(At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

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Jims65cyclone
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

Be sure you heat the engine up to normal temp, set the idle to 500 - 600 rpm, and disconnect and plug the vacuum advance hose going to the distributor before beginning the adjustment.

Jim
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popscomet
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by popscomet »

you can time one to slow also....it'll have no power,won't accelerate,,,bad to start,,,if this happens,,time it by ear and feel..loosen the dist bump the dist advance up just a hair,,do it at small intermrnts,,,,if you go to much,it'll be hard to start,like starter kicking back,,,if so start backing dist backwards just a tad at a time,and along trying to start it,,,,in a case with an old high mileage engine,,I never put a light on it,,,I do my way and it makes up for worn timeing gears and slack and I always drive it,,at times I stop on the side of the road and make adjust ments on the dist and carb,,,,you can do this ,son,just don't give up...…. :) pop
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

Another method that is very similar to Pop's is to advance the timing until you hear it knock under load (you're already there), then retard the timing in small increments until the knock stops. It's an easy way to do it if you don't have access to a timing light.

Jim
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by lavron »

Knocking not only sounds bad it is bad for the motor so you need to fix it.

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Mike
Mike's build thread
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Cris4942
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Cris4942 »

Hey guys, I’m back. It’s definitely been a long day. To start off, I would like y’all to just keep an open mind. Now yesterday my dad made me pretty much take the comet to get the timing adjusted, and sure enough, that was the problem. Thing ran nothing but 190 through 195 both on highway and on road. He adjusted it by light. Literally perfect.

Now here is where some of y’all might dislike or hate what I did next.

So today I woke up and purposely messed the timing up. Retarded it after loosing it up. Now there is a reason why I did so. I don’t want to have to depend on anyone when it comes to working on my car. I want to learn even if it’s the hard way. Made me really upset having to let anyone else work on my car since day one and it still does now. The good thing is that taking it to get adjusted, gave me a sense of how it should be working send sounding. And ohh boy was it an experience. Moving it ever so slightly seriously has a great effect. I learned how to set a medium by sound. After that it was all trial and error. Learnt how a real knock sounds. Also learned how bad a startle is. Whew. It definitely took quite sometime, but I think I now left the car around the same. Runs at around 190-197 both road and highway. Starts right up. no knock. And as soon as traffic picks up, the car car goes from 200/205 right back down. Will make sure to get a thermometer soon to verify the unit is reading properly.

Im proud of myself despite purposely messing up the work that was already done, because I learned to fully adjust it myself.I will make small adjustments over the course of the next days. Thanks Jim, pops, mike, and everyone else for all the help, I’d consider y’all my wrenching pals despite having little interactions with y’all. Also told my dad about it and he wasn’t mad at all like I expected. I think he’s happy I’m happy.

Happy 4th of July!

popscomet
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by popscomet »

POP is proud of you,,,,,now you know !!! any other youngin would have left it alone,,,,take care and help is always just a post away......thank you for keeping us informed on your doings concerning your old comet...….pop
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Groover
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Groover »

Nothing wrong with wanting to learn how something works. I've torn apart many perfectly good working things just to see how/why they work. And nothing more frustrating than the thing you've been trying to fix suddenly start working WITHOUT me knowing what I did to fix it. So I tear it back apart to try to figure out why. My build thread would be half as long if I just moved on every time something just worked.

But since you're going to be doing that a lot, seems a few more cheap tools would be helpful and save you a ton of time (time you could be learning to weld) :)

Here's a harbor freight timing light for $29. There are more expensive timing lights that have RPM as well (mine is a craftsman that has both, very useful) but this one would get you by.

https://www.harborfreight.com/timing-li ... 40963.html

A vacuum gauge is another invaluable tool and can be used to set timing as well. You can learn to use vacuum to diagnose a lot of problems for $15.

https://www.harborfreight.com/fuel-pump ... uum+tester

Here's a neat article that shows a ton of things you can diagnose with a vacuum gauge. This information is also in the shop manual linked below, but the article gives some description and the photos are cleaner:

https://www.racingjunk.com/news/using-e ... ce-issues/

Lots of times, I just hooked it up and ran the hose through the fire wall so I could see it as I drove around. Of course they sell pretty vacuum gauges to mount on your dash, but: 1) don't mess up that stock dash, and 2) the bigger gauge shows a little more useful deflection than the smaller dash mounted versions.

Here is a link to buy your shop manual on ebay. It will be invaluable as well:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1961-1962-1963 ... 0005.m1851

But good news... the 1964 manual is online and many of the sections will be pretty much the same as your Comet. Especially all the stuff on setting timing, most of the engine and drive train pages. There may be some slightly different options in 64, but I think you'll get a bunch of use out of it for free. In fact I guarantee you'll save at least $1,000 dollars in your time and un-broken parts in no time.

Here is the specific page on setting timing:

http://falconfaq.dyndns.org/display1.ph ... Page=9-005

And just for learning, you can also set your timing by vacuum gauge and by a method called static timing (which is how I set our Comet for the first time before it was ever started up):

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/how-to-s ... ngine2.htm

Instead of a light, I just used an ohm meter and turned the distributor right to the point where the points opened at 6 degrees before TDC (using the timing marks on the balancer).

By the way, assuming you still have points that's another thing the shop manual is going to help a lot with.

Enjoy the driving, and enjoy the learning. Be careful though. Pretty soon you're going to have a whole bunch of new friends asking YOU questions, and people asking YOU for advice ;)
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

I'm glad that solved your problem. It's a great feeling to puzzle and ponder over a problem and finally work it out. It took guts to mess with it after getting it set with a timing light, but you learned a lot about how it works, and that's knowledge you can add to your "toolbox" to use to address future problems on this or other cars. By the time I was about 17, I'd worked enough on cars with my dad to know how to do tune-ups, brake jobs and other "meat and potato" repair things. I actually got a summer job at a garage doing those sorts of things and learned a LOT. The neat thing was working on the cars of some of my high school class mates. Especially the girls. :wink:

Couple of suggestions for the future:
1. If you're adjusting something that's not too far out of whack to start with to see if you can improve it or what effect it has, leave yourself a trail to follow back if the original setting was the best. On your timing it would have been a good idea to scratch a little index mark on the base of the distributor and the block that you could line back up to get back where you started if that turned out to be the best adjustment after all. If you're adjusting the needle screws on a carb, keep track of how much you turn the screw and in which direction, e.g. 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock, CCW. You can also turn the screw all the way in before you start until it lightly seats, counting the turns as you go, then backing it back out to the starting point to begin adjusting. That way if you adjust it all around and nothing is better than where it started, at least you can get it back there.
2. If you're tearing into something you haven't messed with before, take pictures as you go. Again, it can serve as a reference when you start putting it back together. You can also share them with us to show us what you've done.

Keep on wrenchin' and have fun! :D

Jim
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Groover »

Two excellent suggestions, Jim.

My phone is littered with photos of every step of something or other. :?
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Cris4942
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Cris4942 »

Hey guys, today I learned a lesson. So went to try and get an alignment, turns out that although I saw no play in the wheels there was play in whole other areas. Ordered myself new lower control arms, pitman arms, and inner tie rods just to get everything done at once. Lower control arms came and everything was going smoothly until I had to take the ball joint out. Now, I’ve only being doing it one way, which is lots of hammer hitting, like I’ve been taught. 2 hours of pure hitting, and even my dad got some hits in and he’s the strongest person I know. Well it didn’t matter cause that lower ball joint wasn’t coming out. Went out to get a pickle fork and it literally did both sides within five minutes. So moral of the day, don’t make things harder in yourself: if you know there’s different alternatives( that you know are better) just save yourself some time


Also got the lights to work, now I’m working on the highbeams. And originally the car was black, so I’m kinda let down they didn’t keep the original color ):
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

A pickle fork is a great tool for separating ball joints, tie rod ends, etc. IF you are planning to replace them with new ones. Pickle forks can often tear the rubber boot on the joint, allowing dirt and water to enter the joint and cause damage if you don't replace it. If you want to minimize any damage to the joint, a ball joint separator or a pitman arm/tie rod puller are better choices. They apply gradual, controlled pressure to separate the joint, minimizing damage.
With the list of components that were bad and needed to be replaced, I'm surprised that the idler arm was not among them. That's a very common wear-out item. Also surprising that neither of the upper ball joints or outer tie rod ends were loose, given that the lowers and inners, respectively, were. Did the mechanic lift the front of the car by the frame so that the whole suspension hung free with the wheels off the ground when he checked for looseness? Cars with the coil springs mounted between the upper control arm and the body, like our Comets, have to be supported by the frame with the wheels off the ground to release the pressure on the suspension to check for looseness. Cars with the springs between the lower control arm and the frame, like a Mustang II and many GM cars, have to be raised by the lower control arms to take the pressure off the suspension components.

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Cris4942
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Cris4942 »

Hey jim. Turns out I ordered two idler arms on a dumb note. Some of the other components you mentioned I’ve been changing over the weeks. Thinking about it. The guy from the alignment shop raised it from the control arms. This whole time I’ve been raising it from the body. Could that have affected a lot? I’ll be replacing the parts I already ordered just to from my visuals. If I believe something is in good condition I’ll make sure to give it some thought

Cris4942
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Cris4942 »

So I’m back, managed to pull the whole assembly down, only things connected us the inner tie rods. Don’t think I need to change the pitman arm. Probably just needed tightening. I only need the center link. This will probably take another two days without the center link

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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

Cris4942 wrote:
Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:29 pm
Hey jim. Turns out I ordered two idler arms on a dumb note. Some of the other components you mentioned I’ve been changing over the weeks. Thinking about it. The guy from the alignment shop raised it from the control arms. This whole time I’ve been raising it from the body. Could that have affected a lot? I’ll be replacing the parts I already ordered just to from my visuals. If I believe something is in good condition I’ll make sure to give it some thought
Your alignment guy may be able to run an alignment machine, but he doesn't understand how the suspension on your car works. You have to raise the front of the car from the frame rails or torque boxes, which is what I assume you did when you said you raised it from the body. That allows the front springs to extend as far as they can, and the wheel assembly and lower control arms are hanging from the upper ball joint. That relieves the pressure on the upper and lower ball joints. You only need to raise the wheel a couple of inches off the ground, enough to slide a pry bar under the tire to move it up and down. Watch the upper and lower ball joints as you move the pry bar up and down and look for vertical movement in them. There should be a small amount of movement, depending on how much wear they may have, but they should not move up and down or back and forth more than 1/8" or so. If so, they should be replaced. When your mechanic raised the car by the lower control arms, the upper control arms still had load on them that they were transferring through the spindles to the lower control arms, compressing both the upper and lower ball joints. There's no way to check the ball joints for looseness when they're under compression.
After checking the ball joints, grasp each tire at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock and rock it back and forth. Look for looseness in the idler arm, pitman arm, inner and outer tie rod ends and center link.

Jim
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Cris4942
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Re: (At age 16 and on) Cristian’s 1962 Mercury comet s-22 build thread

Post by Cris4942 »

Hey guys long time no tal! After checking the whole front suspension and steering, and realizing that it was all mostly bad. I went ahead and redid all steering except for the pitman arm, and the upper control arms and springs on the suspension. May come to the suspensión side and change those up depending on how I see it. I have yet to have more work so I haven’t started on welding like how I would’ve liked so instead I’ve been taking small tasks.

Low beams are done, and so now I’m working on high beams and I am stuck. I got new bulbs and connectors since the old ones were crappy and wired it up just like the previous one. Tried to turn on and no luck. So I redid the connections leading from the low beams to the high beams since I saw they were corrosive, and once again it didn’t work. To verify that I correctly made the connections I passed light directly through one of the high beam connectors which turned all lights on. Now I did buy a new dimmer switch a while back so I know that’s not the issue, and so it’s making me think that there’s an issue with the light switch itself maybe? I haven’t looked too deeply into the wiring harness apart from the wires that lead out of it to connect to the front components. All 4 fuses are intact, even thought it seems like there’s a slot for one more fuse?

Whats y’all take on it? Ill make sure to drop some pictures. Also, have to give props to Jim for the real good advice he gives out 👍

- cristian
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