VicCrownVic's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS
One year ago today, October 13th, I bought a 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS. It had 84K miles and change when I got it and I've put about 10K miles on it since then as my daily driver.
I didn't think the 91 would ever be more than a daily driver, but sine my job situation will be improving significantly starting tomorrow there is actually a chance that I could do more with it than just drive it into the ground. I probably will not do anything significant until sometime next summer at the earliest, I have some other priorities that need to be addressed first.
Here are some pics before I start rambling (it’s a giant wall of text!)
They are all old pics but not much has changed. My 89 MGM GS, which I've had since 2003, is also in most of the pics.
The story of my 91 has quite the beginning.
I was sitting in a restaurant parking lot in my 89 MGM with my wife waiting for the in-laws an early October weekend. We were parked a ways from the restaurant in a spot closest to the road when this guy in a blue 2000something caravan pulls up right next to us. "What the crap is this guy doing." Is what I said to my wife.
He rolled down his window, I rolled down mine, and he said, "I have a car just like that in better shape that you could have for $500." We talked a bit about it, the guy thought it was a 1990 that he had but he wasn't exactly sure if it was 90 or 91. My 89 has a good amount of rust and I had already been thinking that if I found a 90 or 91 in good shape for cheap that I would buy it. The guy let me know that the trans was bad, but I had a good engine and trans in my 89, I had done a trans swap about a year earlier so that wouldn't be a problem. So the guy says "If you want we can go check it out and see what you think."
I called the in-laws to let them know we would be having dinner a little later. We went to this guy’s place a few miles away and he showed me the car sitting quite dusty in his barn. He started it right up, put it into gear and moved it a little. There was too much stuff piled around it drive out of the barn but it started right up, sounded good, and moved under its own power which was good enough for me. I knew it was at least 1990 since it has the bomb on the steering wheel and newer style dash, and the body was in far better shape than my 89.
I made arrangements to get a whole week off from work since the car needed work and had been sitting for about 6 or 7 years. So one week later I went back on a Saturday with my buddy and his dad's truck and my uncle's car dolly. We towed the car up to my parent's house where I could make use of my dad's 2 car garage to get the trans swap done. When I drove it off the dolly and around the yard the trans seemed fine so I took it out on a test drive and it actually accelerated decent and I was starting to hope I wouldn't need to replace the trans. Then I realized that it was not shifting into 3rd, 1st and 2nd were all it had, oh and a blown brake line but the brake line was no big deal/easy fix.
Took a few days to get the transmissions swapped between my 89 and the 91 since both cars had to be able to drive. Each day my dad would come out to the garage to tell me that I needed to move fast because they were in the middle of trying to move and he needed to get the garage packed as soon as I was done. Once I was done with the trans swap is when the car started to show that it had been sitting for a long time.
On my first long test drive, 20 miles to McDonalds, the car would not start to make the trip back to my parents’ house. I got a jump and got back to the house to find the alternator was going. Swapped the one from my 89, problem solved. Then began the process of helping my parents move. It was about a 10 mile drive from the old house to the new so this gave me a good chance to test drive the car repeatedly. Driving between houses revealed yet more issues caused by sitting.
The car started running like crap, then while my dad and I were trying to diagnose this issue we had to stop and diagnose the starter which we determined went out. So I took that starter to Autozone 20 miles away and it failed every test. The girl at the counter tells me that this starter is an original stock part from 1991 which didn’t surprise me since the spark plug wires (which I replaced) all said 1991 on them. Once we got the new starter in, we found why it was not running very well, or by this time not at all. The rubber fuel line inside the tank had split open and most of the fuel was going straight back in to the tank.
By this time, between working on the car and helping with the move I was running out of time, Monday I had to go back to work. Dad said he would get the fuel pump fixed if I could get the parts. Mom let me borrow her Taurus and luckily I had the late shift all the next week, so Monday morning as soon as Autozone opened I got my fuel pump/hanger assembly (They didn’t have it in stock Sunday night, no one did), drove up to my parents’ house an hour away, dropped it off and still made it to work on time.
Tuesday night, about a week and a half after I bought it, I picked the car up and have been driving it daily for the past year now.
I didn't think the 91 would ever be more than a daily driver, but sine my job situation will be improving significantly starting tomorrow there is actually a chance that I could do more with it than just drive it into the ground. I probably will not do anything significant until sometime next summer at the earliest, I have some other priorities that need to be addressed first.
Here are some pics before I start rambling (it’s a giant wall of text!)
They are all old pics but not much has changed. My 89 MGM GS, which I've had since 2003, is also in most of the pics.
The story of my 91 has quite the beginning.
I was sitting in a restaurant parking lot in my 89 MGM with my wife waiting for the in-laws an early October weekend. We were parked a ways from the restaurant in a spot closest to the road when this guy in a blue 2000something caravan pulls up right next to us. "What the crap is this guy doing." Is what I said to my wife.
He rolled down his window, I rolled down mine, and he said, "I have a car just like that in better shape that you could have for $500." We talked a bit about it, the guy thought it was a 1990 that he had but he wasn't exactly sure if it was 90 or 91. My 89 has a good amount of rust and I had already been thinking that if I found a 90 or 91 in good shape for cheap that I would buy it. The guy let me know that the trans was bad, but I had a good engine and trans in my 89, I had done a trans swap about a year earlier so that wouldn't be a problem. So the guy says "If you want we can go check it out and see what you think."
I called the in-laws to let them know we would be having dinner a little later. We went to this guy’s place a few miles away and he showed me the car sitting quite dusty in his barn. He started it right up, put it into gear and moved it a little. There was too much stuff piled around it drive out of the barn but it started right up, sounded good, and moved under its own power which was good enough for me. I knew it was at least 1990 since it has the bomb on the steering wheel and newer style dash, and the body was in far better shape than my 89.
I made arrangements to get a whole week off from work since the car needed work and had been sitting for about 6 or 7 years. So one week later I went back on a Saturday with my buddy and his dad's truck and my uncle's car dolly. We towed the car up to my parent's house where I could make use of my dad's 2 car garage to get the trans swap done. When I drove it off the dolly and around the yard the trans seemed fine so I took it out on a test drive and it actually accelerated decent and I was starting to hope I wouldn't need to replace the trans. Then I realized that it was not shifting into 3rd, 1st and 2nd were all it had, oh and a blown brake line but the brake line was no big deal/easy fix.
Took a few days to get the transmissions swapped between my 89 and the 91 since both cars had to be able to drive. Each day my dad would come out to the garage to tell me that I needed to move fast because they were in the middle of trying to move and he needed to get the garage packed as soon as I was done. Once I was done with the trans swap is when the car started to show that it had been sitting for a long time.
On my first long test drive, 20 miles to McDonalds, the car would not start to make the trip back to my parents’ house. I got a jump and got back to the house to find the alternator was going. Swapped the one from my 89, problem solved. Then began the process of helping my parents move. It was about a 10 mile drive from the old house to the new so this gave me a good chance to test drive the car repeatedly. Driving between houses revealed yet more issues caused by sitting.
The car started running like crap, then while my dad and I were trying to diagnose this issue we had to stop and diagnose the starter which we determined went out. So I took that starter to Autozone 20 miles away and it failed every test. The girl at the counter tells me that this starter is an original stock part from 1991 which didn’t surprise me since the spark plug wires (which I replaced) all said 1991 on them. Once we got the new starter in, we found why it was not running very well, or by this time not at all. The rubber fuel line inside the tank had split open and most of the fuel was going straight back in to the tank.
By this time, between working on the car and helping with the move I was running out of time, Monday I had to go back to work. Dad said he would get the fuel pump fixed if I could get the parts. Mom let me borrow her Taurus and luckily I had the late shift all the next week, so Monday morning as soon as Autozone opened I got my fuel pump/hanger assembly (They didn’t have it in stock Sunday night, no one did), drove up to my parents’ house an hour away, dropped it off and still made it to work on time.
Tuesday night, about a week and a half after I bought it, I picked the car up and have been driving it daily for the past year now.
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