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VicCrownVic's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS

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    VicCrownVic's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS

    One year ago today, October 13th, I bought a 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS. It had 84K miles and change when I got it and I've put about 10K miles on it since then as my daily driver.

    I didn't think the 91 would ever be more than a daily driver, but sine my job situation will be improving significantly starting tomorrow there is actually a chance that I could do more with it than just drive it into the ground. I probably will not do anything significant until sometime next summer at the earliest, I have some other priorities that need to be addressed first.

    Here are some pics before I start rambling (it’s a giant wall of text!)
    They are all old pics but not much has changed. My 89 MGM GS, which I've had since 2003, is also in most of the pics.

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    The story of my 91 has quite the beginning.
    I was sitting in a restaurant parking lot in my 89 MGM with my wife waiting for the in-laws an early October weekend. We were parked a ways from the restaurant in a spot closest to the road when this guy in a blue 2000something caravan pulls up right next to us. "What the crap is this guy doing." Is what I said to my wife.

    He rolled down his window, I rolled down mine, and he said, "I have a car just like that in better shape that you could have for $500." We talked a bit about it, the guy thought it was a 1990 that he had but he wasn't exactly sure if it was 90 or 91. My 89 has a good amount of rust and I had already been thinking that if I found a 90 or 91 in good shape for cheap that I would buy it. The guy let me know that the trans was bad, but I had a good engine and trans in my 89, I had done a trans swap about a year earlier so that wouldn't be a problem. So the guy says "If you want we can go check it out and see what you think."

    I called the in-laws to let them know we would be having dinner a little later. We went to this guy’s place a few miles away and he showed me the car sitting quite dusty in his barn. He started it right up, put it into gear and moved it a little. There was too much stuff piled around it drive out of the barn but it started right up, sounded good, and moved under its own power which was good enough for me. I knew it was at least 1990 since it has the bomb on the steering wheel and newer style dash, and the body was in far better shape than my 89.

    I made arrangements to get a whole week off from work since the car needed work and had been sitting for about 6 or 7 years. So one week later I went back on a Saturday with my buddy and his dad's truck and my uncle's car dolly. We towed the car up to my parent's house where I could make use of my dad's 2 car garage to get the trans swap done. When I drove it off the dolly and around the yard the trans seemed fine so I took it out on a test drive and it actually accelerated decent and I was starting to hope I wouldn't need to replace the trans. Then I realized that it was not shifting into 3rd, 1st and 2nd were all it had, oh and a blown brake line but the brake line was no big deal/easy fix.

    Took a few days to get the transmissions swapped between my 89 and the 91 since both cars had to be able to drive. Each day my dad would come out to the garage to tell me that I needed to move fast because they were in the middle of trying to move and he needed to get the garage packed as soon as I was done. Once I was done with the trans swap is when the car started to show that it had been sitting for a long time.

    On my first long test drive, 20 miles to McDonalds, the car would not start to make the trip back to my parents’ house. I got a jump and got back to the house to find the alternator was going. Swapped the one from my 89, problem solved. Then began the process of helping my parents move. It was about a 10 mile drive from the old house to the new so this gave me a good chance to test drive the car repeatedly. Driving between houses revealed yet more issues caused by sitting.

    The car started running like crap, then while my dad and I were trying to diagnose this issue we had to stop and diagnose the starter which we determined went out. So I took that starter to Autozone 20 miles away and it failed every test. The girl at the counter tells me that this starter is an original stock part from 1991 which didn’t surprise me since the spark plug wires (which I replaced) all said 1991 on them. Once we got the new starter in, we found why it was not running very well, or by this time not at all. The rubber fuel line inside the tank had split open and most of the fuel was going straight back in to the tank.
    By this time, between working on the car and helping with the move I was running out of time, Monday I had to go back to work. Dad said he would get the fuel pump fixed if I could get the parts. Mom let me borrow her Taurus and luckily I had the late shift all the next week, so Monday morning as soon as Autozone opened I got my fuel pump/hanger assembly (They didn’t have it in stock Sunday night, no one did), drove up to my parents’ house an hour away, dropped it off and still made it to work on time.

    Tuesday night, about a week and a half after I bought it, I picked the car up and have been driving it daily for the past year now.
    Vic

    ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
    ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
    ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
    ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

    #2
    Mods to date

    The only mods so far have been minor.
    Cheapo radio that I had in my 89.
    Rear speakers are Sony iirc. They were free with the 87 CV I had in high school. Those speakers have followed me to each car and sound decent.
    Headlight relay harness. This car had issues w/the headlights randomly cutting out when I got it so I had to do this mod along with getting a new switch.
    Blue LEDs in the cluster.
    All blue LEDs have replaced the interior lights. It started as a joke with just the lights on the doors but my wife liked it so they all got replaced (except for the map lights).
    3G 130amp Mustang alternator.

    Also since I have an 89 transmission which has 7 tooth speedo drive gear instead of the 8 tooth the original had, I had to find a 16 tooth driven gear to correct the speedometer.
    That's it for mods for now, nothing big yet.
    Vic

    ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
    ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
    ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
    ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

    Comment


      #3
      Mod pics

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      These two pics didn't turn out too well.
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      And a pic of the my headlight relay harness, 12 gauge wiring. Might not look the best looking but it does the job.Click image for larger version

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      Vic

      ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
      ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
      ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
      ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

      Comment


        #4
        Are annual inspections required in MI? If so, does you '91 pass with ease?
        '79 Continental Town Car
        '90 Crown Victoria LTD
        '94 Crown Victoria

        Comment


          #5
          No inspections required in Michigan.
          Vic

          ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
          ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
          ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
          ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

          Comment


            #6
            6 digit odometer

            Added a 6 digit odometer today:






            and a random pic from the other day
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            Vic

            ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
            ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
            ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
            ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

            Comment


              #7
              Heat

              Worked on my heat today.
              It now works again, we'll see for how long, the heater core keeps getting clogged.
              I thought it was the stupid BDA causing my problem, both inlet and outlet line on the heater core where HOT so I figured it was good... Wrong!
              I had everything apart today and found the blend door actually was in the correct position. So out came the heater core to get flushed, I've already flushed it a few times while in the car with mixed results. The garden hose could have used more pressure but I flushed it and shook it around a bit to get as much crap out as I could and repeated this a dozen times.
              Put it back together and once the engine warmed up I was in business.

              Taking apart the dash on the 91 seemed easier than I remembered on the 89- cars, but it's been a while.

              The BDA:
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              Had to disconnect this ground (which oddly has a red wire) and the connectors just below it, all behind the pass. side kick panel.
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              And a pic of the dash early on in the procedure.
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              I took apart more than I needed to, and the car is a freaking mess (not referring to the dash).
              Last edited by VicCrownVic; 10-27-2013, 12:06 AM.
              Vic

              ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
              ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
              ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
              ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

              Comment


                #8
                100,000 miles

                A couple of minor (probably uninteresting) mods since I last posted.
                Installed a Tefba filter on the upper radiator hose last month (like Bison has). I went with the coarse filter screen and a month later it had caught nothing, so I put the fine screen in the other day.

                Also the other day installed an inline coolant filter in the heater hose, on the inlet side of the heater core.
                I'm not sure about this thing. The instructions that came with it seemed to have bits of engrish and they didn't even have their own website correct on the packaging . The correct website is www.ve-labs.net (not .com as the packaging says). Pics of mine:
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                Last time I flushed the heater core the heat was very hot for a couple of weeks, then pretty good a month later, and after about 2-3 months kind of ok.
                I plan to install a new heater core this weekend, I didn't want to change it before with the way the old one keeps clogging so fast.

                Oh, and rolled 100,00 miles today.
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                And I just realized today that there is a good chance that this winter will be the last winter driving this car sees, but I doubt anything interesting will be happening this summer with it. It depends on how things are going when summer gets here.
                Vic

                ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
                ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
                ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
                ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

                Comment


                  #9
                  That coolant filter is interesting. It might help the heater core live longer, too, since excessive flow/pressure has sometimes been blamed for the failure.

                  85 4 door 351 Civi Crown Victoria - Summer daily driver, sleeper in the making, and wildly inappropriate autocross machine
                  160KMs 600cfm holley, shorty headers, 2.5" catted exhaust, 255/295 tires, cop shocks, cop swaybars, underdrive pulley, 2.73L gears.
                  waiting for install: 3.27's, Poly bushings, boxed rear arms, 2500 stall converter, ported e7's, etc

                  06 Mazda 3 hatch 2.3L 5AT (winter beater that cost more than my summer car)

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by johnunit View Post
                    That coolant filter is interesting. It might help the heater core live longer, too, since excessive flow/pressure has sometimes been blamed for the failure.
                    Yeah, that is one of the points that the manufacturer makes. Time will tell how it does.
                    Vic

                    ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
                    ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
                    ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
                    ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Replaced the heater core today.
                      Click image for larger version

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                      Took them in the house and pealed the gasket off the old core and put it on the new one.
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                      Also took a look at my filter and can see that it is catching crap, so hopefully the new heater core doesn't clog any time soon.
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                      The whole procedure took me about 4 hours, I went kind of slow and took pictures of EVERY step, every screw I removed and tool used for each step. Hopefully I have some time this week to put together a writeup to go along with all of the pictures. In total I took 122 pictures, some of those are duplicates because the first shot didn't turn out, so not all of them will be used in my writeup. I had to double check the number of pics, I didn't think I had taken that many pics but I did.
                      Vic

                      ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
                      ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
                      ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
                      ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

                      Comment


                        #12
                        A write up like that would be most appreciated. Would probably be the same for my '87 GM. Bobby


                        "Hope and dignity are two things NO ONE can take away from you - you have to relinquish them on your own" Miamibob

                        "NEVER trade your passion for glory"!! Sal "the Bard" (Dear Old Dad!)

                        "Cars are for driving - PERIOD! I DON'T TEXT, TWEET OR TWERK!!!!"

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by VicCrownVic View Post
                          Replaced the heater core today.
                          [ATTACH=CONFIG]38521[/ATTACH]
                          Took them in the house and pealed the gasket off the old core and put it on the new one.
                          [ATTACH=CONFIG]38522[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]38523[/ATTACH]
                          Also took a look at my filter and can see that it is catching crap, so hopefully the new heater core doesn't clog any time soon.
                          [ATTACH=CONFIG]38524[/ATTACH]

                          The whole procedure took me about 4 hours, I went kind of slow and took pictures of EVERY step, every screw I removed and tool used for each step. Hopefully I have some time this week to put together a writeup to go along with all of the pictures. In total I took 122 pictures, some of those are duplicates because the first shot didn't turn out, so not all of them will be used in my writeup. I had to double check the number of pics, I didn't think I had taken that many pics but I did.
                          Excellent! Write ups are always great.
                          2020 F250 - 7.3 4x4 CCSB STX 3.55's - BAKFlip MX4
                          2005 Grand Marquis GS - Marauder sway bars, Marauder exhaust, KYB's
                          2003 Marauder - Trilogy # 8, JLT, kooks, 2.5" exhaust, 4.10's/31 spline, widened rear's, metco's, addco's, ridetech's 415hp/381tq
                          1987 Colony Park - 03+ frame swap, blown Gen II Coyote, 6R80, ridetechs, stainless works, absolute money pit. WIP

                          Comment


                            #14
                            update the writeup that's already up from when I did my 88 for complete box coverage.

                            Unless we want to put it in the aero/whale section since it's the newer style dash?

                            Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
                            rides: 93 Crown Vic LX (The Red Velvet Cake), 2000 Crown Vic base model (Sandy), 2003 Expedition (the vacation beast)
                            Originally posted by gadget73
                            ... and it should all work like magic and unicorns and stuff.
                            Originally posted by dmccaig
                            Overhead, some poor bastards are flying in airplanes.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Sly, is this the thread you are referring to: http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...-Core-Write-Up?

                              We'll see how long it takes me to sort through all the pics write explanations to go with each pic/group of pics.
                              Vic

                              ~ 1989 MGM LS Colony Park - Large Marge
                              ~ 1998 MGM LS - new DD
                              ~ 1991 MGM LS "The Scab"
                              ~ 1991 MGM GS "The Ice Car"

                              Comment

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