Buyer's Remorse (AKA "Hideous") - Giraffe's 1990 Grand Marquis LS

[Giraffe]

Made some more progress today. Changed the oil; added one quart of Lucas oil stabilizer and four quarts of 10W-40. It doesn't knock when cold and didn't before the oil change. We'll see how it does in the future.

I swapped the rear passenger window motor into the front driver's door and now have a working power window; it operates very smoothly, too. I'll purchase a new motor for the rear passenger side sometime in the future. It's not high on my priority list. I now only have the front passenger window motor that still needs new plugs.

I also threw on a power lock switch that I grabbed from the junkyard and now am getting some movement on the rear door locks. Still nothing on the front actuators. Thinking that I need new actuators up front.

I polished up the dome light I pulled from the junkyard a couple weeks ago and it looks great. I still need to get the clear cover that was suggested before. Also swapped in the HVAC controls I pulled from the same car. Everything works great now.

Fixed the odometers with some new gears. This was a priority for me as the fuel gauge doesn't work. I topped it off and will do so again after driving about 100 miles so I can get a feel for what kind of fuel mileage I'm getting. This will suffice as a "fuel gauge" until I can install a new sender.

I think that's about it. I didn't get any pictures because I was busy and didn't get around to it. It was already dark by the time I finished up. I won't be driving the car next week as we're supposed to be getting some Arctic air coming through. The car doesn't really get up to a very warm temperature; the heat is non-existent as a result. Thinking the previous owner installed a low-rating thermostat? Or perhaps a bad heater valve. I don't really know. I'll be tackling the cooling/heating system sometime in the future. I have a cart saved on Rock Auto to replace everything. Hoses, radiator, heater core, etc.

[VicCrownVic]

Only some movement from the rear locks? The Scab was like that when I got it, lubed everything that I could with a spray can of either WD-40 or some lithium spray lube and those locks were working great after that. I need to do the same to The Ice Car since it takes multiple hits of the lock button to get the doors locked or unlocked.

My first guess on the heat would be clogged heater core. How does the coolant look? I've had success flushing the heater core but with one of mine it only lasted a couple months before it was weak heat again. New core has been in a few years now and the heat still cooks. Once you get that new heater core it might be worth having a whole system flush done before installing the new heater core.

[Giraffe]

Only some movement from the rear locks? The Scab was like that when I got it, lubed everything that I could with a spray can of either WD-40 or some lithium spray lube and those locks were working great after that. I need to do the same to The Ice Car since it takes multiple hits of the lock button to get the doors locked or unlocked.

My first guess on the heat would be clogged heater core. How does the coolant look? I've had success flushing the heater core but with one of mine it only lasted a couple months before it was weak heat again. New core has been in a few years now and the heat still cooks. Once you get that new heater core it might be worth having a whole system flush done before installing the new heater core.

You're probably right about the locks. They're exceptionally difficult to actuate even by hand. I'll hit them with the WD40 next chance I get. I already did that with the driver's door handle and it's very smooth now; only problem I can see with that one is I believe the bushing where the handle connects with the rod is missing. It's smooth, but a bit sloppy. You get about a quarter inch of movement on the handle before the rod moves.

I've only taken a cursory glance at my coolant so far. It's honestly a bit low. It did look a bit rusty inside there, so I'm sure it could use a flush. If that cures my heat problem, even if only temporarily, I can daily drive it some more. I don't want it to sit too much. It needs to get driven so I can work more of the cobwebs out of it. I'm going to pull the trigger on all the new coolant parts come tax season if I'm not able to before.

I also noticed a loud squeaking when I started it up after the oil change. It's coming from either the smog or power steering pump. The power steering pump pulley is wobbly for some reason. The shaft is still straight; not sure what happened to the pulley to make it wobble. I'll be ordering a new one when I get a chance. I still need to get my missing muffler taken care of. I'd like to have a shop cut off the cats so I can remove the smog equipment. The older style cats need the extra air provided by the thermactor system to help the catalytic process when the engine is running dirtier when it's cold. Without it, the older cats will clog in short order. Ergo, they need to go before the smog system goes.

[VicCrownVic]

Didn't think of that, low coolant doesn't help when it comes to heat.

Not sure about the squeak, but it seems like you have some ideas where to start.

[DerekTheGreat]

My smog pump is wobbly too. Been that way since I picked it up & started driving. That was some 20k miles ago.

First thing I do whenever I get a car is get all the fluids flushed out, especially the coolant. I might not buy the car if the coolant is all rusty and nasty as Vic said, it clogs passages, eats thermostats and water pumps and in the extreme case, cylinder walls & freeze plugs. There's a guy on here with a 302 powered F series truck and he found the reason for the miss he was having- rust ate right through the cylinder bore.

[Giraffe]

Wow. That's crazy. I need to top off the coolant and then let it run through and we'll see if I can get a feel for how bad it looks. I'll be getting it flushed soon.

[Giraffe]

Some pictures of yesterday's progress. I'm really liking my "new" dome light. Just needs a new lens.



The HVAC controls aren't perfect, but they're a bit of a step up from the originals. I need to spray some more WD40 down the blender door cable. It's still a little difficult to move. It's nice to have the odometers working again. I want to swap in a Crown Victoria speedometer and coolant/fuel gauges. The silver-face Mercury cluster just doesn't do it for me. There are still some spots on the lens that wouldn't come off when I cleaned it. Looks like the PO got something slightly caustic on it.



Driver's door panel cleaned up very nicely. Went at all the crevices with a scraper (for the caked on dirt) and a detailing brush while everything was still apart. It'll need to come off again when I deal with the lock actuators, but I wanted some place to put my arm in the meantime. I could have just thrown the arm rest on, but it's not much more effort to just install the whole panel. Somewhere between removing and installing everything days later I lost the curb light bulb. The rest of the interior will come out when I clean the rest of the car.



A casualty while attempting to remove the dash trim bezel. How far back does this thing go? I plan to see if I can locate a replacement next time I'm at the junkyard.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I might have complete '93 or '94 MGM 85 MPH speedometer laying around. It's got the black faces just like the Crown Victoria, but something tells me the warning lights might not all line up and I know for a fact the printed circuit on the back is different, but it's not too hard to just swap the parts them self into your existing cluster chassis.

I Frankenstined my cluster together, using a '92 chassis, '91 MGM temp/fuel gauges, '90 140 MPH speedo, '93 odometers, and a '94 shift indicator. It works and that's what's important.

[gadget73]

The hose is something usually only seen on auto climate control cars. It should go all the way down to the bottom of the blower housing. If you pull the panel under the passenger side and look where the blower is, the tube connects to the side of it closer towards the center of the car. If you don't have ATC, you do not need this.

[VicCrownVic]

That's the driver window defrost vent. I never traced that back to where it goes while I had any of these dashes apart, but I would imagine that it goes back to the defrost duct. The white one goes from the blower housing to the sensor in the dash on ATC cars.
On aeros that duct was changed and integrated into the door panel, so a replacement hose could likely be found on an aero (not sure if whales had that feature).
Honestly I've never really noticed that vent to be useful but that might just be me. I would imagine that the door panel integrated one on the aeros is a bit more useful.

[Giraffe]

I might have complete '93 or '94 MGM 85 MPH speedometer laying around. It's got the black faces just like the Crown Victoria, but something tells me the warning lights might not all line up and I know for a fact the printed circuit on the back is different, but it's not too hard to just swap the parts them self into your existing cluster chassis.

I Frankenstined my cluster together, using a '92 chassis, '91 MGM temp/fuel gauges, '90 140 MPH speedo, '93 odometers, and a '94 shift indicator. It works and that's what's important.

Do you need to change any of the connector pinouts for that swap? The later speedometer might be easier to come by than the '90-'91 CV piece.

The hose is something usually only seen on auto climate control cars. It should go all the way down to the bottom of the blower housing. If you pull the panel under the passenger side and look where the blower is, the tube connects to the side of it closer towards the center of the car. If you don't have ATC, you do not need this.

That makes me feel better. Now I want to reach back there and remove the whole thing.

[DerekTheGreat]

If it's really nasty and gicky in the block it will also be in the radiator. Pop the cap off (when cold) and peer down around in there. If there's nothing but murky green/orange coolant it's time to flush that nastiness and replace the radiator after doing so. We bought a 1988 GMC with a 454 that had never seen a coolant flush in it's life. Coolant was so nasty it was black. We had shops flush it at least 3 times before I decided to disconnect the hoses, pop the thermostat out, flush it by hose (lots of nasty shit came out, even after 30 minutes of rinsing) alternating between the upper hose & heater core inlets & letting it drain out of the lower radiator hose. Nasty. Then threw the new radiator at it and we did two cycles of flushing using the prestone engine flush which still yielded lots of gick. Was nasty.. Afterwords though, truck never ran hot again and the coolant looked like it was bottle fresh up until we traded it, not to mention the heat was nice and hot, was luke-warm before.

[VicCrownVic]

The hose is something usually only seen on auto climate control cars. It should go all the way down to the bottom of the blower housing. If you pull the panel under the passenger side and look where the blower is, the tube connects to the side of it closer towards the center of the car. If you don't have ATC, you do not need this.

That makes me feel better. Now I want to reach back there and remove the whole thing.

Driver window defrost vent.... see previous post, but like I said I've not noticed the thing to be all that useful. So in my opinion it's not something I would put high on my priority list, so you're good to put off fixing it until you feel like it (heater core change might be a good time to do it if you do change that hose).

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Do you need to change any of the connector pinouts for that swap? The later speedometer might be easier to come by than the '90-'91 CV piece.

Yeah, the pinouts are different in some parts. The grounds definitely changed places over the years. I found that out when I tried using a '93-'94 printed circuit with my '92 connector setup and the temperature gauge pegged itself at full hot. The other differences is that some lights used on the Aeros will not be used on the Boxes, like the O/D Off light. The necessary lights you'll need are still present.

Changing those pins around on the old connectors isn't that hard, either. I had to add and remove some when I did my cluster swap. If you decide to go that route, I should have the connector diagram available for '93-'94.

[gadget73]

Driver window defrost vent.....

You people and your newfangled cars with all these crazy gizmos. Whats next, two camshafts? No distributors? Oh the horror.