1997 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[DerekTheGreat]

I just waxed the party barge. By hand. I forgot how time consuming that is, but it sure looked good afterwards. I need stuff for the chrome bits though. What works for you guys?

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Closing in on 243K! Definitely not putting miles on this car as much as I used to.

Nick came down on Saturday and gave me a hand with swapping out my old brake booster and master cylinder. The old master cylinder was starting to weep and was affecting the booster. We fitted a NOS Ford police brake booster and a US made Wagner master cylinder. Of note, the Wagner unit had a original style fluid switch fitted to it with what I suspect was the Ford P/N just ground off. I swapped my new style switch over to it since the originals eventually leak (reason for the fused jumper harness recall) and I've already got the late style connector fitted.



He used his power brake bleeder to make that part a breeze. Used some Bosch ESI6 fluid (DOT 3/4/5.1 compatible) and everything works like it should again.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

11 years and 130K miles later, you get to experience another average 4.6 moment...




My nPI intake finally started checking out, so Nick and I took care of doing a PI intake swap on my car since he had one handy. Time was taken to do the swap the right way, so the car did get a new heater pipe, receiving nipple, and water pump. Probably for the best we took care of the intake as soon as we did as mine was a disaster in hiding.

I had noticed the intake had a small crack near the rear heater nipple and it was resulting in a slow weep.


When I tried to remove the heater hose from the barb, the whole darn thing yanked out with virtually no resistance at that point.
Glad it didn't blow that port out while going down the road, since that would have easily complicated things.


The forward coolant ports were also almost to the point of gasket wall failure.



Car runs good post swap. You can definitely tell it pulls a bit better at the upper RPMs, or at least as good as an 243K mile nPI engine can do anyway. I am waiting on a new set of hood supports, as the passenger side one just opted to fail while we were working on this job and proceeded to start hissing and puking oil everywhere.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I guess if you get almost 27 years and 244K out of the oil filter adapter gasket before it gets seriously leaky, I guess you're doing alright.



Honestly kinda at a crossroads where either I'm gonna do it, or if I opt to take it up the street to my favorite independent shop and have them do the dirty work and eat the labor. It's not a hard job, but honestly I'm just kinda curious how much they'd want to fix it. I've got to go up there Monday anyway since my roommate's Town Car is going in for upper control arms, so I might inquire when I go to pick him up.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Fixed the leaky oil filter adapter gasket on the '97.







Decided I'd do it. Not terrible, just greasy from the long term weep the adapter had prior. Used a FelPro gasket that looked almost identical to the original Ford gasket, so I guess it should be good for a while.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

damn

The '97 got sent.

My roommate had my car for weekend duty since his Town Car needs an alignment since we had just done the control arms on it. Five minutes from the house, he may have fallen asleep at the wheel and he drove off the road.








Air bags blew, the radiator support is shoved backwards, radiator broke, and the fan shroud is jammed into the fan. I think when the radiator support got shoved up, it kinked the fender and pushed it back some. Totaled? Definitely. Unrepairable? Good question. I've got to inspect the frame horns and center support closely.

I did drive it home. Not going to go through insurance because I know its a write off. If I find it's unrepairable, I'll grab my good stuff off of it, and I guess send it to the junkyard.


My roommate said he'll pay for all repairs or a replacement. If it's properly over, I think I'll go look for a '90-'91 LTD CV or Marquis. Runner up would be finding a '90-'94/'03-'04 Town Car.

[Tiggie]

Bummer man. Such a nice looking car. Is the roommate ok?

(I couldn't get the video to load but may be just me).

[friskyfrankie]

Bet that woke the room mate up - hope he is ok!

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Yeah, he’s doing okay. Airbag popped him the face pretty good. Had him take some Motrin to hopefully keep the pain down. I’m sure he will be a little sore in the AM though.

He’s feeling pretty bad about it since he knows how I am with my cars. I told him at the end of the day, I can replace the car, I can’t replace a friend.

[massacre]

Wow this sucks, sorry to hear it. One of my favorite cars on here.

[friskyfrankie]

Yeah, he’s doing okay. Airbag popped him the face pretty good. Had him take some Motrin to hopefully keep the pain down. I’m sure he will be a little sore in the AM though.

He’s feeling pretty bad about it since he knows how I am with my cars. I told him at the end of the day, I can replace the car, I can’t replace a friend.

Nice to see someone take the "high road" on this one. You are a good friend!

[p71towny]

Ange did that with her 95 GM. I porta powered that fucker back into place and it went on for another 7 yrs till we sold it with 280k and it was still running and driving fine.

[87gtVIC]

Yeah took flight!

To me you own your roommates town car now....

[sly]

Ouch. Looks like the frame may be tweaked up just a bit. Would be an easy fix on a frame rack if it's bent and not kinked. Glad it wasn't worse.

[jaywish]

What was it that he hit about 2 seconds before the car stopped.? That was the big damage.