kishy's 1991 Grand Marquis

[DerekTheGreat]

Damn, just over two hours to get the engine out of the car? Mighty impressive, you're a machine.

[87gtVIC]

If you know what to take apart and those things cooperate, stuff sure can get done in a short amount of time. I find disassembly always easier than reassembly.

[kishy]

I am pleased to announce that the engine is holding its oil (and seemingly also coolant, for that matter), the hood is back on, and I've done 20-30km of mixed test driving without incident. The car drives great. The transmission behaves as it always has - shifting too early and getting into gears that shouldn't be possible yet at such low speeds, but it has done that the whole time I've had it, since 2012 and over 55,000km, so it doesn't concern me, but it does annoy me.





This car has now received United Pacific LED headlights as did the wagon, but for this one, I went with the black housings. I'm not crazy about the look but it might grow on me.

I moved on to one of the interior priorities and opened up the driver door.



Attempting to install my brand new Cardone window motor went poorly and required a fair bit of re-engineering. The original window motor screws are the same thread that the new motors were tapped for, however, the holes were too big to start with so the screws don't really bite and just free spin as soon as they try to tighten against anything. Since I have a large pack of M6 bolts, I drilled out the holes on the new motors to 13/64" all the way through, and 15/64" for the shoulder section of my bolts, then tapped the holes for M6x1.0 all the way through. Problem solved, and bonus, since the bolts can poke in significantly before beginning to thread and fit allen keys, installation of the motor is way easier than it usually is. I've already drilled and tapped the passenger motor for when I get to that side of the car.





I also replaced the door pull and cleaned the door card behind it. The colour doesn't match 100% but it's close and a not-trashed pull will be nice. This has been ruined since before I bought the car.





I deleted power locks from this car previously, mostly because I couldn't seem to get any actuator to properly operate the rear door locks (too slow/too weak to pull lock all the way). Since I have a bunch of actuators hanging around, I'm taking another shot at it, and have now installed an actuator back in the driver door. I will need to raid my parts stash to find the switch, and will likely also replace the whole switch panel as the screw bosses are trashed.

The driver door should be able to go back together tomorrow, and maybe do the passenger side as well.

[87gtVIC]

Damn chrome pan. Good deal getting it all up and functioning again.

[DerekTheGreat]

If you know what to take apart and those things cooperate, stuff sure can get done in a short amount of time. I find disassembly always easier than reassembly.

In my life, nope, and usually they don't. Reassembly always takes longer for me as well. I usually find other things that I convince myself to do because I'm there and am far less likely to be back once I leave.

[sly]

Victory!

[gadget73]

Might want to give the harness around the coil a good shake test. I've had wires break inside the insulation and replacing a part seemed to fix it, but really only caused the wire to flex and re-connect. it works fine until it randomly does not again. If the wire is broken inside you should find it misfires or stalls if you get it moved in just the right spot.

anyway nice work. Shame about the junk part though. Its a damn frustrating thing to put on a brand new bad part, and immediately have to do the work all over again. I've been lucky enough to not have to replace my OE oil pans, and they always seal properly. The first time I did the engine in the Towncar I used the old 4 piece cork and rubber pan seal set. It was bone dry. I put that on with the engine upside-down on the stand though, doing one from below is hard. The one piece ones make that not a big deal, especially if you use the little plastic guide pin things that hold the gasket and pan while you put in the bolts.

I like the socket key cap screw idea too. Should be much less annoying than trying to hold the stock bolts in a socket while fishing them through the hole in the door skin.

[kishy]

Warning: novel ahead.

Where'd we leave off...

I went to my storage unit and sifted through the tote of door switch panels. Most of them are not very good, but I found one that was better than what was on the car. I also found a pair of lock switches, probably off this same car originally, who knows at this point.

After I did the driver front door as mentioned above - window motor, lock actuator, cleaned out the drain holes, new trim panel retainers, new door pull, put it all back together - I then did the same thing for the passenger front door, minus the door pull, since it's fine on that side. The power locks are not working correctly, and I believe it's the same problem as before - one of the rear doors has a connected actuator inside it, and that actuator is pulling too much current. If it's as it was last time I ran into this, disconnecting that actuator will fix the front two.





Regarding the rear doors, I had installed the Dorman strike bolt bushings on all 4 doors but found the rears never seemed to latch nicely. I have now replaced the rear ones with electrical tape rolled up on the striker. The doors shut great now and don't rattle.

At some point in that process, I took off the steering wheel and dash trim. I deleted the tachometer (figured out why it stopped working - something inside it got really hot and the whole backside of it melted, and cleaned up the wiring for the oil pressure gauge. I looked at the clockspring wiring and determined fitting the SHO wheel requires some extra work, so this car is keeping its original wheel for the moment. I thoroughly cleaned the wheel, which revealed how poor its condition is, but it's clean and feels alright to drive. I relocated the oil pressure gauge to the column pod, which doesn't fit great but does fit. I wonder if there's such a thing as a "hood" to go over 2" gauges. The way this thing illuminates makes it hard to see now that it isn't shaded by the top of the dash. But on the bright side, it hasn't dropped below 20ish psi at fully hot, fresh-off-the-highway idle since putting in the 5W40 Rotella T6, so that's good.









I mocked up my phone mount solution, found a spot that seemed to work well, and (cringing internally) stuck the adhesive mount to the windshield. It was either that or the dashboard, and I felt like the glass would be more of a rigid mount, plus I have a dash carpet for this which I'd like to use.





I had noticed that the sequential turn signals were not really working right since I put LEDs in (Sylvania Zevo 3157 for all 6). This car was done using a module that is no longer produced by a guy who seems to no longer make vehicle electronics (meter4it.com), and the sequencing worked great way-back-when. The problem it's been having is occasionally flashing all 3 lamps at the same time, then going back to sequencing, as if it mis-detected the brake pedal being down, which cancels the sequencing for whatever side isn't a turn signal. I figured this was a current draw issue with the LEDs and bought a WebElectric kit, same as I used on the wagon, since I know those work great with LEDs. And yes, the CHMSL is incandescent bulbs, to pull down that cruise control voltage on the BOO circuit.

This morning I cut out the meter4it unit and soldered in the WebElectric modules. Install is functional but wires are still everywhere, I'll be tidying that up eventually. I do not have "control wires" ran, which are the wires used to cancel sequencing for brake lights, but I should be able to get those in pretty easily. The brake lights sequencing is an undesirable behaviour but it can be left alone for a few days.



After the brake light project, I decided to address something that's been concerning me. I noticed when troubleshooting the no-start that it took multiple primes to get the fuel pressure up to the correct amount. And I've also had the car stall immediately after starting a couple times, as well as (and this problem is now a decade old) occasionally it just kinda sputters to life without starting nicely like you expect an EFI engine to do. So sure, it makes 40PSI, but if it makes it inconsistently or slowly, that's a weak pump. And I have a NOS complete sending unit for this car, so...

While disconnecting the quick-connects, the return side broke off. It was severely rusted at the quick connect, seized inside it, and twisted off by hand with almost no effort. Probably a good thing I caught that since I'm sure external leakage was imminent.

Pulled the sending unit out. Was very pleased (and mildly surprised) to find the tank and sending unit are rust-free inside. I cleaned up the new sending unit (shelf dust), swapped over the fuel gauge sender component of it (since I know my old one works and I don't know that the new one does), and installed it. The supply side quick connect worked properly and sealed, while I cut the braided flex part of the return line off and used some 5/16" Gates EFI hose to make up the connection. I had tried to extract the rusted-off piece of line but it's stuck in there really solid; still, when I cut the hard line, I left enough room on both sides to maybe repair it in the future if I can salvage the flex hose. Testing showed there were no leaks, the pump is a thousand times quieter than the old one, and the engine runs and starts fine.















From there, I moved on to the exhaust. The open H-pipe is hilariously fun, as the car is surprisingly quiet at idle at a traffic light, but then you open it up and it sounds so...rich and full. The 302 is a glorious sounding engine. But it was entirely too loud and droning something awful on the highway.

I went with the same mufflers I used on the Town Car, which are Summit Racing Fully Welded Turbo Mufflers SUM-633250. For these, I am using Walker Mega Clamp band clamps at the front to the H-pipe, and Walker 35103 hangers at the back paired with U-bolt clamps to attach them. Once tailpipes are in the picture, some of this may need to be revisited, but for now it's holding things where they belong. I also cut off the loose heat shields on the lower pair of cats which have been rattling obnoxiously.





I then used a grinder with a flap wheel to clean up the rear sway bar I had hanging around, and installed it on the car. My lower arms were lacking one hole per side, so with the bar mounted with the one bolt on each side, I drilled the pair of second holes and bolted it together tightly. I then cleaned the bar, and applied a coat of Tremclad rust paint to the bar, a little sloppily at the ends, but whatever. It'll probably need a second and maybe third coat, but the first is drying at the moment.





What else...oh, I took off the rear wheels, removed the drums (which were turned recently, before I started the rest of the work on the car), and adjusted them out a bit since the pedal travel is a bit long. I also checked for axle shaft wiggle, and axle oil escape from the seals, and found both to be acceptable. Afterwards, I installed my other set of HPPs with similarly old, but arguably better condition Pirelli Cinturato P7 tires in 225/60R16 (vs what was on the car, Toyo Extensa AS in 235/65R16). The Toyos are great tires in general, but these have a lot of cracks and visible aging, whereas the Pirellis have been stored indoors longer than they've been outside, and have quite little mileage on them. I bought them new in probably 2015. No cracking, a little dry in general, but we'll see how they hold the road soon.

While the rear tires were off, I replaced the passenger rear wheel arch trim, which for many years has been the part for an earlier year with the lower bodyside brightwork/cladding, so it stops a few inches above the bottom of the wheel wells. I tried my best to clean up some of the rust (it's ugly), hit it with some oil, then put the correct part on.



And that's where we stand at the moment. In a little bit, I'll go out to slap a second coat of paint on that sway bar and drop the car back on the ground.

Relatively brief seat time has reminded me how much I used to love this car, and I think it's coming back.

you're a machine

You're damned right. A machine thinking of making use of its massage therapy coverage. Oof.

[87gtVIC]

Fuel pressure low making it sputter to life before the replacement fuel pump? I have a similar thing going on as of late. Hit key and car starts up but kinda sputters to life and then evens out. Will have to check that out on my car. Something I have been thinking about but didnt care too much about as it does end up running fine.

So does it check all boxes on being roadworthy for your trip?

[kishy]

Fuel pressure low making it sputter to life before the replacement fuel pump? I have a similar thing going on as of late. Hit key and car starts up but kinda sputters to life and then evens out. Will have to check that out on my car. Something I have been thinking about but didnt care too much about as it does end up running fine.

So does it check all boxes on being roadworthy for your trip?

The starting issue is something I never did actually prove-out. I posted about it on CVN a decade ago and I don't think anyone quite grasped what I was describing, if I remember right. Basically, turn key directly from off to start, and a cylinder or a few fire almost immediately, but then they just kinda don't anymore, so you keep cranking it and it sounds obnoxious as it keeps firing and then not. If you let it prime fully before cranking, it's more likely to actually fire and stay running. The stall was a new symptom and in my head, it was a further degradation of the same symptom. I actually put reman injectors in this many years ago chasing the weird cranking problem, since it delivered 40psi on prime - but maybe it wasn't doing that every time, and I just so happened to catch it this time around.

Either way, the pump not screaming loudly is an improvement.

I still feel weird about the transmission, because the shift points say it has too low TV, but it's set tighter than it was when a shop set it with a gauge, and it's driven 55k km behaving this way. That's really my only concern at the moment for the trip, I think this is going to be the car for it.

edit: oh yeah, and there was this today.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I still feel weird about the transmission, because the shift points say it has too low TV, but it's set tighter than it was when a shop set it with a gauge, and it's driven 55k km behaving this way. That's really my only concern at the moment for the trip, I think this is going to be the car for it.

What speed is overdrive coming in at very light throttle? Is it above or below 65 KPH?

[kishy]

What speed is overdrive coming in at very light throttle? Is it above or below 65 KPH?

Whoops, hit the edit button instead of quote - please accept my apologies.

50ish kmh at zero throttle, give or take a smidge. Kickdown works, but it takes a lot of pedal to get out of OD. I always just drove this in D and did OD manually.

The shift points and firmness don't really seem to change in response to the cable, so it has long been a thought in my head that there's a piston or seal or something leaking in the transmission, or maybe it was rebuilt with a constant pressure valve body or something along those lines.

But, with TV set tighter, the high pitched hydraulic squeal noise that I get out of all of my AODs with high TV does appear more.

[sly]

Whoops, hit the edit button instead of quote - please accept my apologies.

Heh... I've done this.

the rust on the old fuel pump hanger... yikes. Glad the tank was fine.

[gadget73]

could always do a quick and dirty attempt to bump the presure more, stick a zip tie between the "hat" crimp at the end of the cable and the plastic adjuster stem. If that does nothing, its just what it is unless you feel like trying a shift kit to sort it. The Transgo one modifies some springs in there to alter the pressure curve and it tends to move the shift points out for the same TV setting.


The AOD valve body is a fiddly bastard though and its got a whole lot of stuff and a whole lot that can be messed up. Even just getting the gaskets back in right and torquing it can be tricky. Sometimes the gaskets don't fit and you can microwave them to shrink a bit. I've also seen where builders say to skip one of the gasket entirely but I don't remember if thats the upper or lower.

[kishy]

Confirming shift points: at just a sliver of throttle, enough to keep accelerating but that's all, I get second gear at 20kmh, third at 30kmh, and 4th at 50kmh.
With more throttle, it does hold gears longer, but it'll still hit OD while I'm still accelerating to highway speed, whereas my other cars are set up to basically refuse OD until I let off the pedal once I'm arriving near my desired travel speed. But this one has never allowed itself to be set up that way and will always hit OD early even with the cable set quite tight.

Shifts are moderately firm, there is no detectable slipping, it drives well. The early shifting and high effort to get kickdown are annoying but I don't think there's much to be done here. At some point I'll have to dig into this one but I think it's fine presently.

I put some mileage on it today, and it performed well. It was pouring rain earlier and the aging Pirelli tires performed fantastic. They ride smooth and quietly, provide plenty of grip, and pass cosmetically as good condition tires so I'm going to run them.



The mufflers sound great, but have a little drone, which I think tailpipes will fix. I checked my storage unit but I don't have any suitable tail pipes, so I'm going to check with the parts places for local availability. Last time I bought sedan tails, CarQuest had them for me within a couple days for 40 bucks each - quite inexpensive, really.

The brace bars that bolt to the front of the frame have been off since I did the starter. Today, I flapwheeled them and have slapped on a coat of paint. I'll do at least a second coat and maybe a third, then they'll go back on. I'll also take a look at the rear sway bar and verify if it needs more paint or if it's fine.



I did also check the diff oil level via the fill plug, and it's full, as well as greased the u-joints like I said I'd need to. I put gas in it today and there seem to be no leaks. However, the inconsistent starting continues to happen occasionally.

I've also picked up a very slight occasional misfire when trying to steadily accelerate in third gear at low RPM, but it's just one or two little jerks and then it figures it out. There also seems to be a scratchy spot on the TPS which I will verify with my analog meter. And as with the wagon, I want EGR working before the trip, with this having an EVR code presently. New EVP and EVR are now on-hand, so here's hoping that takes care of that.

HPP centre caps to be sorted out shortly, as well. This has 98-02 front brakes so the front caps will fit, unlike when you run HPPs on stock box brakes. I have 3 good ones, 3 garbage ones, and two iffy ones, so I can make up a set of 4