Eric_S's 1990 Grand Marquis LS

[Eric_S]

Guess what?

My odometer broke!

I'm gonna put that brass bushing on this weekend then take pics of the engine.

[gabegt90]

Guess what?

My odometer broke!

I'm gonna put that brass bushing on this weekend then take pics of the engine.

it was bond to happen 90-91 odometer's always brake lol

[marquisman]

the one on my 91 wagon broke, and it had 260000KMs on it, and the one on the 91 4-door never broke and it has 156000KMs on it

[Eric_S]

Wow. I've had this car for four years now. Hopefully, my writing abilities have improved. I made so many damn typos in that first post.

The car is still running very well. Better than it was when I bought it. I've had one breakdown due to a failed water pump. I did break down at my grandmother's house from a burned up coil wire, but that was 1/8 of a mile from home so I'm not counting it! There have been numerous other minor issues over time, but nothing that took more than a day to fix.

I'm probably at about the 350,000 mile marker now. The odometer broke so I have no real clue. I spent all of 2010 working for the U.S. Census in this car, so I put quite a few miles on it.

These days I'm wanting to take better care of it though. I just recently read the manual cover to cover and discovered I've been putting the wrong type of oil in it all this time. I've been using SAE 10W-40 SB when the manual explicitly says NOT to do that. doh. It recommends 10W-30 SG. One more thing to do.

I have about $150 coming up in spare funds. What would be the best thing to spend on towards preservation and reliability?

[87gtVIC]

Welcome back. Nicer to hear the car is still going! I use that oil all the time. Helps ease the aging process....mainly leaks lol.

[79lincolnlover]

Welcome back

[packman]

Nice!!! And for still driving it four years later



Packman

[BerniniCaCO3]

congrats! and, that's a whole lot of miles! I don't think I have the gas money to put 200,000 more miles on my GM...
Well, odometer gears are $35/side (odometer, trip meter) if you want to fix 'em.

I don't know what you've done, and what you've left unaddressed.
Probably, take that $150 and bank it for when something really goes wrong!

Or take a good lookover... are brakes good, tires good, shocks not leaking, spark plugs done in the last 30,000 miles, differential fluid done ever, etc.?
If the coolant hoses are original, do them. They're not safe at 20+ years old.
I don't know-- I just spent $1200 overhauling a 1990 GM for my sis! But a whole lot of those things were aggressive preemptive maintenance, cause I know that if something goes wrong in iowa 900 miles from me she won't be able to fix it herself, and it could be much more expensive.

[Eric_S]

heh, I have had to replace two different hoses in the cooling system already already. I almost forgot about the second one. The upper heater hose was spouting steam like a geyser, but I made it home. It looked like it had just rotted from age.

I put on 4 used "good" tires last year. They were from a company called Sensys. One of them blew out. I replaced with the best of my previous set from Hankook. I ended up warping my spare time in the process getting home. That sucked.

I've done the brakes and spark plugs recently, along with the distributor cap, coil, coil wire, and spark plug wires. The coil wire was burned completely through on the inside when I took it off!

I've never checked the shocks or differential fluid. That might be something I'll look into.

Honestly though, I'm thinking most about just cleaning the engine. It's filthy from a power steering leak that has been spraying all over the engine bay for years. I think it's damaging some of the components and was responsible for my coil wire and spark plug wires going bad. Along with that I'll be replacing the power steering pump.

$1200 to recondition? How much was the GM to start with? It's funny to me seeing people buying brand new cars for $10,000 or whatever. I see those cars and think, "I could buy a panther with low miles for $5000 and then spend another $5000 and make it better than new." And a hell of a lot better than most of what comes out these days for that money.