goodbye little sunflower

After over 4 years as our faithful steed,
today the old Lincoln was put to rest.

1990 lincoln town car
photo by piGPen

What started as someone's $30K luxury vehicle,
transformed into our $800 family sled,
even moonlighting as a shop truck in it's retirement.

OG lincoln town car SUV

Heck,
it was even good for smuggling people!

perich brothers visits chabott engineering
photo by ZAP

Gotta love the trunk space.
Funny cause the Chabott crew is going through their own vehicular turn over.
shinya kimura @ chabott engineering
Must be in the planets.

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Legion of Mary - Little Sunflower - July 4, 1975

A great work jam or cruising tune.
This is the musical description of driving a Lincoln Town Car.
Really.
Goodbye little sunflower...

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For the car that never stranded us,

sadly there was no long final good bye cruise.

Just a limp around the block,

not even enough to really warm up the old V8.

sturdy 5.0 ford engine

That's what was tough about deciding what to do with it.
The car ran great,
engine hummed and shifted fine.
The main problem was the brakes.
Sometimes they would work,
sometimes they would barely work.
It was a little disconcerting.

Probably a cheap fix,
but with the broken power windows,
the leaky main seal,
and the smog/registration coming up,
it was time.

spaghetti

A half-ass attempt to sell it on craigslist valued the car at maybe $600.
While that would have been the smart decision,
the hot rodder in me couldn't let a good running 302/aod combo go for that low.
This re-seed was planted from the very beginning.
The car was purchased with 167K miles on it and we only ran it 10K in the 4 years.
Just enough to test its durability.

holey chit

I've pulled this engine out before,

and for some reason I don't remember there being so many wires and hoses.

first engine pull - 2008
photo by piGPen

Funny how that works.

The plan is to keep the engine, transmission, battery and driveshaft.

sprinkles

Unfortunately it took alot longer to pull than I remember too.
There's a couple interested buyers for the carcass,
but a surprise storm messed up my timing.
Why didn't I start this on Saturday?

so cal rain

Oh yeah,
we were making a shelter for the chocolate and cheese roadster.
Weird how things work out.

TP