94 conti interior question

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ketyokeinnor

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I was looking in my car this morning, at that little spring loaded flap/door thing on the roof, by the front interior lights. What is it for? i was just using it to hold my parking swipe card, gas station gift cards, and such, but today i noticed it looks like something plugs in there. Theres a wire with a plug on it and a plastic springy thing in there.

Oh and is there something ( like a factory option or something) that could have replaced that clock above the ashtray? just seems like a big area to set aside for a 1.5 inch clock and 2 buttons.

lol, one more was the 88-94 conti available with a center console as an option?, i'd like to have one and if not i guess i'll have to measure up the seats and console from a newer one and see if that'll work

Thanks,
-Ron-
 
the general consensus is that the door thingy is for a garage door opener.

as for where the clock is, there is an optional CD player that goes there. When you get the cd option, its a different head unit usually, one that has the clock built into it, so you dont loose the clock.

I believe there was a center console option for the 88-94's. I personally have never seen one, but I think they exist.

edit:

I found this thread on a different forum that actually has a pic of a center console Conti..

http://www.lincolnsonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49115

the look pretty nice with that console!
 
Thanks, now all i have to do is search junkyards for a console/seats in blue, that should be fun.
 
I found 1 console car(out of a bunch of contis) at the junkyard in tan, the console was pretty banged up as the car was in a severe accident,:( I saw that there were lots of Mercury Cougars(leather seats as well) there with a very similar console/seat setup(i believe identical seats) i guess i'll take some measurements on my car and go compare (total size, mounting locations, etc) when the weather breaks. It they fit i think thats the way to go. At least i didn't leave empty handed, i found some wood trim in the console car where mine just had blue so i got it, along with the plug i needed.

btw. Is there a cable that goes from the column shifter to the trans or some other kind of linkage?
 
the cougar seats might fit, but the mounts will be different, and the bottom portion of the seat may be different too. the cougars are RWD and have a pretty hefty tranny/driveshaft tunnel to worry about, where as the Conti's are FWD and the tunnel in them is soley for running the exhaust system down, as well as a couple cables and such.

My conti (91) has more room inside than my 92 cougar, but of course I have a 50/50 bench in the conti and buckets/console in the cougar, so the difference may just be 'feel' because of the different size of the seats.
 
one more thing to think about. Idont know where the console conti's have the seat controls, but the cougars have them on the seats themselves, not the door like all the conti's I have seen.

you will need to take that into consideration for the conversion.
 
didn't check, but there was defintely a lumbar control button in the seats in that conti.

i would rather the door controls, i sure i could either wire the seat motors to my cars harness or just wire the door switches to work in place of the on-seat switches.

in my mind, the floor shifter conversion is going to be the hardest part to figure out, is i'm not really sure how the column shift connects to the trans.
 
yea, the bench seats with lumbar have the lumbar control on the seat, the rest are on the door.

do you have memory seats in the conti? if you do, you need to make sure the seats you get (buckets) are memory capable, there are some sensors or such on the motors on the memory seats that are not on the non-memory seats. the controller sits under the seat.

I have the wiring diagrams for the 92 cougar and conti, I can possibly get a look at it to see if there are any major differences in the way the seats are wired. will take me a few days to get to it tho.
 
no memory on my seats

I'd appreciate you taking a look at that, but no hurry, i don't plan on doing it for a bit, prolly not til spring, or at least warmer weather
 
it may actually take me that long to get my pc all back up and running.

I use the CD based service manuals, and I recently had to reformat my machine. and to make everything faster, I actually mount the ISO image of the cd's with a virtual drive program. Its just a matter of me getting off my dead EQ playin butt and reloading the stuff.
 
The spring-loaded flap & electrical connector is for an optional dealer-installed Homelink garage door opener module. It slides in and fits flush with the surrounding trim, so you see two garage door opener buttons instead of the flap.

A friend of mine had an '89 Mark VII with the same thing. After a few months of looking in junkyards for a module, he eventually found one on eBay. They're pretty rare.

The column & floor shifters both use cables. The Cougar was on a completely different platform and it was RWD (so the center tunnel is much taller), so I highly doubt its console would fit. The Taurus & Sable were on the same platform as the Conti and a lot of them had floor shifters, so you might have better luck with one of those.
 
yup, the cougar console will not work in the conti, I will promise that (I own one of each). What was questioned is the cougar's bucket seats.. will they fit.

as mentioned, Taurus and Sable's are good donor cars for interior parts, as a lot of them are interchangable with the Conti (same platform).

here is a link to someone who did just what your thinking of (on a different forum)
http://www.lincolnsonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49181

Looks good.
 
the seats were really all i wanted from a cougar, i'll have to check the console design on the 89-94 taurus/sables, i can't recall ever seeing one. I'll check it out. The floor shifter out of one of those should be a "bolt on" right?
 
having not done the swap, I can only say 'I think so'. There will probably be a bracket or so that needs swapping out (for the shift cable), and maybe a couple holes need to be opened in either the floor, or the firewall, but I would imagine they are already there, just plugged/covered.

There probably is a couple of electrical items that will need to be extended/hooked up (light for the gear indicator, shift lockout if it has one, power for any accessory plugs, ect), but they should be no biggy.

BTW, The guy in the other forum is using a console from a 95 taurus/sable in his conti (a 92). so even tho there was a pretty big body style change between 94 and 95, some of the interior stuff will fit without a ton of work. maybe get intouch with the guy over there and see what he has to say.
 
Yeah, i think i'll try and get in contact with that guy this week. I really like the console in the SHO taurus, so i guess i'll attempt to get one of those.
the swaybars on those are better(thicker) and do fit our cars, right?

i was also looking at doing a engine/trans swap out of one of them, but i think instead imma invest the time and money in buying a worn out 90's t-bird or cougar for a few hundred and try to do a 3.8L SC motored(or maybe 5.0L, easier to find) sleeper. That way i can have a street burner and my cruiser. after this interior mod my conti is pretty much were i want it and i'll be bored.
 
the sway bars might work, not positive.

the engine swap.. NO it wont work easily. the RWD 3.8 is a different block casting than the FWD 3.8, as well as bellhousing pattern is different, tranny wont hold up. not impossible, but definately not easy to do. I know, I researched putting a real low mile (44k) 90 conti 3.8 into my 92 cougar (its about worn out), and it just aint gonna work.

by all means, if your wanting to do the SC or 5.0 'bird or cougar, go that route. LOT more stuff avail, and you can actually make the tranny strong enough to hold the power too.
 
I meant I was thinking about swaping a Taurus SHO(3.0L, 220HP) motor and trans into my conti, but i see they usually had 5-speed manuals(prolly for strength), and that's not a route i want to go down with my conti.
 
I heard there is someone doing an SHO swap into a an essex (88-94) conti. last I heard, he had was close to doing it.

I also vaguely remember someone thinking about or even doing an Intech V8 (95-up) swap into either a taurus, or older conti, dont remember which, but they had like 1 inch clearance between the rad and firewall for clearance, and almost that much end to end. REAL tight squeeze to put it in.

I get the impression (but I havent verified it) that the front subframe assy (engine/tranny cradle) from the 95 and newer contis will fit into the 88-94's with some work. The biggest hassle is the electronics I believe, as most intech conti's were OBD-II, where as the essex machine's were only OBD-I
 
i've got big hands, i can barely change my plugs in the conti now, with the v8 in there it would be nearly impossible.
 
remember those intech v8's are OHC also (most of them are DOHC), so they got BIG heads.

the length wasn't the biggest problem from what I heard, but the clearance at the rad and firewall. of course the intech v8's had the plugs thru the middle of the valve cover, so changing them wouldn't be to hard.
 
Sorry to jump off topic here guys but, the 94's console shifter is supposed to light up to tell you your current gear?
Mine doesn't and it drives me nuts. I just want to clarify, is it supposed to be back lit? If so, how would I replace the bulb/led?
Thanks guys.
 
let see, I'm assuming you don't need to pull the whole console, that would be dumb on ford's part.

From the attached pic, (borrowed from LincolnsOnline) I'm guessing that black plastic part at the base of the shifter somehow comes out/lifts up.

console.jpg
 
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