Vintage Thunderbird Club International

I think your suspicions regarding missing/stuck thermostat are correct; however, the gauge is not particularly accurate. According to Ted Eaton (eatonbalancing .com/y-blocksforever.com), the location of the sender and the rear of the driver's side head is not the best location; he prefers putting t...

You may be right. Some have done that to make it run cooler. These engines like to run hot. 190 deg is not unusual on a warm day and the gauge in the upper end of the white zone. People not familiar with these engines think that is a bad thing when it is not. I bought the large mouth thermostat as o...

It's interesting. I think there is a typo in the shop manual. I do have the original spring type. The shop manual says to increase voltage, increase the spring tension by bending Up the adjusting arm with an arrow to the bottom spring mount. That would DECREASE the tension. But if I bend the upper o...

You guys make too much good sense. According to the shop manual at 65deg the voltage should be 14.7- 15.5. At higher temps the voltage should be less. Time to start tweaking my regulator. Now to take the cover off and see which one I have as adjustment methods differ as to the make. I replaced it a...

You guys make too much good sense. According to the shop manual at 65deg the voltage should be 14.7- 15.5. At higher temps the voltage should be less. Time to start tweaking my regulator. Now to take the cover off and see which one I have as adjustment methods differ as to the make. I replaced it at...

It doesn't make sense to me either. Gas tanks are not square as in my wife's car when filled up the gauge does not move much with a full tank but when it starts getting low it moves much faster as the volume at the bottom of the tank is much smaller. Kinda like a 'V' but the milage remains constant ...

No. On occasion it will have a slight glow when in gear. but otherwise I never see it. All original so no extra loads. 13.5+ at about 1500 RPM. Good enough for me. May tweak the regulator later but I'm happy.

OK job done well. But I have another question to you gurus out there. After warmed up the battery was showing 12.3v at idle on a full charge. After I shut it down it was showing 12.6V. Does the ignition system actually use that much current?

Got 'er done, and it actually works. NOS T-Bird end plate. I did dress the brushes a bit per the shop manual and polished the commutator with # 1000 sandpaper.

ICON 1956 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 8:51 pm The milage on the 53 Customline with a flat eight with Henderson triple duals which gets 6-9 MPG OUCH !

LOL you did it to yourself. The last time I filled up with Washington's 'environmental tax' at $.50 /gallon cost me about $100 on non ethanol high octane.

I have always averaged about 8-9 MPG. I had a long block installed in the '70s as the original had freeze damage. The shop that did it ordered the engine from a factory authorized rebuilder and wonder if they put in a hotter than stock cam. It doesn't run rich and goes like a bat out of hell.

Well they should know their own product. You can always tighten up a bit if too noisy after everything is broken in.

According to the shop manual a preliminary cold adjustment should be 0.020. Run the engine until fully warm then check to 0.019.
Thanks to the CTCI Thunderbird circle chapter and their tech tips here is a method that worked great for me.

That ground is very important and mentioned many times in the technical bulletins. However the ground originally was a stranded and insulated cable and not the braided type used in later years.

This is why I use a battery cut off switch. No messing with the terminals and cables. They are soft and get bunged up.