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What did you do to your wagon today?

137K views 1K replies 129 participants last post by  Mark Eric Roth 
#1 ·
Hello everyone I know this has probably been done before but I would like to start a thread so everyone can post what they have done or are doing to their wagon. I hope I can get this thread going so that we can all get ideas from each other. What I would like to see is a picture of everyones wagon and what your are doing to to or what your are planning to do. :p
 
#462 ·
Although you want to be able to see where you're turning before you get there, (pedestrians and bicycles typically don't have lights,) there are those who do cut-outs in their tint for the side mirrors.
 
#463 · (Edited)
I've seen that before but to me that is a big red flag to the local LEO. In my state they're pretty anal about no tint on the driver or passenger side windows. Most officers that I've talked to tell me they don't have a problem with smoked windows as long as they can see inside when the windows are rolled up. They don't like dark tinted windows because they can't tell what's on the other side of the window before it gets rolled down if they have to do a traffic stop.

John
 
#469 ·
View attachment 5259 View attachment 5260 View attachment 5261 View attachment 5262 View attachment 5263 View attachment 5264 View attachment 5265 View attachment 5266 Finally got around to doing my tints, 5% on all the back windows, and 15% on the front, as well as body work on the gt bumper and I painted and cleared it. I also pulled off all the door trim. I've never had so many compliments on a car especially an escort wagon.
I noticed that air compressor. Have you had any problems at all with it? I haven't seen a bad review yet and I want to know how it works for you.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#471 ·
Im working on a friend's 96 wagon. It had a bad head gasket, and the top of the block has enough dark areas on it (from water) that I will pull the block out and have my machinist maybe take a few thousandths off the top
. I also spent quite a while with my electric impact wrench, loosening/resnugging the two bolts on the front of the front to rear crossmember under the bell housing, so I can drop that crossmember down. The reason to remove the crossmember is so I can use my pry bar to remove the driver's side CV axle from the transmission. The CV boot is ripped open, and it looks like its been that way for a long time; the grease that got flung out is well coated with dirt.
I also need to free up the horizontal equalizers on the brake calipers; the pads are wearing unevenly.
 
#472 ·
Logan13848 So far its been good to me, only thing that's bad is that you need to make sure you have a 110 outlet dedicated to it, if I have the radio plugged in, the garage lights on and the comp kicks on it will trip the breaker on the comp itself. But it works good with the compacts, air ratchets, die grinders, Etc. I have the earth quake 1/2 and works good together.
 
#473 ·
#474 ·
Finally got to wire up my fogs! What a difference fogs made, and so much characteristic a gt bumper makes!
Most cams suck at nighttime pics. What did you use ?
 
#476 ·
Just received new Motorcraft plug wires and a new thermostat housing yesterday for the Zetec. After that all the car will need is a valve adjustment since I never did that after the swap. May not get around to that before selling it. I need a bigger vehicle to haul my tools and materials around in for my new business. Looking at possibly getting another Volvo wagon (940 Turbo). This Escort is great fun to drive but I'm ready to get back to my roots.
 
#478 ·
I can get low 20's out of a Volvo redblock and have a larger and more robust vehicle. I was looking at getting a Transit Connect for my new business but I am going to start out slow and keep my cash outflow lower than that. The 940 turbo I am looking at belongs to a friend of mine and is in very good condition AND has a sales price of only $1K which is super cheap for this car. It needs the a/c fixed and should probably have the turbo rebuilt soon since it smokes under heavy load. So that is still under $1500 for a gorgeous 945T. Even better, I have lots of spare parts for Volvos and redblocks lying around the house. The Volvo will be extremely easy to work on in comparison to the Escort or a Focus. The Zetec swap I just did required me to take off an entire week from work to complete and that was with a parts car sitting right next to it. If it had been a Volvo, that job could have been done in a day or two. I have Volvo in my blood and it is hard for anyone to understand if they have never owned a proper RWD Volvo. There is something very special about then and something I have missed dearly since I bought the Escort. The Escort is stupid fun to drive now with the Zetec in it. It just does things an Escort shouldn't do. But I will be listing it for sale soon after I have the chance to replace a heater bypass hose and replace the a/c compressor. It just got a fantastic set of Contenintal tires on it last week on the ZX2 wheels.
 
#480 ·
Will do, I'll still be hanging around a bit and will certainly be glad to give any advice on the zetec swap that I can.
BTW, I fixed the leaky heater hose and replaced the thermostat housing. But the big win came from the new set of Motorcraft plug wires. I can't believe how smooth the idle is now and I lost all of the off-idle stumble and top end cut out that I was experiencing before.
I think Graham knows that I am wanting to get rid of him, he is starting to shape up!

All I still need to do is replace the a/c compressor and drier, plastidip the passenger side window frames and do a good cleaning and it will be ready to go!
 
#481 ·
PHEW! Good thing I started this project early. Replaced the entire rear subframe with the one I pulled from a '91 GT. Now I have rear disc brakes!:D I had to drop the exhaust to get it out and in. The MX3 bar hit the gas tank so I had to reinstall it upside down. Since I was alone and didn't have a trans jack to lower and raise the subframe I went ahead and lifted the car just enough so that the wheels just came off the pavement. I unbolted the subframe and let it drop on the wheels. I loosened the lug nuts prior to all this. I unbolted the trailing arms, brake lines and parking cables and pulled the entire subframe out. I used my 3 ton jack to raise the new subframe into position, bolted it in and connected brake lines, trailing arms, parking brakes cables, exhaust and wheels. Bled the brakes and gave it a test run. No issues. I didn't need to use the Tracer MC as the brakes worked fine so I'm going to return it.

After that I drank a few beers(it was freaking hot today!:eek:) I raised the front end, put it on jacks and dug into replacing the water pump that started leaking after I did a radiator and engine flush. Once I got everything out of the way I noticed the tensioner was metal to metal when I spun it so after I pulled the water pump and tensioner I took a trip to the parts store and picked up a new water pump, new timing belt and new tensioner and installed it.

I'm tired.....

But she runs nice now. The car is a little quieter, probably from the tensioner, along with the engine not shaking so much when I turn on the A/C.

John
 
#482 ·
new front speakers.. from 3rd gen escort lol. Sounds awesome at 75mph both windows down.
2 new aftermarket cassette decks. First one was frigged up, 2nd one an Alpine was gonna be sweeet once I put new belts in it. Got my 2 new belts within 3 car stereos and 2 portable tape decks but popped a plastic actuator arm off. Very confusing, hours, gave up. Gonna add aux jack and throw this in sister's Escort. And back to the junkyard with my $10 I will be.
 
#485 ·
I have fixed two problems on my 92LX station wagon, and expect I will need to fix both of them on my other two wagons, plus the two other wagons in the family. I imagine these same chores will be needed, or may have been done already, on most 2nd generation Escort station wagons.
The problems:
1. The wires between running between the body and the rear gate get cracked from age and the flexing from gate opening, and eventually they break. I had done a repair to two of the eight wires a few years ago - but now had some wires breaking just inside the body where I could not reach them.
2. The little screws holding the lenses of the license plate lights get so rusted up that the phillips head 'cross' disappers. If you cant unscrew them, you cant replace a dead bulb, and it would fail the next annual inspection or get you a ticket.

For the first probem, I removed the plastic trim panel from the innner side of the gate, so I could detach the wiring harness from all the things it was connected to. From the body I removed the passenger side trunnk panel and the trim panel around that right rear window. This exposed the harness that runs upward to the gate. I unclipped it from the various things holding it & unplugged it from its connector. Then I could feed the harness up through the hole in the body (the gate being open), the movement making the original wire loop larger. From the guts of the gate I also unclipped all the connectors, then worked that harness up and out through the similar hole in the upper right corner of the gate. I had already pried the grommets out to do this.
Then I began splicing in new wires, from about 6 inches on each side of where the middle of the loop had been. One by one I clipped out about 12" from each wire in the harness. I spliced in new wires of the same size as those in the harness, with new supple and uncracked insulation. Each wire was about 13" long to allow for my lapped splice joints. Each splice also got two layers of heat shrink tubing to cover the splices.
I wrapped the reconstituted harness with black electrical tape to stop the sunlight, & fed the wires back into place; so the visible wire loop was about the same size/length as the original had been. Then I put all the other stuff back.

The second task I did by removing the lomg black plastic license light support. It is held onto the car by 3 nuts on studs, two supports using small phillips head screws easily accessible with the gate trim panel removed, AND One Fat Rusty phillips head screw visible from the outside if you open the gate halfway. This is a 6mm thread machine screw, and has not come out easily on any of the three wagons I have in my driveway.
On my 94LX I was able to free it up to unscrew, using one of those hand held impact tools. On the 92LX I used a dremel moto tool to grind a sort of slot in it, and even then I had to heat the captive nut from the inside with my oxy-acetylene torch before the impact tool would turn it. In spite of making up a heat shield, I almost set fire to the handle for opening the gate.
With that license ight bracket removed from the car, I could reach the rusted heads of the screws with the cutoff wheel of the Dremel; to cut slots in them - so I could unscrew them and replace the old screws with stainless screws from home depot. (I used #8 by 5/8" phillips head screws). While I was at it I cleaned up the lenses, the back half of the lamp housings, and put in new bulbs. I didnt use #194 bulbs, but used #161's instead. They are a smaller wattage, so as to not melt the lamp housings any further.

This work took me quite a while, spread over almost a week of an hour or so each day. The labor cost of having this done would likely result an owner who doesnt do his own work in giving up and just junking the car.
 
#792 ·
From the guts of the gate I also unclipped all the connectors, then worked that harness up and out through the similar hole in the upper right corner of the gate. I had already pried the grommets out to do this.
Hey Denisond, I know this is bumping an old thread, but could you elaborate a bit on what all you had to disassemble on the gate itself? I have to do this same job on our Escort.
 
#488 ·
My wagon is getting amake over. Used vinyl and fabric paint to change interior from tan to black and it looks pretty good. View attachment 9025
Love to see how that works for you. Please post after pics to see the results. I've been told that it doesn't last very long if you don't prep the surface before painting it. I also heard it leaves a paint smell in the car.

John
 
#493 ·
Can confirm. I painted some mismatched interior parts with "dye" and the stuff came off after a few weeks even with proper prep. I think it would be fine for stuff that never gets touched, but anything like door panels and arm rests it doesn't hold up. The odor wasn't a big deal though.

Out of curiosity, what products did you use Badwag? Maybe I just got a hold of some bad stuff. I think it was Duplicolor.
 
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