update on Rich's build

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks John,Gary. Yep, I definetly need to adjust the headlights. Hadn't done that at all, and now with the car running downhill, they focus about 15 feet in front of the car.
BTW, tonight I hit a few potholes on the freeway, and the car moved sideways a little. I hadn't noticed the car doing that before. Is that the infamous Bumpsteer I've read about, and could the apparently-lighter-than-I-had-springs and lower drive height be causing that?

[canadian_ranchero]

did they adjust your caster more positive?lowering the front will move your caster more negative,positive is what you want

[RICH MUISE]

Good point....The front end hasn't been realigned yet....that's another shop and another payday, lol. I need to drive it enough to decide if this height is where it's gonna stay.

[hiball3985]

Looks Good Rich, a little more rake then I would do. Wait on the alignment if you decide to lower the rear or raise the front. Is it going to have a rear bumper?

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich very nice!  The change you feel in bouncing the car is the front suspension is now "working" instead being bound up at full extension.  Get the rear dropped before the alignment, if it is me I would go 2" and work from there.  With the rear dropped it will change how the car feels and responds.  I have not heard/read of any "bump steer" issues with the rack and pinion setup when all else is proper.

The Ranchwagon I had was equipped with Areostar, no spacer and a 2" drop and it did very good on the road, had a very nice stance and did not bottom.  The rear springs were still stock circa 1957 as originally equipped.  The Areostar springs are progressive, the further they are compressed the firmer they are.  This is the only surviving photo I have of it after the new owner did a "scuff and shoot" on it.

[JPotter57]

Rich, I'd add the 1.5 blocks at the rear and leave it.  It looks good.  Sits a lot like my yellow car when I ran the 28X10 slicks.  It sat lower with the street tires.  You will like it, should ride good with no bottoming, unless you are on I-10 in east Louisiana, lol.

[lalessi1]

You're a sick man, Lynn. lol

I know....

BTW, my car sits like yours now and I am planning on the lowering blocks as well.

[57 imposter]

looks good Rich  A little drop i the rear and I suspect you'll be set.

[RICH MUISE]

In the next few days I'll get some miles put on it to see if the front end settles any more, which I suspect will be the case. If it does drop as suspected the next thing will be figuring how to raise it. Appearance aside, it's borderline too low now from a driveability/clearance standpoint. A little time will tell.
I picked up a new OBD I and II code reader at the swap meet yesterday. It seems comparable to the 300. units I'd been looking at. It has GM, Ford and Chrysler OBDI connectors as well as the generic OBD II connector. It's made by Autoxray, and the vendor's boxes had Napa SKU/part numbers on them, so I'm guessing it's a new but older model of something that was sold by Napa. He had a dozen or so of them, I paid 100. for it. It has a CD with all the code number info on it and a link to a webpage with repair info based on the code. I'm anxious to play with it a bit. Hopefully, I can use it to figure exactly what and why it's throwing the codes it is. I'm also thinking once I have that exact info, I should be able to get some help from Scott at Ron Francis/Detail Zone on how to correct the problem.
I did talk yesterday at the swap meet with some Denver based guys that do computerized harness work/ computer rmapping/tuning, etc. These guys do Chevy systems, but gave me some contact info for a shop near them that does the same thing for Ford Systems, including remapping, etc. The guys I talked to confirmed what everyone else was saying about my car running in a back up mode/open loop because of the engine codes. He said my performance is probably serverly lacking right now. I can hardly wait to get it up to snuff.
Gonna be a while for both suspension changes (other than lowering blocks) and computer work if needed...I'm gonna be broke for a while.

[canadian_ranchero]

when i worked for ford in the 80's and 90's,one of my jobs was fixing fuel injection.if you have a question,let me know, i may be able to help

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks Gary. I did test the code reader out. I was really impressed...heck, I didn't even have to read the instruction manual as the reader led you thru everyting step by step. I got a total of 16 codes, but some were duplicates, as it listed the codes in memory first. I think I will go back and clear out all the codes then rerun the test after a short drive. Generally speaking, most of the codes were referencing insufficient data/communication between sensors and modules or cpu. One thing my code reader didn't come with is a cable to connect the reader to a pc. Gonna try and find one today. It would be nice to be able to download the read, then print it off.

I bought my car from my mother in law 17 years ago after Johnnie, my father in law, passed away. Yesterday I went over and picked her up for a short ride. It was the first time she had seen it in all those years, and was surprisingly pretty excited about it. She took a bunch of pics to send to John's brother. Unfortunatly, it wasn't too good of a demo ride. With the extra person the car was bottoming out quite easily at drainage dips in the road. To make matters worse, my horn started beeping on it's own..that's a first, did it three times yesterday. Probably something in the steering column wiring. No biggie, just a little embarassing.
So, another new problem, and confirmation that my front suspension ain't gonna cut it the way it is now.

[canadian_ranchero]

yes i agree,clear the codes,test drive,read codes again.deal with the hard codes first, memory codes second.hope this helps 

[57 imposter]

Rich.....Remember I have that set of new springs that are shorter than what you had in the car. With 1/2 coil out, they are 14 1/4 tall and wire size of .715 to .720.  The price is right so if your car will do the Ok. weekend, and you want to try them, I'll bring then down. If you need them sooner, I'll send them for the price of the freight. Sent me a business address to ship to as it really cuts the freight cost.
We both need to start getting loose ends wrapped up. Hope to get mine back from upholstery in the next day or so. Just missed three beautiful days that it could have been out on the hoist getting a bunch done. Oh well.

[RICH MUISE]

I'll get back to you on that, Doug. I'm a little under the weather today..flu/cold?? I sure appreciate the offer. I need to dig the springs out from the trunk that were on the car and see exactly what they are.
I have been driving the car almost daily for an hour or more. No new major issues coming up, just some small ones I need to start taking care of. I'm pretty confident the car won't have any problems for the OK trip, just stuff like not liking the way the car is handling/riding/responding now, but I am getting use to it. Some of the things that bothered me before, like the tranny downshifting, and maybe the exhaust a bit too loud, I am not hardly noticing now.

[57redwhitered]

Rich,  we returned from a trip to Moore, OK a couple of weeks ago.  The roads in Oklahoma, in my opinion, will defiantly provide you with a shakedown test.  Good luck!