I had thought I bought a Lincoln. However nowhere on the car does the word Lincoln appear. It does say “Continental”, “Mark V” & “Built by Ford” on the car. The Lincoln emblem is promently displayed in a number of places. Yet the word Lincoln does not.

Henry Leyland respected President Lincoln and named his second auto manufacturing company after the President. I will probably have more to say in a prolog or epilog that will appear later. This story is about I have done to make the car better in the last year or so.

The first thing I did is replace the oil and filter, I discovered that the drain plug was stripped. I replaced it with a new one. But I am not happy about that, I will want to do something better.

One reason I bought this internet car is because of the pictures of the underside featuring the original exhaust. I knew if the car had its original exhaust, it would not be too rusty. My belief was the car had been unmolested and in reasonably good shape. So I bought a low cost exhaust system off of Ebay, it did not fit. I had to pay an exhaust system expert to install the the exhaust. He also inspected the car and replaced the rear brakes and master cylinder. Now I could legally drive the car, and safly stop if need be.

The third time I went to start the car the starter solenoid stuck on and the starter continued to spin after the engine started. Fortunately I was at home and I quick grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery. The battery cable was really hot. Then I bought a heavy duty solenoid and a new battery. I figured the old battery did not fully engage the solenoid and it welded itself closed. To help prevent further issues, a battery cut off switch was also added.

The carburetor would also have a variable idle. I fiddled with it and wished it was a bunch of old SU carbs like my old Jag E-Type. I could get those to work pretty well. I began to think a 4-Barrel was more complicated. So I bought a rebuild kit and disassembled the carburetor. It actually turned out to be quite clean inside, however there was an extra flanged nut inside the secondaries. It was the same type of nut that bolts the carburetor to the intake manifold. Yes all four nuts were were holding the carburetor on, none missing. I was so shocked by the presence of the extra nut I put a quick video on Snapchat. Fortunately the nut was just large enough so when the secondaries were wide open the nut would not fall into the intake manifold. Sometimes the secondaries would fully close, sometimes they would not. One time the car went 45 miles per hour whilst is was idling. That is why I took it apart.

Three of the tires were 20 year old Fisk tires, so three Armstrong tires were purchased to match a New Armstrong tire that was on the car. They told me one of the Fisk’s went flat before they delivered the car. The Fisk tires were not worn at all. So the car had not really done much travling in the last 20 years.

After driving the car a few times I discovered the radiator was leaking, so the radiatorcap was replaced. The reality was there were lots of small leaks all over the radiator. Fortunately I managed to score a good brass and copper radiator from Amazon at a good price. The hoses all looked good so I did not replace them. The plastic overflow tank was cracked too. I managed to glue that back together.

The door latch posts had electrical tap wrapped around them so I replaced them with latches from Ebay. That helped with a door rattle that I had been hearing.

I also replaced the spark plugs and spark plug wires. After that the car started Backfiring? I did not mix the wires up, they were actually numbered. It turns out the newer iridum plugs had more resistance than the old type of coil could handle. So I found some copper core plugs and replaced the distributor cap and roter along with a new coil. All the new parts were blue, to nicely match the Ford Blue air cleaner.

When the car was delivered, it was delivered to Keene, I ended up driving it home on a rainy night. It was hard to see, so I upgraded the lights to halogen led lights. I also bought new windshield wiper blades. I should be ready the next time there is a dark and stormy night.

Also I bought some quadrophonic 8-Track tapes, turns out only the rear speakers work. So I then bought some Sinatra tapes and a Bluetooth adapter so I can play music from my phone.

When driving with the windows down I thought I heard a slight noise when turning right from the left front wheel. I once owned a 71 Mustang and it had made the same noise. After a while the noise became worse and the wheel almost fell off. I bought some Timken bearings and replaced the wheel bearings. Surprisingly the races on the bearings did not match. The inner race was Timken and the outer was Koyo. The same bearing had two different manufacturers name on it. Someone was being lazy. While I was in there I replaced the brake pads and the inner fender splash shield. So far I have only done the left side. That was the side making the noise. I will probably do the other side at some point.

These cars are known for setting themselves on fire form some sort of short in the window and seat switches. I disassembled and cleaned the drivers side window and seat switches. I also replaced some bits in the window motor that fall apart and causes the window stop going up and down. These were not problems but would be in some time. I also cleaned and greases the window tracks and assembly.

There was a little bit of rust behind a couple pieces of the trim molding. I removed the trim and repaired the rust. Tried a couple of different types of paints, I think it came close. It is really not noticeable more than a couple feet away. I guess this is what is called paint correction. I also touched up a few other areas, it does make an improvement, you now have to look very closely to see the imperfections. There were a couple dings in the trim before I removed the trim. So I straightened the trim before I reinstalled the trim. It was nice to fix a couple of problems at the same time.

I did the previous two project during the winter when the car was in the garage. I could only get to one side of the car during this time. I cleaned up the car and went to drive it around the block. When it was warm the idle would surge, the car then stalled. I managed to shift into neutral and restart the car. And continue on. It was a bit of a trouble because I was going around a corner and the power steering did not work. An old lady walking her dog was watching me, she smiled. I do not know if she realized that the car stalled. She may not of noticed as the car is very quiet. Anyway I made it back home with no problem.

Now back to figuring out that carburetor, I need to have a good idle.