Hey guys, I just saw a 1976 Maverick for sale on Oodle.com out in Iowa. I have some questions. First, the car is advertised with 26,000 miles on it, so, I would assume the grille is original. I thought the 1976 models had amber turn signals without the crossbars. This car has what appears to be a 1975 grille with clear turn signals. Second, it appears to have a cruise control unit attached to the driver's side spring tower and appears to be factory. The turn signal stalk appears to bear this out. Was cruise control available? It appears to have lots of options, there was a picture of the radio and in this picture I noticed that the brake pedal lever bends to the left like a manual brake car. An underhood picture reveals that while the car has the shock tower bracket for power brakes, there is indeed no booster. Those badges on the hood and C-pillar, are they some part of the LDO package? Just curious because I've never seen this before. They also want $8,000+ for the car. Thanks for your replies. Craig.
No, I sure don't. The car is on Oodle.com and before that it was on cars.com. There are pictures on the website, but, I don't know how to link it.
I believe that all Mavs had the brake pedal to the left on cars that had the parking brake pedal (76-77?). I ran across a 77 in the jy like that .... manual brakes. Likely were all automatics at that point too ... no room for a clutch pedal.
Cruise control was not a factory option. Very popular back in the day to add an aftermarket cruise control to cars, as many kits were available. I have a Sears kit on my 1976 4-door. It is interesting that it has the power brake shock tower brace, but no power brakes. I wonder if it was a factory mistake? Not sure about the grill. I parted out this 1976 LDO: It had the same grill as the one pictured, with the cross hairs, but had amber lenses. That is one NICE Maverick.
Well, it looks like your car has the C-pillar emblem which would explain the one for sale. So, I would assume that it was part of the LDO package. I thought on all power brake cars, the lever went around the steering column on the left side and bent to the right, just the opposite of the manual brake cars to compensate for the angle of the booster to clear the shock tower. That is what got my attention, and sure enough it does have manual brakes. I wondered why a person would get a car with all those options and get MANUAL brakes. I tend to think in terms of packages these days and back then I guess you could have manual brakes if you wanted them on any car regardless of other options. I can't think of any other reason that crazy shock tower bracket would be needed except to clear the booster? And yes, I had a Sears cruise control unit on a van. The control didn't look as good as the one on that car. It is a nice car. Thanks for your replies, guys. Craig.
The 77 that I ran across in the jy had every option that I could think of except power brakes. It also originally was from the Detroit area, leading me to believe that it was a Ford employee that ordered it up. My thought on "why no power brakes?" regarding that car was that the booster really gets in the way of changing plugs (the car was a V8), and that was what makes sense to me. The guy might have had a big block Torino prior to that (same deal with the booster ....) Regarding this one .... that brace might have been a factory error or the only thing they had on hand at the time. It works ... it's not right, but it works.
I can relate to that! If my Maverick had power brakes it would be tedious to change plugs and back then a person didn't get the mileage out of sparkplugs so they needed to be changed regularly. (Every 15,000 miles?) The Crown Vic in my signature hasn't had the plugs changed ever and it has 100,000 miles on it. I know I can't get a sparkplug wrench in between the spring tower and the engine very easily. The car pictured looks like it has a 6-cylinder, a 250 perhaps, and it looks like it would be a bit interesting to change sparkplugs on it. The only Maverick we ever owned with power brakes was mom's car and we never changed plugs in it. (She drove it 3,000 miles a year for 5 years and we never changed the sparkplugs.) Thanks for your reply. Craig.
It could be dealer installed cruise control. That was available after purchase. My 76 Pinto Wagon had it installed by the previous owner with the manual transmission. It had Ford part numbers all over it. It was attached to the turn signal stalk. And when I had the car from 98-05 it worked great.
