Prudence, my 87 Town Car

[friskyfrankie]

A new ignition switch wouldn't be too bad, and it'd give me an excuse to get the doors and ignition on the same key. I didn't notice this issue before I did the heater core, so it's possible I pinched or jostled something in the steering column when putting the trim back on. That whole column is already a little wonky. Last I remember the turn signal will resume the cruise control, while some of the steering wheel buttons are inoperable.

As for the pipe coming off the intake, my concern isn't as much about whether it will come off, so much as once it does are there and replacement parts to put back on? I suppose at the end of the day it's just a T-fitting with different sized threads for the ECT sensor and manifold. But I suspect those threads are not the same size, or maybe even something you can find off the shelf.

I assume you are referring to an ignition cylinder as opposed to an ignition switch?

[Arquemann]

I assume you are referring to an ignition cylinder as opposed to an ignition switch?

Potayto potahto.

[friskyfrankie]

Potayto potahto.

Wasn't trying to be "snippy" but as you know, they are two different parts although some refer to them as either name.

[Arquemann]

Well if you change the whole thing it doesnt matter

[sly]

We could really get technical about it...

The cylinder being the mechanical part that the key goes into and the switch being the electrical part that connects to the wire harness and both separated by a rod that is moved by the cylinder to actuate the switch.

Also, I have the dinger problem with my 93 sometimes. Gotta "jiggle the handle" as it were to get it to shutup.

[87GrandMarq]

My 98 did that until I pulled the cylinder one day and put it back in. It must’ve been dirty or loose, don’t know.


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[friskyfrankie]

We could really get technical about it...

The cylinder being the mechanical part that the key goes into and the switch being the electrical part that connects to the wire harness and both separated by a rod that is moved by the cylinder to actuate the switch.

Also, I have the dinger problem with my 93 sometimes. Gotta "jiggle the handle" as it were to get it to shutup.

That was the only point I was trying to make but it seemed to be taken negatively.

[kishy]

+1 that the ignition switch and lock cylinder are completely separate components and each has its own list of possible problems.

There is a third component that hasn't been mentioned yet which is also applicable, which is the tiny fragile switch that actually senses the presence of the key and triggers the chime. I can't fully visualize what it looks like in my head at the moment, nor find a photo of it, but there's a little metal flappy lever with some plastic on it which gets poked by a piece of the lock cylinder when the key is present. This piece has most likely bent or broken in a way that is causing it to complete the circuit when the key is absent.

You should open the bottom side of the column and get eyes on what's going on.

[gadget73]

What he said, its the little finger switch on the side of the cylinder that makes all that work.

Mismatched keys are a peeve of mine though.

[Lutrova]

That sounds like the most plausible scenario to me. The steering column cover was a little hard to get on, and once it was the area around the key wasn't seated quite right. I would've looked into it more at the time but company was about to arrive.

I know there was a thread on this not too long ago, but if I just open up the key cylinder can I just rearrange the pins to match the door keys? Or would I have to get some more parts?

[gadget73]

probably need to get a set of pins. I believe Brown_Muscle re-pinned a cylinder for his 82 and could tell you exactly what he used but I think he said it was just a common type pin that home locks used. The one I did used a flag shaped thing but the process is basically the same.

https://youtu.be/zdNvFGOrAYQ

should explain it. Its not hard, just kind of fussy. I did this with a spare cylinder just in case I screwed up. Didn't want to have the car down. Cylinders are pretty cheap for these cars.

[sly]

I used the pins from the original cylinder in the 93 when I swapped that one out.

[gadget73]

that works if you have a cylinder that is properly keyed already. If the issue is a mismatched key, then you need to do something else. That was the situation I had on the Mark VII. The replacement cylinder I bought I re-keyed to fit my original key, the cylinder that was in the car used something else.

had that issue on the Towncar as well but my fix there was a lot lazier, I found a car in the junkyard that had it's correct set of original Lincoln keys in it and I simply pulled the whole set of cylinders from that car and put them in mine.

[sly]

True enough. Pin set required for that (or a trip to a locksmith).

[Lutrova]

Well the car left us stranded today, though fortunately it was only five minutes before the gate.

We went to church down in Victorville, which is about a 70 mile drive. This was the first time I ran the car since the battery ran out last Sunday and I swapped in the new battery on Tuesday. We got down to Victorville just fine and ran a few errands there. As we were returning home it was getting dark. I thought my headlights were a little dim, but since it was twilight I wasn't quite sure if it was just my eyes getting accustomed to the darkness. Eventually, though, it got dark enough that I started to think something was up. Shortly after the car informed me that a headlamp was out, and right after that the headlights got so dim that they stopped illuminating completely. The high beams flat out refused to turn on. I realized I not only had no headlights, but no hazards either. Not wanting to stop on a narrow two lane road with no hazards, I made it just up the road to the 'Painted Rocks', where there was a large gravel area to pull off. At this point even the instrument cluster was flickering in and out and the speedometer started displaying random speeds. We came to a stop and I shut the engine off.

After a little looking under the hood I tried the lights again and got full headlights and hazards, but the battery was too drained to start the engine. A friend came and picked us up and a few hours later I drove back to grab the battery to charge overnight.

***

Since this battery is brand new I'm thinking I have a charging problem. I think it took a full day of driving to drain the battery, which must've still had enough juice the last time I started the car, but with the headlights running things quickly depleted to critical levels. This is probably also what happened last weekend when I first drove the car in over a month. Only there I was making small trips in daylight, so I ran into the not-enough-juice-to-start problem before the not-enough-juice-for-headlights problem.

I think my first step, after I get the car home, is to test the alternator. It's a reman 3G that I pulled from a '90s Taurus a couple years ago. I can probably get another from the yard for about 40 bucks, versus 200 from O'Reilly's.

And if it's not the alternator then I don't know what's going on.