VicCrownVic's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis LS "The Scab"

[Chuck Norris]

That is some kind of tire destruction. I'm glad you didn't lose any more than a tire.

[packman]

That's why I ended up doing the dual exhaust on my CV. My Y-pipe rotted at the flanges.

Packman

[VicCrownVic]

Luckily no body damage, but I think that's due to how the wheel destroyed the sidewalls rather than the tire actually exploding.
When I first noticed something was wrong was just under 3 miles before where the tire came apart. The tire came apart at 10 miles from home, 4 more miles and I would have been at work.
The car was wallowing a bit and I was trying to think of what the heck could have broke to cause it or if it was the wind blowing the car around. As the tire came apart the car started shaking and it wasn't until I hear the tire let go and saw the chunks in the mirror that I realized it wasn't starring/front end parts breaking. The tires came with the car, but they are definitely low mileage. I'm still not certain how I didn't notice the tire going flat, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened since I don't recall the car dropping in that corner when the tire went.

No need for a new wheel, it's still in good shape. Although all 4 took a beating on the backside since they didn't want to come off.

I know, I know, duals when replacing... but I used what I had laying around and already paid for like a year or two ago. Once I have a non-DD box it will get duals among other things, but that won't be any time soon.

The car was undercoated at some point so it's held up pretty well. Most of the rot spots on the body I think can be explained by the PO's grandma widening her garage door frame, or what I'm guessing was an accident that lead to the replacement of both passenger doors early in the life of the car and damage to that rocker panel that eventually rusted and rotted.

[Tiggie]

Man that tire - any body damage from it exploding?

[DerekTheGreat]

Sounds like you had a jolly good time. When the single exhaust rots off that's when you upgrade to duals! Ashley's tail pipe from the muffler back has rotted off, that aluminized shit is garbage. She's on the fence about getting rumbly mufflers or keeping the thing quiet.

Car looked cool with the Turbines. If you care & plan to put them back on at some point I can keep an eye out for one at the yards.

Surprisingly your car doesn't look that crusty from underneath so that's a plus.

[VicCrownVic]

Forced maintenance

It's been a rough couple of weeks for The Scab. Apparently this car does not like going to work on Fridays.

Two Fridays ago the Y pipe broke where the two arms combine. It looked like the welds rusted away (it was getting louder because of this) then it let go that morning. I hacked the tail pipe off and threw it and the muffler/rest of the Y pipe in the back seat. Made it to work on time since I had other plans that morning which I had to cancel.
Driving the car last week was quite loud with the exhaust ending basically below my feet. So, this past weekend, I ended up throwing a Y pipe and Muffler on since that's what I had sitting around.




Last Friday I lost my left rear tire. The tread was still in a ring with a good amount of tread left but no side wall connecting that ring of tread to the beads. After all was said and done I determined that what happened was I must have ran something over since there was a clean cash in the middle of the tread about an inch wide in the thickest part of the tread. That gash caused the tire to run low, which I somehow didn't notice, which caused the wheel to destroy the sidewalls.
The fun didn't stop there. Once I got the lug nuts off the wheel had no intention of coming off. I called my wife to see if she could find someone to bring me a sledgehammer while I tried everything I could to get the wheel off. During that time Michigan State Police pulled someone over right behind me so, after he was done with that, he stopped to help me out. I told him I was in the process of trying to get a sledge hammer and he said he thought he had one. He didn't but came back with the biggest crow bar I've ever seen. Whacked on the wheel for a bit before it finally broke free. I ended up turning around and working from home that day since I was drenched in sweat.
Over the weekend I swapped my 4 steel wheels from The Ice Car (originally from my '89), with tires I bought last summer, since I didn't want to ride around with one mismatched wheel and didn't want to buy a new tire since I have 4 matching low mileage tires.




After pulling the spare out and rummaging for tools I decided it was time to reorganize all the junk in the trunk (aka: my garage).

and the rest of the travel stuff which made the rear look low since I didn't air up the air shocks (Gabriel HiJackers, installed by PO) before taking pictures.





And the pig without lipstick as it sits now:

[DerekTheGreat]

Years ago my one friend told me about his '88 5.0 T-bird that he bought new. Still had it, only he hasn't driven it in probably two decades. It's sitting with 250k on it. I asked about the engine and he said they're good but they were prone to valveguide/stemseal failure. Not sure if it was all cylinders (can't see why not) but because of the location of the spark plugs on the cylinders that are closest to the firewall those end up collecting oil and fouling out. I heard that running a hotter plug can help with that. Haven't pulled mine out ever but it's been 10k and nothing seems to be different. Same with Ashley's.

Yep, I remember that conversation and remember seeing it first hand. Never seen a car do that before.

[VicCrownVic]

I'm thinking riding around for probably 1k+ miles with that loose wire had something to do with it. It was a very slight miss, hardly noticeable, at first so I let it go, but over the past week or two it really became noticeable. I suppose intermittent/weak spark may have caused stuff to not burn well and crap up like that, but Derek's suggestion is also a possibility, or a combination of both.

#8 is always the worst when I've changed plugs on any of my boxes, including my '89 but that engine is in great shape and I got 100k out of the plugs before #8 plug went on that one.

Derek, I don't remember if we talked about it, but remember how The Ice Car was fuming out the oil fill breather tube like it was exhaust? Yeah, this car doesn't do that, and now that I'm running on 8 cylinders again it's running great.

[Tiggie]

Do you think it was from the plug wire being loose?

My #8 in the 88 will also foul out every 10k or so.

[DerekTheGreat]

Interior looks great. I'm with sly on the plug's status. Leaky stem seals?

[sly]

wow. That plug was NAS-TAY!

[VicCrownVic]

The engine was missing late last week/past weekend so I checked it out this over the weekend and found plug wire #8 looked higher than the rest at the dizzy.
So I pushed on it and heard it click and figured that should solve the problem.
When I left my parents' place on Monday after my 4 day weekend I noticed that it was still missing. I didn't want to mess with it in the dark on Monday night so Tuesday night I decided to pull spark plug #8 and found this fugly mess:

(Bosch Platinums aren't necessary for a stock lopo, but after getting over 100k miles on a set in my '89 MGM I decided to try them again.)

Since these spark plugs have at most 5,000 miles on them, I cleaned it up and it's running much better now.


I also vacuumed the interior over the weekend and got a few pictures, but I'll have to get more picutes this weekend.

[87gtVIC]

Looks good man. Washing the exterior and cleaning the interior lets you connect with the car and really gain an appreciation for it. A nice clean car also shows others that you kinda care about what you have and like to keep it is as nice of shape as its gonna get.

[DerekTheGreat]

LoL. I remember now though! I think I was too busy admiring the interior color. That has to be a rare color, especially for the year.

[VicCrownVic]

Derek, that was all there, I guess you didn't notice. I guess that explains why you nominated the car, lol.
Remember, we briefly talked about how old people have a tendency to take the garage door frame with them when they back out.


The color is definitely interesting. It's Medium Woodrose Metalic. I thought the car was maroon in the CL pics I saw before I looked at the car, but it is more of a brown with maybe a hint of maroon.