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

[packman]

Really like those '98 wheels on this car!!!

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I think the '98-'02 wheels work pretty good, but I have a slight bias since my aunt used to have a dark blue '00 Marquis with those. I dunno about plain steelies though, I'd have to have a full size wheel cover at a minimum. The '98+ center caps can't hold a candle to the nicer looking dog dishes on the -'97 cars if you're running a more poverty-spec steel wheel look.

[VicCrownVic]

Drove this car to work yesterday due to an issue with the fan not running on the '98. Got home from work and locked the keys in the car with the ignition and lights on. Couldn't find my keys later when I needed to get into my shed to get the mower out, that's when I found them locked in this car. Of course I then needed to jump this car since the lights were on. (I have a business card sized parking pass under the dash over the auto headlamp sensor so they are always on.) I saw the lights on when I got out after getting home but thought nothing of it since this car takes a long time to auto shut them off sometimes. While jumping this car the fan on the '98 came on like it was supposed to, so not sure why it didn't want to come on during my ride home on Wednesday.

Let this car run the whole time I mowed (15-30 minutes maybe). Shut it off and started right back up with interior lights looking normal brightness.

[VicCrownVic]

Drove this car to see dad today. He had mentioned possibly needing a car to borrow this week, so I stopped by to see if he needed it. Turns out he got enough done in my youngest brother's car today so didn't need mine.

As for the fan not working on the '98, that acted up again one month later which gave me opportunity to diagnose the problem by hitting the fan relay. That worked so the '98 got a new fan relay that day.

The battery dieing in The Scab mentioned in the last post was a result of the car stalling once I got to my spot in the driveway. Due to being a bit annoyed and surprised, I had left the ignition on when I got out. I've drove this car a few times since then and it kept wanting to stall backing into my driveway along with stumbling from a stop. While visiting dad today I removed the IAT (since I figured the issue was with a temp sensor) with the intention of swapping the one from The Ice Car. Turns out the IAT was caked in oily gunk. Cleaned it up and decided to try that first. The drive home was far less stumbly (almost completely gone, and very occasional when it did have a hint of stumble) and it didn't act like it was going to stall when backing into my driveway. It's a long enough drive from my parents' place so it had plenty of time to be just as hot as previous drives when it did want to stall.

[VicCrownVic]

Hmm... need to figure out what is draining my battery. I used to leave this car sitting for 6 months and it would start right up without any issue. Went to start it on Monday evening and the 1 year old battery was too low. This weekend I'll likely jump it, drive it to the new place, and stick it in the garage to deal with at a later date.
All this after I had already started this car a couple of weeks ago and had to jump it. I let it run for 20 minutes that time in hopes that the alternator would get the battery charged. Need to do some actual troubleshooting.

[friskyfrankie]

Hmm... need to figure out what is draining my battery. I used to leave this car sitting for 6 months and it would start right up without any issue. Went to start it on Monday evening and the 1 year old battery was too low. This weekend I'll likely jump it, drive it to the new place, and stick it in the garage to deal with at a later date.
All this after I had already started this car a couple of weeks ago and had to jump it. I let it run for 20 minutes that time in hopes that the alternator would get the battery charged. Need to do some actual troubleshooting.

Perhaps you can throw a good trickle charge on it until you can diagnose it so as to not beat up the newer battery too much?

[VicCrownVic]

Drove this car to the new place as planned on Saturday. The 45 mile drive was no problem. Left this car in the garage and got a ride back with my friend Jon who helped me move some things.

When I arrived at the new place, I was reminded that I had suspected the headlights to possibly be related to the battery issue. (My auto sensor is blocked so lights are always on.) The passenger side was a little dim compared to the driver side, and the driver side high beam was faintly on which made no sense. It wasn't like that when I left the old place but I think I have seen it do this before (sort why I'm leaning toward this as related the battery drain). Of course I did nothing about it...

I started this car again today and it started right up. This is when I remembered to disconnect the headlight relay harness. I found that I must have had previous issues because the driver side headlight was connected to the stock harness (which explains why it was the best looking light assuming this relay harness is junk.)

I'll be back to the new place Thursday night through the weekend. So at some point next weekend I'll continue my passive troubleshooting and see if disconnecting that harness stops the battery drain.

If that is the culprit, then the battery that I kept from this car last year, since I hade an even worse core, might still be good, but still 8 years old so no big deal if it's not good.

[VicCrownVic]

1 week later and I got around to starting this car again today. No noticeable signs of battery drain and the car started right up like it used to. Pretty sure the cheap headlight relay harness is the culprit based on this evidence. The harness was disconnected the full week, and before with it connected the battery was draining in a couple of days. I guess I'll have to steal the headlight relay harness off The Ice Car, not that The Scab really needs it, but I will not get to this for at least a couple more months.

[DerekTheGreat]

Looks like a nice garage!

[VicCrownVic]

Ignition troubles returned last week. I had another incident on 5/22 that was resolved by buying a bag of ice from the gas station I was parked at and piling the ice around the distributor. That trick did not work last Wednesday when, on a day off from work, I decided to take this car to the store, 1 mile away, to get something real quick. Real quick turned into the rest of the day.

Got to the store, got what I needed, came out of the store, and this car wouldn't start. No problem tried the ice trick again. Half the bag+10 minutes, and still no start. Other half the bag+10 more minutes and still no start. Nephew came by on his bike and gave me a couple of bottles of water to drink. Waited another 10 minutes and still no start. Texted my wife to have our nephew bring my spare distributor and tools in a backpack on his bike. Swapped the dizzy out, still no start, wtf. Walked home, got the '98, went to mom and dads house (10 miles from my house) to pickup my uncles car dolly. Magnetic lights were not with the come-along, but the old pair are out back on my uncles old dentside. One light was completely broken off, so I rewired it and it still would not work. Whatever, one side working at least looks like I'm trying to be legal. Put air in the dolly tires since my portable inflator would not reach without unhooking he dolly. Noticed an leak in the original wheel (not tire, the wheel had rotted just like the other one I replaced a few years ago). Whatever, lets see if it holds. Got to the store where the Scab was and that dolly tire was visibly flat. Swapped yet another dizzy in from mom, and dad's place, but was pretty sure this dizzy was no good. The car did try to start then gave up after a second of that. So back to my house to get a spare panther wheel put on the dolly (good thing the same center bore and bolt pattern is used, I have plenty of spares for this dolly and now both wheels are mine that I donated, lol).

After getting the dolly wheel changed, I went back to the store and sped a good amount of time getting The Scab loaded up. I only had a mile to go and don't think I got above 30MPH, but the '98 handled the job fine. Not something I would want to do for a long distance or regularly though.

Of course Friday evening The Scab started up just fine. I even moved it a couple of times this past weekend. So, either all my spare dizzy/TFIs are junk (very possible), or something else was not liking the near record heat last Wednesday. Definitely need to grab my remote mount dizzy and TFI setup off The Ice Car, and probably grab the coil too in case somehow this Duralast (I think) coil might be the culprit.

Edit: I should have grabbed a picture after yanking The Scab off the dolly with Marge. Could have had all 3 in 1 picture.

[kishy]

I've tried to get better about visibly damaging or outright tossing used parts whose reliability has been questioned. e.g. took off a TFI module - if I trust my own diagnostics that led to me taking it off, it shouldn't be in the pool of modules that I could potentially grab next time I need one.

I do recommend keeping a TFI, a coil, a distributor wrench, and a TFI module tool in the trunk, but the climate around that is maybe different on your side of the border. You can generally walk into an auto parts store 7 days of the week, into the evening, and buy all that stuff as needed. Here, if you have a breakdown and need something quickly, your car's going to be down for a day or three depending on how unfortunate the timing is.

(context for the casual observer re: words like "here" - Vic and I live less than an hour apart, but the American and maybe specifically Michigan market for auto parts availability is very, very different than that of Ontario)

[VicCrownVic]

Got The Scab pushed into the garage. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get around to figuring out why this car will not start. Bad ground or chewed wire are the current bets since it wouldn't start with dizzy, coil and ECM that Marge started right up with.

[VicCrownVic]

Gave up on it yesterday after finding I actually did have spark and no chewed wires or obvious ground problems.
Instead I flushed the water heater in the house, did some digging to grade the drainage ditch on the west of my property to get it draining better, then flushed the cooling system on the '98.

Gave it another shot this evening. I could smell that it was getting fuel which lead me to wonder if it was getting too much fuel. So I unplugged the fuel pump relay and sprayed some starter fluid in the throttle body. I finally got it to start this way. I tried multiple times with and without the fuel pump relay. Results were consistent, every time the fuel pump relay was plugged in the car would not start. Also when I had it running on ether I plugged the fuel pump relay in and every time I did it died as soon as I plugged the relay in. I've never had a bad FPR on one of these cars, but I think the FPR is the culprit here.

I didn't feel like taking the FPR off this evening since it looks like a kind of annoying job and this car is secondary backup. So for now: to be continued...

[DerekTheGreat]

Did you check the fuel pressure with the relay plugged in?

[VicCrownVic]

Went after work to wish Mom a happy birthday. While I was there I grabbed the complete lower intake from the backseat of my '89 MGM, and my fuel pressure gauge and a few things out of the Yukon.
Got home and hooked up the fuel pressure gauge. 41.5psi after primed. Hooked the vacuum line back to the FPR then started the car up like nothing was ever wrong. WTF!?
While running the gauge showed a steady 32.5psi and ran for 5-10 minutes while I checked all sorts of things and found nothing wrong. It ran until I keyed it off. Tried to start it again and it wouldn't start. Timing light was still hooked up from the other day. While jumping the fender mount solenoid I could see the timing light doing its thing. It was monitoring the coil wire and seemed like it was missing 1 cylinder. Then I realized I left number 1 unhooked at the dizzy when I was checking for spark the other day. Woops it was running on 7, lol.


So the pressure gauge has me thinking it's not the FPR, but why the hell is it that I can start it with ether every time the fuel pump relay is not plugged in?

I did finally find something obviously wrong though I'm not sure yet if it is my problem and kind of don't think so. The 2G connector fell apart (3G swap already done). Not the one at the alt, the one near the inner fender that I'm not certain pre '90 had. The 2G charge cables aren't a problem but the smaller black wire and yellow wire would be. But those should only affect the alternator I think (the yellow charge sense wire for sure only the alternator, but I'm not sure about the black wire since I need to crack the EVTM open.)

So again: To be continued...