my intake manifold gasket died when the fans went and the engine got a little warm. Of course, taking the intake manifold off to replace it is easier said than done, and it took two weeks to replace (needed to remove the oil cooler to get that last bolt, and most of the rest of the engine to get the second to last one.) Finally being back on the road with a mechanically sound car, I've noticed that the radio is dead, the seats are in terrible shape, the speedometer is jumpy, the cruise control is haunted and my turbo still sounds metallic. To top it all off, I've got no budget to fix those things, and no current project, so I'm back to looking longingly at The Experiment which I'd like to get running again. With a budget of nothing.
Anywho, I've rambled long enough. Just wanted to officially join this forum cause I've used it for most of my (correct) diagnostics.
I'm not sure how, but I've managed to never take a picture of my Thunderbird. Have a picture of The Project instead and why it's better known as The Bomb.
