1966 Lincoln Getting Bags

[darrylqmiller]

More pics as promised. Two coats of Eastwood rust encapsulator (just in case) and two coats of epoxy to keep rust at bay until I"m ready to do body work. Now I just need to figure out how to get the trunk lid back on by myself. Might have to break down and ask the neighbors to come help.





A little before/after comparison shot:





Still needs seam sealer on the seams but I'll do that when I do the body work. She definitely isn't going to see any rain on her for awhile anyways. Next I'm either going to take off the bumper and clean and paint behind the grill, headlight buckets and what ever brackets are back there with a single stage satin urethane or maybe something fun like make a new back package tray with molded in speakers. All the sanding and prepping has got me bored, the speaker tray might make it fun again for a bit.

[darrylqmiller]

Okay finally got over the holidays and got everything put away and wife is gone for two weeks so back to the Lincoln. She got me a set of halo/halogen lights for Christmas that I have been wanting for awhile and I picked up a new alternator. As usual I changed my mind again, was going to clean and paint behind the grill all pretty but decided to wait until I yank the motor to do the engine compartment plus let the weather warm up a tad.

First I added a new Powermaster 150 AMP alternator from Summit. $200 and change out the door but didn't realize that this one didn't come with the new power cable (some do) so had to go to the store and get the recommended 10 gauge wire and some ring connectors so all told about $225. I hated the thought of all that extra wire still being under the hood since this new alt was a one wire so I removed the harness that went from the alt to the external voltage regulator and the ground cable from the alt to chassis as well. Not really a lot of picture worth stuff here just the basic swap out but here's a few.

Extra wire removed:


Picture of the alt installed from the bottom and no the bracket doesn't hit the alt, just the camera angle:


Charging fine and hope that it makes a difference with the modern electronics using more juice.

Then it was on to the headlights. Removed the lights, front grill and got to the wiring. First step was to modify the headlight bucket as the light didn't sit in there properly. Comparison shot of one bucket with metal removed and one without.



It wasn't allowing the light to sit flush and have the trim ring hold it in place. Left one not trimmed, right one trimmed. Not a huge difference but just enought to make it not work right.



Mounted them on a piece of wood and mounted them in the vise and used the die grinder to go to town.



Old versus new:





Halo/Halogen lights in grill

[darrylqmiller]

Next was on to the wiring. I purchased the kit to add relays and ceramic plugs to avoid melting the 48 year old plugs and pull a full 12 volts from the battery. It was interesting to me that with the kit you simply plugged into one of the existing headlight plugs and that powered all four of the lights both hi and low beams. So technically it is plug and play but once again I didn't want to leave all those extra wires in there so after studying the schematics I started snipping. Basically I just removed the plug ends and hard wired it in to the passenger side since it was closet to the battery for the relays. Then I removed all of the extra wires I didn't need on that side and pulled power from the front running light for the halos so they are on when the running lights come on. You need to test the wires to make sure you don't pull power from the wire that gets power when the turn signal is flashing or you'll have flashing halos.

Not many pictures as I got caught up in the job and forgot but heres the end result:



Here's the driver side before I started removing wires:



At this point I didn't need anything from the driver side as everything was powered off the passenger side. The wires for the headlights run back to some connectors back somewhere under the dash or behind the engine so I simply opened the wire loom and cut them back by the firewall. I also cut the wire for the ALT light in the dash way back there also since it won't work with the new one wire alt. If you look at the picture closely you can see I cut them progressively shorter by a little bit to avoid them accidentally touching and causing a short as well as put shrink tubing on each wire.
As you can see in the above picture the harness is a bit longer than needed so I trimmed that to fit also versus having a loop just hanging around behind the grill. I then pulled power from the running light for the halo on the driver side.



At that point I just tested to make sure I had the correct voltage at each connection, put the grill back on and installed the lights. Everything went together fine and worked just as intended.



Sorry it's hard to see the halos in the picture since the car is on blocks as I have more work to do before I get her back on the road. She's so big she is only about four feet from the back garage wall and I can't get back far enough to get the whole grill.
Now I just need to clean up all the wires in the engine compartment, looks like a bomb went off in there!



Hope that helps someone one day and I'll update as soon as progress is made!!

[smeeluv]

Darryl, looks good man! A couple questions for you. How did you hook up the halo lights, did you tap into the parking lights? I did that but the power was low so I had to add a relay there. With the relay kit, I have a similar kit but not hooked up yet and the lights flicker so I assume it's due to lack of voltage. So do you not have the ability to turn high beams on anymore?? That was my issue with the relay and I'm not sure if I like that or not. I wish I could get the parking lights to match the halos but I think the lens is too old and discolored.

[darrylqmiller]

I did hook up to the parking lights, if I recall it was almost 12V when I tested it, like 11.63 or something close.
My high beams do work, the kit I used you tap into the three wires going to one of the high beam lights, either passenger or driver. Actually with my kit you just plug it into the socket but I cut the sockets off and hard wired them together. As far as flickering I have heard that is due to low power like you stated and I also read that they need a really good ground so I made my own ground wires and made sure they were making good contact to the body.

I wish I could get the parking lights to match the halos but I think the lens is too old and discolored.
Not sure what you mean by this? Sorry
Hope that helps

[66Lincoupe]

That looks awesome! What brand are your lamps? I want red halos - for sitting in the parking lot of course - for my '66...

Also did you see my question about your trunk weatherstrip??

[smeeluv]

Yeah, I will just have to hook my relay up and see what it does. With the parking lights (blinkers), hard to explain, but I want the beam color to look similar between the halos and the parking lights. The halos are a bright white but the parking lights are dull white and I cannot find a bulb to match the halos. This may sound like a teenager but I do not like the yellow color and would look better if it matched. It's not like I spent a whole lot of time researching this either. If the parking light lens was more clear it would match up.

[darrylqmiller]

That looks awesome! What brand are your lamps? I want red halos - for sitting in the parking lot of course - for my '66...

Also did you see my question about your trunk weatherstrip??

If you're talking about the PM I did get the info and I got the weatherstripping thanks. I just read back through a bit but don't see any other questions about weatherstripping sorry.
I thought about getting green ones to match the interior and I want to paint the car a dark green but wouldn't be able to drive with them on. Of course they also make the RGB halos that you can change the color but they cost a bit more and I'm trying to keep costs under control. I got the lights from Octane Lighting, about $250 with the wiring harness (which is a bit cheaply made.) Not the best out there but I had a hard time swallowing $400 and up for a really nice set of headlights.

Just trying to find some place to buy steel from so I can get on to the next part of the build. Moving is rough when you don't know where to buy anything any more.

[66Lincoupe]

I just read back through a bit but don't see any other questions about weatherstripping sorry.

It was on a different thread. You have the proper profile trunk weatherstripping and I was wondering where you got it. I ordered weatherstrip form Baker's and it is crap. Wrong profile and way too thick - so thick in fact that it forces the decklid into misalignment.

Restoration Specialties used to have it but they no longer have the profile. At least they didn't when I ordered the stuff from Baker's - so overpriced AND incorrect.

[darrylqmiller]

Gotcha, sorry I did miss that but ran out to the shop a snapped a picture for you. Think I got it off the Ebay.

[darrylqmiller]

Well I'm slowly getting there. Making new rear bag mounts as the previous weren't strong enough as they started to bend and push into the body bending it a bit. Live and learn I guess.

Waaaayyyyy Stronger than before.


Also took a 2 hour down south of me to meet SkyoLincoln at a photo shot his car was in. That thing is bad ass!! You can't even tell where the 62 was grafted onto (I think I remember this right) the 99. Well what ever year it was he mounted the 62 body to it is awesome. And then when that was done drove another 1 1/2 hours to pick up a rebuilt 462 for my car. The guy had it rebuilt a few years ago and changed his direction. I'll have to take it apart and re-lube it before fire up but i couldn't even begin to rebuild mine for the price he sold me this one for.

I believe I need a bigger garage!!


Hope to have the mounts done soon, paint the rear end and clean up underneath and get this thing back on the road for a bit while I mess with the engine and get it painted up.

[darrylqmiller]

The easy side, passenger side, done. No onto the driver side and all the gas and brake lines to work around.

[darrylqmiller]

Update:
Drivers side with relocated gas line. Didn't worry about the return line so much yet as I may be running a new one if I do the Holley EFI.


Then while I had the rear end out I couldn't resist:




And tonight started this:

The filler tube came right out with no problems but man scrapping that tar stuff off the tank kinda sucks. Tried to pressure wash it off but not much luck.
More this weekend while the wife is gone but the temps are going from 60's to 20's on Sunday. To cold to get much besides cleaning done, to cold to paint and no heat in the garage.
Still need to clean under the back half, undercoat that and the wheel wells, weld a few patch pieces, new wheel cylinders and brake lines on the rear end, run new airline and then put the rear end back in. Almost drivable again.

[darrylqmiller]

Didn't seem to be as cold as they predicted but still to cold to paint so I came up with this.



Put the parts inside with a heater to warm them up, took them outside to paint then back in to dry. Worked good enough that I was able to get my tank done this weekend. Clean enough for me inside that I'm just going to run it the way it is. Actually it's really clean and doesn't need any thing done.






Along with replacing the float and fuel filter.


Also got the new wheel cylinders installed and the new brake lines bent. I put new brake lines on before but I didn't like the way they came out so I redid them. Waiting on Eastwood brake fluid resistant paint to arrive then I'll paint the wheel cylinders to keep them from rusting and paint the lines to give a bit of pop. I'll put up pics when they're done.

In the mean time I plan on putting the rear back in to see where my bags line up with the new brackets so I can drill the holes for the air line and the bolts then clean up the back half and rubberize to keep rust at bay and add a bit of sound deadening.

[darrylqmiller]

It's kind of silly that the weather in Georgia is like the apocalypse due to a few inches of snow. Coming from Eastern Washington where we would go to work, outside, after 1 1/2 hour drive when it's snowing makes me laugh. But none the less the cold weather and having to get up 1/2 an hour earlier at 4:15 AM incase traffic is bad has made me lazy. Not much picture worthy progress but progress none the less. Finally got up to 57 and partly sunny so after washing the wife's car I got to washing the underside of the back half of the Lincoln so I can undercoat it and get the car back together and back to driver status.

Nothing to see really but here's a picture of the debris that came out of the back half.



Definitely a pain in the ass and got soaked but it's going to look good and most importantly be all sealed up and keeping rust at bay. Going to degrease, prime and rust encapsulate (just to be sure) and spray with Eastwood's rubberized undercoating.
Progress slow but steady.

Oh and I think I finally got the bumper I need from Tim Nill at The Lincoln Ranch.