My 1987 Mercury Grand Marquis

[Tiggie]

On the vent window, it looks like the stud has come unglued from the glass. You can drive that pin out to remove the handle. There should be a wave washer under there IIRC to keep some tension on it in normal operation. Rear view mirror glue might work to get that stud to stick back to the glass.

[kishy]

On the vent window, it looks like the stud has come unglued from the glass. You can drive that pin out to remove the handle. There should be a wave washer under there IIRC to keep some tension on it in normal operation. Rear view mirror glue might work to get that stud to stick back to the glass.

Is it supposed to be adhered? Never would have figured. When I did mine back up with a new gasket/washer under the outside half, I did it up tight enough to not require being glued to the glass.

Aside from that uncertainty for me, you hit the nail on the head with this. The outside half is a stud and the inside half is a handle retained to a weird looking nut. The handle is held onto the weird nut with the roll pin.

[Tiggie]

Is it supposed to be adhered? Never would have figured. When I did mine back up with a new gasket/washer under the outside half, I did it up tight enough to not require being glued to the glass.

I'm definitely doing the diagnosis by picture and couch sitting. I would imagine if there is a nut there, that might be a better option!

[slack]

Rear shocks out!

Thanks for the input so far everyone. I tried again with the vise grips on the shock and some more PB blaster. I worked at it for about an hour before giving up on that. No matter how tight I got it, it would still spin. I even cleaned any grease off the piston and tried to rough up the metal with some sand paper. Still no luck.

I went the sawzall route. I only had one 12'' wood blade which barely even got through the rubber bushing so I ran out to Lowes and picked up a pack of metal cutting 12'' blades. I had the passenger's side bolt cut out within 15 minutes. Oh my god. It was so much easier. I don't think I'm ever going to not cut them in the future unless I plan on saving the shock that's installed in there.

The things continued to put up a fight though. The bottom bolts were also seized and then started spinning. One I was able to get off by putting a box wrench on one side and the impact on the other. The other side, I had to cut the bottom mount and then use a line wrench and a ratchet on the other side with a breaker bar. Still didn't come loose until I torched it.

I also managed to drop one of the new washers into the abyss between the body and frame of the top mount when installing the new shock. Thank god I had another washer from a previous shock install in my garage. It was already after 10pm and everything was closed. (Also, it's going to rain for the next two days).

Blah blah blah... long story short. The new shocks are in!


Old shocks: Right one was leaking pretty bad.



For the vent window latch, is the stud inside fully threaded? Could it be that maybe the previous owner managed to forcefully spin the thing and back the nut on the inside out a bit? I wondering if maybe it's stripped. I can push the thing together and it closes the gap but any pulling on it, it slips back out to the loose position it's in in the previous post's pictures.

[packman]

Oh.........yeah those shocks threw up the white flag long ago.

I had a similar experience trying to change out the front shocks on the S-10. Since those shocks were never changed out; the knub on the top of the shock (holds the shock in place while spinning the nut off) kept breaking off when I put the vice-grip on it. I gave up and grabbed a grinder and a large diameter disc; but my Dad intervened and said if I somehow got the front springs; I might end up in the ER again.

[sly]

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Hell yeah.

Those old shocks look like they were doing a good job of just actively existing, and nothing more.

[87gtVIC]

I looked in my service manual and I did not find any mention of the vent window handle. Go figure.

With new body mounts in the car you do gain some room between the body and the frame for reaching those top shock fasteners. Even still though it is not the most fun job.

[GM_Guy]

If the vent windows are anything like the GM truck vent windows, you'll need to remove the roll pin to pull the handle, theres the wave washer as mentioned, and if you look in the center of the indoor portion you will see a torx, gennnnntly snug it up to take the slop out.
Also before you pull the latch, make note of the orientation of the latch in relation to the outside (mark the outside) so when you tighten it you don't have to do it twice when the latch ends up in the wrong position. =-)
On the outside, its a rubber washer (not glue). So have something on hand you can make a new washer from.

Watch for the small parts when you pull the latch, theres a spring and bit of metal to if I remember right. Can't remember if theres a check ball in there somewhere, its been more than 20 years since I had to r&r one.

[slack]

Diff fluid change and new front shocks

Thanks for all the info on the vent window. I haven't had a chance to double back on it yet. The door is pretty rotten and the outside handle doesn't really work right. When I go to tackle those things, I'll investigate the vent window more. With how rotten the bottom of that door is, I would just slap on the door from my CV if it wasn't for the mismatching paint jobs (and I don't think I could pull off a two tone with pin stripe with my painting "skills" lol)

Last week I changed out the diff fluid. I'm not sure if it's ever been changed. Some had leaked out and there wasn't a ton really in there. Thankfully all the bolts came out without snapping. Even the fill hole didn't put up a big fight. While I waited for the RTV to cure, I sprayed a bunch of Eastwoood's interior frame coating in the frame. I sprayed some in my very rotten bumper just to extend some life out of it. (Hopefully). I plan on taking a wire wheel sometime this week and grind out any surface rust and POR15 the exterior of the frame as well. I have a bunch of fluid film I plan on spraying on as well later in the year.

Bolts out.


The diff tag looking like it came right off the Titanic.


Amazingly, a wire brush clean it up enough to read. No surprises here, 3.27 gears just like the door tag says. I ended up putting the tag in the glovebox instead of back on diff because it's become very thin and fragile.


Inside... looking as expected. I spent a good amount of time scooping the sludge from the bottom as it slowly accumulated.


The nasty fluid that came out:


I used just regular 80W90. I didn't actually expect to feel any difference from the fluid change (I've never had in the past) but I feel like the back end rolls a bit smoother. The old fluid was low, old and sludgy so maybe it's not completely in my head. haha.

This week I tackled changing the front shocks. I haven't had an issue with front shocks before. With my CV, I was able to tighten them and snap the stuck bolt off. Well, this car didn't want to give up those leaky do-nothings that easy. Both both top bolts spun in the shock and wouldn't come out. In the front, there's not a ton of exposed room so it's not possible to get a vice grip on with the full shock installed.

I used my drimmel to try and cut out the nut on the top bolt (or at least the washer so it would fall through). Well, as luck would have it, my drimmel died just before I was done so the nut was still stuck.

I went under the car and (surprisingly) the bottom bolts came out. The shock also exploded as well as the now freed shock had room grow towards the ground. What a mess. Anyway, it ended up being a good thing as now I could actually get the vise grips on the top shock post. The vise grips actually worked, I was able to get the top bolt out and finished up that side. The bottom two bolt holes were still good thankfully.

The other side went basically the same. Top spun so I blew up the shock from the bottom. Vise grips did NOT work this time. I ended up driving to Lowe's and buying a replacement drimmel. New drimmel in hand, I grinded out the top nut and the shock fell out. New shock went in fine but one of the bottom bolts just went a little tighter than hand tight before spinning. With my CV, I ended up replacing all 4 bolts with bolt, washer, lockwasher, nut. Thankfully, I only had to do one on this car. 5/16-18 is the perfect size bolt if you need to do this.

No after pic, but it's just KYB Gas-A-Justs from RockAuto like the rears.

Oh, I also greased up all the fittings in the front steering. I think my driver's side outer tie rod end is on its way out. Front brake pads are just about shot. Those are on my "To-do" list next week.

Old shocks:


The car handles so much better now that all four corners have new shocks. It's crazy how bad those old ones were in comparison. I have my front and rear PI sway bars to install and I think the suspension stuff will be good for now. I'm going to keep the stock OG springs. I had a love/hate relationship with the stiffer ones I put in my CV so I don't think I'd go that route again. (At least for the time being) The current ones are still good, so no reason to change them just yet.

[87gtVIC]

Nice. Like the updates.

[slack]

Thanks!

There's one issue with the car that's been bugging me a bit. Starting cold, it runs a bit rough for the first minute or so or until I give it a few revs (I'm sure my neighbors love that lol). I usually drive out east for band practice each week which is roughly ~45min drive one way. Practice is about 2 hours or so. When I come back to the car and start it, it starts right but but wants to idle very low. Almost stalling out low. I've been giving it a little bit of throttle for a few min before heading back home.

Once it's going it seems fine. Any ideas of first places to look?

[slack]

Can't edit the previous post but just wanted to add that it appears to be after the 30 second high idle after starting the car. Heading back home tonight I actually had to put the car in neutral and hold the throttle a bit to keep it from stalling. After that first light, I didn't have to do that.

[Tiggie]

Sounds like the IAC valve may be not quite doing its job. Unplug it at warm idle. If the idle drops, it's working. If it stays the same, it's not.

Check around for vacuum leaks also.

[slack]

Brakes, oil change, tie rod.

Sounds like the IAC valve may be not quite doing its job. Unplug it at warm idle. If the idle drops, it's working. If it stays the same, it's not.

Check around for vacuum leaks also.

Thanks! I let the car warm up and then pulled the electrical connector on the IAC. No change at all. I even started the car with it unplugged and it didn't make a difference. Looks like that's probably the issue. I'll have to get my multimeter and check to make sure I'm getting voltage at the plug. I didn't get a chance to try that yet. Thankfully, I have another IAC from my CV's engine. (Just need to track down where it is )


A few days ago, I got around to swapping out the front brake pads. Rotors still looked okay so I kept them for now. I would like to at least swap in some fresh timken bearings at some point.

Driver's side new vs old:


Passenger's side new vs old. A little less worn as the driver's side. Calipers both retracted fine. The rubber hose is pretty done though and now tacked onto the ever expanding "to-do" list.



Today I replaced the driver's side outer tie rod and and oil change. I can't believe the tie rod actually came out with (more or less) little effort. The castle nut unscrewed and didn't spin on me. The only part that took a bit was getting it to unscrew from the sleeve. A good amount of PB blaster and heat got it out though.

Here it is with the boot off. It's crazy loose.


Here's a few second video to give an idea (hopefully this works): https://i.imgur.com/d3eM1jc.mp4

New tie rod installed:


The other tie rods should be swapped out too. They don't seem to have play like this one did when I pull on them but they look like they're about the same age.

I noticed some rust forming around the cross member bolt locations on the frame. The same spot my CV rotted out from. I grinded everything down with a wire wheel. Thankfully, nothing's gone through and it was all surface/some pitting. I hit it with now two coats of Eastwood's rust converter. I plan on throwing some rust encapsulator on there too as well as POR15ing the whole frame.