kishy's 1983 Grand Marquis 2dr

[kishy]

Once you take the piece out of the elements (wild) it'll last decades. Unless your garage is 60%+ humidity year round, the salt won't do much on it's own. Source: I'm in the anti corrosion business.

I'd estimate it's in excess of 60% RH for about half to two third of the year. Whatever our weather outside is - which today happens to be 75% and as you know, that's pretty typical.

[DerekTheGreat]

If it's that high, I concede. I don't know if my lazy ass would worry about it within the next 3 to 5 years though. Although I have found the best time to get something done and out of the way is while it's fresh on the mind.

[gadget73]

procrastinators unite!.. later

[DerekTheGreat]

procrastinators unite!.. later

[kishy]

Summarizing the events since the last update:
I aggressively wire brushed the bumper skin until the metal was quite clean. I did not opt for rust converter, instead, primed and painted the inside of the bumper. I think it ended up with 4 or 5 coats, all said and done, as I kept slapping more paint on it when I got bored and the last coat was fully dried.

Somewhere in the mix, I installed replacement courtesy light sockets sourced from the blue junkyard '87 MGM. Interestingly, the sockets changed in the 80s, for no particularly good reason that I can identify.



As for the inner/backing section of the bumper, it was also fairly rusty but only in select spots, but with no real depth to the rust. I wire wheeled most of that to clean it up just a little, and slapped a coat of paint on the inside-facing surface (the side that faces towards, and forms a cavity with the outer half).





I also wire wheeled the mounting pads on the car, and slapped a coat of paint on each of those.



Completely unrelated to anything: the rear window glass has this weird spotty pattern to it. As best I can tell, there's no way to make it go away. I'm guessing replacement glass is the only solution.



On a different topic, this car has been incredibly hard to start. I had assumed this was all carb-related, but tonight after what had to be 20 minutes of on-and-off cranking and messing with the carb, I concluded that it was in fact getting fuel, and the plugs were not fouled. I dug around for a spark tester and found there was none.

Attached (not installed, just sitting on top of stuff) a good-used coil I had hanging around. No change.
Attached an unknown-working-order used Duraspark module I had hanging around. It immediately fired and started with no fuss at all. Brilliant.



After the car started, I was able to move it to a spot that was more friendly to installing a bumper, and proceeded.

I reassembled the bumper, which involved finding a solution for the ruined bumperette. I drove a lag screw into it and it seems to be doing the job appropriately. I then put the bumper on the car (if you've never laid on the ground trying to bench press one of these into position, it takes some strength evidently). The positioning is pretty close to right and I'm happy with it. I cleaned up some paint that made it onto the chromed surface, hit it with some chrome polish, and it really looks quite nice now.





Moving on from that, to what started this whole mess: the trailer hitch. The hitch is on, aligned pretty well with the trunk emblem for centering purposes, and the fasteners are torqued. Done.





In the meantime of all this being done, I bought two additional trailer light power modules, so I have 3 on-hand, for my 3 vehicles needing them (84 LTC has a trailer connector wired directly into the tail lights, 91 MGM has no trailer connector yet, 83 MGM has no trailer connector yet). That will come another day, as it involves pulling a wire from the battery to the back of the car.

When I started it to move it off the ramps and park it, it started without hesitation, however the charge warning light is on. It ran for a couple minutes but then suddenly died once it was off the ramps. I could not convince it to wake up again, so I just pushed it into where I wanted it and decided to deal with it another day. I do have a feeling that 1/8 tank indicated on the gauge is actually below the pickup tube, and it's currently pretty close to that, so it may just be functionally out of gas. The charge light is another issue - multimeter showed it was charging though, so I believe that makes the likely culprit the stator wire.

[gadget73]

lots of things have that pattern. Its something to do with the plastic between the layers. Honestly I'd leave it since its only a minor cosmetic issue and can only be seen in certain angles when the light is just so.

[kishy]

Did more spark testing and parts-swapping. The was-briefly-working spare used unknown DS module has died. On with the next questionable spare. Now it's time to buy a couple to keep on the shelf. If this one also quits quickly, I'll know I have a coil problem.

The charge light was indeed resolved by simply wiggling the stator wire connector. Probably a little corrosion on the terminal like was discovered on the Ranger.

The driver side power window quit some time ago. It did work, and then it didn't, and attempting to operate it did not cause a visible load on the electrical system. Today, I rolled it in the garage and opened up the door (the very large door). Drilled the holes to get access to the bolts, took the seemingly factory original motor out, and had a look.





Water ingress strikes again. Cleaned it up pretty well but noticed the wire feeding one of the brushes was totally black. Put it together enough to test and found it did nothing. Started parts-swapping with another motor I had kicking around but couldn't get an adequate result, so I pulled a new ACI-brand motor off the shelf and installed that. Recall that one of those recently had a gear failure in the wagon. With the giant 2-door window, I imagine I'll have the same happen, and in relatively short time on this car, but we'll see. I think those are lifetime warranty parts.





Pretty good condition doors, thanks to some sort of undercoating spray done decades ago by the original owner.

[kishy]

Further achievements with this car:

The other day, I pulled the driver side interior stuff along the floor/into rear quarter apart and ran 3x 16ga wire from the trunk to the steering column. With those wires, I then tapped into three wires at the turn signal/multifunction switch: left turn, right turn, and brake. I attached the left and right turn wires in the trunk to the turn signal sequencing modules, which eliminated them sequencing when functioning as brake lights. I did nothing with the brake wire I pulled from the front at this time, intending for it to be used for a CHMSL alteration in the future.









Trivia: the carpet is stapled down around the outside in this car, and isn't in my others. I suppose that's either an early year thing, or a St. Louis thing.

I then recorded this video demonstrating the then-current state of things:

Today, I took apart the passenger side and pulled two wires from the trunk, one 12ga and one 14ga. The 12 gauge wire is the power supply for the trailer light power module I also installed today. The 14 gauge wire is for the power decklid release which this car was not optioned with, but for which I added both the latch assembly and glovebox button a decade ago.





Early and low-option cars have such little body wiring.





The 14 gauge wire taps into the 12 gauge one for constant hot power and detours up to the glovebox button. This feature is long overdue as needing to use the key to access the trunk (particularly when the engine is running) has been annoying for a long time.

I then snipped both of the wires for the universal CHMSL (two 12V inputs, one from each brake light) disconnecting them from the combined brake/turn circuits, and then attached them together to the brake wire I had previously pulled from the steering column. The CHMSL no longer flashes with the turn signal in the specific scenarios that caused it previously.

I finished up the install of the trailer light module, verified it works, and came inside for the evening. The interior is still torn apart but that won't be too hard to deal with another day.

[1985crownvicltd85]

Good idea bypassing the key on feature to use the trunk release. I can see why they wired it that way, but its pretty annoying at times.

Did you find anything under your back seat when pulling it up? So far I've found about $1 in change, baseball cards, and just recently tucked away in the quarter panel area (under the small quarter windows) a screwdriver.

The sequential turn signals look nice on these. It reminds me of the 60's Thunderbirds and Cougars.

Nice job.

[kishy]

Good idea bypassing the key on feature to use the trunk release. I can see why they wired it that way, but its pretty annoying at times.

Did you find anything under your back seat when pulling it up? So far I've found about $1 in change, baseball cards, and just recently tucked away in the quarter panel area (under the small quarter windows) a screwdriver.

The sequential turn signals look nice on these. It reminds me of the 60's Thunderbirds and Cougars.

Nice job.

It was easier to wire it this way, since the car wasn't equipped with the power decklid release at all. The wiring wasn't there from the factory so I guess there's some sort of sub-harness that got added at the factory if the car was going to have the option. This car is weird for being an LS with basically no real options. Power windows and cruise are the only things we usually think of as options that it has.

I found only one thing: a brand new, never used wheel arch trim screw. The chrome plated self-drilling type.

This was a one-owner car before me and I'm not sure how often, if ever, the back seat really got used. There isn't a lot of wear back there, but the materials in our cars are pretty hard-wearing in general.

[gadget73]

heh, if you think the key-on to open the trunk is annoying, just be glad you don't have an electric fuel door release car.

[kishy]

heh, if you think the key-on to open the trunk is annoying, just be glad you don't have an electric fuel door release car.

At least those are always hot. The wagon has it and it hasn't messed me up yet, somehow.

Most annoying, by far, is no power decklid release at all and having to take apart your keys to quickly access the trunk, or shut off the engine in conditions where you didn't feel so inclined to for whatever reason. e.g. in line at customs to re-enter the country and realize some piece of paperwork you need is in the trunk, so send your passenger to the trunk to get it while you're still inching up in line.

I do find it odd that these cars never had a manual decklid release at all, but I suppose not having designed that mechanism for the car at all was a cost savings in the original engineering phase.

[gadget73]

They aren't constant hot on Fox cars.

[1985crownvicltd85]

Both of mine have the fuel door popper. Grand Marquis came with it and the Crown Vic I added. Both are constant hot too. I didnt know fox bodies were key on to pop open the fuel door (or manual override in the trunk) That sounds pretty annoying.

[Tiggie]

The 87 T-Bird has that lovely not constant hot fuel door release, along with the trunk release that is constant hot. Side by side switches, you'd think they could source power from the same source.