1966 Lincoln Continental - Jay Leno's Garage

all kinds of power it's just so different virility of the car I have and it is so American this could not be from any other country now this is Detroit's finest hour yeah it's kind of like driving your swimming pool that's what I feel like you know episode of Jay Leno's Garage once again my favorite category of cars original and unrestored this is my 1966 Lincoln Continental fascinating story I wasn't looking for one of these but one day I got a call from an older lady let's say she lived in Beverly Hills her sister had been mal Monroe's roommate back in the I guess 40s and 50s she bought this car brand new it was only three miles from my house I had never seen it she owned the car since 1966 probably drove at about a thousand miles a year although it's got a couple little dings from supermarket carts and things like that it looks like it's five or six years old but it's actually what is that 1966 so there you go it's it's it's pretty amazing original leather interior original paint it runs like it's brand-new so I just I just had to buy it I went over I looked at it and I was astounded I had never seen the car before and that's why I bought it and when you have a car like this these cars are incredibly complex probably the most complex American cars ever built and whenever you buy a car like this you got to find the guy you remember the book Fahrenheit 451 I've mentioned this before it was it takes place in the future one and they burn all books and there are guys that walk around men and women and they just memorize one book and that's all they know and they keep that knowledge with them when you get a car like this you have to find the expert you have to find the guy that called the Lincoln man he's a friend of mine his name is John Cashman he travels literally United States working on just this particular model there that complex because when they're perfect they're unbelievable when they're bad they're unbelievable and he can tell you how to get one that runs correctly John come on in how are ya good Jay good to see you oh this guy saved my life with his car it wasn't perfect when I got had a few little things but ultimately it wasn't a bad car huh you got a winner with yeah there are only original once and this one is what I call a real time capsule survivor now tell us about your interest in these cars so for the last what thirty eight years that's all you've done that's your job right I have specialized in the Lincoln Continental convertibles for thirty-eight years they were made 1961 to 1967 right seven years spread and they made twenty one thousand three hundred and forty-seven of them over the seven years as cars go that's not many not much of a production the Lincoln convertibles are a unique car it's all one piece it's a unit unibody car even the front end is doesn't unbolt like a normal car it's all one piece and once these get hit in an accident you got to have a body man that's a true specialist right right that knows what he's doing this was the last production car to have lead in it this seam right here is leaded in with that right yes and it's all a unibody car they were made this the suicide door Lincoln's were 61 to 69 and the four-door convertible were 61 to 67 and they're probably the most complex production car to roll out of Detroit let's explain what unibody means that means there's no chassis most cars up to the 60s you had a chassis and you put a body on and you bolted to it if you dented it you could straighten the chassis but this is literally like one stamping it it's one piece and it's a very strong car this carleeee weigh in at approximately 5,800 pounds this is the coolest feature of these cars it says it's a four-door convertible which is really just fantastic there was a TV show here in America called the antara entourage which featured one of these and and suddenly everybody is looking for them and I'm glad they're finally getting their due because you would see these things in junkyards and hulks oh look like mastodons lying in the Tar Pits you know the front ends sticking up in the air and the rear end on the ground but they're just fantastic and I meet people all the time who get incredibly discouraged because they buy one of these they don't have a guy like you who knows them and they send it to people who spend their money learning how to fix it and ultimately they do it wrong cuz you found a few things wrong with this one didn't you yes I wouldn't make much money if all the cars I worked on we're like yours here you're you got a winner with this one most of them need a total and complete go through that takes ten or fifteen hours to fix the complex convertible top which is ten relays five reversing motors in approximately 13 minutes which is depending on the year of it we're gonna show you how this top goes up and down in just a minute it's it's it's fantastic to watch you can bring bring the top up by standing on the side and putting a key in what looks to be a key for locking gas cap is actually what operates the top in it right yeah yeah and the engine is 462 cubic inches what is about 340 horse it was built at 340 horse the engine they came out in 1958 with the 430 engine and 430 was used until 1965 then they bored and stroked it and called it a 462 right they got about 40 more horsepower out of it when they bored and stroked it called it a 462 over the 430 the four-barrel carburetor was put on the 430 in 1963 and the way the Lincoln's run is the 61 62 and 63 is the first group or the first family right they're very similar 61 of course was the first with a unique front end but then in 64 they stretched the car giving the rear seat passengers more room they stretched the car by 4 inches and it always in the back seat and the 64 and 65 Lincoln's are very similar but they changed the dash over the 61 to 63 they went to straight glass the 65 is probably the most popular out of the group because of the show entourage did a lot for a popularity of it and the past seven years have seen these cars popularity go up like a rock I like the 66 and 67 because they have the disc brakes in the front disc brakes came out the 1960s car was bought with two passengers in it safe to say this car is three tons and yes it's six thousand five and my favorite thing is they actually brag about the mileage in the manual you'll get anywhere from 8 to 11 miles per gallon like oh man please stop you kill me I mean really maybe mean 11 meaning that's the best you're ever gonna do that's going downhill fast with a hunger strike or driving naked hitting the thing with this big toe that's the lightest it's ever gonna be and you're getting 11 miles per yeah I I actually when I Drive this and I watch the clock and the fuel gauge moves simultaneously just kind of go like it's it's hilarious but it's a wonderful driving car it's extremely comfortable you can literally one-finger it all the way it it's the complete absence of row feel you're just literally driving your living room sofa it's a sofa with a v8 and it doubles as a motel room but but that being said it is a very stylish car you know people forget in the certainly the late 50s and early 60s a lot of cars in this with some garish you know Cadillac had the huge fins this was fairly restrained wasn't it it was very tastefully designed from the 50s the 50s were the garish Lincoln's that were what we call the pagoda era right they were huge and in 1961 the car was downsized it went to a much smaller platform the sedans they sold many many many sedans versus the four-door convertibles and they did a coupe I almost bought a coupe I was tempted to buy a cou buyers looking at the coupe when this I just got a call out of the blue this lady heard that I liked older cars and what I be interested okay but you know something whatever I hear are cars for sale in Beverly Hills I always go look at it because they usually owned by wealthy people who knew how to take care of a car and if they didn't know how to take care of a guard they certainly had a garage where it was kept and it wasn't a car that had you know boxes and suitcases piled on top of it so looking for cars in wealthy communities is probably where you're gonna find the best car that that's one of the tips I always tell people you know if you go to a wealthy area Palm Beach or any of that kind of stuff Palm Springs you've got to find these kind of cars there because older folks drive them I'm not driving so much anymore and they put it away I mean the lady stopped driving it because she's gotten up in years and the fact that she drove it I mean I Drive this and I try to back up on act like I mean actually hasn't put glass to see how the back of this thing is it's so huge I don't know the fact that it has hardly any dings at all it's amazing because this lady really wasn't much taller than this and she drove this everywhere it's just fascinating to me it's very funny I find the highest concentration of the nicest Lincoln Continental convertible so here in Southern Cal a lace and iego and this area is the nicest nicest original cars I like to tasteful hubcaps those are nicely done yes you know it's not a big white wall it's a subtle kind of white wall way do you want to start first you want to stand under the hood you want to put the top up what do you want it let's talk about under the hood well I'll go ahead and pull the lever over there these cars all have a safety catch over here and the reason they did that was to get you away from the highway side of the car they wanted you over on the curb side of the car to to open the hood now this is the 462 powerplant it's the first year of the c6 transmission it's a three speed transmission that came out in 1966 they used that transmission up until 1979 and beyond in some trucks yeah my dad had it in a big galaxy 7 liter it was sort of Ford's answer to the torque flight of big powerful transmission take all kinds of torque and all kinds of power as you can see from looking under the hood of this car it has not been restored at all you can see where there were some problems of insulation melting and a few others right it's very original and things are basically in the right in the right place one of the unique features of the Lincoln Continental convertibles is the power steering pump is mounted on the front of the engine its crankshaft mounted no belt like a normal car and they used that system from the 50s up until 1969 and something you advised me and I quickly changed it was to get the correct fuel pump yes because well go ahead tell the story well back in the day when they had a hundred percent gasoline vapor lock wasn't as much of a problem as it is today with ethanol fuel ethanol fuel vapor locks much easier than a hundred percent gas well even back in the day they had a problem with a car vapor locking because the fuel pumps at the hottest point on the engine it's up in the top at the very hottest point of the engine and it has a special valve in it that sends fuel back to the tank to cool the pump right so it requires that it's the proper fuel pump a lot of people put on the incorrect pump and then they're in stop-and-go traffic on a 90 degree day and they wonder why the car dies and doesn't restart because of a condition called vapor lock it's important that they have the correct three port fuel pump on them there's some idiosyncrasies with the Lincoln's that are like that that they're a detail that's pretty important time that was one the first thing we changed everything else under the hood we were trained we changed a bunch of vacuum hoses because this car has a lot of vacuum run accessories yes and I would drive in here people hissing me although that happens and the holes is literally when I reach under the dash I would grab a hose and would literally crumple in my hand because it was on there since 1966 well that's the kind of stuff that time gets yeah but that's okay I don't mind that because I know where the hose went to you know so many times people modify and they they block off a hose and you have no idea where it went so we were able to replace those hoses yes fairly fairly easily the way the Lincoln's run the 66 and 67 is the last group or the last family and this car is completely different than the 1965 and 64 models it has a real glass window in the convertible top which we'll show in just a minute when we put the top up but the whole design of the car and the running gear and everything was different than the 64 and 65 Lincoln's for drivability the later group really has it over the earlier group with things like disc brakes right and the stronger 462 engine the c6 transmission they had better rust and corrosion protection in the 66 and 67 group over the earlier group I have a very slight leak on my exhaust manifold II just only I can if I turn the radio on it goes away but take the radio on yeah I need to do that I need to put a new guest manifolds where the manifold exhaust manifold bolts to the head is a very common problem for it to leak exhaust gas through that area motion these cars need the manifold taken off resurfaced and and redone that was a weak area of the car let's close the hood something else I needed to call John about when I got this car it's got this heating an air conditioning system which is so complex it's kind of the same thing I turned it was cold and I turned the heat on but I wasn't getting any heat out of the out of the - vents just from the bottom and then I was playing with well it turns out heater only works at the bottom air conditioner only works at the top correct this was the first year that they offered automatic temperature control automatic temperature control was a five hundred and twenty five dollar option beginning in 1966 it was a very complex system utilizing three sensors and a master control unit that's a very complex unit with vacuum valves potentiometer it's a complex unit and all the 66 Lincoln's were recalled when the 67 automatic temperature control system came out because it was a simpler system we looked at the master control unit and it's had the update what it does is it blows heat off the floor when you're calling for heat it blows air conditioning out of the - vents when you're calling for air conditioning and it would sense the ambient temperature and switch automatically between heat and air conditioning to keep you as comfortable as possible because this is a luxury car and it's all about comfort and that was five hundred twenty-five dollars you said five hundred and twenty five dollars and it is if this was Chrysler you wanted the Hemi option remember the big Hemi engine the most powerful engine produced that was a four hundred and something color option so that shows you what a high-priced cars run just the air conditioning system was more than the price of the heavy Hemi engine in in one of the Chrysler products what else do we have let me get the key something else I think is kind of cool is you can operate the top from either - or from this key over here and that's 66 and 67 only that had the key over there the 61 a 65 group you had to use the switch on the dash but this way you can open the trunk and you can stop the cycle anywhere along the cycle form either that's which or the switch on the dash alright here's the fun part of these cars is well put the top up and let let it seal and show you how it shuts then as we come back down we'll start and stop along the way you can point out some of the trouble spots this is the most complex the fact that this works at all is unbelievable and the fact that it works after what 50 years is even more unbelievable to me okay here we go you put the key in here like that you don't get in your trunk with a dead battery on the Lincoln and it's a good idea to have the car running yeah turning the alternator putting out power when you're working the convertible top because this is pulling about 45 amps there currently the hydraulics right now are pulling the equivalent of two tons of force to lift this heavy top frame out of the trunk and bring it up and these top frames it takes two growing men to lift them when they're on the ground off the car because they're very very heavy frames it gets up it locks in automatically unlike a normal convertible that you reach up and unlock the Lincoln locks in automatically then the flat retracts and the decklid closes it's a series of approximately ten relays and it screws down and when it clicks yeah it's down I could watch this all day this just makes me laugh I don't know why it does now something else is kind of cool I'm gonna put the windows up to demonstrate this so I can use the bypass can I yeah yes if you hold hold it to bypass that powers the windows up so to give you power you've seen the convertible top operation but actually the windows on this car I think are more complex than the convertible top let's show people what we're talking about here now when this window is up if you were to get into the car when you go to open it press that the window drops so you don't automatic dropping rear window when all the four-door convertibles it drops approximately four inches when you open the door when you shut the door it's gonna go back up now just to do that this one window is six relays yeah yeah yeah plus in here is a knife switch yeah in here is a latch actuator switch it's a it's a very complex system for this automatic drop and return on the rear windows all the Ford or Lincoln convertibles did this feature they had various engineering changes of course and so forth but they they had to do this because if the front glass was up it would be tucked behind this weather strip right and also the glass would hit the convertible top here if it didn't drop and when we shut it it automatically goes back up and it shuts off good day Mr Bond I mean I just love that I mean but I think if you bought one of these used you would and that was broken you just find you'd be pulling it and you'd either damage the top or and it would hit hit right in here or damage the top right it needs to work but that's not something that you would you know if you found one of these use and it didn't work you just think well it's a it's a crappy way to build a car you know you wouldn't have known that was necessarily designed in one time a customer called me this was years ago and he he said when I opened the rear door the window drops down and he wondered what was wrong with the car and I said well things are working properly yeah well oh you give the classic they all do that yes yeah that's my favorite thing hey this is making a rattle they all do that that rattle was designed in yeah I mean it is just so complex and the fact that this even made it to production with all these theatrics is just amazing to me they had a lot of changes as they went along these cars were all made in the Wixom assembly plant Wixom is about 40 miles west of Detroit it was quite a large assembly plant it opened in 1956 for the production of the Lincoln Mark 2 right right the Lincoln Mark 2 and also the Continental right which was now Continental and fifty five six seven that was a separate brand correct it's not Lincoln Continental it continental kind of like Lexus in Toyota or Acura and Honda it was a brand a cut above but I'd only lasted for a couple of years right it became Lincoln Continental I believe with the 1961 right model year because that was a completely different direction for Lincoln Continental the 61 model year the Wixom assembly plant closed in 2007 and that's where all the Lincoln Continentals and the Thunderbirds were made this thing has so much complex electronics something I didn't know either until John pointed out to me you have a bypass switch where you can put the windows up and down without the key in it yes you know that gives the windows power the keys are in the house and the thunderstorms coming and you want to roll the windows up that gives it power that came out in 1965 and it was just another convenience option about 1964 they started a lot more options on these cars I had a myriad of options by the 66 67 model year well the lady I got it from ordered almost every option except she didn't get the power side windows that was a $52 option that's 1515 who's got that kind of you know that was how was gonna get the price like you told me that FM radio was I believe $75 and in 1960 says she said we didn't know if FM was gonna last and I didn't want to buy something it wasn't gonna be here in a couple years so she just went with the straight AM didn't want to spring for the FM option because and one of those newfangled things who knows what that is so it's it's just got an AM radio in it well let's go around the back and we'll open this up and show people how this whole kaleidoscope of gears and again this is before computers it's all relays it's all done by limits which is the little limit switches are the brains of the operation each cycle of this has a limit switch to start the cycle and a limit switch to end the cycle that's the brains of it and then because the motors are high draw motors they use relays which is basically a switch right to make it function now this window come down I put the top down no the windows are totally separate from the top they don't know where the top is they're totally separate from the top the top could be totally retracted that window would still do the automatic drop in the automatically going this way I'm gonna put the wit now I'm gonna put the top down but just to be on the safe side I'm going to put this rear window down again put on bypass it's a good idea to drop the windows slightly when you're working a top up or down the manual even said to have the car on level ground running and lower the windows slightly now watch these screws turning you see this they screw into the base here and they're gonna keep turning until it hits a limit switch over there that tells them to shut off right and for the flipper panel to go around it when it gets here echt the contacts are repositioned in this upper back panel limit switch which is basically the brain of the whole top operation and that tells it to unlock at the windshield now if your top stays a wreck for more than four hours call John and he will come out and fix that for you okay now let's show now when this I don't know why this makes me laugh I feel like I'm in the McLaren and it's the you know it's the brake flap to slow you now watch this thing here this goes up it just looks like a great bird about there now okay boom there you go now you can just see some of the myriad of switches and gears and all these have to line up perfectly this is the motor that drives the cable this is basically like a speedometer cable going out to this auger and this way - yes yes and the little limit switches there's one here by this this receiver head turns a light on and off yeah there's one over there by that hydraulic cylinder that's the deck open limit switch this is the upper back panel limit switch this is the brain of the whole top operation when I bought that switch brand-new from Ford back in the day it was part number c56040 I thought that was the part number and it's the most commonly failed part on the cars yes switch right there that's gonna be the death of me yeah but this being a nice original car it hasn't been monkeyed with a lot of amateurs that work on these cars don't know what they're doing and they make matters and you've got plastic hoses here which of course over the over the years can deteriorate these hold up pretty good yeah there are high quality nylon hose and unless they've been pinched they hold up pretty good sometimes the cylinders leak and they get replaced with brand new ones and what we running here ATF yes they says this system has automatic transmission fluid doing the hydraulics there's a hydraulic pump motor unit for the deck lid that's located in that left quarter panel area and there's a hydraulic pump motor unit up here that we're the convertible top two separate pumps and that was an improvement over the 61 to 65 Lincoln that had one pump over in the right quarter panel working everything and they directed the floor fluid on the 61 to 65 Lincoln's with a solenoid valve they direct it to the deck system or to the top system utilizing solenoid valves this system I think is a little bit of an improvement over the earlier group because it's two separate hydraulic pumps were these the same guys that designed when Ford came out having at 57 the retractable Fairlane and had the the roof that folded and went down yeah and that was like the first time at least post-war the French had one in the 50s but it wasn't automatic it was hand done well that's the same guy said it wasn't the same designers the theory was similar at that sky liner that was made 57 58 and 59 was a hardtop and when it retracted it was done with a half horsepower screw motor not hydraulics okay all the parts are different it doesn't share any parts with this car yeah the theory is basically the same but that's a completely different animal and it was a hard top and the top retracted back in the trunk with a folding third of the top in the front that folded under and it screwed in with augers similar to this to the windshield okay let's let's put this here we go this so you notice how the glass folds down and this top comes down one of the things this car needed was it needed this bracket right here right the first time I saw you we had to replace this bracket and that was due to lack of maintenance this car it's very important the maintenance is done preventing problems down the road and there's some things that I do that are preventative maintenance service points there's a set screw that adjusts this of course it never was adjusted and it snapped this I replaced it last time I saw Jay but service and maintenance and fixing things before they get too out of out of adjustment is the key to this and the cool thing is that the top locks into those two slots there's three limit switches up there of course the limit switches are the brains of it and they tell it to go to the next cycle and of course in here we have more fluid and that's a back here is your pump pump reservoir for the convertible top hydraulics and down there is eight of your total of ten relays that work the top two relays are behind the backseat and eight are there and the two behind the backseat were put there in case this didn't open in case it for whatever reason malfunction limit switch or whatever if it doesn't open you can remove the back seat and there's two relays back here that is Dec unlock the screws and Dec open so you can send 12 volts directly to these motors by jumping the two relays back here in case it it doesn't work and that ditch in here to fix the problem well when you started doing this the old boys are about the age we are now did someone mentor you was there a factory guy that passed the knowledge on to you just get all this on your own no I learned most I was always a gearhead I played I didn't play with normal toys I played with I went to the army navy surplus yards and and took apart transmissions and old army jeeps and all kinds of old cars and early on back in the later 70s I got a Lincoln sedan 67 Lincoln sedan and I thought that was the cat's meow yeah and that led to a Lincoln convertible a lot of this I learned by doing trial and error but the best thing to learn on is junker or a parts car taking it apart seeing how it's made and back in those days people would sometimes give me a junker for parts now what sent you to link you because at that time you were a young man I would have thought Mustang Corvette something more everybody was doing them linkages were a lost leader yeah not too many people were specializing in Lincoln's and I ran ads in Hemmings Motor News old cars weekly in various car publications and realized there weren't too many people specializing in the Lincoln and I had pretty much all the business I could handle and on a market for the parts that I was taking off parts cars back in the back in the 80s I parted out a lot of Lincoln's the joke is we'd send a convertible to the crusher if it had a rip see too dented bumper didn't run but that was a long time ago yeah I mean you must feel like oh I should have held on I should have held on to it but yeah I mean they were so complex that there wasn't anybody who could fix them a lot of people were afraid of this car for years they took one look at it oh look at all this come I don't want one of them I'm afraid I'm afraid of it and and also to another drawback when this car was on the showroom floor it wasn't a cheap car it were six or seven thousand dollars with the options that you have and a normal car like a Impaler or a Galaxie was about $2,000 and a kind of person that bought this car wanted to take a vacation or something well they don't have any trunk when the tops down right so that was a drawback when the car was new you could put a soft-sided tote bag or set of golf clubs back here but no luggage room was a was a drawback on it and it had if any of these limit switches get out of adjustment by even so much as 30 thousandths of an inch it can cause it not to go to the next cycle in the next phase and then you have to be kind of mechanical or have me on the other end of the phone telling you what to adjust and so forth and how often should I lubricate these points where things move these are pretty much this is the flap gear drive the assembly that flips that up and down there's really nothing to do in here this has had a upgraded larger motor on here the factory put a small motor on here that was good for the 61 to 65 Lincoln that had a smaller flap the 66 and 67 group has a much larger flap but they didn't from the factory put a large enough motor on here and that's why we put on this upgraded what I call the high torque motor to make the heavy flap go up in an acceptable speed yeah people tried to put the top down while I was moving like 20 miles an hour well when this was when this was made they had a neutral safety relay in here that prevented oh it did Joe idiot from working his top switch and the cars in drive the top switch was didn't have power they thought of everything not that anybody would do that but they thought you know they put a safety on there so the top switch wouldn't have power when you're in Drive let's continue and watch these as they screw themselves into the car it's just it just makes me laugh see them turning now they go into these right here and the alignment of that is critical if a car has been taken completely apart it's a challenging to get everything dialed in adjusted right get the trunk lid fitted right now see my instinct is when it gets down just leave it when you hear going click click click that's actually ok right that's fine they made it idiot proof in ratcheting its ratchet okay cuz you know I would think when it starts to ratchet oh it's too tight and I would know it's it's acceptable to hear it ratchet it fits nicely and it's uh it's a whole different car with the top down with the top up it's just a big car but with the top down it is so airy to drive and my favorite thing in the car has four ashtrays and fourth cigarette lighter everybody's gonna she's smoking all the time you know god forbid you have to borrow somebody else's lighter so you got your own you know you know have smoking non-smoking no this is all smoking sections the whole car is the smoking section everybody has and you've got these giant ashtrays you could hundreds of seats for ashtrays for lighters you had to be able to light up your Lucky Strike in the 60s that's right I mean this was the madmen car you know the TV show Mad Men about the guys in the 60s it really was this is just the height of luxury and you know I think it's as good of cards as the comparable at least at the time mercedes-benz or even rolls-royce because you had feature than these it roles hadn't even thought of yet like well like like this top I mean good heavens and and there's all kinds of room inside it you know you can carry everybody you know it's Co luggage six people comfortably yeah six six people so very cool you ready to go for a ride yes come on I'll show you what we're talking about and you'll see how quiet and smooth it is and come on let's give it a shot hop in it up sound a power sound of power now when people look at this car they think it's got two radios but this is actually your temperature control correct and you've got all flow high to fog and ice and you don't have to go to air conditioning if you lower the temperature the air conditioner will kick in correct right if you go higher obviously gets warmer you just select the fan speed either low or high right automatically selects heat or air conditioning depending on what the ambient temperature is I love the fact you have antennae switched to bring it up and you have an antenna switch to bring it down again as you can see 64,000 original miles that's really a little over a thousand miles a year for every year the lady had it that's very very low mileage on a mile invertible very low mileage they they designed the - this way to kind of be symmetrical yeah and to even it out this is what the trunk is open you have one for the rear door is open you have oil pressure and you have to water temperature as well well just as a hot light yeah just as a hot light that was kind of a should have had a gauge but you've got four air conditioning vents in the dash and ducted heat to the backseat passengers and you top up and down switch right here I think we're about ready to pull away lovely day for a ride in a Lincoln convertible we've got to go to the country club and pick up Buffy and Kyle and that and go for a ride sounds like a winner to me all kinds of power it's just so different vanity of the car I have and it is so American this could not be from any other country no this is Detroit's finest hour yeah and they built these and the wixen plan was always a special plan when it did the Continental first then this the Wixom assembly plant was built in 1956 for the all-new Lincoln Mark 2 right which was a very expensive car it was a hand-built car and it had a three three-year run and they built the Thunderbirds in the wixen plant they built the wick the Lincoln's in the wixen plant and it closed in 2007 I toured at three different occasions yeah I thought it was a very modern state-of-the-art assembly plant but what do I know I'm old school this is the very definition of cruising this is a cruiser if there ever was one of the things that impresses me on this car Jay is that your vacuum door locks are wrong okay the vacuum go like still work yeah they work out lock and unlock just like they should yeah and the manual said you have to hold the door lock button down until vacuum is transferred to all four doors no that's fine they went to electric in 1970 what is the star the hood ornament I'm not exactly sure the hood ornament had points on it until 1968 and 69 model years they didn't have a hood ornament because those points were deemed a safety hazard that the hood ornament returned in 1970 without the points you get a lot of looks in this card I know everybody checks it out you buy and sell them as well I used to I used to buy and sell cars anymore I of all the work I could handle doing the electrics on these the magic of this car is this complex electrical systems that we discussed earlier and my Nisha's is the convertible tops and the power windows mainly in my service truck when I make a service call I have all the relays electrics limit switches pumps motors hydraulics pretty much anything I need to go completely through those systems in a 10-hour day any modern you know relay types electronics that they can replace it there's there's some modern parts that I do what I call a sex-change on and I take a modern part and retrofit it to fit these some stuff has been reproduced a limited amount of stuff has been reproduced and then the best thing is an organ-donor parts car for a lot of stuff that isn't as an available new [Music] this is the perfect car for Southern California hilarity it is wonderful to be out riding in the Lincoln convertible on this beautiful Southern California day which is every day in Southern California that's why we're here right you know I normally hate white upholstery and white on white is the least effective but for some reason it looks good on this car it does it does me and white usually don't get along because I'm always greasy I'm cleaned up today of course yeah exactly heated shows every smudge but you know the fact that this is the original closely it's held up remarkably well it's in very good shape and it's only original once right right I mean this thing literally floats down the road it just makes me laugh and it's really quite comfortable you can go over a speed bump in this car and not even feel it now you can run over a police car in this thing in that even another unique feature that came out in 1966 is that barrel speedometer that fills out as you accelerate that came out in 1966 and it was used until 1977 yeah it's a barrel back there about maybe 2 inches in diameter the turns and the optical corrector makes it look like it's filling out right right that's really a unique speedometer cuz I remember Buick had something similar but it would change colors the faster you went right so if you got up to like 80 would be red and had a thing called a safety minder where you would adjust it and when you hit the predetermined speed or going it would give you an audible warning because the most and it says in the in the brochure a boon for safety teaches teenagers not to speak Yeah right like you're just not gonna adjust the thing to the higher speed I was just so funny now in 1967 that's pedometer turned red after 70 miles and it turned red and in one of my own personal cars I painted it with model paint so between 60 and 70 was yellow when it turned red because you're usually cruising between 69 and 70 at least when you get in the in the country outside of LA around la you're going what about 15 to 25 I never felt those were attract no more that bump there Lou this can be yeah and I'm sure the shocks in this thing are probably 30 years old at least they were a pretty heavy-duty hydraulic shock and I don't hear any clumps or creeks or nothing so now this is a car you always want to restore it to stop you know I need guys that want to put an ls6 or something right a lot of those cars that they're doing all that customization on our cars that are really parts cars the back brought back from the dead and you know it's okay it's I work on all all kinds of cars from original to highly customized the one thing they don't think about a lot of times when they customize a car is accessibility to services right have you ever had a car you get out of you went this is beyond repair there's nothing you can do here very very very rarely I could count on one hand the cars that I've that I've passed working on in in the past number of years most of the cars that I work on are on location I travel to the car and fix it at somebody's home or garage or wherever and people get me for one day and in that one day I go through the electrical systems the convertible tops the power windows and most cars I can fix in one day if they're a real basket case it goes into day two but most of them I do in a day and when I worked on this one you didn't keep me busy very long because this nice nice survivor car I didn't realize the earlier ones were actually four inches shorter you know they they lengthen the car in 1964 and it was all in the backseat because so 61 to 63 is a little cramped in the back sound and they wanted to give the backseat passengers more room right in the 70s the car got even more bloated and bigger and longer and it went back to a body frame construction the 60s Lincoln's were of course the unibody construction and there ever a Lincoln convertible after 67 I don't know the last the last Lincoln convertible was the 1967 model year they made two thousand two hundred and seventy six of them in 1967 and then they were done Ford Motor Company lost money on these cars there Lincoln convertibles were not a profitable car for Ford motor but the sedans were and the coupe came out in 1966 and that was an instant success selling approximately 15,000 unit right in the 66 model year and we're successful after that just like like an enormous refrigerator washer/dryer combination going down the road when it's white light good and remember to leave 15 minutes extra time wherever you go in this car because of all the attention generates and all the questions that you get asked about it because a lot of people are unfamiliar with the Lincoln's and have never seen way one of the best comments I ever heard was WOW did you build that yourself is that a custom car and I said no that's how the how the factory made them it's a unique car if they hadn't made a very complex car Ida hat Ida had to have a normal job but I made a living off these for 38 years and it's been very interesting and it's a real treat to spend the day with you riding around it you know the only thing wrong with her store in so many cars is people do fixes on fixes somebody adds his own thing and then somebody doesn't realize that the next guy gets it and think why did they do this and you realize none of it was that way you know I tell my customers they really need an expert to work on this car somebody that knows the car because the mechanic that worked on Toyota in the morning and all kinds of cars isn't familiar necessarily with the complexities and the idiosyncrasies of the Lincoln convertible another unique feature in these cars is the hydraulic wipers those wipers work off the power steering fluid right they used that system from 1961 to 1969 the sales brochure said the wipers were powerful with infinite speeds three intermittent intermittent wipers electrically came out in nineteen working off the power steering fluid have implement infant speeds just from adjusting on the script so when he got off the gas would they hesitate no they'd stay pretty even there's a damper in there but the fluid flower right so they were pretty powerful and silent operation windshield wipers it's kind of like driving your swimming pool that's what I feel like you know a very smooth comfortable ride these Lincoln's also have a weight in the corners of the car it's a rate on an arm and that weight is supposed to absorb any wayward wayward vibration in the car they wanted this as smooth as possible at those cars every component is balanced right but in these cars they had a an absorbing weight and what it was supposed to do is absorb any road vibration in the car I've driven cars both with and without them without any noticeable difference so the hood ornament in a 66 is stationary in 1967 it became spring-loaded and the 68 and 69 sedans didn't have any horn or the month when it returned in 1970 it didn't have the points on it because they were deemed a safety hazard right and a lot of safety improvements came about in the 67 model year now I noticed like the Thunderbird for example had the adjustable steering column is that an option it was the the 64 and 65 Lincoln's had a tilt steering column but the whole column went up and down the whole column moved it was vacuum operated it really didn't become popular until about 66 yeah and the 66 steering columns were made by General Motors of the Ford fair system from General Motors they also purchased the headlight dimming systems that was a guy unit which is a general so funny I never really looked at these until I looked at the one this lady had and it just seemed to sit right now cars sometimes sit one side is down riot riders there's something just just had poise and I thought it's right and the fact that the dash pad is not been all right now let's touch it right away the car was always botched because if this car was out in the Sun for a couple years they would have a crack right there I the radio speaker gray [Music] it's uncracked tells me the car was always garage crack - is there a very common problem on these cars especially on the 67 model I usually cracked with about two years of sunlight I just glides along very fun car to drive and a nice a nice driver car it is the definition of road hugging wait oh and the power seat you got every conceivable up-down very very few Lincoln's have a to waste seat although it was offered the six-way seat was an option but I'd say 95% of the lincoln production got the six-way seat and then the ultimate option was bucket seats you get bucket seats with a console and each separate seat was a six-way seat not many cars got bucket seats I'd say probably only about 3% of them the auction like I said it gave me this video when you get a car you got to find a guy you know our gal could be but most the time it's a guy and they've just dedicated their life to keeping these on the road and John Cashman he's my guy he just does a wonderful job with these you know owning their car this can you do the pleasure or just a complete nightmare be very frustrating and if you try to crimp and do it a cheap way it's just gonna cost you twice as much money now you have access to every single part of the electrical system of these cars yes I've done this for so long I have I know what they all need and I carry I have access to all the all the parks all the relays electrics limit switches hydraulic carts whatever whatever unless they're a total total disaster I have in stock parts Murray you know you take this to a normal convertible top shop or one of these places and they'll spend a week trying to figure it out and you'll pay for 40 hours you have John come do it and however long as it takes that's how long it takes but it won't be wasted times we've done correctly and I can't thank him enough for it for making this car just offend what could have been a nightmare just a wonderful car John thank you my friend Jay it's been a real pleasure pleasure Yoshi go [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,680,458

Rating: 4.8593969 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Lincoln, Continental, suicide doors, V8, big car, convertible, California car, original and unrestored, stock car, patina, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: TXc4zYMdnbE

Length: 50min 52sec (3052 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 22 2018