MY 1976 MAVERICK
NOTE THE FLOOR SHIFTER
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09/20/99 Purchased car
10/06/99 Replaced the horn
10/13/99 Registration and title
10/20/99 State inspection--Now it's street legal!
10/30/99 First full tank of gas. Have been driving to and from work. Guage only registers 3/4 full when "full".
10/31/99 Gas guage works fine today! I had put a bottle of ATF in the new tank of gas to clean up the carbon--maybe it loosened up the float. Put new spark plugs and raised the idle.(1-1/2 turn) Now I can sit at a light and nobody will feel sorry for the poor guy in the worn out Maverick--It runs smooth and has MUCH better acceleration. (It had really rattled your teeth and the antenna wobbled!) Carburetor work will probably be needed for best performance.
11/07/99 Changed the really black oil. Greased dry joints and checked thing out under. Idler arm has play, but isn't really apparant when driving. Brake rotors are deeply striped--they'll have to go. Set idle up just 1/4 turn more.
12/15/99 Every time I fill the gas tank up, and the guage reads "full", the gas drips out of the gas cap when the pressure within builds. (Usally the next day.) When I substituted a regular cap in place of my Maverick cap, it does not leak. It appearantly isn't venting properly up front in the vapor canister.
01/07/00 Have been regularly driving this car because my Comet is still getting painted. I'm finding out what a dependable car I got for $600. Car started at 26 degrees this morning, when the truck would not!
01/23/00 Replaced the battery. Fixed the heater. (Just a clogged up heater core.) I flushed it with the garden hose. I also blew the gas vapor hose backwards (from the canister) to the tank with about 80 lbs. of air pressure. Before I did this, there was no gas vapor coming up front. Afterwards, you could see the swirling vapors coming out. When forcing the air down the tube, it forced gas out the gas cap.
02/13/00 Gas still dripping out with a full tank. Next time I fill up, I'm going to see if the vapors are coming up to the canister. If not, maybe filling the tank causes a vacuum in the line and closes it off?
02/27/00 Vapors were coming up to the canister when I was filling the tank on 02/16/00, but the next day, the gas was seeping out at the cap again. I put on a plain gas cap and it hasn't leaked since--two fill-ups later. Maybe, it is just the Maverick cap.
03/12/02 I drove this car continuously, putting about 15,000 miles on the car as a daily driver until now. Just had too many cars in the driveway.
03/15/03 I SOLD THE CAR. I trailered the car to North Carolina, where the car was going to be picked up by a guy from Maryland. (This is when I bought the 1972 Sprint).
06/14/03 The car was bought by a guy from Pennsylvania, who is now going to drive it as a daily driver.