blksn8k2

Added the fender flares today. About the only appearance thing yet to do is replacing the factory decals which I have already received. I had to remove most of the original decals when I painted the shiny parts.

Not sure I get it which probably disqualifies me as a true fan and definitely shows my age. BTW, there definitely won't be any WAP riding in this bitch although I have referred to it as my "pimpmobile" a time or two. 🤣😉 One of my buddies saw the whole plate and thought it looked more like "WHAZZUP?" from the old Bud commercials. Anyway, it was just a randomly assigned number with no ill intent. I think. I suppose it's possible that there could be a wise guy Cardi B fan working at PennDot.

Finally received a PA title for the Mark VII in mid April which I immediately sent back to PennDot along with photos and the MV-11 form to apply for antique plates. I received the new antique plate yesterday (5/4/26). I previously had a 90 day temporary plate. So with the new plate she's all nice and legal to drive again. Getting the PA title was a bit of a struggle. That took about three months. This car came from Ontario, Canada and PennDot initially wouldn't accept copies of the Homeland Security or EPA forms even though U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Buffalo had no issues with copies. This all started when I hired TFX International and a customs brokerage firm to handle the transportation and border crossing. One of TFX's claims to fame is that they handle all of the transportation within Canada for Barrett-Jackson auctions. Obviously a reputable company. Rather than snail mail the original forms to all of the required entities (including myself for signatures), TFX sent all of that stuff electronically to everyone who needed to add anything which meant that there was no such thing as a true "original" of any of the completed documents and, again, border crossing had no issue with any of that. As a matter of fact, the driver of the transport truck told me that he had a full trailer when he crossed the border and that it only took about an hour and half to get the entire trailer load through customs. Fortunately, TFX did keep the versions of the forms that they originally added their info to and they overnighted those to me which I had to then add my signature to before forwarding them to PennDot. WHEW!

Ordered a factory fender flare kit for the Can-Am. Those 32" tires throw a ton of mud up the sides of the cab.

Heard that. I've considered just adding a lean-to on the backside of my 40x50 steel building. The plan would be to move my Kubota tractor and all of its attachments into that. That would not only solve some of the space problem but it would also get the biggest contributor to the dirt and dust issues out of the main building.

You must have lived in the same neighborhood as me. Our 4th iffy channel was the ABC affiliate from Pittsburgh. It was usually too snowy to watch. My dad had his own version of a remote control. He mounted a toggle switch under the window seal beside his favorite chair. He had it wired to the console TV's speakers and used it to turn off the sound during commercials. 😁 That was in the early '60s. I had the Can-Am back to the dealer yesterday to have the winch replaced under warranty. Both the service manager and I were surprised to find out that the replacement winch came with a synthetic cable in place of the troublesome original steel cable plus a new fairlead. The fairlead is the guide through which the cable passes on its way in or out when the winch is being used. I guess it makes sense that the replacement winch would have a synthetic cable since all of the new Can-Ams that I looked at on the showroom floor also had the synthetic cable. They also sell Honda and Polaris UTVs but all of the ones I looked at still had a steel winch cable. The problem with steel cables is that they eventually rust and get twisted to the point where the winch gets locked up and is useless. If the steel cable starts to fray it will also cut the shit out of your hands. Before making this visit to the dealer I had already purchased a new synthetic cable and a new fairlead neither of which I now need. Can't hurt to have spares of those though since both are fairly high wear items. While I was there I also picked up a new striker for the driver side door. I also asked about getting an owners manual. The salesman said I would have to get one through their parts dept. The parts guy said they didn't have any in stock but I could order one for about $10. When I got home I found a brand new one in a plastic bag lying on the passenger side floor. I assume the service manager put it there.👍 Steel winch cable and roller fairlead before replacement: Synthetic winch cable and new style fairlead: Functioning LED light bar: BTW, I'm obviously running out of storage space.

Oops. The wheels are actually System 3 brand, not System E. My bad. In my defense I wasn't the person who bought the wheels and I guess I should have been standing on my head when reading the name on the center cap. 🙃 Bottom line is this thing is a blast to drive and I really do enjoy fixing the little stuff that someone else ignored, unless it's a wiring issue which I generally hate having to work on. For example, the LED light bar on the front bumper didn't work and the problem was a ground wire that pulled out of the poorly crimped wiring eyelet that is attached to the ground post on the power block under the dash. One other thing that I hadn't noticed before was that once that ground was reconnected the taillights now stay on any time the vehicle is running regardless of whether the headlight switch is in the ON or OFF position. According Google AI that is the way they are supposed to work and it is a safety (visibility) feature. Kind of a taillight only daytime running light thing which seems a bit odd. Why would you do that and not have the V-shaped lights under the headlights do the same thing? 🙄 BTW, the extra equipment that was added by the previous owner (like that light bar) is obviously not covered by the factory warranty.

I bought a used 2023 Can-Am Commander XT700 UTV a few weeks ago. It has almost $6k in add-ons and still has about 11 months of remaining factory warranty. It has just under 2000 miles on the clock. The dealer who took it on trade has already replaced both rear axles under warranty and has filed a warranty claim on the winch. The winch still operates under power but the "free-wheeling" knob will not turn which means you cannot pull the winch cable out by hand. I've also done a few minor repairs and repainted most of the shiny body parts due to some nasty paint scratches. I have a full Can-Am decal kit ordered since I had to remove most of the factory decals before doing the paint work. I also just added an outside mirror on both doors. The other add-ons that were done by the previous owner include the windshield with a manual wiper, rear cab window, upper door kit (fixed windows), cab heater, front forward off-set A-arms, LED light bar on the front bumper, rear cab lights and 32x10 tires on 15" System E beadlock wheels. Factory equipment includes the lower doors, digital dash, an electronic locking rear axle, limited slip front axle, front mounted winch and electronic power steering. It also has a tilt bed with a 600 lb load capacity and is rated to tow 2000 lbs. The engine is a single cylinder 650cc Rotax with 52 HP and 41 LB-FT with a CVT transmission with high and low range.

Thanks. This is the kind of stuff that takes little effort and minimal cost but hopefully makes a big difference. Here's another one. When I got the car it had a perforated leather cover on the steering wheel. The problem with it was that the cheap plastic "thread" that was used to tie it on was poorly done, especially around the wheel spoke area, and looked horrible. I don't know if there is wear on the wheel rim that someone was trying to hide by installing the cover or if the cover was added as more of a functional thing. Anyway, I took a few minutes to redo the way that thread was used and, at least for now, it looks 100% better to me. I might remove it completely at some point but for now at least I don't totally hate it being on there anymore. While you can't really see it in these photos the seat cushions are also perforated leather so the wheel cover does kinda match. Before: After:

Did some restoration of the rear window moldings today. The inner edge of those stainless steel moldings are painted with semi-gloss black paint. However, all four corners had areas where the paint was chipping off. After masking the entire window I sanded out those chips and resprayed those areas.

I replaced the windshield wiper blades on the Mark VII today. That wasn't much of job since all I did was buy some cut-to-length rubber blade refills. After sliding the old blades out of the tracks on the wiper arms and removing the metal guide bar from the old blades, you just cut the new ones to length, install the old guide bar on the new refill and slide them back into place in the tracks. I did have to bend the little stop bar on one end of the arm up out of the way in order to be able to slide the blades in and out but after the new blades are in you just bend the stop bar back down. I had never tried to use the wipers until today because the old blades were so bad that I didn't want to risk scratching the windshield with bare metal. Turns out the driver side wiper arm was off by a spline or two and wasn't going all the way down to the "park" position when you turned them off. It was also hitting the A pillar and the windshield trim piece when it came to the top of its travel. The position of the passenger side arm was fine and it did return to the "park" position. After I repositioned the driver side arm and checked that it worked properly I also filled the windshield washer reservoir. Next time I turned them on they wouldn't return to the "park" position like they did previously when I turned off the wiper switch. Hmmmm? I did some research on-line and found out that the wiper motor has a separate circuit that pulls the arms down to the stops below the windshield when you turn off the switch. Seemed odd that everything worked fine when I first tried them. Anyway, I found an old Lincoln message forum with a post that discussed this same issue. One of the posters had a wiring diagram that showed how the circuits worked with the switch in each different position. He figured out how to remove the plastic cover from the wiper motor that covers the mechanism for the "park" feature and had to reposition a lever arm inside the motor which fixed his problem, or so he thought. However, after he filled the washer reservoir his wiper "park" feature quit working just like mine did. Pretty sure filling the reservoir had nothing to do with the real problem but it just happened to be coincidental to what happened to me. What he discovered was that he hadn't fully tightened a couple of the screws that hold the cover on. As soon as he tightened them it worked fine again. He assumed it had something to do with the position of the internal mechanism not being correct when the screws were loose. I went back out and looked at mine and noticed that one of those screws he said was loose also held the ground wire for the wiper motor. I took that screw out as well as the small sheet metal screw connecting the other end of the ground wire to the motor. After cleaning the connectors on both ends of the wire and putting it all back together, as soon as I turned the ignition key to the "run" position, the wipers returned to the "park" position. Problem solved! I'm betting that the guy who posted all that really only had a bad ground connection just like mine. When he took that cover all the way off the internal mechanism somehow got moved to the wrong position (gravity will do that) and naturally wouldn't work when he put the cover back on. Once he got everything back together correctly he still had a problem until he tightened that screw holding the ground wire but he never once mentioned anything about that ground wire. Had he simply checked the ground wire first he probably could have saved himself a lot of work.🙄😉😁

My '23 F-150 was built during the chip shortage era so it never had the stop/start BS. I'm not complaining. The '18 F-150 I had before that had a malfunctioning stop/start issue. It would shut the engine off while still moving but that only ever happened a couple of times while in Tow/Haul mode which really sucked. It quit working altogether eventually. That truck was also hard on batteries so I wonder if the system is smart enough to sense when the battery and/or starter motor is weak?

Thanks guys. I've seen other Mark VIIs lowered even more and some of them look pretty good. However, with the wheel and tire package I have this is about as low as I can go and that is mostly because of the situation at the front. In order to make this wheel and tire combo fit, I had to use a set of 15mm thick adapters on the front. That placed the 255 series tires far enough away from the struts to avoid rubbing them. That also allowed the wheel center caps to clear the dust caps on the stock hubs. Unfortunately, that also puts the tire outer sidewalls about as far out as possible without looking silly, but it's close. I definitely can't go any lower in front without risking the tires rubbing the fenders. The only way to change that would be to either go with a narrower front tire or switch to SN95 Mustang spindles, hubs and brakes. The SN95 parts would eliminate the need for the wheel adapters but would probably put the inside of the tire too close to the strut. At that point I would probably need to go with a different wheel offset and/or width which might be hard to get in this style of wheel which means I would probably have to go with different wheels all around. I really like this style of wheel on this car so for now I'm probably just going to leave well enough alone. It's a good compromise and I agree that from an appearance standpoint, it probably is the sweet spot anyway. BTW, those wheels and tires had only 3k miles on them and I got all four for less than $800 which included shipping. And, they were already mounted and balanced. If I had bought them new I would have easily tripled that price. Hard to pass up a deal like that and it was extra incentive to try and make them work. They were originally purchased for a S197 Mustang GT and, to be honest, I didn't realize just how different the front suspension and hubs were on those cars compared to the Fox body cars which is what this Lincoln is. About the only thing they share with the Mark VII is the 5x4.5 wheel stud pattern and on the Fox Mustangs even that was different. If I ever need to replace the tires I might go with narrower front tires on the same wheels which would probably look a little better and minimize any rubbing issues if I wanted to go even lower, which I don't. As it is, I haven't experienced any rubbing, even at full steering lock. The SN95 hubs would also give me the option to go with bigger Cobra front brakes but I'm not trying to build a race car so I don't really see the need to go to all that effort and expense. The car already has four-wheel discs and ABS, all of which seems to work just fine. My goal here has been to build a decent looking, fun to drive and budget friendly cruiser and so far I'm pretty happy with the results.

Fooled around with the adjustments on the ride height sensors today. I lowered the front about 1" and the rear about 1-1/2". I can go maybe another 1/2" lower on the rear but then it looks like one of those Carolina ass-draggers. 😁 Before: After:

I just came back from a trip to the local post office. When I tried to stop at an intersection near the PO from about 5 mph all four tires locked up on the icy road surface. Rather than risk sliding into the path of an oncoming semi I just let it coast through the intersection and into the PO parking lot. Before leaving the PO I watched two other vehicles do similar things at that stop sign. Current outside temp is 9°F.