First off, I’m glad I stumbled across this site. I didn’t know that the Grand Marquis had any fans! Seems like I was wrong!
Anyways, I just recently purchased a dark blue 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis LS (which I'll get some pictures of up soon) for $500 from a neighbor of a friend a few months ago. The odometer just rolled over 300 miles ago, and the exterior is in fairly good condition, though there a few places were the paint has chipped slightly and a few minor dents.
So far I’ve replaced a line for the power steering (it had a pretty bad leak), replaced the radiator with a brand new one (which was extremely hard to track down, but easy enough to actually install), installed a brand new water pump, had the engine heating block replaced by a mechanic, replaced the heating hose and several other hoses, inflated the tires, and cleaned up the spark plugs, which is amazing for me because I don’t know much about cars.
However, here’s my problem -
The car is running horribly when idling. It’ll rev up, then die down, then rev up and die down again… it’ll do this for a few minutes, and then finally the engine will die and the car will shut off. When this happens, the engine light comes on, and so does the battery light. If I try to turn the car on though immediately after this, it'll start up, but the same sputtering thing will eventually happen, and it'll die if I don't get it moving. It’s fine when I’m driving it, but if I’m stuck at a stop light for more than two minutes or so it’ll die. If the lights headlights are on and it’s sputtering like this at a stoplight the lights will flicker and continuously fade in and out as well. When I start her up the engine sounds very rough as well.
This started happening about three days ago, after I got back from a 200 mile trip with it. It’s usually just been driven for short trips before that. Other things that I’ve noticed since I got back is that there is more exhaust than usual coming out when I start her up and it smells worse then usual. There is a also strange rattling noise coming somewhere from the driver’s side of the engine while driving. I’ve checked under the hood and I can’t spot any obvious problem, and there are no puddles forming on the ground from any leaks I can see.
The sound that my engine is making when idling sounds almost exactly like the car in this video that Zoomie posted a few days ago -
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5058961/13441518
I’d really appreciate any advice anyone could give me. I’m not so savvy with automotive lingo, but I’ll give you guys any more information about my car if it’ll help! Thank you so much!
Anyways, I just recently purchased a dark blue 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis LS (which I'll get some pictures of up soon) for $500 from a neighbor of a friend a few months ago. The odometer just rolled over 300 miles ago, and the exterior is in fairly good condition, though there a few places were the paint has chipped slightly and a few minor dents.
So far I’ve replaced a line for the power steering (it had a pretty bad leak), replaced the radiator with a brand new one (which was extremely hard to track down, but easy enough to actually install), installed a brand new water pump, had the engine heating block replaced by a mechanic, replaced the heating hose and several other hoses, inflated the tires, and cleaned up the spark plugs, which is amazing for me because I don’t know much about cars.
However, here’s my problem -
The car is running horribly when idling. It’ll rev up, then die down, then rev up and die down again… it’ll do this for a few minutes, and then finally the engine will die and the car will shut off. When this happens, the engine light comes on, and so does the battery light. If I try to turn the car on though immediately after this, it'll start up, but the same sputtering thing will eventually happen, and it'll die if I don't get it moving. It’s fine when I’m driving it, but if I’m stuck at a stop light for more than two minutes or so it’ll die. If the lights headlights are on and it’s sputtering like this at a stoplight the lights will flicker and continuously fade in and out as well. When I start her up the engine sounds very rough as well.
This started happening about three days ago, after I got back from a 200 mile trip with it. It’s usually just been driven for short trips before that. Other things that I’ve noticed since I got back is that there is more exhaust than usual coming out when I start her up and it smells worse then usual. There is a also strange rattling noise coming somewhere from the driver’s side of the engine while driving. I’ve checked under the hood and I can’t spot any obvious problem, and there are no puddles forming on the ground from any leaks I can see.
The sound that my engine is making when idling sounds almost exactly like the car in this video that Zoomie posted a few days ago -
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5058961/13441518
I’d really appreciate any advice anyone could give me. I’m not so savvy with automotive lingo, but I’ll give you guys any more information about my car if it’ll help! Thank you so much!
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