VicCrownVic's 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[VicCrownVic]

Photo dump. All but the last one were taken before washing. I put on over 150 miles and haven't owned it for 48 hours yet. Took it up to my parents' place yesterday, drove 10mph or less on the dirt roads to their place in an attempt to keep it somewhat clean. Luckily they live in the middle of nowhere so I didn't encounter anyone else so 10mph or less was no problem. And they live less than 2 miles off the paved road, so no big deal. You can see the dirt in the wheel wells and on the wheels and tires and rocker panel cover. And salty crap on the under side, I made sure to spray that crap off when I went to the car wash this evening.

2.73 open diff. The 2 and the 7 are hard to impossible to make out on the diff tag.

Rear sway bar appears to have hit the shocks and shock mounts at some point in the past.

[DerekTheGreat]

I think this will be the first non box thread I've commented on, not sure how that makes me feel..

BUt yeah, I hate the cloth top. Other than that, seems OK. May it serve you well and long live the memories of the boxes.

[87gtVIC]

As long as some ahole doesn’t ruin it on you I guess you will be owning this for many many years to come.

Looks pretty clean. Should last a long time.

[VicCrownVic]

Yep, I got 10 years out of my '89. It was pretty good condition in the beginning. 8 years out of The Ice Car and it was nowhere near this nice when I bought it.

My goal is 10 years, but I expect that I can keep it going longer than that even.

[Grand1]

Thats more than a solid ride, Vic. You really need some kind of torphy for DD boxes that long.....end of an era! Lets link up to tag team that intake over the summer. Not a fan of cloth tops but the black on gray is actually sharp. Clean engine bay...glad you scored it.

[VicCrownVic]

That works for me, just need to order the intake when I find time to sit for more than 5 minutes.

[packman]

Nice, very nice!

My '05 has the analog cluster as well. Funny how my Mom's Explorer of the same year (2005) has the digital dash (message center too) and almost every option available; and yet my Merc remains so Spartan.

What will become of The Scab and The Ice Car? FrankenMerc them?

[gadget73]

Underside does look pretty good. Never heard of Sentury tires but they're obviously pretty new so who cares.

[VicCrownVic]

The Scab will most likely be backup, and The Ice Car will most likely become a parts car. Well, the parts that haven't rotted off anyway.
Not sure I'll have time this year to do much with either since I would like to get the engine I bought this past fall into the Yukon. I keep telling the wife we should have waited to find a place with a garage. She likes the Yukon and I could have had it done with my own garage.
On the other hand, the new place (moved here last May) is really working well for the family so I'm ok with slow car progress. I can fix the cars when/if the time comes, family isn't going to do well on the back burner.

With the Ice Car becoming the parts car, I'll likely send the '89 to the JY. After I get the windshield off, and maybe the passenger power seat track. I've taken everything else I wanted from that car over the last 8 years.

I thought the same thing on the tires. I usually get about 3 years out of cheap Chinesium tires so I figure these should at least last me that long.

https://senturytireusa.com/

[VicCrownVic]

Also, not disappointed with the performance. I drove my mom's '93 back in '07 or '08 when my '89 needed a trans. I did not like that car, it just felt lame compared to my box. Really liking this whale though.

[tjc78]

Nice car! Enjoy it. Unfortunately many of the low mile well kept examples are found with Florida Edition cloth tops. At least it is black and goes well with the car.

My 04 was white with a black top and interior.

As others mentioned the accumulator was more of a problem on the later whales when they moved it lower in the engine bay. Even so my 04's lasted over 12 years before it popped so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Yours looks like it may have been replaced already.

O-rings aren't too bad to do in the EATC. I did mine in about an hour all in. Bring it inside and do that surgery in a nice clean well lit area.

[VicCrownVic]

EATC o-rings are super easy on '03+. On '02- the assembly is slightly different, so the '97 EATC unit I put in the Ice Car was upgraded to the '03 vacuum actuator assembly. I didn't think I would be able to break the little spot weld and get it back together properly. That's the plan when I get around to it; retrofit the '03+ assembly into my stock '98 control head. So far it isn't bad enough to bug me though.

[tjc78]

Mine was bad, stuck on full defrost no matter what the setting.

[VicCrownVic]

I gave the car a good wash yesterday which gave me a chance to closely look the car over. There has definitely been some paint work done which suggests that, at least, the driver side fender has been replace and possibly the hood.
You can see it in the pictures if you take note of the missing pinstripe on the driver side fender and overspray that covers the pinstripe on the front half of the driver door. Not exactly a good pant job. Also while cleaning the front bumper much paint came off revealing a bumper that looks 22 years old (possibly not original to the car). This tells me that whoever did the paint job didn't do good prep work at the very least. Also, along the molding on the passenger door I can see where the new paint layer doesn't cover the original (right up against the molding, not noticable unless you really look. This actually has me a bit confused since the passenger side fender doesn't appear to have been painted.

I'm not complaining, since it is nice to have rocker panels. I just find it strange and it also explains why there is an alignment issue between the front and rear driver side doors. The front of the rear door sticks out just a little past the rear of the front door.

[VicCrownVic]

EATC O-ring Replacement with Vac Actuator Assy Retrofit

I grabbed an EATC vacuum actuator assembly from a 2004 MGM today. Replaced the o-rings and retrofit it to my '98 EATC control head.
The reason I prefer the '03+ vacuum actuator assembly is that servicing the o-rings is easier. The '02- units have a frame that gets in the way while the '03+ units are free of obstruction.
Also, it's cheaper to get just the vacuum actuator assembly instead of the whole control head.

'04 unit on the left, stock '98 unit on the right:


For the retrofit the first thing to overcome is the '02- units having an eight pin connector while the '03+ unit has a 5 pin connector.
Last time I did this I spliced the eight pin connector to the newer unit, but I found there is an even easier way. After verifying that each of the ground pins were in the same position on the connector and each went to the same actuator on both old and new units (the actuators are ground controlled, the newer units share positive while the older units unnecessarily have separate positive feeds to each actuator). It turns out that the only modification needed is to cut off a little tab on the new unit's electrical connector.




Once that is done, plug the new connector to the old board and you will have 3 unused pins on the board.



The other modification needed is making the new unit mount to the old EATC case. This requires drilling two 3/16 holes in the back of the control head case.
To locate the new holes, position the new unit, then trace straight down from the mounting screw holes on the new unit, and straight over from the existing holes on the back of the case.
If you put the new unit in place while drilling the new holes, be careful not to drill to far and ream out the new unit's mounting holes


I didn't get it exact as you can tell but, once the screws were in, my new holes actually are positioned good enough.





I found a 2006 MGM but the vacuum actuator assembly looked the same as '02- units. I suspect that the car may have had the control head replaced since it was obvious someone had been in there (chewed up release tabs, missing screw) unlike my '98 where nothing was out of place and the electrical connectors didn't want to let go.

I may have forgotten to plug the vacuum actuator electrical connector in. My system was on default and couldn't change modes. Took it back out, found my mistake and all was working as it should.