Looks like it would be fairly easy to change the spark plugs.

I think there should be a "Grandpa's" car section at MCACN next year.

Success! She started and ran today. Once there was fuel up to the carb, she started right up.

Still up on the jackstands. I installed the Y-pipe without mufflers and she sounds like a monster truck (Didn't BigFoot have a 460 in it originally?).

I had a minor scare when I partially burnt the wiring harness ground by the voltage regulator due to one of the alternator leads being hooked to positive terminal on the back of the alternator instead of ground. Ugh! Should have reviewed my own photos better.

I also had to replace the leaking joint in the trans cooler line where a prior mechanic used a compression fitting to join two sections instead of correctly flaring the ends and using the correct flared adapter fitting. Luckily NAPA had the fitting in stock this time.

Drained the oil and the magnetic drain plug was totally clean. Refilled it with 5 quarts of 10W30 Pennzoil. The transmission shifts nicely and doesn't leak.

Tomorrow I will unwrap and fix the burnt harness wire. I will also pull out the rear seat to replace the center seat belt bolts with a couple of longer bolts that can pass through the rear bulkhead about an inch more, so they can be used for dual exhaust hanger mounting points. (I hate it when muffler shops just crank in a couple of monster-sized sheet metal screws into your floor to mount the mufflers from -Not gonna happen here).

That's gotta be a big relief getting all this stuff taken care of. Leaks are a big pain for cars that have sat a long time. I know this first hand. Every time I move a car there's a puddle.Cant wait to see how it performs vs the old setup. You gotta go burn some rubber :D

I stopped in a local shop recommended by a friend and asked about exhaust. Hopefully by the end of the week we should be able to get it done. I also went to the local Fastenal store and ordered two 2-1/2 grade 8, 7/16x20 bolts for the seat belt/exhaust hanger duty. It was hard to find a bolt with a long threaded section that didn't have way too much unthreaded collar area. Wound up with a 12 point shouldered bolt. Hopefully this should work.

Also have to get that gigantic hood back on the car!

I haven't done anything with the air cleaner as the large circular decal is currently on backorder and has been for a while.

Got the exhaust done today. Took it out for its maiden voyage 10 miles to the exhaust shop. Ran great - no issues at all (other than no hood and open Y-pipe). It took around 6 hours at the local shop. They really did a nice job. They used all existing factory frame holes for mounting points. Never needed to use the seat belt bolt holes as they decided to use the upper frame cross member which had bracket holes already.

They had some really ingenious methods of making mounts, such as the brackets they created that attached to the bottom bolts of the transmission mounts and went out laterally to reach the head pipes. They mated them nicely to the sections of the Y-pipe after it was dissected. The hard part was the over the axle tube creation. That took 3/4 of the time spent. Ended up using Magnaflow 12226 2-1/2"mufflers. Total price was $1,000 including tax - two mechanics working on it for over six hours and 30 feet of pipe, plus the mufflers.

It sounds nice and rumbly now. And much peppier too! Grampa would be happy. :-)

Looks great! That throttle cable mod is hilarious.

It's a time capsule of American ingenuity, I tell ya!

Just Curious, why didn't u have them start at the exhaust manifolds,, The front pipes look very rusty,, Great Thread.

Yes, it was somewhat surface rusty but the steel was still very heavy gauge and solid. The Lincoln had a very unique double-walled flange that has a specific type of donut gasket. No one makes a replacement flange so we used the factory section. I had to buy five different "donuts" before I found the correct sized 2-5/32" inner diameter replacement. It's a Felpro #60218 in case anyone needs the part number.

I cleaned up the original hood hinges today. Soaked them in 5 gallons of "Purple Power" degreaser since last night. That took off the 47 years of accumulated gunk but left the original phosphate finish intact. I have them soaking in engine oil now. Hopefully tomorrow we can get the hood back on finally - with all the family participating. It's like moving a ping-pong table around.

Got the hood back on. The hinges came out great from soaking and oiling.

Took her out for a drive to my buddy's garage and dismounted the 33 year-old Goodyear Eagle ST 225/70x15's that I put on in an emergency when the old tires went bad a couple months ago. (This set is actually the set of tires that the second owner of my '73 SD455 put on the car in 1985 when he blew up one of the Firestone 500's driving it from Arizona to California).

I had a set of recent 255/60x15 BFGs that were on an extra set of Honeycomb wheels in the garage. I dismounted them from the rims and mounted those on the Lincoln's steel wheels - blackwall side out - looks very sinister..

I then remounted the old Goodyear Eagle ST's on the original set of Honeycombs from the SD455, and stored the remaining Firestone 500's in the back of the garage. I know: it sounds like the automotive version of Three-Card-Monty.

Anyway, I will try to post some photos tomorrow when it is sunny out. It was raining all day today - and I spent most of the day scrubbing both sets of tires and making them presentable again.

I also spent a couple hours cleaning the garage of all the remnants of the engine build, finding my lost tools, and throwing out the cardboard boxes, empty paint cans, dirty rags, etc.

Here she is in all her Titanical glory. I let my wife drive the the ship around the block. She was happy to attempt to steer it into port but drew the line at attempting to back it into the garage, which requires a 6 point turn to get it docked without the aid of a tugboat.

The engine runs great. It really pulls when the throttle is mashed down. I backed the timing off a degree or two, to the factory spec of 6 degrees BTDC. Once I get a couple of gallons of 100 octane AvGas in the tank, I can readjust it again. It purrs like a kitten. The loudest thing under the hood now, is that Ford power steering pump. It makes a rather annoying chugging sound.

Man that of been cool to have in HS!! Ha!
Looks great

----Heavy weight muscle! love your attention to the details, Steve...….Bill S

Thanks! Next project is the control arm bushings and ball joints. All the other suspension parts were replaced by the dealer 20 years (and 400 miles) ago.

Then maybe I will find some way to get some tunes in it. It has the original "Town and Country" AM radio. It's one of those signal seeker radios that mechanically tracks across the dial to find the most static-ey station and then locks onto its signal. It would be nice to find an AM/FM and then throw some speakers in the trunk. That 1000 square foot trunk would make an awesome echo chamber.

Nice job Steve, you need some whitewalls on that ship,check out Diamond Back Classics in Conway ,SC for something Suitable. A Michelin with a 3/8 whiteall would be cool.
Dual exhaust is sweet.

The car actually came with the optional Michellns back in 1971. Do they still make Michelins in white stripe? 225/75x15 is the original size. I thought these Vogues were kind of cool - white stripe with a gold pinstripe around it. Not a fan of the heavy tread pattern though.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-SET-OF-...5.c10#viTabs_0

BTW, here's a '71 in action in an episode of Hawaii 50, back in the day...

The 460 looks like a small block under that hood.

Ain't that the truth! Any time I can use a 12" extension on a spark plug socket and still not touch the inner fenders, now that's some livin' room, I tell ya!

I couldn't leave well enough alone. And since none of the dealers have any idea when, or if ever a new batch of the "Continental 460 4V" decals will be produced again, I figured it was time to restore the air cleaner. I bead blasted the original paint off and the minor surface rust. Luckily the entire snorkel assembly is attached to the base with two screws and is easily removed. I then primed it, used some glazing putty on the pitted parts of the lid and then repainted it with the same Ford blue from the engine block. Came out nice if i do say so myself.

Got 50 miles on the new engine so far. And used a half a tank doing it!

Yeah, that looks good! Nice job McGyver!!!:grin:

I finally found the big, round, air cleaner lid decal at a Lincoln restoration shop out west. I located a used, unbroken, power steering pump dipstick on ebay for $20.

I repainted the radiator support and the large vacuum tank for the headlights. The hood latch assembly got the same treatment as the hood hinges: soaked in purple stuff for a few days and it came out great, with the original, green zinc plated finish untouched. Cleaned up the washer reservoir, as well. The inner fenders are gigantic pieces of black plastic about 1/4" thick, so they can't really be painted. Maybe some Armorall on them will shine them up nicely? Lots of other little details to attend to in the engine compartment to keep me busy.

I would just leave the fender wells. Armor all will just attract and adhere dust. Looks great :biggthumpup:

I cleaned the driver's side inner fender with some diesel fuel on a rag. It cleaned off the old residue nicely and was glossy for a day and then it absorbed into the plastic and that is what you see now. I haven't cleaned the passenger side yet.

It's an odd engine compartment/hood hinge setup. If you look closely you can see that the passenger side hood hinge mounts inboard of the hood's underside frame structure by about 6 inches, while the driver's side hinge mounts outboard of it, directly to the inside of the fender. That is why there is that black section that is bolted to the upper inner area of the passenger fender.

Today I tackled the front suspension. I pulled the upper and lower control arms out and the coil springs. Rather easy to remove everything. I did find some interesting stuff though. First, I was looking and looking for the passenger side shock absorber stud so I could remove the nut. All I found was the hole where it should have been. This is what I found when I unbolted it from the bottom of the control arm...

In examining the stud it appears that the dealer never bothered to install the upper bushings, washers, and nuts on it. The threads were untouched for the entire length of the threaded area. (other than the marks where it was banging around inside the coil spring). I never heard a thing while driving! Luckily, I have a new set of front shocks that were the ones that I got from Midas under the lifetime warranty for Gramma's Firebird several years back. It just so happens that they are the exact same part number for both cars! How's that for good Karma (Car-ma)?

Everything came out without a single broken bolt! All four original riveted ball joints are nice and tight - just as tight as the brand new AC/Delco ball joints I bought three months ago. They are going to stay in their boxes. (Unfortunately it's too late to return them to rockauto).

The other oddball thing I found was that the passenger side upper control arm bushings were rotating in the upper control arm. I wondered why it was so easy to move the control arm up to free the spindle. And then I saw the problem. At least it made for removing the control arm pivot very easy. I just removed the outer nut and washer and popped them out with a screw driver. I checked the new bushings for fit and the are tight and need to be pressed in properly. The driver's side bushings will take an air chisel to get out.

Here's all the parts after cleaning in purple stuff. Got some masking of the ball joints to do, before I can sandblast and paint the parts.

That passenger shock situation is crazy.

It's just crazy. It means that when it was installed, the "mechanic" never even put the lower bushing and washer on it. Otherwise that lower bushing and washer would have been permanently retained in position by the bend once it kinked over on itself.

I went over to my buddy's garage this morning and used his bushing press tools to install the lower control arm bushings. As for the uppers, we damaged one (or it was defective). When we pressed it in, onto the shaft, the outer case pressed in fine but the inner rubber just stayed in place about an inch out of the bushing. We have a new Moog bushing coming in on Wednesday and that should take care of it. Then I can clean and paint everything.

I also got a second opinion on the ball joints. He checked them and agreed that they were nice and tight and there was no need to replace them. The rubber seals were all still good too.

Got the last bushing installed on the upper control arm and everything is painted semigloss black. I have been soaking the spindles and coil springs in used engine oil after degreasing them. Interesting stuff here: the spindles are technically a two-piece unit with the caliper bracket safety wired to the spindle frame. All the paint markings and even the white plastic ring around the spindle are intact. The left and right coil springs have different paint codes. I assume to identify two different spring rates.

Got everything buttoned up today. Yesterday I reinstalled the upper and lower control arms, washed out and re-greased the wheel bearings, and after remembering to borrow the coil spring compressor from my buddy, I was able to install the coil springs. They just needed that inch or so of arc, to get them back into position to be able to swing the lower control arm up with the floor jack. Today I finished up the brakes and sway bar end links and lubed the ball joints and tie rods. Took her for a ride and she really does ride nicely now. Especially with two functioning shock absorbers in place.

The old boat actually did a one legged burnout while attempting to get up to speed with traffic on a local road. Those 2.8 rear gears are rather hard to get moving but once they do, it actually pushes you back into your sofa when the four barrels kick in.

I am thinking about swapping out the steel rims and hubcaps for some later model Lincoln turbine wheel. It would save some weight, look classy and get rid of the really out of round steel wheels. The first 20 years of my grandfather commuting over all those New York City city potholes did a number on those rims

Here's those later aluminum turbine rims on a 1971 Lincoln Mark III. 15x6.5 inch, 4.5 by 5 in bolt pattern. They came on a lot of Ford and Mercury products in the 4.5" bolt pattern during the 1980's. The Lincolns actually used a 5 inch pattern later in the 1970s but switched back to a 4.5 in the 1980's. So I need a Ford set with some Lincoln center caps.

I installed the Redi-Rad I got for the car in December. Pretty interesting contraption. It allows you to play your music on the AM radio via your cellphone. It adds an input lead that goes in the headphone jack of your phone, Ipod, DVD player, Beta-Max, or whatever.

Pretty simple installation if you can reach the antennae lead on the back of your radio along with a ground lead and a power lead to the fuse box. The antenna lead just plugs in series with the factory antenna and you set the radio to 1000 on the AM dial.

In other words it took several days of dash disassembly on this car to get to the back of the radio which is in the top section of the dash, above all the automatic A/C climate control duct work. I waited a few days for my cuts and scrapes on my hands to heal before reinstalling all the parts.

Here's the website: https://redirad.com/

Now I can play some appropriate theme music while cruisin' the scene with my Detroit lean.

I recall the dash pad on my fathers Lincoln was easily removed so he had access to the radio from the top. Maybe different in different years though.

All access is from the underside on this car. And of course Ford decided to have the lead also plug in from the top of the radio, not the bottom. Jeez!

How would you rate the Redirad sound quality? I've been contemplating buying one too.

It actually is better sound quality than any AM radio channel. It is essentially playing the car speakers as a set of earphones off your cell phone. You could even set up one of the satellite radio portable units and play it the same way, out of it's earphone jack and into the redirad cable. I have one of those SiriusXM units that I move from car to car. I'd just need to figure out a spot for it's little magnetic antenna since this car has a thickly padded vinyl top that won't allow it to go there..

Now I have to check and see why my rear door speakers aren't functioning. The Continental has four speakers, one in each door (none in the dash or rear deck). The two fronts sound fine. I was going to pull the door panels and regrease all the window tracks anyway, so I guess this pushes up the schedule of the next fun project.

Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your speaker project....

It's been a while but I recently started playing with the Lincoln because I'm bored. :-)

Last week I pulled the doors panels off and cleaned out the petrified grease from all four window track systems and regreased them all with a tub of chassis grease and PB Blaster. It's amazing how they all now actually will go all the way up and all the way down without having to rev the engine to 3000 RPM to give it extra juice.

I also sprayed the door lock mechanisms and they work nicely now too. The Lincoln uses an vacuum/electric door lock mechanism. There are solenoids in the dash which send power to relays when then allow the vacuum to push or pull the door lock button up and down. So instead of simply having a single solenoid like a modern car, they have 100 feet of vacuum line, 12 gauge wires with heavy amps and several relays involved. All so it can have some satisfying "ka-chunk-a-swish" sound when the switch is depressed.

When I was in the front doors, it appears that the dealer had been in there once before - all the weatherproof paper was shredded and missing in sections and there were several drilled holes at the bottom where they removed the power window motors to replace the plastic gears inside that crumble with age. This is actually the factory recommended repair procedure instead of removing the entire window and regulator assembly to get to the power window motors. Of course they didn't bother greasing all the moving parts of the window tracks properly at the same time. They just greased the main slider which just allowed the regulator to bind on itself when half of it was old grease and half was new. Sigh!

I found the speaker problem - the right rear door speaker was blown...and the left rear was never installed. I was lucky enough to find two NOS Ford speakers on ebay. One for $63 and the other for $85. After reading all the factory manuals my grandfather bought back in 1971 it seems that the AM radio only used three speakers though the car is wired for all four. So all I had to do was screw the left rear speaker in place and all four worked nicely (or as nice as 50 year old NOS Ford speakers can sound).

The best part was while searching for the speakers I found a 1971 AM/FM stereo radio from a 1971 Lincoln Continental on ebay as well. It's a unique one year only radio. And it was only $84 and already checked out and fully working.

Today was the fun part of removing the AM and installing the AM/FM. and getting the wiring to match up. You have to remove half the dash just to get to the three screws that hold the radio in. Two hours of labor to get to the radio and 2 minutes to install it.

Now everything actually works - the AM/FM radio, four speakers, four power windows and four power door locks! YAY

Nice job Steve. That is one beautiful Lincoln.