Greetings friends,
This is my 1988 Mercury Grand Marquis GS that I recently came upon on Facebook marketplace. As with most marketplace ads, one thing tends to lead to another and before I knew it I had bought it and was driving it home.
The car is mechanically very sound, but has had maintenance (apart from changing the oil and filter every year) pretty much just not done for the last 9-10 years that the previous owner had it. Good thing is the car hasn't really been driven all that much during that period either it seems. The guy told me me he drove it every day, but I have severe doubts about that. The car does run and drive really well, steering is tight and it also stops great.
The body is overall pretty good. It hasn't seen winters for at least those 9-10 years the previous owner had it, and the car originally came from Georgia. It has however been repainted for a movie it starred in. It was originally white and the paint looks pretty good overall, but the frames of the windows have not been repainted and under the gas cap its still white. It has started to fade on the roof and there's a chunk of clear coat missing from the hood and the trunk (both about fist sized).
My plan is for the car to replace my 1996 Buick Roadmaster that you see in the images above. Looking at it objectively, the Mercury is probably a step down - The Buick is a fully loaded example with all options from the brochure from what I can see (even has a limited slip 2.93 rear axle and heavy duty cooling) and that 265hp LT1 is a great joy to drive (making that 150hp 302 in the Mercury a dog by comparison). But I really like the way the Mercury looks and drives, and the Buick is a bit worn and hacked into (door panels missing a lot of screws, poorly made prior repairs etc). The Mercury will be my only car, but since I don't commute by car it will mainly just sit and collect dust in my garage. I have however applied to get a parking spot at the office where I work so whenever I get that the Mercury will be on full daily driving duty. Granted they salt the roads here pretty liberally, but the underside of it is properly coated and I'm thinking that in the winters I'll just run it through an automatic car wash near where I live once or twice a week - just got to remember to keep a wrench in the glove box to remove the antenna first!
Trivia time: You'll note that it has those awful looking turn signals mounted on the front fender. The law here stipulates all cars 1986 and newer must have side turn signals. With the advent of LEDs it can be done pretty discretely (compare the Mercury's turn signals to the Buick's on the first image). Rear turn signals must be orange on cars 1976 and newer (you'll see that on the Buick they've put semi-discrete orange LEDs where the backup lights are), and the front turn signals and parking lamps cannot be the same. Now on the Mercury the rear turn signals are the red factory ones and by some miracle it seems to pass inspection with that (which it shouldn't), but the next inspection is due next summer so I'll see what to do about that. The front fender turn signals are horrendous and discrete LED-ones like on the Buick would be preferrable, but the hole drilled to fit the ones on it might be too large for that to work.
Speaking of plans, here's a non-exhaustive list of work planned and things I need to look into, however not necessarily in this order of priority:
- Replace most of the cooling system: The water pump leaks so while I'm at it I'm also doing the thermostat, both radiator hoses, the fan clutch and the coolant temperature sender.
- The transmission has been rebuilt (9 years ago) but shifts pretty harshly 2-3 and 3-4. It shifts better at full load but something is definitely awry here. I'm looking to have a transmission shop look into it but I'd welcome any thoughts and suggestions here.
- Troubleshoot the right rear seatbelt which seems stuck. Any recommendations and tips here are welcome.
- Do a bunch of preventative and delayed maintenance. Apart from the cooling system above, I'm doing plugs/wires/rotor/cap, both belts, fuel filter, PCV-valve and grommet, EGR-solenoid (leaks vacuum there) and fluids in transmission and rear axle.
- Replace both rear window motors and see why the power locks only work on the rear, but not the front.
- Get the AC working again.
- Replace the shocks: None of them leak but it feels like they are on the stiff side, very jittery over bumps and imperfections in a way my other similar cars that I've owned have not been.
- Replace the four factory speakers with something decent (still hidden in the factory locations) and the stereo with a RetroSound stereo like this: 1979-89 Mercury Colony Park Newport 1.5 DIN Radio-RetroSound – Retro Manufacturing
To round out this post, here is an image of the car being way to long for the ridiculously short parking spots in my garage, and out in the city on a fast food run. I'm thinking I'll use this thread to regularly update on maintenance and life with this Grand Marquis in this land far from its original home in Georgia.
This is my 1988 Mercury Grand Marquis GS that I recently came upon on Facebook marketplace. As with most marketplace ads, one thing tends to lead to another and before I knew it I had bought it and was driving it home.
The car is mechanically very sound, but has had maintenance (apart from changing the oil and filter every year) pretty much just not done for the last 9-10 years that the previous owner had it. Good thing is the car hasn't really been driven all that much during that period either it seems. The guy told me me he drove it every day, but I have severe doubts about that. The car does run and drive really well, steering is tight and it also stops great.
The body is overall pretty good. It hasn't seen winters for at least those 9-10 years the previous owner had it, and the car originally came from Georgia. It has however been repainted for a movie it starred in. It was originally white and the paint looks pretty good overall, but the frames of the windows have not been repainted and under the gas cap its still white. It has started to fade on the roof and there's a chunk of clear coat missing from the hood and the trunk (both about fist sized).
My plan is for the car to replace my 1996 Buick Roadmaster that you see in the images above. Looking at it objectively, the Mercury is probably a step down - The Buick is a fully loaded example with all options from the brochure from what I can see (even has a limited slip 2.93 rear axle and heavy duty cooling) and that 265hp LT1 is a great joy to drive (making that 150hp 302 in the Mercury a dog by comparison). But I really like the way the Mercury looks and drives, and the Buick is a bit worn and hacked into (door panels missing a lot of screws, poorly made prior repairs etc). The Mercury will be my only car, but since I don't commute by car it will mainly just sit and collect dust in my garage. I have however applied to get a parking spot at the office where I work so whenever I get that the Mercury will be on full daily driving duty. Granted they salt the roads here pretty liberally, but the underside of it is properly coated and I'm thinking that in the winters I'll just run it through an automatic car wash near where I live once or twice a week - just got to remember to keep a wrench in the glove box to remove the antenna first!
Trivia time: You'll note that it has those awful looking turn signals mounted on the front fender. The law here stipulates all cars 1986 and newer must have side turn signals. With the advent of LEDs it can be done pretty discretely (compare the Mercury's turn signals to the Buick's on the first image). Rear turn signals must be orange on cars 1976 and newer (you'll see that on the Buick they've put semi-discrete orange LEDs where the backup lights are), and the front turn signals and parking lamps cannot be the same. Now on the Mercury the rear turn signals are the red factory ones and by some miracle it seems to pass inspection with that (which it shouldn't), but the next inspection is due next summer so I'll see what to do about that. The front fender turn signals are horrendous and discrete LED-ones like on the Buick would be preferrable, but the hole drilled to fit the ones on it might be too large for that to work.
Speaking of plans, here's a non-exhaustive list of work planned and things I need to look into, however not necessarily in this order of priority:
- Replace most of the cooling system: The water pump leaks so while I'm at it I'm also doing the thermostat, both radiator hoses, the fan clutch and the coolant temperature sender.
- The transmission has been rebuilt (9 years ago) but shifts pretty harshly 2-3 and 3-4. It shifts better at full load but something is definitely awry here. I'm looking to have a transmission shop look into it but I'd welcome any thoughts and suggestions here.
- Troubleshoot the right rear seatbelt which seems stuck. Any recommendations and tips here are welcome.
- Do a bunch of preventative and delayed maintenance. Apart from the cooling system above, I'm doing plugs/wires/rotor/cap, both belts, fuel filter, PCV-valve and grommet, EGR-solenoid (leaks vacuum there) and fluids in transmission and rear axle.
- Replace both rear window motors and see why the power locks only work on the rear, but not the front.
- Get the AC working again.
- Replace the shocks: None of them leak but it feels like they are on the stiff side, very jittery over bumps and imperfections in a way my other similar cars that I've owned have not been.
- Replace the four factory speakers with something decent (still hidden in the factory locations) and the stereo with a RetroSound stereo like this: 1979-89 Mercury Colony Park Newport 1.5 DIN Radio-RetroSound – Retro Manufacturing
To round out this post, here is an image of the car being way to long for the ridiculously short parking spots in my garage, and out in the city on a fast food run. I'm thinking I'll use this thread to regularly update on maintenance and life with this Grand Marquis in this land far from its original home in Georgia.
Attached Files
, do you have 3-point seat belts in the rear?
I had the privilege of getting a tour of the Sisu Auto factory in Karjaa last fall when we went there for business, really cool company. The guy who runs it is a true gearhead as well, loves Alfa Romeos. 
Here's my experience: I set my TV cable exactly like the video described and have put nearly 81k km's and ten years behind me in said Lincoln. Shift feel & quality has never changed in that time, car itself has ~209k km's on it. Not sure if the trans was ever rebuilt. With the way it is, it'll go into overdrive between 72 and 81 km/h, which is how I'd set any other AOD in my fleet. I had another AOD car, a '91 Lincoln Mark VII. I never touched the linkage on that one, but it was clearly adjusted in the more popular way. Shifts were later and harsher. I'd say we put no more than 8k km's on it when it lost overdrive. I forget how many km's were on the car total. As a result of my experience, I'm convinced the stock components in an AOD can't handle firmer shifts over the long haul.
Typically my cars run about 93°C-96°C in slow traffic with the A/C on. Slightly cooler weather and they'll run about three or four degrees cooler on average.
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