My 1989 Crown Victoria.

[slack]

All good deeds don't go unpunished.

I did oil changes this past weekend on the CV and LTD and now the CV's rear brakes are binding up hard at partial braking. (Had e-brake on when the car was jacked up).

I'm going to have to pop the rear drums off and see if the cable is binding. I've never replaced the hardware back there, only the shoes, wheel cylinders and the drums themselves so something might just decided to kick the bucket. Picked up some rear brake stuff just for the heck of it for cheap in case I need it. (If I don't need it now, I probably will down the road anyway...)

Who knows though. Never had good luck with e-brakes on these cars. Out of the four now that I've owned, three of them I had to cut the e-brake cable due to getting stuck engaged. I guess we'll see once I take things apart. As for now, until I figure this out the car is designated to around town driving only as I don't want to have to deal with the brake getting seized a few towns over (again).

[DerekTheGreat]

My Town Car is clean as can be underneath yet I'm still afraid to even touch the parking brake. I'm sure it would bind anyway.

[slack]

Yeah I'm not sure if it's a bad design or what. My '78 has a different design and the e-brake is completely fine to use... never binds up. In fact there was a Ford recall that added the "apply the e-brake" sticker to the dash for those year cars due to them popping out of park.

I was able to get the e-brake to unbind tonight by engaging it while driving down the road and then popping it off while still rolling. Barely even engaged during it even though I pressed it most of the way down but seems like it's not sticking so much anymore. Still this next week I'll rip it apart and see what the heck is actually happening.

[DerekTheGreat]

I had luck with my brother's Ranger once, in getting the parking brake to unbind. Was once mine, told him never to use it as I never did. What does he do? Uses it the first week he had the truck.

Anyway, it would release a millimeter or so, and I just kept applying and releasing it for a good while and it worked the rust and skag-nasties enough to satisfy us. Was definitely lazy that day.

[slack]

New Grille and some maintenance stuff

I had luck with my brother's Ranger once, in getting the parking brake to unbind. Was once mine, told him never to use it as I never did. What does he do? Uses it the first week he had the truck.

Anyway, it would release a millimeter or so, and I just kept applying and releasing it for a good while and it worked the rust and skag-nasties enough to satisfy us. Was definitely lazy that day.

I might have to try that. Finally had time to take things apart today (Been driving my '78 as my daily). The driver's side seems to be the one that was getting bound up. Passenger side was fine. I Brakekleened the hell out of both sides and was able to get things okay for now. I have all new rear brake hardware that I might tackle sometime next week. While everything's off I'll be able to check out the cable better.

My '96 Olds blew a brake line.. I thought I could get away with just patching the blown out section but when I pulled it down... this is what I saw from front to back:

Needless to say the whole line had to come out. Autozone didn't have the spool of line so I had to union two lines together. Having issues for some reason getting the one side to seal. I've reflared it so many times now I'm starting to run low of "give" length. (Usually it's not this much of a PITA, not sure what's up). I thought I had it finally patched up but after I went for a ride around the block there was a tiny tiny bit of wetness... oh well. It's going to wait now until next weekend.

Back to the CV:
Got around to swapping on my '79-82 grille on to the car. Even not being the cleanest grille, the chrome is still way more shiny than what I had on there so it looks a little off... might need to get some headlight chrome to match or something... idk. We'll see.

Luckily the '87 header panel actually has the mount screw holes for both era grilles. The ones in the red circles are the ones for the '79-'82 style. I was actually really surprised by this and was fully expecting to only have it held on by the 5 other screws:


Before.. probably going to get some that like this look better:


After (notice the extra shine):


I had an extra Motorcraft fuel filter laying around since I lived in my old apartment 6-7 years ago. Figured it was worth changing as the one of the car now has been on there that long. On the new filter I marked the date and mileage to keep track of. The one I took off of the car I didn't do that with but I have to say, still looked brand new. No gross fuel came out of it on either end.
Old filter:


I still had some lasagne tray left over from my tail light repair (lol) and the stupid AIR pipe to the cat has been leaking again for a year or so. I decided to just wrap some tray around it and hose clamp the crap out of it. No idea how long it will last but it's at least quieter for now and took zero effort.


I didn't bother taking an pics of it but I had a two cans left of Eastwood's internal frame coating with the special nozzle for them. While I had the car jacked up, I went around the whole inside of the frame and soaked it. Probably could use another coat of this stuff (or more) but at the very least it's a start. (outside of the frame has been POR15's and painted a bunch of times already.. and is still rusty in spots...)

Alternator belt has had some start up squeaks since the 3G swap. I thought I could have gotten away without cutting out the original bracket but I guess not. Finally got around to doing that today (as well as hitting the new exposed metal with some paint (with some nice over spray as well )). While doing this I noticed I never tightened the bottom pivot bolt back up from when I put the alt in. Oops.


No more squeal.

Last thing I attempted to do was put the front control arm bump stops in. My car has been missing them since I did the nylon bushings. I was able to get one side in (new moogs) but the other is just a stuck stripped bolt rusted solid to a sharp piece of metal that spins when you try to loosen it. I tried heat, I tried clamping, I tried hammering a screw driver in there... nothing. finally I got the drimmel out and started just cutting at it. With the crazy 90 degree heat and the heat from running the drimmel, it ended up burning out it's brushes so I had to call it for the day.

All in all.. pretty productive.

Edit: Just calculated the mileage between my two odometers (original vs 140 speedo). Looks like I'm up to 238k miles on this car. Nice.

[87gtVIC]

Grille looks nice.

[packman]

Grill looks awesome on there!

I had the same squealing problem with my 3G swap; ended up tightening up the belt with barely any slack.

[slack]

Grille looks nice.

Thanks!

Grill looks awesome on there!

I had the same squealing problem with my 3G swap; ended up tightening up the belt with barely any slack.

Thanks! Yeah originally it seemed okay but started to squeal at start up after a bit. I wonder if it was more due to the fact I forgot to tighten the bolt than the belt stretching a bit like I thought. So far no squeals with the new tighter belt location. Exhaust is surprisingly holding up too, but I doubt that will last.

Thinking about maybe tackling the headlight relay mod this coming weekend. I picked up the parts like 4 years ago for it but never got around to doing it.

[slack]

After finding some frame rot last year, the fate was sealed for this car. (Related: http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...-Vic-Frame-Rot )

I managed to get the car inspected (some how) in January which bought me some time to handle stripping it and scrapping it. Now that I have the 87 GMQ, that process is now started.

I had band practice on Friday so I took the Crown Vic for one last ride. We practice out east, it's about a ~45 min ride both ways so it made for a good final cruise. I actually pulled back home with the gas gauge on empty so at least I don't have to worry about siphoning a full tank of gas out of the thing.

The body is actually in decent shape. Hood, header panel, fenders, bumpers, doors and trim will all be saved. As will the interior trim, radio, clock, speedo, etc. Engine and trans are also coming out.



Today, I checked on the frame rot that I found last year and it exploded. It's gotten surprisingly bad in one year. Last year, I couldn't punch holes in the frame except for some spots. Today, I was stabbing the thing left and right. Check out the frame rot thread linked above to see how much it has progressed in just one year.
Here are some pics of the current/final state of the frame:






The front and rear sections of the frame on the passenger's side are still surprisingly very solid.



Rust pile from my poking around:


Ok, on to the decommissioning pics...

87gtVIC came and took the front and rear seats today (Hope they work for you!). One t50 torx bolt that holds down the rear seat not only stripped, but also bent my torx bit as well. This was with using a torch to the bolt underneath and an impact gun. The bit twisted when I thought to use a breaker bar... Probably should have just used more heat. Anyway, I had to drill it out. The other one came out with impact and heat. All the other bolts came out without any issues.


Interior is mostly stripped now. Only a few more things I want to grab from there. The doors are coming off whole, so no need to take them apart yet.


After messing with the interior, I started working on getting the engine/trans ready to get pulled. Taking off the upper intake, I ran into the same problem as my GM with the torx bolts on the 5.0 plate. This time, the heat didn't work. The one bolt snapped my torx bit and another the head of the bolt snapped off. The one that snapped the bit also stripped so I had to drill it out. This didn't work. For some reason even after being drilled out it was still stuck. When I tried popping it off, the plate snapped with the stupid bolt head still seized to the plate. Not a big deal, it's just spare parts at this point.



Here's the current state of things as of the end of today:

• Wiring harness is mostly removed. All that's left is the headlight harness.
• Radiator and all related hoses are out
• Upper intake off and throttle and tv cable disconnected from linkage.
• Air cleaner stuff also out
• Vacuum lines removed.
• Power steering lines disconnected from steering box.
• Windshield washer fluid/coolant overflow removed.
• Relay box removed.
• Battery, wires, and starter solinoid removed.
• Probably more? It looks like I removed way less than I did.

Still TO-DO before I can pull the engine/trans:

• Disconnect exhaust. I need the passenger side cats section otherwise I would just sawsall it.
• Disconnect the AC stuff. It doesn't work so I'll probably just butcher it to remove it (unless anyone needs anything? It hasn't worked at least a decade)
• Disconnect the starter.
• Disconnect transmission mount & engine mounts.
• Hood, Header panel and front bumper removed.

So far I'm on track to have this gone within two weeks.

Anyone know if someone will come a scrap the car if it doesn't have wheels? I want to keep the turbines. The tires on the GM are brand new but it also seems like a waste to spend $$$ to swap the tires from the GM rims to the CV rims.

Edit: Forgot to ask. Any easy way to disconnect the wiper motor from the wipers? Might as well keep that as well.
Here's a not-so-super-helpful pic from the inside:

[VicCrownVic]

The T50 bolt that was stubborn happen to be the driver side of the rear seat? That bolt seems to give me problems on each car I've attempted removing it from.

Should be able to unbolt the wiper motor and pull it up enough to get at the funky clip. If you need a visual of the clip to understand how it works, check this post out from when I replaced the wiper motor on The Ice Car. http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post835354

[slack]

The T50 bolt that was stubborn happen to be the driver side of the rear seat? That bolt seems to give me problems on each car I've attempted removing it from.

Should be able to unbolt the wiper motor and pull it up enough to get at the funky clip. If you need a visual of the clip to understand how it works, check this post out from when I replaced the wiper motor on The Ice Car. http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...l=1#post835354

They were both pretty stubborn but the problem one was actually on the passenger's side. I guess that makes sense for this car as the passenger's side is much more rotten than the driver's side for some reason.

Awesome! Thanks for the link on the wiper motor!

[Kodachrome Wolf]

If you're not planning on keeping the A-pillar interior trim, I definitely could use a set. Mine have some small cracks. Same goes for that metal trim above the doors if you can get it off without bending it. I'll gladly pay shipping and whatever you decide to value those bits at if unless you're keeping them.

[87gtVIC]

Such weird rust. Floor pans still seem to have factory paint on them yet the frame around it couldn't stand the test of time. Such a shame.

Seats should do me well. Got home from seeing you around 9:30am and was outside until 3pm cleaning them up. They cleaned up really well for 30+year old seats.

Back seat had a bunch of sand ingrained it in....even with the pre-vacuum the upholstery extractor still pulled a bunch of sand out. Ever took that car to the beach? Steamer helped out too with some matted spots. All in all I am quite pleased. All that's left to do it pull my existing seats apart to swap on the proper two door hinges and other trim bits I have and put them into the car.



Quick tip on a pillar trims...dash pad removal is required to sneak them out.


Erik. Check for those braces from under engine k member to behind control arm frame on your 87. If it does not have it (my 87 did not) just swap those puppies over before the car goes off to the big junkyard in the sky.

[Giraffe]

Wish I wasn't so far from you. I'd love to swap in a set of vent window doors on my '90.

[Mainemantom]

Make sure you pull the hood to cowl seal if it is in good shape. Also the hood hinges. Those are nice to have spare parts.