Intro to my 1971 Lincoln Sedan 460 Weekend Cruiser Project

[Case St Peter]

Hi everybody, let me introduce myself. My name is Case, I'm from New River, Arizona, and I like fast cars, big trucks and girls that are way too pretty for me. And this is my introduction to a project that I will be working on and updating on the forums as my progress with the car comes along.

I know this isn't the suicide door style cars that gets all the attention these days but I have always really had a slight obsession with the 1970-71 NON Mark cars. I just love the way they look and the fact they are a body on frame style car, I've been obsessed with the idea of stripping all the complicated parts off the car, AC, headlight doors, cruise control, etc and just being left with a big beautiful car that will always be a windows down weekend cruiser, that would float down the road but also be able to blaze some tires if I felt like showing off.

Anyway, I finally found one local that was a good deal and not completely neglected so I thought it would be a perfect car for my project. I picked it up and have been working a lot on it trying to get it fixed up, running, and ready for paint. Overall I'm really happy and excited about this project and its coming along well.

I got the car from a family that had bought it about 3 years ago from an auction and the story they were told was that it came from a small time auto museum/collection in Colorado. Im not sure if any of that story is legit or not but that's the story I was told. Overall the car is in pretty good shape. It has some rust repair and bondo in the expected spot of the rear top. However, the guy I bought it from was an old man but he would ocassionally let his grand kids drive it and one of them rear ended somebody on the freeway. The front bumper, grill, driverside front fender and headlight door were all damaged. I searched for a new front fender because it got crunched pretty good but was quoted upwards of $800 for a used fender so i just decided to take off the front fender and hammer and bondo it smooth and it came out pretty well. not perfect but good enough for me at the moment. I removed the headlight doors because I was never crazy about the way they looked, they almost always looked crooked to me in every picture of an older Lincoln. I also made my own grill to replace the factory grill that got damaged. Overall, my repairs look pretty good and I'm happy with it.

Now its time to start on the engine. The previous owners tried to get the car running again after it was crashed and apparently it had a small engine fire and they had to replace the distributor and spark plug wires and a few other things that got burnt up.

The car runs but the idle is high and irregular. When I put it in gear the engine goes from sounding decent to immediately sounding terrible and stumbles and knocks and just sounds awful but it will drive. When I took the carb off to clean it, I found a big chunk of the gasket missing so it definitely has a vacuum leak, the previous owner said he had a friend that knows Fords help with wiring up the firing order but they didnt get the timing set before they lost interest and put it up for sale. The engine also diesels really badly when I shut it off, as in, it runs on for about 5-10 seconds when I shut it off.

I pulled the fuel tank and cleaned all the rust from it, it was pretty bad. installed a new fuel filter.

So my current checklist for the engine is

1: make sure the firing order is correct
2: set the timing
3: fix the vacuum leak
4: decide what Im going to do with the Carb

The carb was clearly damaged in the fire, it seems to be missing some mechanisms that were not metal and were burn off in the fire. There is a small diaphram with a spring and a plastic spring retainer that seems to be missing. Im not entirely sure what its function is but I think it may have something to do with it dieseling really badly when I try and shut it off.

Im currently trying to research and find out what kind of carburetor I have and if I should just replace it with a Holley or Edelbrock one that would be more simple. I would happily compromise a few hard cold starts for a more simple carb. It doesnt get that cold here in Arizona and the car will always be garaged and driven only ocassionaly on the weekends so if anybody can help me identify this carb and suggest if I should keep it, or get a different one.

Sorry about the long rambling post but if any of this seems interesting to anybody and they want to make a few suggestions, I'm all ears and will appreciate any suggestions or constructive criticism.

I will keep this updated and post pictures along the way. thank you!

[palomar142]

How about a shot of your creative grille?

[John Mc]

Hello and welcome! Many folks here share you love of the 70-74 Continentals, including me.
Good luck on your project and please consider joining our club, the LCOC. It's a great group of folks we encourage those who want to modify their Lincolns. Se my signature below or PM me for more information.
Congrats on the new car and please post a ton of pictures! Also, after taking a look at the carb picture I noticed no clamp is securing the fuel line to the fuel inlet. Getter get that fixed or your going to have another fire!

Oh, and I do love the color.

[Case St Peter]

Palomar, I've included a few pictures that you can see the grill I made. Its by no means a work of art. I just took some 1/8 inch thick x 1 inch wide steel flat bar and built a frame and then took some small diameter steel mesh and sandwiched the mesh between another few plates of steel behind the frame. The frame has a slight angle to it in the center so that it mirrors the slight point of the front of the car, its subtle but it adds a cool effect when you can see it. Its all welded together so its simple and sturdy and does the job.

John, Thanks for the welcome and I have seen your car recently on my nightly craigslist searches I do. That's my dream car

Here is the car at the moment

I'm currently rebuilding the front hub bearing assembly. I did the pry bar test under the front tire and there is some movement but I dont see the movement coming from the ball joints so it seems its likely from worn out wheel bearings. I was able to twist off the front hub nut by hand so either they put them on too loose and likely that allowed the bearings to wear themselves out or it was just loose because of wear and tear, either way, I'm replacing those bearings. I pressed in the new bearing races and will pack and install the new bearings and seals when I'm ready to put the front end back together.

I'm taking apart the front end because I will be cutting the coils springs to lower the car about 2-3 inches, so today I will finish separating the ball joints so I can access the coil springs for removal. The front coil springs appear to be an easy job for cutting as they only have a flat spot on the top so I can easily lob off the needed amount to achieve the lowering on the bottom of the spring. The rear springs however seem to have a flat spot top and bottom so I will either need to find a replacement spring from a different car that has a similar spring rate, but is shorter in overall size that is shorter(any suggestions???) or I can try and cut the rears and then heat up a small portion of the end of the spring and re-bend a flat spot(I know this is not something that is recommended)

As you can see on the top, I am currently prepping the top for paint and dealing with bondo at the spot weld seam as well as plugging the holes where the top trim ran along the bottom of the vinyl. And of course the rust at the bottom corners of the back window.

This is so far all of the stuff that I have removed from the car. This car is going to always be a windows down weekend cruiser, so I had not use for all of the AC/Heater mechanisms, cruise control, etc. Plus a lot of it was damaged in the wreck. You can see the headlight doors and opening/closing vacuum mechanism in the back of the pile that was pushed into the AC coil and damaged. There is a picture of the grill as well that was crunched up pretty bad when the bumper horns got pushed up into it. There is also a picture of the original pumper. You probably cant tell from the picture but it was very badly twisted. The sides of the bumper however were in good, usable condition and I was able to find the big center section in reasonable condition on Ebay and got it for $150 SHIPPED!

I picked up these wheels and tires for a song. they are 255/45R20 (29"x10") Im not totally sure if Im going to go with the custom wheel look or keep the stock hub caps and do white wall tires but they were cheap enough that I bought them to experiment with.

Weather has been amazing here in Arizona, however today spiked at 100+ so its all of a sudden getting hot and I need to get some work done before it gets too hot and makes working on this car miserable.

I realize this is not the project that a lot of the diehard Lincoln fans like to see but hopefully somebody will find some value in my project as I am enjoying it very much and really excited about the end result.

Also, I feel like I posted in the wrong sub-forum so if one of the mods could move it, please.

[Case St Peter]

This car is one of my inspirations. Obviously it is way beyond my budget and capabilities but I want my car to somewhat look something like this. Love this car or rendering or whatever it is. Does anybody have any background info on this car?

[John Mc]

[quote="Case St Peter"]Palomar, I've included a few pictures that you can see the grill I made. Its by no means a work of art. I just took some 1/8 inch thick x 1 inch wide steel flat bar and built a frame and then took some small diameter steel mesh and sandwiched the mesh between another few plates of steel behind the frame. The frame has a slight angle to it in the center so that it mirrors the slight point of the front of the car, its subtle but it adds a cool effect when you can see it. Its all welded together so its simple and sturdy and does the job.

John, Thanks for the welcome and I have seen your car recently on my nightly craigslist searches I do. That's my dream car

Thanks, it's really my dream car too..........

Maybe I'll just keep it........

[L8RSK8R]

I've always liked the clean lines of '71 sedans.
Finally found one and had to get it.

PO installed two Viair compressors above the fuel tank/shelf, and after I recently rebuilt both compressors I started noticing a strong fuel smell in the cabin & trunk.

Yup,...PO had punctured the top of the fuel tank, when mounting the compressors