1997 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Since Thanksgiving is coming up and I'm headed out of town to see family, I took the car in for tires on Saturday since I'd run the Kumhos down below 4/32nd all the way around. While some may argue about the style, I absolutely wanted another whitewall tire again. However, I did not want to compromise on tire width, as I found the 225/70R15 (fleet size) preferable over the 215/70R15 (retail size). Luckily, Nexen offered a all-season touring tire that fit the bill perfectly.

I also took the time to take the set of turbines Nick grabbed for me and did my best to clean and respray them in Argent Silver. Also, thanks to Tiggie, I got a full set of flying-M center caps to go with them.





So far, the first 100 miles on the tires have been quiet, no odd vibrations or pulls, and they don't seem excessively squishy the way the Firestones I used to run years ago did. If these perform well, I'll get another set for the wagon next year.

[Mainemantom]

I just put Nexen tires on both Towncars. I like them. You bought them just in time before the prices go up about 30 %
Your car, wheels and tires look great. Great job refurbishing the wheels

[VicCrownVic]

Looks good!
The turbines are refinished to look like '91 turbines

[Tiggie]

I vote yes to turbines and whitewalls. I went blackwall and regret it. Glad the Merc caps are serving on a Mercury. They look much better on there than in my garage attic.

[massacre]

Such a nice Aero.
Is your car sitting higher than stock? Looks killer

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Such a nice Aero.
Is your car sitting higher than stock? Looks killer

The front is a little off after having new control arms fitted, but it was torqued correctly with the weight on them. The rear springs are sagging. I went back through some old photos to double check and the tail is definitely down. I can correct that by 1.) Actually doing the rear air ride swap instead of saying I'll get to it, or 2.) Toss some healthier rear coils under there. One is easy, but the other would be the desired option for hauling any weight.

And I also noted years ago, mine always has sat higher than others for some reason...

[massacre]

Ok i was gonna say, your Aero seemed to sit a bit higher than mine ever did.

[87gtVIC]

Looks so good.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Mmm, need to dust this thread off a bit.

Got back to working on the '97 to address some stuff prior heading for Texas for a week at the end of the month. Been dealing with a significant battery draw with the key off for a few months. The battery could be pulled flat within 48 hours. I fitted an underhood 2 amp Noco maintainer as a stop gap, however it could never fully charge/maintain the battery given the rate of drain. I got my hands on a set of inductive ammeters, and was able to properly measure draw. Key off was resulting in a draw of roughly 5 to 6 amps.

I'd become very suspicious of my radio since it had started displaying a tape error on startup every time within the last few months. The tape deck had a weak ejection function and was absolutely borked after a friend tried to put one of those silly aux tape things into it and it required some careful removal, but that had been several years ago. I guess something finally just got funny with the assembly. When I pulled the radio, the ambient temperature in the cabin of the car was maybe 70 degrees, but the radio assembly itself was much warmer than that to the touch.

I swapped in a replacement unit from a Continental, and the measured draw is back down to an appropriate level where the car is not draining down without maintainer intervention. Only quirk with the Continental unit is it features a delayed exit function that was tied into a multiplex network that our cars never had. Essentially the radio will stay on for 10 minutes unless manually turned off, so that's not a huge deal to me.


With the battery drain out of the way, I've got two ABS speed sensors I'm gonna swap in and see if that alleviates the sub-5 MPH ABS activation from the control module I resoldered. The old module was just randomly kicking the ABS pump on while the car was being driven without brake application and had a constant pump failure code. I suspect the low speed activation now may just lie with the fact there's two old sensors on one side and two new ones on the other. If that doesn't fix it, I'll just leave the fuse out and revisit that later.

Otherwise it'll be just greasing the front suspension points, checking the fluids, and giving it a good detailing. I think a long trip will do it well since it spends so much time in the garage these days.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Got exterior and interior detailing done today.



Car is definitely not perfect, but I guess for a 25 year old car with 238K it still looks fine from 10 feet, so it still has that going for it.

Changed the oil, checked other fluid levels, checked the lights, and guess I just need to check the tire air pressures. Otherwise its about as ready as it can be for Monday. Definitely needs a good run, the valve stems must be getting a touch hard/tired, it chuffed some blue smoke when I fired it up. I've only driven it about 3000 miles since last year's oil change, which is way down from its original 8-10K a year.

[massacre]

I generally like the first gen Aeros better than the second gens, but yours has always been an exception along with drock.

[friskyfrankie]

LOVE Toreador Red especially matched up to a tan interior (can't tell if yours is silver or not but that works too)!

[87gtVIC]

Looks good.

What did your exterior detail consist of?

[gadget73]

sounds like the same sort of failure the CD player in my truck suffered. It wouldn't shut off because it was convinced a disc needed to eject and the motor just ran endlessly. 2-3 days and the battery would be flat, and when I pulled the radio it was hot to the touch. Opened it and unplugged the CD mechanism, problem gone. Apparently its a thing for that type radio. It has an aux input that works and I never play CDs anyway so I really don't care.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

LOVE Toreador Red especially matched up to a tan interior (can't tell if yours is silver or not but that works too)!

It has the gray interior.

Looks good.

What did your exterior detail consist of?

Only the most humdrum components. I'll wash the car with whatever detergent I've got on hand, which is usually TurtleWax Zip or Meguiar's Wash & Wax. Then I apply NuFinish polish to the car followed by TurtleWax Super Hard Shell paste wax. Nothing crazy over here.

Done that for the last 11 years, and so far the clear coat has generally stayed on most of the car. The door mouldings are getting rough and have experienced weather checking, and the mirror caps are starting to show some weathering on the tops. The roof, trunk, and hood are still holding up reasonably well. The bumpers are starting to get a level of fade, but I figure that's gonna happen with plastic versus metal painted components and long term UV exposure. Not to be overly inflated, but I don't usually see too many Aeros with good paint anymore, so I figure I'm doing something right to slow down the inevitable decay.

If I can find a decent set of '92-'97 police door mouldings, I'll probably just swap to those and see if there's any way to refinish the stock stuff later on.