VicCrownVic's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS

[88Vic]

That Yukon looks nice, looks like my 99 Suburban. I love mine, it's what me and wife drove from our wedding in and what we've drove our sons home from the hospital in. When my boys are all old enough to go to school and my wife can go back to work i'll be able to do some serious work to it. For right now the Vortec 350 and Magnaflow exhaust does an ok job of moving it (when I change the lower intake gasket i'm gonna get a Blackbear Performance tune to wake it up) but mileage really sucks. It'll never do good being so heavy but I plan on a 383 or 6.0 swap and weight saving. Gonna take the 3rd row seat out when the boys are out of car seats, and maybe do a 4WD to 2WD conversion. Because there's so much weight over the rear i've almost never needed 4WD in snow, so if I were to install a True-Trac and all terrain tires it'd be unstoppable in snow so i'd have no need for 4WD since it doesn't go offroad.

Anyways looking forward to updates on the Merc and the Yukon. If you don't do a lot of highway driving with the Merc install so lower gears and dual exhaust, that'll wake it up.

[VicCrownVic]

The Yukon is waiting for me to get enough saved up for trans work, I'm planning on a complete rebuild. Right now it's sitting at my buddy's place stuck in 2nd or 3rd and reverse is completely gone. The trans work is the reason I got it for cheap, it didn't shift right when I bought it but now it's just not drivable. I drove it for a couple of months daily when I first got it and the engine runs great with no leaks or problems so I figured the trans work will be worth it. I'm hoping it will get better mileage after the trans work, but I know it will never come close to my MGM.
No plans for the truck for now other than to get it back on the road before winter. I'm not sure if I will ever do anything with it other than just drive it, haul stuff, and enjoy it while it lasts..

As for the MGM, nothing cool will be happening with it anytime soon. My estimate for when I can actually do anything with it will be 2016 or 2017... gotta get these student loans paid off. Once I get things in order rear gears and duals are on the list along with new coil springs and shocks. Those are things that I can either accomplish over the next couple of years or in some cases need to accomplish (the 23 year old coil springs are getting tired).

Will I still have this box in a couple of years? Who knows, but since I've only owned one vehicle that wasn't a box panther it's a pretty safe bet to say that I will have a box panther in the driveway even if it's not this one.

[Midnight Drifter]

It was a straight forward direct swap, but I don't think I have the part# for the 6-digit odometer.
I got the odometer from mcninetyone, he could probably tell you what the part# is or may even be able to get one for you.

Once you have the 6 screws out to remove the face, pry the temp and fuel gauge up, then pull the speedo out of the housing.
On the back of the speedo the odo and trip-odo are each held in by two screws, and the motors that run them are held in by the plastic housing.
Be carefully prying the motor out, I didn't have any issue with the tabs breaking but they are 20+ year old plastic.
While you're in there make sure to replace the odo gears since they have most likely turned to crumbling wax if they are original.

Just for clarity's sake, the original 140 speedo was 5-digit, correct?

[VicCrownVic]

Just for clarity's sake, the original 140 speedo was 5-digit, correct?

Correct.

[79lincolnlover]

...gotta get these student loans paid off.

Good idea. You'll feel better after that weight has been lifted off you.

[VicCrownVic]

More Minor Mods with JY parts

I was able to hit one of the local junk yards this weekend.


I picked up a dash trim piece that was in slightly better shape than mine but it came from a 1991 MGM LS with power antenna so I grabbed the power antenna button to install in my car just for looks. If I feel like going through the hassle of adding a power antenna in the future at least I have the button already.


I also picked up a cup holder/ashtray from a 1992 MGM to replace the ashtray my wife broke about a year or two ago. I've been riding around with nothing there. I had to return to the yard today to grab the mounting plate which I knew needed because someone else had posted a thread on this, but I forgot yesterday when I was there. I also found the ashtray center insert today that is not pictured below.


The big ticket item is the passenger side power seat track that I picked up. This is more for the wife because she had gotten very used to having a power seat in my 89 (which I added years ago) but it was not a direct swap from the 89 to the 91 so she has had to live with a manual seat. I got the switch, the mounting plate for the switch, and the entire wire harness. Since I've already done a manual to power seat conversion before I knew what I needed to grab and I'll slap it together in an afternoon while I'm on Christmas beak up at my parents' house.


Cupholder and dash trim are already installed:

[sly]

cupholders FTW!

[sxcpotatoes]

cupholders FTW!

you mean SIPPY cupholders FTW!

[VicCrownVic]

Realistically I'd probably be better off using the cupholders for sippy cups only.

The color looks lighter in the pictures compared to the rest of my dash, but in person I don't really notice any difference.

[VicCrownVic]

Passenger side power front seat, and other stuff

So far I'm actually impressed with how well the cup holders work. I honestly wasn't expecting much out of them but they are much better than what my Yukon has.

I converted my front passenger seat from manual to power today. My car needs to be vacuumed again but I took some pics of the procedure, it turned out better the last couple of times I did this but the last time was about 10 years ago.

Manaul seat tracks:


Undo the hogrings:



With the seat on its back, push the front of the seat down to release the retaining clip from the seat frame:



Pull the seat cushin up and away from the seat frame to reveal the mounting hole for the for the electric seat switches:


Grab the mounting plate for the switches and mount it to the seat frame:



Pull the seat cushin back down and put the hogrings and retainer back in place, then cut a slit along the bottom and sides of the mounting plate opening. Run the wiring into the seat and mount the switch.




Pull the manual seat tracks out and the driver seat in order to be able to fish the new wiring harness under the carpet


The power seat wiring harness connects under the carpet at the rear of the driver door. Unplug the driver seat only harness and plug the driver and passenger harness in its place.


And no after picture of the power seat installed but my wife likes that she now has a power seat again so that's all that matters.

Also last weekend I finished cleaning up and painting my replacement fuel filter bracket so I was able to get that installed. I oiled the frame in the area where the bracket is mounted and also coated the fuel filter with oil all in an effort to keep the new one from rusting to pieces. I also saw a 91 MGM at the JY which was about as clean underneath as mine but the fuel filter bracket was rusted the same as mine.

[slack]

Looks good!

[Hearsesrock427]

Man, I'd be hard pressed to tell that that power passenger side front seat didn't come factory. I applaud your high standard of worksmanship!

PM sent regarding if you could do the same for my '89 come summer.

[VicCrownVic]

Thanks for the complements.
This is at least the 3rd time that I have done this conversion. I don't think I did as good of a job on the cut in the seat where the switch mounts so the fabric looks a bit wavy around the switch, but other than that everything else turned out better than my previous conversions.

[VicCrownVic]

2000 P71 Cluster

I'll put these 2 pictures right at the top, that way if anyone wants to skip they long post they can at least see the end result.

And a picture where I had the cluster hooked up to a power supply for testing before installing it into my car.


While I was looking for a 90-91 CVPI cluster to install in my 91 MGM I couldn't help but think that the pictures of the newer clusters looked like they might fit.
After seeing Kodachome Wolf's 1997 MGM with the 90-91 CVPI cluster my suspicion was confirmed.

After test fitting a 2000 P71 cluster into a 91 MGM at one of my local junk yards I seriously started to consider the swap, unfortunately the cluster that I did the test fit with had been attacked by gorillas.

I kept an eye out for another cluster in good shape and a couple weeks ago I found one. Actually I found at least 3 that day since I went to a couple of junk yards with my dad that I had never been to.

This is not a direct swap, but it wasn't bad.
I didn't get many good pictures of what I did to make this work, there was a good amount of trial and error when it came to physical fitment but the wiring was straight forward. I did make adapters so that I didn't have to cut the wire harness in my car and it also allowed me to all of the wiring while I sat on the couch watching TV. It's kind of nice because I can easily swap back to stock but I highly recommend NOT trying to make adapters like I did, there really isn't room for them so the new cluster sits out a bit further than it should. It was also a tedious pain in the ass to make, cutting my harness and splicing in the whale connectors would have been much easier.

The bezel around the cluster is the part that I modified the most to make things fit... I'll be keeping an eye out for another one (or two) at local yards this summer and very well may be redoing this.

Also, modifying a whale cluster for colored LED lighting sucks, and the LED lighting is quite bright compared to the LED lighting in my 91 cluster. The brightness may drive me back to stock incandescent lighting which looked pretty good when I hooked it up to a power supply for testing. Or I could take it apart and use some stained glass paint, like BlackVic_P71 mentioned in another thread, to cut down on the brightness.

[Hearsesrock427]

VERY interesting swap idea..... always wondered why people didn't do something like this sooner. Guess the wiring and fitment intimidated them. I'm not judging; I'm the same way with the Cougar digidash that's going in this summer!

I'm no fan of analog gauges, but damn, that's a neat setup. Like your power seat conversions, it looks factory. I really like how the speedometer is right in the center, where your field of vision is by default when driving. It's also a lot higher than the horizontal row of numbers style speedo. Now you don't need to glance so far down to check your speed! Also just fits well with the modern aero style interior the '90 and '91s have.