1975 Mercury Comet - WOOHOO!

The Comet arrived tonight! I'll take some photos when the sun comes up, but I was too excited to NOT take some long exposure shots!

Check it out:

 

looks like a great car! cool looking photos

 

Agreed!!!

 

That car is great looking!

 

Cool!

 

daylight pics!

Even more pics of this beauty. The daylight didn't reveal much, same body spots, which are relatively minimal in my un-Comet-educated opinion.

I am heading out to see if I can get her started - I am going to pull the plugs, spray some WD40 in there to get it lubed up, and hope for the best. Does anyone know what engine this is? I know it's a straight six, but that's about it. This is going to be my first foray into trying to be a mechanic.

 

I got her started - it's running pretty rough, 5 out of 6 cylinders firing. I took the spark plug out of the cylinder that wasn't firing, and there was a big hard glob of crap on there!

Check out this spark plug:





Now if I can only get that cylinder to work... replacing the plug didn't fix it, so I'll check the plug wire tomorrow. I have a mechanic who is coming to check the pressure on the cylinders in the next few days - maybe I should replace the plugs, distributor cap, and wires before he gets here?

I LOVE this forum!

Also - have you folks seen this?
http://home.comcast.net/~petebre/maverick/decode/

I took the VIN and ran it against this list - I have a 250 single barrel straight 6, a C4 automatic tranny, my car was assembled in Kansas City, and it was to be distributed in the Dallas area. How cool is that?!

 

yup we've all seen the vin decoder great website.

after a full tuneup and compression test if the problem persist i'd check the valve guide seals. there little pieces of rubber and after all these years they crack and fall apart allowing oil to constantly drip into the cylinder. my spark plugs looked very similar to yours everytime i took them out. (no gap at all) changed the seals and never had the problem again

 

I'm betting with a good tuneup that baby will be purring like a kitten.
Yep, that's a great website for info. We have been there many times over the years.
You're gonna wind up with a real nice car there.

 

Nice solid-looking car you have there. Always good to see another Comet.

Plug fouling like that is commonly the valve guide seals, as was mentioned. They tend to harden with age, and crumble.

If it passes the compression test, that will rule out any problem with the piston rings. It is possible to check the valves at that time, too.

A word of caution here .... if the valve guide seals have crumbled, it is a good idea to pull the oil pan and clean it out. Pieces tend to collect in there, and if the oil pump pickup on a 6 is similar to a V8, it can suck them in and jam the pump. I went through that twice. The second time, I replaced the oil pump with a Mellings from NAPA. The pickup has a full screen and is fully protected, unlike the factory pickup. $30 ... well worth the piece of mind. (Again ... don't know for sure if six cylinder hardware is the same, but I suspect it is ....)

Another thing ... just noticed in the picture ... the fuel line zip-tied the heater hose, presumably missing a bracket for the line ... might not be doing any harm, but warming the fuel before getting to the carb isn't doing it anything good. Better to keep it cool by getting it away from there. It will run better. I like metal fuel filters better too. Plastic ones can crack and be a fire hazard.

 

i am barry nice looking comet

 

from Michigan and enjoy your car!

 

From Oklahoma and very nice car and that reminds me, I need to take photo's of my tore apart stripped down Comet this weekend