The Merkur Club of America Forums

Posted some years ago - our '88 had the "fire ring" missing on the factory fel-pro head gasket where the pressure feed is to the head (dr side rear corner). It held until some 65k, then let go as the oil pressure wore away the gasket material. This was a clear factory defect and may be pre...

No way - radiant red, black and white were all "single stage to color". I've painted 2 '88's and 2 '89's. One '88 was black, one the "early" red and 2 radiant red '89's. They were all single stage and all were original when I did them. Some are against ppg due to expense, but the...

Yep. Fired right up after the coil - but needed retiming from the dizzy r&r. Ohms were "only" one third of minimum spec, but factory shop manual says "replace if at all out of spec.". Due to possible corrosion of the blade connector and such, it's a good idea to clean the con...

Went to the driving range (VERY poor results). Left, car stops 100 m down the road. Tow home. No spark. The car was hot when failed, so did the usual Merkur diagnostics. No LED flash from module connector per Ford quickie test using made up tool (Radio Shack). Got a distributor - why not, as pole pi...

Our early E-Type Jaguar has Whitworth bolts in the Moss gearbox. Coarse thread in the Aluminum top cover and fine into the iron parts. You want a headache, that will give you one. Our used box was "fixed" by someone trying to replace a few of these bolts with various SAE sizes. Some of the...

Went through South Tahoe, CA again and decided to stop at the place with the XR's lined up at a lot. Saw this location on previous trips. Parked and went to look at one of the XR's. This lot is associated with a miniature parts sales building - it has about as many parts as most guys have in their g...

Ron, your car was a Ford Motor Co. titled car we bought when it was still under warranty (first private owners). The wife and I kept records from maybe 17k to when we sold it to you. I don't think we EVER got more than 25mpg and when it was 15 below zero it sometimes dropped to 12mpg in stop and go ...

I got my pedals, flywheel and clutch from Jeff at Merkur Midwest. Bought the T5, bell and clutch lever from a guy parting an SVO Mustang, so no issues with the pilot bushing. Bought the expensive 2 piece DS from Rapido. I had a clutch cable from who-knows-where and the speedo cable reused. Jeff may ...

Relative to the referred post - I recall that 1989 heads had different treatment to the exhaust vales and/or seats. They DO have a different casting number. This I personally confirmed with our '89 vis-vis our 1988. One of our '88's had a 0.005" "skim cut" after machine work. This was...

It might be flooding due to the FPR (fuel pressure regulator) leaking or an injector leak. If you pull the vacuum line off the FPR there should be NO fuel coming out. Your car has no cat, so if it was flooded you'd get black smoke and the smell of fuel when it does start. Also listen for your fuel p...

I tried to research the specific plastic used in our bumpers to no avail. It seemed to me (and my repair confirmed it) that ours are the "old school" urethane. I think - don't know for sure - that no one uses this material anymore due to cost and it won't stay straight. If you look our pla...

If you decide to make repairs or mods to an XR bumper I have personal experience with repair to these units. While I like 3M and I'm sure other brands are OK, I used "Lord Fusor" products - including the surface repair mix - on our XR. Fine you say, but what's the proof of quality? Well th...

Maybe kinda a new topic, but..... We drive our cars year around and the XR's with Blizzaks are OK in the snow. They have decent, but not great, weight distribution (especially since we run an 80# sand bag over the rear wheels) and a control oriented driving position. At circa 2 900, lbs they need th...

It's quite odd, but finding comparable weights for various engines is very hard to do. Only guys who ship them have any real information. Some guys post weights with clutches, some with alternators, etc. If you internet search this topic you can barely get a correct weight on a 350 Chevy, much less ...

That's our old car... I MAY have put a gutted butt splice connector in a line to the boost controller (we had the car over 20+ years and I forgot half the stuff I did). If so, the boost valve control is still much better. Also, I always ran manual trans ignition advance, so check to see if whoever p...