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

[DerekTheGreat]

I'd cry if anyone lifted my Town Car with that. Precautions are good though, but that picture reminded me of those I see online where people are trusting their life to a $3 O-ring..

[VicCrownVic]

I think I got the oil leak fixed. Adding a quart every day was getting annoying and it was getting all over the exhaust (and everything else under the car including the rear bumper).
The oil pan gasket that was on the car had a large rip in it. There were also plenty of other little rips all over the gasket but none of the others had split from both sides of the oil pan rail like this one. New Felpro gasket is in place.
Before when I had the oil full and would step on it while driving oil seemed to be pushed out faster and I could see quite the cloud behind me. I didn't have that on the 50+ mile ride home with the new gasket. Now sitting in construction detour traffic should not look like I'm about to burst into flames.





Finally found my aero/whale washer fluid bottle, so that stuff which I've had sitting around for the past 2 years will finally get installed very soon. Possibly tomorrow. '90 TC fan shroud was installed a few weeks ago, so I've just got the easy stuff left to install.

[VicCrownVic]

No more leaks, WOOHOO!!
Well, at least not oil, coolant, power steering, or tranny fluid. Air lines for the air shocks still have or have re-developed a slow leak again, but that's easy compared to the stuff I've fixed this year on this car.

I finally got around to installing some stuff I've had sitting around for 2 years:




Still need to remove the stock air filter box bracket.

Also, I got around to cleaning the car this weekend. Now that the oil leak is gone, and not leaking on exhaust creating smoke that had even the rear of the car covered in oil, I figured it was as good a time as any to clean it up. The car should be ready for our Detroit meet in a couple of weeks.




Honestly, after fixing the major leaks and cleaning it, I'm feeling a lot better about this car than I did when I started driving it again this year. Now to address issues with The Ice Car between now and October-November time-frame so I don't have to drive The Scab next winter. Looks like the Yukon will be waiting another year.

[87gtVIC]

The newer air box, washer reservoir and coolant overflow/shroud set up is such a nice upgrade. Makes things look so clean and modern.

Car looks fantastic on the turbines. LOVE TURBINES.

EDIT...One gripe...Junkyards marking the parts with paint pens. They did this to me in San Antonio earlier this year. I said I am not from around here and will not be returning anything so please don't mark them up.

[DerekTheGreat]

Don't tell me, even after you told them that, they still marked the parts?

I've caught them trying to mark the "A" side of parts I've pulled, just ridiculous. Like we picked up a vent window for Ashley's F150 and they went to mark up the side of the pillar which faces inside the cab.

[kishy]

I do like the 90TC parts fitment. Everything looks right at home.

I usually decide before I get to the cash where I want the parts marked and show them where to do it. They'd probably mark the outside-facing side of a chrome wheel, provided the opportunity.

Good luck getting that factory air cleaner bracket off. Clean up the threads on the manifold studs a lot before you try, otherwise the studs will back out and the nut won't come off. There isn't enough room for the average open-end wrench to get onto the stud behind the bracket so it's hard to keep them from spinning.

[VicCrownVic]

I do like the 90TC parts fitment. Everything looks right at home.

I usually decide before I get to the cash where I want the parts marked and show them where to do it. They'd probably mark the outside-facing side of a chrome wheel, provided the opportunity.

Good luck getting that factory air cleaner bracket off. Clean up the threads on the manifold studs a lot before you try, otherwise the studs will back out and the nut won't come off. There isn't enough room for the average open-end wrench to get onto the stud behind the bracket so it's hard to keep them from spinning.

I've got new bolts so I'm all set. Last time I took one of these brackets off it was only held on by one of the supports which hadn't rusted off. Of course the nut didn't want to come off without the whole stud wanting to back out, but since that bracket was junk I broke the bracket off and I continued on. That was with the engine out of the car, and you are right that there is not enough room to get an open end wrench on the stud behind the bracket (not with the wrenches I had at the time anyway). This bracket is in good shape, so I will try to save it (you never know, someone might want it...).

As for marking of parts at the JY... it give more beater street cred to my beaters.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

The newer air box, washer reservoir and coolant overflow/shroud set up is such a nice upgrade. Makes things look so clean and modern.

Car looks fantastic on the turbines. LOVE TURBINES.

+1

I was very pleased with how much room the 90 TC air box gives you once you remove the old air box bracket. Makes access to that side much easier, and if you run the Aero brake booster, the master cylinder has more clearance from touching stuff. The old style intake and new style booster puts the MC within a centimeter of the lid.

[VicCrownVic]

Checked the oil again today and still didn't have to add any. It sure is nice to work on little things for a change.

I went to the local junk yard today, the one 3 miles from my place that I usually don't go to unless I know they have what I need and I don't plan to spend much time in the yard. There were no boxes at this place, which is not uncommon for this yard but I was after a aero/whale windshield washer bottle. It turns out the aero (or maybe early whale) bottle I installed had a confirmed dead pump. This thing sat for at least 2 years before I got around to installing it so I couldn't just exchange it. I ended up getting a bottle and pump from an '04 MGM (I didn't feel like swapping the pump so I got the whole thing). I had to redo my electrical adapter since the new-to-me pump had a different (nicer) connector, but the new pump works great.

I also got a few mounts for the '90 TC airbox, so it is now properly mounted.

Besides cleaning the car before next Saturday I hopefully will find time to investigate the odd behavior of the dome light and fix my air shock lines in a way that will last. The dome light has always had an issue of not always turning on with the driver door open, which I've always assumed was the door switch, but I also found (while waiting for my wife who was in the store yesterday) that while I had the map lights on I could get the dome light to come on by pushing up on the dome light. At the same time the map lights would go out. That should be fun to discover what weirdness awaits me up there. Time to look at my EVTM and probably pull the dome light down to see what's going on.

[gadget73]

Those things use 3 screws for the electrical connections, one is the ground, one is constant hot for the map, the other is switched hot for the dome. If those are loose it won't act right.

[VicCrownVic]

That's the sort of detail (which side is switched) that I was going to look for in my EVTM. Troubleshooting it should be easier knowing how it should work. Even though it's not a difficult thing to troubleshoot, I doubt that I'll get to this tomorrow.

[VicCrownVic]

Those things use 3 screws for the electrical connections, one is the ground, one is constant hot for the map, the other is switched hot for the dome. If those are loose it won't act right.

Tightening things was indeed all that was needed. I also recently installed a clear dome light lense from LMC Truck, and the light was brighter with the clear lens but now with that ground screw tightened the light is even brighter with the clear lense.

Of course the driver door switch still doesn't work so well, but I doubt I'll get to that any time soon.

[VicCrownVic]

More small things, it's nice to be able to focus on the small things.

After dropping in on Kevin at the JY today I decided to take a look at my passenger side ditch light. I recently attempt to install a new bulb but couldn't get the bulb socket into the housing. So I took it all off the car and found the housing packed with dirt. The lens had green stuff on the inside which I always figured was from water being trapped in it, I was not expecting to find dirt packed in there behind the green stuff. Enough dirt that the bulb made an indentation in the dirt, but not enough of an indentation to get the socket to lock into place.
Anyway, I got it cleaned out including the drain hole at the bottom rear of the lens. I put it back on but still need to clean the terminals at the connection further up near the battery. The light doesn't want to come on unless I mess with it and I can clearly see that the terminals are quite oxidized. My wife had evening plans so I didn't get around to cleaning those terminals yet.

The only picture I took today.

[DerekTheGreat]

I believe I have a spare socket for one of those if you need it.

[VicCrownVic]

Parked for the winter. Later than I would have liked since we've already seen snow and salt here.

Got a lot accomplished this year, mainly fixing all the leaks. Much more enjoyable to have a not leaky car for a DD.