Ford Mondeo/Contour,Alfie stops smoking,Thanks John!

[Milanogold@domain.elided]

Greetings Alfisti!
      First on the gentleman's choice of VW/Ford etc. for a daily driver;I'll 
throw in my 2 cents.Go with the Ford Contour.I've recently gotten 3 Contour  
LX's into my rental fleet.(The last Fords our company have bought;because of 
their overall shoddy build quality,absolute refusal to perform warranty work 
and general junkiness.My company was the third largest fleet buyer of Ford 
vehicles in the US;our contract runs out at the end of this year and won't be 
renewed for these reasons) I must admit that theyr'e fun to drive,seemingly 
well balanced and are well put together.(Not at all like the Tauruses and 
Windstars I have, which are complete and total pieces of garbage.)Don't ever 
lose the keys to your car though;it takes a Herculean effort to get 
replacement keys for a Ford car.Just went through this nighmare last 
week.....................The VW?Dull cars,ugly too.Drives like an overloaded 
school bus and handles like one too.
      As I'd mentioned on a previous post, my beloved Alfie (Milano Gold,135k 
miles)had begun to smoke.It would smoke at idle and would smoke heavier as I 
got into higher RPM's. I was assuming bad valve seals,and have a spare set of 
heads ready to go on it as soon as I'm physically able to do work again 
(suffered a heart problem this monday,and I'm on VERY light duty for the next 
week or two.).I had dumped a can of a new product I saw from Chevron into the 
gas tank,it's their Techron fuel injector cleaner with intake valve 
cleaner.Dumped the can into a full tank of 94 octane Sunoco (what I always 
run in my car) and after a half tank, the smoking STOPPED!!!! Alfie quit 
smoking, runs fine, and I have no idea why it stopped smoking.It would appear 
that the intake valve cleaner helped rejuvinate the valve seals.It doesn't 
smoke and I'm curious to know if this is possible.It seemed very odd....Any 
ideas?
      Also, same car, different question.I'd replaced the front brakes with 
Alfa OEM pads and turned the rotors; and now I'm getting horrible squealing 
noises from the front brakes when I stop,and lots of brake dust....When the 
pads are heated up they stop squealing,but I can't figure out why they're 
squealing unless the OEM pads are like a almost 100% metallic pad.Any 
ideas????
      Finally, I'd like to thank John Hertzman for sending me the Watts 
linkage for Lazarus, my long suffering Alfetta Velocissima.As soon as I'm 
able it's going on the car.Thanks!
 Thanks,
Terry Akins
Alexandria,VA
1987 Milano Gold (Alfie, who quit smoking cold turkey)
1979 Alfetta Velocissima (Lazarus,still patiently waiting)
  

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