i recently acquired a 1970 mercury cougar eliminator, super nice car, retired motorola electrical engineer kept it in climate controlled garage for 30 years and paid people to hang parts. He only drove it 2000 miles in 30 years. It needs a few things due to the fact that a lot of different mechanics charged him to do things that A. weren't necessary or beneficial and B. charged him and did nothing to the car. For example, one such fellow, charged him 1000 bucks to convert the 3.50 open rear end 9 inch diff to a powertrax 3.70 locking diff. (he has all the receipts for everything he's ever done to the vehicle.) It would pop and jerk everytime you went around a corner, and on the highway it would grab and let go, grab and let go. So i read up on powertrax diff's it said absolutely whatever you do, do not put limited slip lubricant in the rear end. So i assumed the diff was just bad. I ordered a new center section with a limited slip diff. It came in, i painted it, preparing to install it. I then removed the old one, wouldn't you know, it had a Fomoco LImited slip differential in it. I spent a 1000 bucks to fix something i could've fixed for a 10 dollar bottle of limited slip lube. Couldn't return the new one, I painted it. I had previously removed the pass rear tire to try and id the axles as 28 spline or 31 spline. Well almost always two holes indicate 31 spline, so i had ordered 31 spline rear end. Guess what, it was the rare case that it was actually a 28 spline. Had i removed the drivers side i would've seen the scooped out figure 8 identifying them as 28 spline. He had the car converted to power rear disc brakes, in an effort to get more stopping ability, and was told that they weren't working because the built fe 390 (396) did not create enough vacuum for the brake booster, because it had dual quads on it. So he paid someone to put a single 4bbl eb intake on the car, the motor he had custom built by a reputable shop, it is a beast, but this mechanic told him a single 600 holley would suffice, even though the builder built it for the dual quads. He then didn't understand why it didn't run as good as it had, and he still had no rear brakes to speak of. The vacuum accuated headlights took forever to open as well. The mechanic told him he needed an electric vacuum pump. Why not start with a vacuum reservoir? I guess there wasn't any money in something like that, but he didn't even put one on with the electric pump. When i got the car home, the vacuum hose for the main vacuum port on the intake went back behind the carb and was just laying there, not connected to anything, and not long enough to have ever connected to anything. I lengthened the hose and hooked it up to the factory vacuum tree on the firewall. Guess what? No the brakes still didn't work, but, the headlights pop right open as they should. I was reading the documentation on the rear brake kit, nothing fancy, it is the one that uses trans am rotors and cadillac calipers, specifically said that you must remove the parking brake cable tab and rotate the mounting shaft, after reinstalling the nut, to get the pads to snug up to the rotors, failure to do so will cause the brakes not to work, and will basically ruin the calipers to where they never work again. the rotors still look brand new, they have never had a pad touch them. Guess I'm buying new calipers next. He did give me all of the old parts that he had, it is a treasure trove of parts. 427 low riser c3ae heads, (when he had the motor rebuilt, he replaced them with edlebrock heads, the c3ae low riser intake, both holley 600's, as well as a ton of other parts. I plan on putting the c3ae intake back on the car, and that is where my questions begin!
