Wife's 71 Mark iii

[1Bad55Chevy]

So my wife always wanted a classic Lincoln so I hunted down a 71 Mark iii last year in El Paso and gave it to her for our 10 year anniversary. It's not the nicest of cars like Nick's but it's mostly complete and is COMPLETELY rust free. The original plan was big HP motor, 9 inch limited slip, 4 wheel disc, airbags, vinyl wrap, new interior but the more I mess with it I am having a real hard time cutting up a complete car that runs so well. The new plan is to leave it stock, holley EFI, disc brakes, vinyl wrap (wife knows how to wrap vehicles), airbags, and new interior (Phoenix heat did a number to the dash pad and some of the plastic). I am a beginner to the Lincoln scene but in no way a beginner to the car scene. I have been wrenching since I was a kid and have done some pretty interesting things. Here are some pictures of the lincoln.
Day we got it home

Under side pictures

Motor pictures

And my long time project... 55 chevy I have had for 22 years.. drug out of a junk yard in 2000 when I was 15..

[TonyC]

22 years...that's as long as I've had Frankenstein.

Good luck with the Mark III; it's good to have a wife who's also a gearhead, and a lover of Lincolns. You'll find that, under the skin, there will be a lot of similarities to the contemporary Thunderbirds; so if you want to find customizing tips that you can't find here, you can check any Thunderbird forums for your conversion aspirations. I do hope that all you do manages to retain its original look; all the customizing I've done to Frankenstein, I've done with extreme care to ensure that the original look is not sullied. So far, I've been successful; people don't even take notice of, much less mention, the headrests which are the most obvious non-original items on the car, even though they are stock Ford headrests from 1969...or for that matter, the starboard-side mirror, which is also stock from a later year but was not available even as an option in mine. Everything else is very subtle, but very present and very effective (e.g., among other "tremendous trifles," electronic cruise control, AM-FM/cassette radio unit with automatic antenna, semi-automatic electric power locks, electric trunk popper, grid-type rear-window defroster, lighted vanity mirrors in both visors, additional interior lighting...and then, the removal of the design flaws in the engine, transmission, brakes, and steering). I used aftermarket parts only where I absolutely had to, preferring to use stock parts from organ donors as much as I could.

One suggestion I'd give to your customizing job would be to replace the outside hood release with an inside one. I never liked the idea of just anybody being able to get into the engine bay and steal or sabotage anything they wanted; an inside latch release will give it a bit of extra security. I'm sure it could be done with stock parts from a later year.

---Tony

[LithiumCobalt]

Looks like a nice dry body, which is ideal. Appears you've got a good one to fix up. My car is definitely not perfect. Nice, but not perfect by any means.

Other than the janky original carburetor on my car, the engine has ran just beautifully. Even with 103k miles on it. As far as I know, it's never been opened up. That will change this winter. I even hesitated to update to electronic ignition because it just ran that well, but finally did.

I'm always curious about the appeal of air bags.....only practical use I can think of is for load-leveling if you are planning to haul six adults and a 1,000 lbs of luggage...

Nice looking Chevy too. I always gravitated towards the 55-56. Everyone seems to have wet dream over the 57's, which I can't quite figure out.

[1Bad55Chevy]

I grabbed some more pictures of the interior and whatnot today. I try to mess with it a little bit everyday but sometimes it gets difficult since my wife and I own a small car dealership and take our 18 month old son to work with us everyday.
Interior

Most of the missing pieces are in the truck or laying in the back seat. You can see how the Phoenix heat ate up the dash pad pretty good and looks to have shrunk the arm rest. As for the driver's door panel I took it off to fix the window and have yet to reinstall the glass. The driver side switch panel is toast not sure what to do about that.
Exterior

You can see the car has to optional heated rear glass, power antenna, AM/FM stereo, and auto temp control. I was going to powder coat all the chrome on the car but as you can see it's so nice I can't bring myself to do it.

What I did today.

I was messing with the vacuum headlights today (covers are in trunk). I have discovered the passenger side will not remain closed for more then an hour. I can pull a vacuum on the bottom port and it will hold vacuum but not the top.. not sure how to rebuild these yet but any suggestions would be appreciated. I also determined that it is missing the headlight vacuum canister on the inner fender.. anyone looking to sell I am willing to buy lol!

[LithiumCobalt]

There is a place out west, I think, that rebuilds these vacuum actuators. It ain’t cheap, though. $700-800 for the pair. I think I’ve seen electric conversions out there that are much cheaper.

[LithiumCobalt]

Here it is: https://crittercreekcougar.com/shop/for ... rs-196971/

Apparently inflation has hit these too. Closing in on $900 for the pair

[LithiumCobalt]

Interior definitely looks saveable too. Not the dash pad but the rest looks like it could be brought back from the photos.

[1Bad55Chevy]

O my! Those things are expensive!

https://secure.cougarpartscatalog.com/1 ... ougar.html

I found these online tonight. Based on their description I wouldn't need to disassemble the whole housing since they are still holding vacuum pressure on the bottom port.

I picked this car up for $4,800 running terribly but driving. I was going to Z frame it, go suicide doors, airbags, 24" wheels to really make it insane but it's just to nice to chop all to hell. In the end this thing will be what all the car purists hate with a passion. The appeal for airbags is just for stance. When you roll into the car cruise you can set it on the ground and it looks so mean. With the new ridetech systems they have ride height sensors you mount to the frame so it will auto level like a modern day luxury car.

I am building this to be the exact opposite of my pro street 55. It's a pump gas big block, power nothing, no AC, no heat, and full interior that runs 10.30s on pump gas. This is going to be low and slow and instead of rattling the pipes this one is going to be thumping the system and set down on the ground.

[1Bad55Chevy]

https://www.justdashes.com/services/das ... storation/

Idk if anyone has seen that before but I would assume it's expensive! Looks super cool since they can re chrome plastic and restore all the interior panels for these cars!

[LithiumCobalt]

https://www.justdashes.com/services/das ... storation/

Idk if anyone has seen that before but I would assume it's expensive! Looks super cool since they can re chrome plastic and restore all the interior panels for these cars!

It is indeed expensive. Not sure what a Mark III costs, but last I checked for my ‘67 sedan it was $1,200 plus color match plus shipping plus tax plus whatever just for fun.

[TonyC]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmm...! You have a factory-designed defroster grid on your back window?? I didn't think those existed on American cars quite yet! I know foreign makes had them by that year (my mother's old '71 240Z had one), but I didn't know Lincoln went to grid technology for its rear-window defrosters by that year! Cool! Learning something new all the time.

As for the headlight flaps, it's possible that your issues may be simpler to remedy than they appear. Before I get into that, here's a backstory to prove the point I'll make shortly: In the '90s, when I was reviving my grand's old Man-Of-War (a '67 sedan), one of the things that confounded me was why the power locks, which I finally got working again, only worked with the engine running. Even calls to the one Lincoln expert back then (Guru Ron Baker) did not get me any closer to solving that mystery. The four door servos worked, the main distributor valve worked, even the check valve worked. Finally, on a hunch, I bought a stock of bulk vacuum hosing and replaced every inch of it on the engine-bay side, from the forward reservoir to the engine to the firewall. I did this because, even though there were no visible breaks in the plumbing, much of that hosing had become brittle, hard like plastic. That cured the problem. As it turned out, brittle hosing, even if it isn't cracked, will not keep vacuum trapped in the system. And this was when the car was only about 25 years old.

So, my point is that your vacuum servos/motors may or may not need that expensive rebuild or replacement. If one flap closes but doesn't stay closed, and the other flap behaves like it should, it could simply be a dry-rotted vacuum hose. In fact, it would not surprise me if all your vacuum issues are caused by deteriorated hosing. Keep in mind that they are rubber, which means their age alone can compromise them; add to that the heat of the engine bay and the weathering of the, well, weather over those decades, that amounts to malfunctions that will confound any mechanic of today with their computer degrees and all that. I would recommend getting a shop manual of that model and year, or at the very least a vacuum diagram for your car, to help you out with tracing down all the hoses so you can do a full replacement of them all, at least in the engine bay. It is very likely needed anyway, and it is the simplest and cheapest route to take. Start simple, replace all the hosing first. Then we can focus on servos/motors and check valves.

---Tony

[frasern]

About five years ago, I bought a '75 Marquis at an auction, parked it in a shed for a couple of years until I had time for it. The headlight doors stayed shut all winter, all summer and most of the next winter. Once they started to open, it took about 2 weeks. A little off topic, just saying they can hold vacuum a long time, if everything is in good shape.
I have sometimes shot silicon spray into vacuum systems, then let the engine draw the excess through the system, It may or may not help, but it's easy.
Tony is right about that grid, I have had 4 '71 Fords and a '71 Merc. All just had a factory blower for rear defrost. The grid must have been just a Lincoln thing that year, and on a Texas car yet!

[1Bad55Chevy]

I was digging through all the repair manuals today that were in the trunk of the car and found some pretty interesting things!

I found a TON of recipients for random things going back to 1990 and Pheonix registration recipients dating back to '91. There were a good number of other registration reciepts that were to old to read. The interesting thing is that it shows the first registration of the vehicle in Arizona was FEB of 71 while the tag on the door shows it was manufactured in JAN of 71. I would assume the vehicle was special ordered since it was sold so fast. I looked up the county Tax Assessor office and searched the address and the home us still owned by the guy on the registration. I am going to try to contact the last owner of the vehicle and see if I can get some actual info on the car since I purchased it from a guy who was illegaling flipping classic cars.

Idk why I do this.... On my 55 I tracked down the second owner who purchased it 58 and had it until the late 90s... he really hated what it turned into when it was finished lol

[Dan Szwarc]

Idk why I do this.... On my 55 I tracked down the second owner who purchased it 58 and had it until the late 90s... he really hated what it turned into when it was finished lol

This is not surprising. I couldn't care less what the original owner cares about MY car, now. He sold it. His loss.

[TonyC]

A couple years ago I was at a car show in Salina and saw something that I normally do not gravitate to. Chevys of the '50s never impress me...but the one I saw at that show did. It was a '56 Bel Air in original-showroom condition, pristine, even had one of the early air-conditioners (which was essentially a swamp cooler, needing water to operate). Of course, my main attractions were a '61 Continental sedan and a somewhat-customized '50 Cosmo, among a few other novelties that don't normally pop up at local car shows; but the Bel Air also grabbed my attention. Because virtually all surviving Chevys of the '50s have been rat-rodded or otherwise customized to look "bad-ass," seeing one that was unmolested was a novelty for me. I even used up some camera bytes to snap a few shots of it (attached below). The wet A/C wasn't the only thing that surprised me; I was also surprised to see that the fuel-filler tube was hidden behind the left taillight. So, what articles of the day stated about the Mark II's filler-pipe location being unusual was not all that unusual.

Now, on another note, I have no idea what the woman that owned Frankenstein last would think if she saw him with me now. Despite the story she told my now-late adopted mum, I think she dumped it in a pond as an act of vengeance against her ex-husband, from whom she took ownership, likely in divorce court. If I were to cruise around Haughton, where she lived at the time that Mum bought it from her, I'd like to think she'd be shocked not only to see the car she killed back to life, but also all the extras it suddenly has. But, knowing most chicks (not all, mind you, just most), she probably wouldn't even care.

---Tony