1997 Mercury Grand Marquis aka the rolling junkyard.

[BoulevardRide]

Nice looking ride, that 2-tone blue you are doing looks real good. Looks pretty clean underneath too.
You guys amaze me with the knowledge and just diving into stuff I will never understand. resolder the pcm? sure. swap out the driveshaft with a different type? no problem. Makes me feel like a chump paying a shop to do things like change the ofa gasket. Until i see pics and jack stands and hear what a pita it can be. especially laying on the ground under all that dripping fluid

[Pvt.Hudson]

So been awhile but the DS swap turned out to be a real doozy.

So after swapping the shaft a bunch of times I finally headed to my mechanic friends shop and he found the Fabtech spacer had a bunch of play and was probably a contributing issue to the driveline vibrations. My main problem was really bad vibrations when decelerating. If I had the throttle passed tip in the car would be fine. Let off gas vibration city.

The spacer should fit the pinion flange hub with no play like the pinion yoke does. However as you can see it does not. Called Fabtech and they were of no help.

I had the shaft rebalanced a few times and still had some weird vibrations even without the spacer so I decided to get another yoke with a damper. So I looked around and all of the ones at the yard were toast, rubber ring was falling apart however I decided to see if the trucks had the same trans yoke. Took a yoke off of a 03 4.2 F150 and went over to a few panthers and it fits like a glove, also the F150 yoke has much beefier ears then the regular panther yoke and it is also a little bit longer by about a eighth of a inch.

So took that F150 yoke and the aluminum shaft to the driveline place they rebalanced it and I found another spacer by Zone Off Road and when I got it I tested it on the pinion flange and it fits nice and solid. Installed it and took it for a spin and had some slight vibrations but no deceleration vibrations so I rotated it 90° and its about 90% better then its ever been. Might just keep it where it is as or continue going spline by spline until I find the sweet spot but it takes me longer to lift the car then to take the shaft out so gonna be a while if I do it.


F150 yoke. Not pretty but the damper ring is in great shape.


Zone Offroad spacer. Wish I used this spacer from the get go. Would've been a lot less hassle.


In other news'


Picked up a nail and the spare HPP was useful then the og temp spare.



Windshield #3 is toast. Seriously before this in all of my driving from 1998 I've had 1 windshield replaced on my 95 TC. This car every year I've had to get it replaced sure the insurance is gonna be thrilled.


And the valve cover is leaking and of course its the worst one to replace the RH side.

[Pvt.Hudson]

Well the driveshaft u joints have worn in and no longer get any weird vibrations so I didn't even bother to fine tune it.

But a few weeks ago after swapping over to summer tires I took the car for a ride and turned on the EATC and heard a very loud snap. Now airflow is super weak and floor/defrost airflow is non existent. Took a look inside the vent





How it should look:



Heater plenum door hinge is broken. So get to rip the dash apart and try to fix the hinge. And while I'm in there I'll do the blend door actuator and swap to a 03+ Duct so I can fit a double din.



Wonder if I should replace the heater core while I'm in there given the age. Thinking about living dangerously and not doing it.

[sly]

Considering the heater core is like $30 or so... I'd do it and keep the old one as a spare.

[Pvt.Hudson]

Lockdown scaled back so I was able to get to the yard.



Getting to this point wasn't to bad, took about 25 minutes though I was cutting harnesses cause just wanted to get it done. Took a 04 heater plenum box. Looks like the heater core is apart of it so got a new one to go in.



Also snagged a 03+ duct so I can fit a full 2 Din stereo in.

[Pvt.Hudson]

Decided to try a aero dash removal and its not as easy as a 03+. Those have a nice bulkhead connector on the firewall engine side that makes it a lot easier to get dash away from the firewall without fussing with the wiring loom much. Aero? Not so much you have to remove the wiper tray and pass side splash shield to undo quite a few connectors. Not looking forward to this, removing the dash isn't bad but dealing with all that wiring will be. A;so there is a hidden bracket behind the pass side vent tube that is a real bitch to get to.



Air flow deflection door.



Heater plenum . This one is from a 95 and was already starting to separate so it wasn't going to last much longer.

Also the heater plenum hasn't changed much as the 04 one is identical save for a few molding changes and the cover for the heater core is has a extensions that covers the inlet/outlet pipes.

[VicCrownVic]

Neat, the '03+ duct accommodating double DIN is good to know. I wouldn't be surprised if that duct fit a '90, same goes for the heater plenum. Although '90 radio was in a different location, so maybe there are other factors that would not accept the '03+ duct.

[Pvt.Hudson]

Not much new other then the rebuilt alternator that was in the car when I bought it took a shit. Got a new one from Napa.

[DerekTheGreat]

If you watch SMA, it's not "Napa" but "Napper." Get it right.

[Pvt.Hudson]

Started daily driving the marq again. This week had a interesting problem. Was driving fine the day before next day I noticed that during 90° turns or going up inclines the car would slip and slam violently into gear. Though welp trans is probably gone time to junk it. Checked the fluid smelled burnt despite changing it 30k miles ago. Decided before writing it off let me change the fluid and filter and add some Lucas Trans fix. Drop the pan and the motorcrap filter was lying in the pan. Changed the fluid added the lucas and a new filter and the car is driving fine and the lucas has made the herky jerky 2-3 shift I've always had with the car a lot more subtle.

[87gtVIC]

The filter on those cars is just a press fit? No extra retaining bolts?

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Yup, just push the filter into the hole. Held in with a grommet.

[Tiggie]

Man that's a junk move by Ford's bean counter. "Let me remove the bolts that hold this filter on" really should have got someone fired.

[sly]

If regular maintenance is followed, that grommet support isn't an issue... USUALLY. It's when the trans is never serviced that it becomes an issue.