About to buy an '89 Grand Marquis. Any tips?

[DerekTheGreat]

Seafoam is a scam in a can, mineral spirits. Don't put that scuzz down your brake booster vacuum hose like other people do, either. A fuel system cleaner that actually works well is BG44K, shit worked wonders for Ashley's car and helped mine a bit. We run a can a year and double up on concentration.

Hmm, maybe MAF makes for better MPG. 80MPH is where oil consumption just gets to be crazy on both our cars. Not really happy at that speed either, brick in the wind coupled with NoPo syndrome I think.

[billfrank85]

Yeah I completely forgot about BG44K. I still have one of the yellow snap-on funnels from using the stuff previously. I'll go ahead and order some before I forget.

Does anyone have a pic of their washer fluid/coolant overflow tank? The coolant side of mine has a large rubber grommet but nothing in the middle. Is there a part number or a cap of some sort I can use to seal it off?

[Tiggie]

I run 80w-90 in my rears. No friction mod needed if you have an open rear.

[VicCrownVic]

...
Does anyone have a pic of their washer fluid/coolant overflow tank? The coolant side of mine has a large rubber grommet but nothing in the middle. Is there a part number or a cap of some sort I can use to seal it off?

This what you're looking for?

[sly]

It's basically a body plug. Should be able to find them that size at a hardware store. Maybe in the HELP section at an auto parts store.

[knucklehead0202]

Seafoam is a scam in a can, mineral spirits. Don't put that scuzz down your brake booster vacuum hose like other people do, either. A fuel system cleaner that actually works well is BG44K, shit worked wonders for Ashley's car and helped mine a bit. We run a can a year and double up on concentration.

Hmm, maybe MAF makes for better MPG. 80MPH is where oil consumption just gets to be crazy on both our cars. Not really happy at that speed either, brick in the wind coupled with NoPo syndrome I think.

Seafoam, like just about a dozen of other additives, does actually work to a limited degree, but the idea is old as time. Ask any old mechanic and they'll tell you about a "secret formula" they used to dump into engines back in the day. Pouring stuff into a warm, running engine will knock some of the deposits off. Whether they perform the miracles they claim is another story. I did use seafoam on my '98 and i'll have to say it did make a notable difference in how it ran. Later attempts yielded limited to no results so I think it did all it was going to do. The first time though, holy moly! I'd seen the videos of cars pouring smoke, which is very entertaining, but when I started driving it there was nothing. Well, then some dick cut me off and I romped on it, pretty much laying down a smokescreen you couldn't see through! Started to worry me because it was belching out pretty heavy for a bit. After beating on it a few blocks it started to peter out but wow!

Anyhow, I'm no salesman for any product just though I'd relate that experience and I imagine that pretty much any other product, introduced similarly, would elicit the same result. Curious about this bg44k but it looks pretty damn pricey so it bloody well better work.

[Chuck Norris]

I'm with knucklehead on Seafoam. It may not be the right thing for every car every time, but I have used it with success when it was the right fix for the job. For instance, some shops will use a combined fuel system cleaning method wherein they introduce a cleaning agent both through the tank (with the gas) and through the manifold (I'm guessing at the fuel rail, not directly into the vacuum system, but I'm not 100% sure.). That sets you back around 100 bucks.

On my Roadmaster, I put a can of Seafoam into the tank and a third of a can through the intake via the brake booster line. I let it sip most of that, then dumped in full blast until the car stalled, and let it sit in the system for five minutes. After that I fired her up, smoked out the neighborhood, and removed a large portion of the mosquito population for a few days. The car ran absolutely fantastic afterward! All hesitation was gone, all previous power restored.

So I personally believe in Seafoam and similar prodicts - in fact, I buy Berryman Chemtool for a fraction of the cost of Seafoam and use it the same way. Its under four bucks at the local Wal-Marks. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to use it or agree that it has a place in your life, and maybe it is just repackaged mineral spirits - I have no idea. But it works wonders for me.

[billfrank85]

I've used both Seafoam (can in the tank and the stuff you also spray straight into the air intake) and BG44k with good results. It just depends on the application. A mechanic YouTuber named ChrisFix did a side by side with several off the shelf fuel system cleaners with various results.

My wires, cap & rotor (brass brass brass!) came in today. Replaced those...took about an hour. I can already tell those passenger side spark plugs are going to be fun to take out.

[DerekTheGreat]

I was just going to mention the ChrisFix seafoam video. He did it on an Exploader and some Honda IIRC. Best part is he used a camera in the cylinders before and after. Even better is that it made no difference with the carbon that was built up in the cylinders. He claims it made a difference but where I work they'd call that splitting hairs. That smoke you see is just that shit burning up, not actual carbon going bye-bye or anything else. Probably not good for your cats either. If you want to clean carbon and shit out of your cylinders use the water method.

Edit: Vids

[DerekTheGreat]

The water method via ETCG: