1997 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Oh look, a 3G came back, but not the good kind:


Apparently alternators for Panthers are incredibly wanted by those at the junkyard, and essentially every Panther I visited except this freshly placed '92 MGM had one. The alternator being only one available and on a '92 and such resulted with me having with a 7 rib pulley instead of the '93+ 6 rib pulley and being a 95 amp small case 3G. It is a Ford rebuilt one, so I've got that going, which is nice. It charges well and seems to be in good shape.

If I come across a better 130 amp 3G alternator, I might grab it, but for now, this one is working just fine. I've also tested it to see whether or not the belt might skip between ribs at WOT, but the belt has stayed put, so I'm not concerned about the pulley having an extra rib for the time being (plus, I have no tools in which to take a pulley off an alternator anyhow, lol)...


In the case of the 6G alternator I had on it beforehand, it was did okay for about a week after I swapped the connector when the old one was coming apart and was failing to make contact. The battery light stopped coming on and it seemed fine. Today I was driving and the charge light came on for about 3 to 5 minutes. I turned off most of my accessories and kept on until it went away. Unfortunately, it started the intermittent on-off deal, so it was in my best interest at that point to grab a replacement alternator since I was no longer feeling comfortable running the car at any distance with the possibility of full alternator failure.

[TecNickal]

We tried to go to Orangeburg and Columbia junkyards - both closed

Glad you got your alt fixed for now.

[sly]

Parts house 92 police alt is the 130A with the correct plug. Yeah, comes with the 7-rib pulley, but a quick swap of the pulleys solves that problem.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

We tried to go to Orangeburg and Columbia junkyards - both closed

Glad you got your alt fixed for now.

It's not exactly what I wanted, but I definitely needed it.

The Augusta yard has real fresh selection. There's a 1990 TC with the same wheels yours have. I really like how those look, TBH. Its a base model with a tan interior. There's other decent selection if you happen to come down one of these days.

[TecNickal]

Maybe Saturdayyyyyyyyyyy We shall see...

[Kodachrome Wolf]

The car became a victim of circumstance. A literal perfect storm of shit.




Yep. Bike versus car. I was attempting to turn left from a friend of the family's house. The trouble with their driveway is that to the direct right of the entry are these fir trees they put up, then right beside that at the border of the driveway is a huge bush. You cannot see anything from the right, sidewalk or road. Because the vision of the road is obscured, I don't pull out fast since I go to the center turn lane and then enter the flow of traffic when clear. Any how, anyone coming down the sidewalk from the east would not ever see a car coming out of the driveway. You can see where this is going. I've never liked leaving this driveway for this reason since I've always worried about someone walking down the sidewalk and I appear before them. Well, I managed to do exactly what I was afraid of, except with someone biking down the sidewalk.

The guy was okay after he sat down for a bit. He declined any medical service, but I still had the police come out, just so I actually had documentation for the BS. They ruled it was still private property when the accident occurred, so only a little info was given (essentially just contact info). The guy just wanted money to get a new bike (frame was bent), so I just got him the cash to replace it. The dude was kinda sketchy and not all there and all he wanted to do was get gone, so I was sorta in the "screw it" mentality.

I've since buffed on the fender with some polish and wax to assess the damage.




Needless to say, I'm probably just going to grab a straight junkyard one and get it repainted if I can't find a color matching one. The one I have is right dicked. At least the hood and other bits were spared, save for a slight rub mark I found on the hood. I polished on it and it's barely noticeable.


Maybe I should go get a '92-'94 fender and rock a mast antenna. I could just reroute the antenna wire since I've never found the rear glass one to be that great when you're getting some range on the station transmitter and you're going over hills. Cars with the mast antennas seem to do a bit better.

[DerekTheGreat]

Sorry about the car! Maybe I'm a dick but I see that as not your fault, it's a 50/50 situation. I'd ask for money to fix my car, he probably stole that bike anyhow.

I read an earlier post... A 6G alternator? I briefly heard of those while reading up for my 3G swap. What are the advantages?

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Sorry about the car! Maybe I'm a dick but I see that as not your fault, it's a 50/50 situation. I'd ask for money to fix my car, he probably stole that bike anyhow.

I read an earlier post... A 6G alternator? I briefly heard of those while reading up for my 3G swap. What are the advantages?

Yeah, I'd call the accident 50/50, but if I play the devil's advocate, Georgia classifies bicycles as a "vehicle". Regulations on "vehicles" is that they cannot be driven or rode upon sidewalks, which is exactly where this guy was riding his bike. So technically, he shouldn't have been there to start with, but instead should have been using the road to bike on. But it's over now, no sense it going crazy over it.

Regarding the alternators, for a time I had a 6G alternator from a '98 CVPI (6Gs were available on all '98-'02 CVPIs). They put out 130 amps just like the 3G alternator, but its rotational mass is lower, so it's a bit better at charging at idle or lower RPM operation. Unfortunately the one I had was almost double my car's own mileage and bit the dust with probably around 300K on it. With regards to what I have now, I found an old 4G alternator laying in my garage that I took off my aunt's '01 MGM. It puts out 110 amps, but it sure is better than the 95 amp small case 3G when you have a lot of stuff running. When we were experiencing the heavy rains, I'd frequently notice that the load on it just dragged everything down until I took off from a stop. The wipers sped back up, the A/C blower picked up, and the dash board would brighten up. No troubles of that sort with the 130 amp 3G, 4G, or 6G.

Now a 6G on a Box? I'm not sure if there was ever an application for one that would mount in such a position. Maybe there was one for the Mustang at some point, but I'm not sure if it would mount the same as the 3G that everyone uses when they ditch that 2G firetrap.


Edit: There might be an 6G application that the Boxes could use, but someone would have to test it. The 2001-2004 3.8 Mustangs did use a 6G alternator that appears to mounts just like their 3G alternators from the 1994-2000 models. Just a thought if anyone was willing to give it a go. The 6Gs on those Mustangs were rated between 105-110 amps.

[79lincolnlover]

Was he wearing a helmet?

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Was he wearing a helmet?

Nope.

[killgore]

IN FAIRNESS I cycle lots of places without a helmet on. I'm the ballsy kid that rides on the side of the highway. That being said, I have lights on and usually am pretty observant and aware of my surroundings.

Sucks that the guy screwed up your car. Good news is no one was hurt.

[sxcpotatoes]

Solution for the future. Get on your horn in short bursts, longer bursts and just BLARE it while creeping slowly towards that exit until you get where you can fully see to the right (granted that puts you halfway into the street, but from what it sounds like, you can see alright to the left to make sure you're not gonna get creamed by somebody going in that lane).

[88Vic]

Yep, hit the horn next time. That's why trucks have reverse beepers and why a lot of companies require drivers to hit their horn a couple times when they go into reverse. Make people around you aware of you, even if they can't see you or you can't see them.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Changed the rear differential fluid with fresh Red Line 75w-140 gear oil. Everything seemed fairly clean inside, no shavings or bits that didn't belong. Closing it back up, I opted to use an actual gasket between the differential and the cover instead of using black RTV. Part number for that gasket is P27608TC; should work on cars equipped with the 8.8 rear axle.

I'm not sure if my car ever had the differential gear oil changed before. I never saw a mention of it in the maintenance receipts, so if not, it went almost 161K on the original oil. I have my doubts, but at least now I have the comfort of knowing it has been done.


I also have a fender that will be going on the car whenever I get around to having it painted. It's from a '94, so I had to order a cap for the hole where the antenna should go. The irony is that the fender was the straightest panel on the donor car, the rest of it had been crushed by a tree.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Been a while since I updated anything about the car.

I've been gathering some parts to do this:





The whole setup is literally cobbled together from different Town Cars and a Continental. The wheel is from a 2000 TC, clock spring, wheel harness, redundant control module, wheel switches, and various connectors are from a '96 TC, air bag from a '95 Continental, and the wiring harness I made up for the redundant control module from a '95 TC. The air bag had to get a different connector shell put on after I realized the plug wasn't the same. I took the connector shell off a TC air bag and swapped it on so it would work. The wiring harness I made for the redundant control module was almost 90% recycled from a '95 Town Car I harvested a JBL system from. I found I only needed a specific set of wires that I could simply pin into my existing harness in the trunk when I come to install that system, so I was going to toss the rest. When I started on this today, I found that the JBL harness had enough wires of proper length (and some the correct colors) to do this project. I'm kind of glad I hadn't tossed it since I had needed 10 wires, all around 5 to 6 feet long.

I'm about 80% done with this project. I just have to sort out why the Fan and Temperature switches only work when the lights are on. The radio wires haven't been hooked up yet, but I did get the necessary wires on the connector that is supposed to plug into the premium harness I have waiting to go in. That's a project for next weekend.

Otherwise, everything else works for now.


As stated above, the other future project is installing a JBL audio system. I have essentially a complete system, but subwoofer fitment might be my only challenge at this time.