Keeping your maverick/comet happy

Is it just me or is it that these cars are never happy. If its one thing, you fix it, then its another.

Need to replace the heater core hose's, its a small task but still annoying
I guess after 30+ years, things start going bad although the hoses are probably 6 years old.

 

Comes with the territory of owning an old car,but i'd rather wrench on the old one's than the newer crap.But yeah it does seem like a domino effect after a while.lol

 

Yup, replaced the plug wires then water starts leaking from the back of the timing cover, must have been all that extra horsepower.

 

I agree. I put in a new master cylinder and then get a Nitrous kit in the mail...

Oh, wait, that isn't a problem, now, is it...

 

If that was my car, something would go wrong

 

It is MY car, and something WILL go wrong. And I will hopefully have my HatCAM on to share the pain with you all.

 

I always look at it as going around in circles. When you get back to fixing the very first thing you ever fixed, you probably have successfully restored your car.

 

One thing leads to another. I remember once when I converted my daily driver Cougar conv from 2V to 4V. The conversion went well, but when I went to hook up the new hoses, I noticed the radiator was leaking. So, I bought another radiator and got ready to install it. I thought, you know, the water pump will probably be the next thing to break. So, I bought a water pump, breaking off 2 bolts in the timing cover. Off to NPD to buy a $100 water pump. I had to take off the fuel pump and harmonic balancer to get the cover off. Thought, may as well replace them, too. Even though I covered up the oil pan, a piece of cork gasket fell down into the oil pan and I couldn't get it out. While I had the timing cover off, I thought, may as well replace the timing chain. In order to drop the oil pan, I had to take off the idler arm and free the center link from the steering stabilizer. They looked ok, so I did not replace them, but I also had to take off the starter, so, you guessed it, bought a new starter. While I had the oil pan off, I cleaned the oil pump and strainer. They looked ok and the engine was holding good oil pressure already.

When the job was done, I had a new Edelbrock Performer, 1406 carb, radiator, hoses, belts, water pump, timing chain cover, timing chain, fuel pump, harmonic balancer, starter, and oil pan gasket.

You never know what can of worms you uncover when working on one of these old cars.


Jim

 

Then you started the engine up and an errant small piece of gasket clogged your oil pickup, and your motor burned up in 3 minutes.

Oh, wait, that is just how it would have happened if I did it.

 

Our Mavericks are old and grumpy. When one thing goes something else is usually not far behind. I like to call it the snowball effect.

 

Its a hell of a lot better than changing them on some of the new stuff. Think positive. Not much thats hard to do on these oldies. A joy to work on in my books.
We wont have the new cars to compare to though since no chance of them lasting 30 plus years.

 

Well...............bought a new pair of rear tires, but thought the tubes would be OK.............WRONG.....now need to by the front tires. I was adjusting the valves and one of the MSD wires broke so now it looks like a new set of plugs. Noticed some oil on the floor under the rear of the engine................thought it was the rear main but it turns out the cork intake gasket on the rear of the intake is half blown out...................it never stops!

IMHO

 

Thats a bad little mav you got their.

 

Thanks, we will find out how bad in a couple of months. I'll start out with the throttle stop set where I can get used the car and see how it handles, then keep taking out the throttle stop to see if I can get into the high 9's in the 1/4 mile. So....................we will see!

 

olerodder,

This is the first I am seeing your car .... very nice! Saw in your other post it's race history ... more cool points for you there ...


Keeping the Comet happy ...

I think the thing that drives me nuts the most is that I am very goal-oriented. I will start out a day of working on the car with a good idea what I would like to accomplish that day.

I always seem to get sidetracked by some other detail that I uncover while messing with the first item ... I hit my goal about 20% of the time ... ... it is frustrating.

Right now, the car looks like a heap out in the garage ... door and fender off, interior empty. It has been in this state for 6 months at least. And it started to feel like not much has gotten done.

What changed all that was that I added to the car's photo album. If the car couldn't make it to Silver Springs, at least I could show the folks there what was going on with it. After seeing all those pics in my computer and having to narrow it all down to about 20 shots, it really changed my perspective. I started to think about how much time each step took, and that I was looking at a bunch of steps, too.

It got me juiced up to keep going ... just as soon as the weather here is warm enough for painting. (next week ... whoo-hoo ... ) The car will have a new interior soon. Then I will be driving it again for a while.