Joey’s Ford Maverick

This has been a fun project that grew over time. Joey explained that this was his Dad’s Original car. Due to unforseen circumstances, his dad passed away years ago and Joey inherited the Car. His Dad had turned into his his little Race car and Joey wanted to resurect the car so he and his Sons could enjoy it as his Dad had intended.

Initially, I was supposed to install the Painless wireharness he had purchased. When I went to pick up the Maverick, I found out that he also had a FiTech Fuel injection system that if it worked out, I could also install. I got it back to the shop and found out they had partially installed the wireharness. The original Dash wireharness had been removed but Engine harness was left. Having never worked on Ford Wiring, I would have liked to remove it myself but I was able to figure it out. The Painless wireharness was a general Ford wireharness that would fit 66 – 76 Ford vehicles. I added under dash lighting instead of a Domelight. Customer agreed this would be better.

After spending sometime assessing the vehicle, I got Joey to come to the shop to see if my vision was acceptable with him. Found the front end wiring running under the rad and I had to bend the tin down to remove the harness. I ended up running this harness along the top behind the Rad. Much cleaner install. He had mounted a Mallory MSD 6A  box in front of the Rad and I ended up installing it in engine bay compartment. Dash wiring was a bit of a challenge as I had to used most if not all of the stock connectors. Joey also had an extra set of Autometer gauges and Tach that he wanted wired in. I wired this in with a connector so it could be removed or placed else where. Factory Dash was connected for Lighting (Found a Broken Ground on circuit board) along with High beam, Brake warning and Oil light.

If anything major came up, I consulted with the owner. We had decided to proceed with the Fuel Injection installation. I had a Fuel pump for the system and found the Kit Joey had, did not have an O2 senor. The system was installed with fuel lines run and power hooked up. Once I had the battery connected, I tested all the lights, etc. and everything worked and operated as designed. During this time I noticed that the Fuel pump would not cycle for 3 to 5 seconds which I found odd. However, we proceeded. We came to the point that it was time to start the engine. Made sure fuel was getting to the throttle body and everything was set. I had to feed power to the fuel pump as there was no Fuel pump output from the ECU. We poured a little fuel down the throttle body before starting. Engine started right away but died once it ran out of fuel. Did some testing and found what appeared to be an ECU failure. I contacted Fitech to confirm and through several emails, determined the ECU needed replacement. Discussion with owner was to get it sent up. I ordered the ECU from Fitech and once I had it, it was installed. Programmed the ECU to the vehicle, crossed my fingers, Cranked the engine and it started and ran. YaHOO !! It will require tuning but starts and runs. I was told there could be an issue with the transmission. Once the engine was started, the transmission failed and needed some attention. The customer would take care of this.

We found the shifter would not go full travel and through testing, found the cable was binding. The cross member needed some modification and once the cable was adjusted properly, the shifter worked as designed. There was a lot of modifications made along the way. Used a Fuel filter off a 95 Caravan and the electric fan was raided from a 2000 Kia Sorrento.

It took some time but in the end the customer was very pleased with the overall results.

Thanks Joey for letting me do this.