72 Mercury Comet GT in Germany

went to a local cruise in show, took my three year old on his first ride in the car. he loved it...

 

a quick update of some major problems i ran into - lost the clutch due to a cracked z-bar.
had everything disassembled by yesterday evening, will try to fix and reinforce it tomorrow!

 

also, i acquired another lift for my garage. 4 post, including a complete set of digital alignment tools. also, pretty cheap!

 

You have my sympathy on the z-bar. Mine cracked 2 weeks after putting in a bad-ass Hayes street/strip clutch in my first Comet. That clutch was stiffer than the one in the big delivery truck I drove at the time. It got to be a game ... let someone drive the car and see how long they could keep it pushed in at a red light.

The stock z-bar was fixed by welding the crack, and adding a gusset to it.

 

so here's an update:
just as you suggested, Jeff, the crack was rewelded and some parts have been added to achieve more strength.
the crack was in the first bend off the pivot point.
on the back as well as in the two corners on the front, some material has been added.

our first welding attempts were useless. the welder obviously had not enough output for material that thick, so i had a pro weld it for me.

also, a pic of the new 4-post lift.

 

Nice lift, Thomas

 

z-bar is back in. i now actually have about 1 1/2" of thread on the lower clutch rod left, where it was completely adjusted in before.
found a sweet spot for the pedal, clutch is working precise and exactly like it should.

while i was at it, i upgraded the shift linkage on my toploader from rubber bushings to the hurst "pit pack" with metal bushings. much more precision on the shifts.

 

WTF...
zbar is in fine shape, but now the middle bolt broke in half. happend while driving, was just about able to park the car while rolling out.
will be towed in tonight.

 

jacked the car up, bolt had snapped right off.
found a matching one, don't know what grade it is, though. the factory bolt is supposedly grade 5, maybe i should upgrade it to grade 8.

while i had the car on the lift, i found that the strut rod bushings are nearly gone. one is cracking, the other one broke in half.
these were the cheap ones from the laurel mountain mustang suspension kit. luckily, i have a moog k8157 set on the shelf.
the newly acquired alignment equipment might come in handy tomorrow!

 

That bolt is under a lot of stress and 40+ years don't help if that is the original bolt. It probably fatigued. Good thing you already had it out recently, that stub out to come right out.

 

it was fairly easy to get the stub out - i had slotted the bolt a while back, to be able to get it in with a screwdriver from underneath. due to my headers, there's no real room to wrench it in from above.

here's some pictures of the carnage:

 

I think the Z bar center bolt is the only part of the clutch linkage that hasn't failed on my 428CJ Fairlane... It's even broken the bolts that mount the Z bar pivot to block(FE don't use stud), all are now repl with grade 8...

 

today, everything help up pretty well while driving to a car show.

in my car, i use a centerforce DF clutch. if you google for "centerforce bent z-bar", quite a few people blame it on the clutch...

there are some things to tweak, though. when pushing the clutch pedal, you can actually see that the z-bar is moving horizontally at the frame rail pivot point before starting to turn. when swapping the toploader for the t5, i will have a look at that side, too. maybe the bushing is worn, maybe the z-bar needs sleeving... but it's going to be a real pita to remove, due to the headers.

didn't have time to realign the car yesterday, but the new strut rod bushings seem to not have affected caster too bad.

 

well, it's only been about a year. article got postponed, and is now in the current (october) issue!