Project Smuggler's Blues - Triple Blue 1964 Convertible

[defrang]

I definitely miss the podcasts. They're awesome. What is your new career? If all gauges are malfunctioning, may the little dash voltage regulator is the problem. Pat teahan has a video on replacing it with a more precise unit. I keep little mini wrenches in the glove box to adjust the UBPLS in my 65. I used to use them every time until John Brewer rebuilt mine. Now I keep the wrenches there to ward off the bad Lincoln spirits.

[defrang]

Jason,
check out my front kick panel speaker solution for the 64-65: https://www.thelincolnforum.net/phpbb3/ ... 77#p404406

it looks OEM. IMO. haha.

[bd94s10]

papaywayne, thanks man. No doubt I'm a Lincoln Addict so I will stay here as long as the site is up.

Thanks for the good word defrang! I started a county job doing project mgmt. I work for the county I now live in. I worked at Verizon Wireless for ~20 years. iPhone launches, 5G Home, etc. projects. Finally stepped away from that (my choice) and have been just enjoying life.

Thanks for the intel. I remember talking with Pat not too long ago. I'm def gonna try that first. Oh wow, that is cool. I'm hoping I can get them working. NICE! I like those. My buddy is talented and I really want to team up with him to build mine. He has built every system I've ever owned since high school. I want to use this type of mesh on my kick panel covers I think and then again in the trunk for the amp cover (note this is a crew cab dually with rear bucket seats... I talked to the owner a good bit and he is going to send me the link for the mesh to purchase).

IMG_8846 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Looking forward to working on my car next weekend. I do a lot of car show promos in my spare time (don't have much of that these days) so I've been at car shows the past 4 weekends. I'm back home now and plotting what I will work on this coming weekend! Maybe a trip to Blair's Lair to work on my '64!

Jason

[defrang]

Jason,
congratulations on the new job. Looking forward to your customized solution to speakers etc on your 64. Maybe something in your setup will look good for my 65. I am interested in a subwoofer in case you have some ideas for that. the aurora radio conversion on my am/fm 65 has a sub output that I would like to take advantage of but not a lot of room to hide one even though the car seems as big as a tank.

[bd94s10]

Thanks man. Yeah man. No doubt. I've seen some cool setups. You could always store it where the jack was or where it is. Seems like a good place. I've seen the setups people do where they utilize under the back seat but that isn't my cup of tea. Mine will prob go where like Tom did his in the '65.. opposite side of the vert relays. My buddy said he will build the box but again that will take time. Maybe over the holidays. We will have to see. I save all the setups I like from Instagram in a folder. You can long-press the ribbon and save them. I have an entire folder saved of trunk setups/interior I like. My trunk just might tastefully tie into my love for Back To The Future.

[bd94s10]

Ok. Made some great progress yesterday at Blair's Lair. I'll talk about these key updates on Lincoln Addict Podcast Ep. 15 which I'll finish today. Search your fav podcast app or click here: https://lincolnaddict.podbean.com

Uploading new videos to my YouTube channel. I filmed several months back and never got around to stitching them together. Ordering a new computer so I'll be back in the editing game once again very soon. Please subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC46SrZ ... 2lGJBcvf1w

Thanks all and enjoy Labor Day weekend,
Jason "ODB" aka The Lincoln Addict

[bd94s10]

Not a ton of updates but some progress.

Finally got around to working on the rear bumper. You may recall Advanced Plating in TN re-chromed it and I've had it back for ~6 months. Bumper ends and bumper guards (bumperettes) were found by the folks I purchased the car from. Upon paying them to ship to FL I felt they were in GREAT condition. This led me to cancel the 1 bumper end and 2 bumper guards with Advanced Plating. Long story short I had purchased 1 re-chromed bumper end from Mario at Lincoln Boyz and planned to get the other + the bumperettes re-done. But when the folks I bought the car from sent me these... I said hey... this is best-case scenario for me. Saved me some money + 1 I had one missing the cage bolts on the back so I preferred to use the originals. They did appear to be re-chromed and my guess was he simply never got back around to putting them back on..... since the bumper was in such bad shape and needed to be re-chromed!

'64 Lincoln Continental rear bumper Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUot0zK62-s

Re-cap of my bumper madness

-Original bumper came with the car but was not installed (laying on the rear floorboard area) when I purchased; pretty much looked like this when I took this photo at Daytona International Speedway when I took it to Advanced Plating. They go to various shows each year so they make it easy to save money on freight to them but take it to them at the show

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

-This '65 bumper w/ '64 inserts came off a parts car that I got from Tony "Boss" Bolin which I will make a couch out of... but the bumper has served its purpose. Note the bumper ends are pretty bad! But hey like I said this bumper has served its purpose the past 3-years! It always blew me away how "roached" these real inserts were hence why I came up with the idea to create new custom billet aluminum pieces!

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Bumper ends that came from the previous owner... polishing with Brasso.

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Bumper with bumper guards and end

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

So I didn't get to install it and will do so this week. Note how much better it looks next to the factory front bumper lol

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

The original bumper on top, temp bumper on the bottom, and the original re-chromed on the bottom!

1964 Bumper by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Make sure to check out Lincoln Addict Podcast for more about Project Smuggler's Blues.

[bd94s10]

Does anyone continue to get logged out of the website while using the Safari browser on Mac? I typed up a super long post the other day with progress from Blair's shop and I got logged out when I hit submit... normally I have it copied/pasted and then have to log in and hit back and then paste and submit again. Well I did that and walked away and my second attempt I guess didn't post. UGH. I spent like 20 mins typing it up to... well here is a condensed update.

Gauges out.. this is when we were diagnosing issues mentioned above

IMG_9461 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Blair working in his lab

IMG_9464 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

IMG_9466 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Blair is one of the best out there. He spent a lot of time working on my gauges to dial them in.

IMG_9471 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Believe it or not here we were diagnosing the fuel gauge... going after the pigtail near his instrument

IMG_9476 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Cruising home a few weeks back from Blair's in Clearwater

IMG_9480 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Long story short

-fuel gauge never worked even with the new sending unit; the low fuel warning always worked; he had to take apart the sending unit to fix a bad connection
-fuel gauge still didn't work; he had to spend an hour or so using his tools and then adjusting the gauge to get it to show correctly
-oil pressure gauge was a bad sending unit; yes and I just put a new sending unit in not too long ago!
-temp gauge is still off; I may try to replace the guts... we ran out of time to mess with it that day
-amp gauge, as stated before, was bypassed. I will do a voltmeter at some point and hide it in the glove box or in a custom center console

Once the temp gauge is right I will re-install the upper dash!

[bd94s10]

Oh and this was the other part lost in the above-lost post

Custom billet inserts with custom sticker kits which I sell; will finally go on the re-chromed bumper this weekend

IMG_9597 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Rear of the '64 rear bumper pre-paint

IMG_9708 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Rear of '64 rear bumper painted!

IMG_9709 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Cleaned up the original bumper ends that were re-chromed to paint the insides black; just using a good spraypaint for everything here

IMG_9712 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Took the car for a spin a few weeks back to clear my mind

IMG_0145 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

[defrang]

Jason,
I use Safari and have not been logged out while trying to post. Your are lucky to have Blair work on the electrical. I can't imagine who I would get to help fix the problems you have had with the gauges.

[Solid]

I have seen the behavior you are talking about. When logging in, check the box for automatically logging you in on your next visit and the timeout when posting issue goes away.

[bd94s10]

Thanks, Robert for the info. Blair is really an asset and I'm lucky I live near his shop. I agree!

Thanks, Solid. I thought I was going crazy... well maybe I am but not from my Safari browser.

Haven't had a lot of time to work on the car due to car shows and just booked solid weekends but I plan to drive it this weekend to Brooksville for a charity car show. e.g. Big Brothers Big Sisters Charity Car Show from 11 AM to 4 PM. We will see though as it is supposed to rain in the area this weekend. UGH.

I'm hoping my buddy can help soon with the kick panels. He is now gone to his seasonable schedule (lawn company) so once I can get the car to him he can make moldings for the back of the panels. From there he said he will just build them out as he always does. I always try to "help" but he likes to just knock it out. I think I tend to slow him down lol.

My buddy Tony "Boss" Bolin just bought a really nice '65 sedan from Michigan I think it was. An LCOC guy went and checked out the car for him. It has to be his 20th Lincoln (counting parts cars) but it should be a really nice driver! I'll post a couple of pics below of it... he says he is going to "leave it stock" and just "drive it" but I don't' believe him lol.

IMG_2336 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

IMG_2335 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

[bd94s10]

Alright had a GREAT weekend but it was eventful...

Friday night Tony cruised out with a few friends to the beach. They had a pretty awesome time based upon his pics. Saturday I cruised with Tony over to his place and then to downtown New Port Richey. I realized I need to change the bulb in my tag light but 1 of the screw heads is now stripped so I need to figure that out. I ended up putting a free Harbor Freight light above my tag and it worked flawlessly lol.

Sunday we planned to hit a local charity show for the Boys & Girls Club up at Lead Foot City (look it up as it's an up and coming place) and I broke down on the toll expressway. Long story short the car lost power. I called my buddy Tony and he thought I might be out of fuel which I doubted as my gauge works now but I said hey.. I did a lot of cruising Sat so maybe the lower fuel light wasn't working and I waited. A Road Ranger ended stopping and he was super cool. He knew peeps we knew including a guy that went to dinner with us Saturday night. Small world. He stayed for about an hour as we messed with the car. We diagnosed the coil, spark, etc. We had it narrowed down to the points or a bad wire going to the oil. Ended up being the points but of course, I didn't have a spare set. UGH! Towed it home and snagged parts on the way back. Realized the plug wires were way more shot than I had realized due to touching the headers. I'm over it so although we through a set of points on it and cranked it over it was not running good due to some of the plug wires being THRASHED!

Just ordered the following:

-spark plug wire sleeves https://www.ebay.com/itm/X8-HIGH-HEAT-S ... 2749.l2649
-Petronix spark plug wires (808280)
-Petronix Igniter II (91281)
-Pertronix coil (45011)

Gonna take the plunge into the update. Enjoy the pics

Sat night cruise

IMG_2457 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Broke down

IMG_2476 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

IMG_2477 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

Road Ranger was cool dude. He did this pose when we asked him lol.

IMG_4619 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

On Tony's trailer

IMG_2482 by Jason Ballard, on Flickr

[defrang]

Always sad to see a Lincoln being pulled home Jason. The changeover to Pertronix should be good for Smugglers Blues. I have had Pertronix on my ride for the last 5 years and 6,000 miles with no issues.

[bd94s10]

Thanks Robert. Good to know man. I'm excited. All of my parts have no come in. Everything was ordered via Amazon except the boots I mentioned above. I have to remember how to crimp on my plug wire ends which should be fun. I really want to mock them up first to get a nice length in each of them. I'll take pics as I go.

Robert, do you have the Igniter I or II do you happen to recall? After speaking with Pertronix directly I went with the II as he said it has a built-in safety in case someone leaves the key on. I guess on Igniter I it was possible to burn up the Pertronix.

More to come!