My 1994 Ford Escort aka The Trusty Escort

A lot of people on my Crown Victoria forum say I am a perfectionist. I like things a certain way and really wont settle for less.


Power...never lost it. Lots of trees went down in the area. They basically uprooted.

You see my signature picture? Well the water rose up to one foot above the street there.

how hard is it to put the hatch/fuel door release in? i really wanna do that to my 2dr hatchback. I know of a full set up at a local JY for cheap. just dont know what ill be getting into.

EASY!

All you need to do is remove the sill plates (front door and rear door) and the bezel for the seatbelt behind the drivers side seat. Once removed you can route the cables from the front to the rear. The end of teh cables have a little ball on them that fit into your existing latches for hand your current fuel door. You will need the correct fuel door though (a fuel door from a fuel door release equipped vehicle).

My next project is adding underdash lights and under seat lights.

The underseat lights I have come with a harness for power and ground. They will receive constant power and a triggered ground. The triggered ground will come from the dome lamp AFTER the on, off, door switch so I can turn on the added lights when the door is opened or when I select ON on the dome light.

The underdash lights pose a problem because of the way they receive their ground.....they ground through the mount so they would be receiving ground constantly. Because of this I cannot simply give them a constant hot. What will be done is this: the same triggered ground for the underdash lights (that originates in the dome light AFTER the on, off , door switch) will be ran to pin 85 of a single pole single throw relay. Pin 86 of the relay will receive constant power as will pin 30. the output of the relay (pin 87) will then feed power to the underdash lights whenever the doors are opened or when I select ON on the dome lamp.

The underdash lights contain one light per unit. The underseat lights house two lights. One facing towards the front and one facing towards the rear.

I've missed those as well in this car.

Unfortunately at this point, would just be a great way to showcase the dirt.

The door-jamb switches are practically right there. I'd tap into those. Once the switch closes ground, they activate. Then I'd add a rocker switch on the dash for activating the dome/floor lights by providing an alternate ground through the switch. That way I wouldn't have to mess with the pillars or roof-lining.

I hear ya on not messing with stuff...but I will. I don;t like the look of added rocker switches and stuff. I have learned a lot over the years at the expense of my Crown Victoria on the right way of doing things...(right in my mind).

I took the pillar moldings off numerous times...and in this case I would only need to pop off the section by the B pillar....and only on one side. I will use a cable fisher to pull the cable from the dome lamp area to the B pillar of my choice then proceed from there.

I highly enjoy the stock look with added benefits.

Underseat lights are installed. Underdash to come. Looks great so far. Really nice subtle touch. Works great with the door, on, off switch on the dome light.

Underdash lights done as well.......well I am mistaken...I broke one bulb so I need to find a replacement in order for everything to be 100% functional.

Here are some pictures of my latest additions…. Autolamp headlights, underdash and underseat courtesy lamps as well as a new kidney bean key fob.

I’ll start with the autolamps:



Here you can see the underside of the autolamp sensor.

The sensor senses light or the absence of it and tells your headlights and parking lights to turn on and off automatically without you ever having to do a thing.



Here you can see the holes I made in the rear deck so the sensor can have light hitting it.



In that pic you can see the additional relays and wiring needed for the autolamps and the underdash courtesy lights. (2 for autolamps, 1 for courtesy)

Now onto the underseat and dash lights.

The Escort uses a ground to trigger the courtesy light in the dome light to illuminate. I wanted more than the one light in the dome so I added underseat and underdash lights from a 1989 Lincoln Town Car.


To make these lights turn on when the door was open IN ADDITION to when the dome lamp selector was on I had to get the ground signal from the doors AFTER it hits the dome lamp switch.



Above you can see how the dome light is without my added modification



Here is the modified version. That green wire is the ground for the dome lamp which enables the dome light to illuminate when the door is open IN ADDITION to when the on switch is selected in the dome lamp.

That wire green ground wire I ran down underneath the seats where I installed the underdash lights with some zip ties. The lights under the seats receive constant power and get hit with a ground when the doors are opened or when you select “on” on the dome lamp thus illuminating them.



As you can see here the underseat lamps point both forwards and backwards.



Under the rear seats you can see the light escaping.



Close up.

Now the tricky part was integrating a power triggered courtesy light (the underdash ones) into a ground triggered system. To remedy that I used a relay. No biggie.



Here you can see the underdash light mounted on the drivers side.



And here is my new remote. I had no spare so I purchased a new one through Amazon for cheap! I programmed it and both remotes work great.

I think I see a little dirt around the rubber at the base of the steering column.

Great work. Great detail. You even shrink-wrapped the wiring connections.

Did you install a cabin air filter ?

Thanks. I do my best whenever I can. I know in the future sloppy work will come back to bit me.

No I haven' installed a cabin air filter. I don't believe these models come with one stock. Is this something you have done?

Agreed, none came with one. Simplest way to implement it would be to attach a filter to the top or bottom of the grill here...
http://sdrv.ms/UlSf3h
... but that might create problems with humidity. It would also serve to only filter incoming air; would not filter recirculated air. Barring the first potential issue, would be better than nothing though.

Time to dust this thread off.

Some new pics and newness on the car:





























additions include egt side skirts, blacked out lower bumpers, repainted top of bumpers, body moldings and door handles and wheel center caps....

The lower rear control arm on the car were looking bad. ONe actually had a hole rusted clear through it. I replaced them this morning. Those effin' bolt were HUGE and a PITA to get out! Lots of heat on the shoulder of the bolt between the two points it goes through the knuckle. But it is done and I am not worried about them breaking on me while going anywhere anymore.

What I removed...p.side was rusted through:



And new:

Will you just slam this car to the ground already? lmao!

Looks really good! IMO, I would color match the gas lid, but that's just my 2cents.

But seriously... Lower it.

Believe me I would love for it to be lowered...but I have another project car. This is the daily driver that I put to much love into.

In other news I painted the black stripes in the front and rear bumper!

Next up is installing a front tie bar once it arrives and after it is painted.

Front tie bar is installed and fits great:

Some updates.

Entire new exhaust from the cat back was installed and I also installed new new door speakers because the other cheapo ones I have installed were rattling. Some things were painted, some new ford floor mats were installed and the entire car was fluid film'd undercoated before winter hit.

Here is the latest picture of the car.

Gave some loving to the Escort this morning....

For as long as I can remember the two lowest rear defrost lines wouldn't work. Upon a close inspection I did find a section in each grid line that was missing about a half inch or so of grid. Took the multimeter to it and found that there was 14 ohms of resistance between the potential break and the other side. Picked up a repair kit and masked everything off and brushed on the conductive paint. 1 ohm resistance now. I think I fixed it. Will find out next time the windows fog over.

Next issue to fix was the gas door popper. The spring was not springing enough to allow the fuel door to open past the plunger that releases the door. Pulled the springy metal and bent it out a bit and now it works like a champ. May be something that will fade overtime as the metal gets fatigued but at least I will know my issue.

Lastly was attending to the rough opening drivers side rear door. The guide that the door rides on while opening (some may call it a tensioner/door check though it is just a piece of metal through a nylon like plastic) was abnormally rusted as compared to the other four. I removed it, wire brushed the rust away and removed the track it runs through inside the door shell. Put some grease on it all and slapped it back into place. Unfortunately it still acts the same. I will keep an eye out for one on my next junkyard visit. I use that door everyday so it is a nuisance currently to me.

Popped the headlights out today and wetsanded starting from 400 up to 2k and then a polish. Crystal clear again. Finished them off with aerospace protectant. Vacuumed out the interior and cleaned some shoe prints from the carpet and floor mats. Looks brand new again. Also treated all of the exterior plastics like the vent visors and hood bug deflector with areospace protectant.

Potentially getting rid of the car so making it extra spiffy looking for a potential sale.