I'd like to know what years of rear bumpers will interchange with the rusty one on my '74 Electra Limited. Not trying to restore the thing, I'd just like to have a cleaner bumper, as mine is flaking real bad. Thanks for any replies.
I would guess that a 74-76 bumper would fit in there, I think they were the same for those three years. At a quick glance they look the same. Double check though. The front bumper from a 74 would not interchange with a 76 because the 76 didn't have the turning lights in the bumper. I think the 75 bumper would though.
my master parts book only goes to 75 .... but it shows 74 and 75 having the same front bumper on all B (lesabre) and C (electra) bodies for the front. as stated above, 76 front bumper would be different because the parking lights were no longer in the bumper. as fro the rear ... it says that for 74 and 75, all C bodies have the same rear bumper (so im pretty shure 76 C would also). are you replacing front or rear?
electra Thanks for the input. I gotta hit the yards this weekend and see if I can get some stuff to make this car a little more presentable.
Found a bumper Found a bumper for $40 already pulled and ready to install. Next question, has anyone replaced the filler panels between the bumper and the back of the car? Who has the best deal on repros? Thanks again.
Are you talking about the urethane covers that cover the reverse light part of the bumper? I haven't had to replace mine, but I have seen them on eBay they were quite expensive if I remember correctly. I have heard that they don't fit like the NOS ones do. Be prepared to spend quite a bit for NOS ones though. Maybe ask around on the boards if anyone has some.
bumper I got the bumper on this afternoon and it really makes the car look better.I am talking about those covers,but I'm not going to spend much more money on this car. I'll probably try making something at work to fill the gap between the bumper and the quarter panel. I'm a second year apprentice in sheet metal and they got some killer tools. Anyhow, thanks for the help and I'm on to the next step, wire wheeling the roof where the vinyl top was and deciding whether to paint or have some bedliner stuff sprayed on there.Thanks as always.
So your car doesn't have a vinyl roof? Hmmm, I'd like to know how that goes. I would like to do something with my 76 Electra. It had the vinyl removed and now the sealant on the windows runs black streaks down the side of the car when it rains. I have to do something about that sealant. It looks bad from the inside of the rear quarter windows and it looks really bad on the outside of the car.
electra Yeah, the vinyl was destroyed from sitting in the elements of Iowa for who knows how long. It was going to have the motor yanked and probably crushed or derbied. Luckily a guy like me who loves the mid and full size cars equally picked up the GS and the Limited and both will survive. I got a few holes in the roof and pillar area but, I'll figure out a cheap yet effective solution. The only thing I can see that is really wrong functionally is the heat/AC controls. Has the thermostat type that seems to be stuck on heat. Thats OK for winter but, in spring I'll check it out. Any body ever mess with this kind of heat/AC system? Thanks
I just fixed my heater in my 76 electra. So what exactly is your car doing and not doing? When does the blower motor run and not run?
heater Seems to me that the blower is barely working (someone rewired it directly to the fuse box I hooked it back up correctly). It also seems that maybe a door is not opening in the plenum area where all the vacuum lines go.It is nice and hot, just not pushing any air. I will replace the blower motor but as far as the inner workings I'll wait and see if the motor fixes the problem. Car gets warm so I don't want to risk having no heat by tinkering with it. I also replaced the headlight switch and it worked great until the dash lights quit working. Then my wife tells me my tail lights are out. Any ideas? Brake and all other lights work. I'm going out to mess with it right now. Hopefully a loose connection or something easy. Thanks for the help.
Does your car have manual Climate Control ar Automatic Climate Control? Was it blowing more air when the blower was connected directly to the battery?
heat It has auto-climate control. I haven't hooked a direct line to the blower yet. I will when I get started on that problem. The AC was engaged when I put the defrost on at 85 degrees. Is that normal? Fan never changes speeds that I can tell from listening under the hood. Very slow whir can be heard and air barely seeps out of the vents. Sat. and Sun. are supposed to warm up and I'll put the new headlight switch in and look into the heat/AC system. Hopefully the switch fixes the problem with the lights.I am thinking it will because the parking,tail and dash lights all quit together. A ground would affect one group of lights wouldn't it? And no fuses are bad. Are all of these lights on the same fuse? Sorry to ask all these easy to check on questions but,it's 9 degrees and windy. I'm not going out to mess with it in the cold.
The a/c compressor should be operating in every setting exept "off" and "economy" or "vent" if the outside temperature is above 40F. I think that the early 74's had a "vent" position while the later ones had an "economy" position. What's on yours? As for the Blower, I'd check the blower relay and connectors first if it operates only on low speed. It's one of the two relays on the evaporator box under the hood. I don't remember which one of the two it is. About the taillights, parking lights and dash lights, yes they are all on the same 20 amps fuse. There is another fuse that protects the instrument panel illumination circuit only but if the 20 amps fuse burns, the dash lights will quit too.
Check the inline fuse. It is a 30 amp if its like my car. On my 76 it is located under the dash near the ACC vacuum controller and "brain" of the system. It is in a plastic shroud. If your blower is working on any setting than it isn't the fuse. Phil is right. There are two relays on the engine side of the evaporator case where your heater core sits. One is a low-blower relay. If it is broken nothing will work except the low settings. The other relay is the automatic relay, it controls all of the medium and high settings. Check that if you don't get any air on higher settings. I cleaned the contacts on mine with some LPS-1. You mentioned a slow whir and barely any air coming from the registers. I would guess you have a bad automatic relay. They are silver in color and are probably corroded. I think a replacement would be about 20 bucks or so? Do you have a wiring diagram for your car? I have the ones from 1976 and I don't know if they would help or not, your car being a 1974 and all. The ACC section in the shop manuals is pretty helpful and they give you a whole battery of tests to complete in order to detect your problem, otherwise you can waste alot of time. There are also the engine thermo switches and the incar switch you could check as well. The incar switch requires the removal of the glovebox to get at it. I don't know where the engine thermo switch is but I would guess its in the block somewhere. It tells your blower motor to come on at I think it is 114F and it starts blowing warm air. I have a feeling it may be that relay.
It might be the headlight switch that is defective or a bad connection but sometimes, a fuse that has a bad contact in the fuse box could overheat and cause this intermittent problem too. When the lights work, touch it to see if it becomes hot. It happened in my 68 Wildcat. There was rust in the fuse box and the fuse for the parking lights, taillights and instrument panel lights became very hot when the headlights were turned on. The metal strip always melted in the metal cap and it wasn't visible through the glass. Sometimes, the parking lights worked, sometimes, they didn't. When the fuse was 1-2 weeks old and the taillights began to quit working again, there was a spark in the fuse glass when I turned the parking lights on telling me that something was wrong. I replaced at least 20 fuses before I got tired and sandblasted the fuse holder. I was wondering for how long it would work since there was no chrome plating left on the fuse holder and I expected oxidation to reappear but it didn't. It worked for years after that and the fuse never blew again. There are many grounds in this circuit, I'd be very surprised if they are the cause of this problem.
74 electra Thanks for the tips. Sat. should be warm enough to do some work on the car. The car has a vent setting on the controls. I don't have a service book for the car. I'll let you know what I find out on Sat. Thanks again.
