83 Lincoln Continental

[Titan1a]

Make sure you turn your front wheels into the curb facing downward before setting the brake. Relieves pressure on the pawl when parking and prevents the car from rolling down a hill with pawl failure.

[MadMan]

Originally Posted by Adam

I'm wondering if these issues aren't related and there's some kind of leaky vacuum operated switch that releases the parking break when the car is in drive.

You hit the nail on the head. Most of these Lincolns, if not all, have a vacuum actuator that releases the parking brake whenever you put the car in gear. A very nice feature that's sadly forgotten in cars today. Likely, the vacuum actuator's rubber diaphragm is torn and leaking vacuum, so it won't auto release. And because it's meant to be automatic, the manual release is, as you say, way up under the dash. My advice: don't even bother applying the parking brake... unless you are parking on steep hills, but even then, it's not really necessary. At least until you get a replacement actuator. You might want to remove the vacuum hose from it and plug it, to silence the noisy leak. Be careful though, those plastic vacuum hoses are very brittle now.

[Eric H]

The whining noise under the dash is probably the vacuum operated Prk Brake release switch, it's part of the neutral switch as I recall and is mounted on the lower end of the column.

Not using the parking brake on a hill is really hard on the drive train, everything from the U-Joints to the Motor Mounts is under a strain.

[Sandy G]

Yeah-My '69 Sedan, which I used as my 2nd car for the 1st several years I had it, had "Issues"... I got it in '83, it had an indeterminate no. of miles on it at the time, but I felt it was around 100K.I had the tranny rebuilt in it, but it had the Ferd habit of slippin out of park & into reverse, even after the rebuild. It was my 1st"Tomcat" car, I'd load it up w/buds-An' Hopefully a few Feminine Women of the Girlish Persuasion as well, & we'd turn it into a Rolling Den of Iniquity... Lotsa BEER was drunk in it, not necessarily much by Moi-SOMEBODY had to Ride Herd over the Screwballs 'n' Knotheads who rode around in it w/me.. Still have it, last time I looked at it, if I spent a day or so "Spiffin' it up" it would look GREAT...

[Adam]

This has two drain plugs in the oil pan - one in the front and one on the bottom towards the back.

I didn't notice this at first, only drained about 1 qt out of the engine, thought the oil light must have been malfunctioning to have not been on, and started worrying something might have happened to the engine from driving it with such little oil.

Then I change the filter, put about 3 quarts in, and check the dipstick and find it to be way overfull. Then, I figured I had to be missing something, looked around and noticed the second drain plug. Then, I had to drain out all the new oil I just put in along with the rest of the old oil, and go get more oil.

Two drain plugs in the same oil pan ... never seen that before. The lower portion of the pan must be somehow subdivided into two sections.

[Electronic M]

It helps to have an idea of the volume of what is in your catch pan and how much you should be putting in...if it wasn't low before the change and noticably less was in it than specified something ain't right.

[Adam]

I spent all day working on this. I changed the spark plugs (those were the original plugs in there). I've never seen plugs with the electrodes actually worn down so much. There was a noticeable increase in performance with the new plugs. And some of those plugs were really really hard to get to (reminding me of why I'm always saying I prefer cars of the 60s and 70s).

The problem with the parking brake/vacuum switch is the switch. I removed the vacuum line and plugged it, and the sound went away. One of the two screws that hold it in is on top of the column and really hard to get to, so I haven't removed the switch yet, but I have ordered another one.

What I heard bouncing around under the car is an about 1" diameter metal tube which is supposed to connect to the catalytic converters (It has 2 catalytic converters which then feed a single muffler), but is rusted through and bouncing around under there. It leads to a mess of smog hoses on the right side of the engine. I'm not sure what it is or does, but in the Phoenix area all cars newer than 66 need to pass smog, so I need one.

(There is a loophole in that if you register your car as a 'classic' and get special insurance you don't need smog no matter what the year (but it's more expensive and limits how much you can drive the car per year - and seeing I bought this to be my daily driver, I don't want to be limited in how much I can drive it).

I plugged in a loose connector I noticed under the dash when I was trying to remove that vacuum switch, and now I get beeping every time I start the car. It seems to be beeping because it thinks it's out of gas. The display says DTE (distance to empty) miles = 0, even though that isn't the case. For now, I'm just going to unplug that cable again, but I'd like to find out why it always thinks it's out of gas. (The fuel gauge works fine - this is that computer that calculates gas milage, distance travelled, avg speed, ... in the center of that dash that thinks there is no gas)

[MadMan]

Originally Posted by Adam

What I heard bouncing around under the car is an about 1" diameter metal tube which is supposed to connect to the catalytic converters (It has 2 catalytic converters which then feed a single muffler), but is rusted through and bouncing around under there. It leads to a mess of smog hoses on the right side of the engine. I'm not sure what it is or does, but in the Phoenix area all cars newer than 66 need to pass smog, so I need one.

That pipe that feeds the converters is the secondary air injection. Basically, the system pumps fresh air into the exhaust to aide in the catalyzing, usually during cold weather. If the inspectors see that it's broken, they'll fail you. But if they don't check, and the pipes on the converter side are plugged, it's entirely possible it won't affect a tailpipe gas analyzer test.

I don't know much about how inspections work in Phoenix, but I'd wager nobody even has an exhaust gas analyzer anymore, anyway. Likely their inspections (on pre-1996 cars) are visual only - but don't take my word for it.

[init4fun]

Originally Posted by MadMan

That pipe that feeds the converters is the secondary air injection. Basically, the system pumps fresh air into the exhaust to aide in the catalyzing, usually during cold weather. If the inspectors see that it's broken, they'll fail you. But if they don't check, and the pipes on the converter side are plugged, it's entirely possible it won't affect a tailpipe gas analyzer test.

I don't know much about how inspections work in Phoenix, but I'd wager nobody even has an exhaust gas analyzer anymore, anyway. Likely their inspections (on pre-1996 cars) are visual only - but don't take my word for it.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/show...wpost&t=760335

Colorado still tests , this thread is not me or my car , but I feel bad for anyone who owns a vintage car in a place that still tests pre OBD2 cars .

Thankfully where I live it's a visual safety inspection only on anything pre OBD2

[Boobtubeman]

Try owning a 79 pinto in CA. Still under emissions testing... Been non-oped since..

SR

[mr_rye89]

Wew I'm glad there's no smogging in the county I live in. The truck had its cat deleted long ago, egr was rusted out (in NM, How?!), air pump seized, evap is intact but I don't think it works (can smell it sometimes), air preheater missing.... So I trashed all the smog equipment (except the evap).

The Pug also had most of the emissions deleted due to vacuum leaks, because vacuum leaks+Bosch k-Jet=a bad time. cat is till there for now......

The Miata had an emergency cat delete because the ground strap and ignition coils took a crap and ruined the cat. The downstream O2 is just zip tied to the body braces

I've seen dual drain plugs on 5.0 LTD Crown Vics (or was it a Town Car) when I used to work for Jiffy Lube, I think we took out both to be safe.

[MadMan]

Yeah thankfully in Chicago, they don't test pre OBDII cars.

[Sandy G]

They don't test NOTHIN here in Bugtussle, thank the Lord....Just what we need-Another layer of Gummint busybodies pokin' around stuff that ain't Nunya gotdam Bidness..

[Adam]

I washed and waxed both cars yesterday. Both these cars, even if I repainted them, I'd keep these colors. Not since I had that avocado green 72 Impala (which I sold back in 06) have I had cars for which I really liked the colors they came with.

I put a full tank of gas in the Lincoln and that problem with the milage-calculating computer being stuck on 0 and beeping fixed itself.

It doesn't need to pass smog for another 2 years, so for now I just tied that air tube up to the exhaust pipe so it wouldn't bounce around. I can't locate another one (I figure in two years I can come up with something even if I have to get a piece of straight pipe and figure out a way to bend it).

This car is nearly impossible to locate parts for: car parts stores don't stock parts for it because it's too old, and online parts stores for older cars don't stock parts for it because it's too new! I'm going to have to start looking around for junkyards (I quit doing it when I lived in the midwest, but back when I lived in Los Angeles it was one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday morning - wandering around the U-pull)

When I lived in CA I used to always try to get cars older than '75 so they wouldn't need smog. But here in AZ, the cutoff being 66, I just can't find a pre-67 car that doesn't either need lots of work, or isn't super expensive. It is nice that they have that 'collector car' exception here, and I will eventually go that route with the Firebird because I want to swap out that 2.8 V6 for a 350. For now the 'Bird is still registered in WI (it doesn't expire until next August). I don't plan on swapping the engine for a few years, so whether or not I try the 'classic car' registration right away depends on how hard it is to get it to pass smog when I finally get around to it. All the stuff's still there, so it probably will.

I'd consider moving somewhere just to get away from the smog checks, but I've done 6 long-distance moves in the past 10 years (and I just don't want to ever do it again.) And I like the Phoenix area, and would like to stay in the general vicinity. (Even though AZ seems to be a complete wasteland in terms of TV-collecting activity, in comparison MI was a real hub of TV collecting activity, and even WI had the warci swap meets) I do plan on moving locally, because I want to eventually buy a house rather than renting forever. But for now, I absolutely hate the job I moved here to take, and am desperately trying to find something else.

[consoleguy67]

Wow, both cars look great!