Hey everybody. Just joined this forum. I've had liscense since June, and have had the car since September of last year, I think. Didn't really start driving until January. It's in great condition for the $3 grand. I'm going to hit 70,000 probably by the end of this month. I repaired entire stereo system, radio/antenna setup, side-view mirrors. Haven't done anything else really. Does anyone have any recommendations, advice, ideas, general info?

Thanks everyone =D

 

Welcome to the site..

Did you car come with anyservice/repair documentation? Making sure the regular service intervals were/are met is alwaysgood practice.. Depending on whats been done, or if anything is due/overdue might help save on future expenses if missed.. Watching out for the 'other guy' and not going faster than your Guardian Angel can fly might be better advice

My wife says my GA must be pretty tired......

 

Ya, it came with all the papers that showed time of previous check ups and autoshop visits and all that. I'm getting oil change at the 70,000 mark. Do you reccommend any specific gas? The guy who sold it to me said it works pretty well with 87 Unleaded from Arco. I can go a long time on half a tank with that. Do you think that's good?

And since it's a 3.0 V6, me & my friends sometimes race and I can take most of them. Haha, not really healthy right? I'm thinking of getting cold air intake...

 

Haha. Kinda messed up on the reply. You can read below/above whereever it comes up on page. But what kind of gas do you recommend?

 

Flush the cooling system at least once every year - otherwise your heater core will plug up and you'll have no heat in the winter. Be sure to flush the core separately - right at the firewall to make sure it's completely free of sludge. You can tap into the line high up on the firewall on the passenger side (where there is a spring clamp) and at a "T" fitting on the driver side where the "H" hose connects. You don't have to remove those short elbow hoses on the firewall that are hard to reach. Might want to replace the water pump too if it's original. The vanes develop rust cracks (or rust off all together) reducing fluid flow around the engine (and through the heater core). I just installed a $40 AutoZone aluminum Duralast unit. Seems to be OK. As far as gas goes, I've had my '97 3.0 GL (Vulcan) for 10 years and have never run it on anything but 87 octane, so you shouldn't have any problems doing the same thing.

Oh, change the tranny fluid, too. That's the otherthing that is problematicon these cars. You can just drop the pan, change the filter, and replace what's in there (5-6Qts.). Then ayear or so later, do it again. I actually pumped all mine out and replaced with new by using the Ford shop manual procedure, but I'm notsure you really need to do that. With that procedure (and this is from memory so I'm not sure it's exactly correct), you disconnect thetranny fluid cooling lineat the tranny (quick disconnect plastic fitting) and run the engine at idle until thefluid stops flowing (I think I got 1-2 Qts out this way). Then you take down the pan/filter, dump the fluid in there, and clean and re-bolt on. I think this yields another 5 Qts or so. Then, with about 5-6Qts still sitting inside the car (because it's about a 12 Qt capacity),you overfillthe system by pouring in about 10Qts of fluid. Then you start it up and watch it drain out the still-disconnect cooling line. After about 5Qts have drained out, you're done. With mycar, theoriginal fluid was so black at 97k miles that I actually saw theblack fluid turn to red at exactly the moment I expected it to (Ihad a hose attached to the disconnect cooling line and was sequentially filling emptyQt containers as thefluid drained out).

 

Tires are a good thing to keep an eye on.At some point the ones you have will be done and you'll need to have an idea where you'll get new ones. Look for tread depth in comparison to price. I usually favor paying more and getting the highest level of tread as possible so I don't need to go over the whole deal again any time soon.