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

[VicCrownVic]

Holy crap, I'm glad I've never seen coolant passages like that on any of my cars.

You're well on you way to making that engine bay match the rest of the car (making it look nice).

[Giraffe]

More progress. Taking pictures and marking the distributor did the trick. Dropped in perfectly after a couple of tries.

I threw in a new Motorcraft fuel filter and was pleasantly surprised to find it in a spot that's much easier to get at than in front of the tank on a Mustang. Took about ten seconds to start with the empty fuel system, but it fired right up and sounds great.

I did have one leak on the throttle body, though. The old gasket came apart, so I used copper RTV. I guess I applied too thin of a coat along with not letting it cure long enough. I removed the old sealant and applied a thicker coat the second time around and decided to take apart the front accessories and clean them up to kill time.

What I started with. The PCV filter was completely clogged (the screen on the bottom of the filter had actually come off and was chilling on top of the baffle). I'm betting it definitely contributed to the terrible shape the gaskets were in. All the cork gaskets were completely soaked through and came out in pieces. Nasty.

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Getting better. This was with engine degreaser and the garden hose. I still plan to get some more degreaser and hit it with the high-pressure hose at the car wash.



Much better! Also started cleaning up the brackets and even brushed the bolts as clean as I could get them. I'll finish the passenger side accessories tomorrow. Still not 100% clean, but I'm satisfied until I can hit it with high-pressure water.

[87gtVIC]

The effort is worth it. Those dirt roads sure did a number on that engine compartments looks. You are taking care of it quite nicely.

That is a bunch of fiddly parts you are removing in order to get the results you are looking for. Much respect.

[Giraffe]

That's a great compliment coming from someone with a car as nice as yours! All the cleaning is definitely worth it. I'll be doing the pressure wash later this week; hopefully that takes care of the rest of it. The garden hose just doesn't have enough pressure to knock loose the dirt embedded everywhere.

Everything was fairly easy to take apart and reinstall. I finally got to use my OTC power steering pulley puller/installer set.

I didn't bother cleaning the alternator or A/C compressor as they'll both need to be replaced. A 3G is in this car's future.



Braces were the last things to be installed. So much cleaner than before.



I still have an oil leak dripping that doesn't look residual. I'm betting the clogged PCV screen killed some other gaskets. Going to look into replacing the oil pan gasket sometime in the future.

I also started flushing it today and will finish up tomorrow. I've gone through about eight gallons of distilled water and it didn't really start getting any clearer until about the fifth gallon. I have five gallons left; all will be going through. I'm thinking that it was just never flushed. I don't know. All I know for sure is that I now have heat! It gets really toasty in the cabin now. Almost there...

[Giraffe]

Forgot to mention that I did some small things here and there to kill time in between flushes and cool downs.

I hit up the rear door handles and locks with a lot of WD40. My rear power locks work like a charm and the door handles are much smoother. I also fixed both passenger side window motors and greased the sliders, tracks and regulators. The rear passenger side gave me a scare when it stopped working while down all the way. It was being finicky and decided to suddenly work again. So that motor won't be used until I can get a new one.

Recap:
All four windows were inoperative when I bought it; they all work now.

The rear door locks refused to move; they work now. The fronts will likely need new actuators.

Terrible oil leaks when I first bought it. The new gaskets look like they did the trick for the top end. It also gave me the opportunity to really clean all the old baked on oil and dirt.

No heat and no movement on the coolant "gauge" when I first started driving it daily. I had to stop driving it when it got really cold. Too cold to drive 25 minutes to work in a car with no heat. The flush in progress seems to have already cured that issue; only need to get the coolant looking nice as well. It's ready to be a daily driver again!

[jaywish]

You have straight water in the engine? Is it getting below freezing where you are?

[Giraffe]

Not right now. It's been warm in WF. 'Twas 70 on Christmas Day.

[DerekTheGreat]

After all that work you should put 50/50 in it to prevent corrosion from setting back in. No bars leak or any of that gick that will just gum up your coolant passages either.

[Giraffe]

I'm back at it right now. The last few gallons wil be going through after which I have some 50/50 that's going in. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to flush it once more with the 50/50 to ensure that I get as much of the straight water out of the engine, right? Draining the radiator only takes care of about half the total capacity.

[DerekTheGreat]

Couldn't hurt. We flushed the bejesus out of our GMC, kept going until the coolant in the radiator looked like it did out of the bottle.

[jaywish]

The way I do it is find the coolant system capacity in the manual. Buy enough straight stuff for 1/2 the capacity.

After a complete fresh water flush,
drain the plain water out including lower hose.
Close the drain and attach the hoses.
Add the 1/2* system capacity straight 100% Coolant.
Top off and burp with water.
This way you get the exact % of coolant you want.

* Given you are in a generally warm place you may only want 40-45% coolant 55-60% water. This will provide just slightly better cooling and provide sufficient anti-freeze, corrosion and anti-boil protection. If you take a ride to Alaska or North Dakota in the winter you may need to bring it up to 50%.

[DerekTheGreat]

You don't want tap water either, distilled. Why my ass just buys the 50/50 in the bottle so I don't have to muddle with chemistry.

[Giraffe]

It could still use another flush or two, but I ran out of coolant and distilled water. While the fluid is still a little brown, the heat blows nice and hot, and the car warms up nicely with the coolant temp "gauge" hovering consistently over the "O" in "NORMAL". The needle was very erratic (chunks?) for the first two flushes after which it started to settle down a bit and the heat started to blow hotter.

Pictures.

I went through fifteen gallons of distilled water. Some flushes came out clearer than others. I think the inconsistency was due to the random dislodging of the brown stuff. A couple of those Prestone bottles also have old fluid in them. I kept one of the gallons empty so I could pour into it first to assess the color after which it went in the Prestone bottles once I ran out of empty water jugs.



The spark plugs, wires, cap and rotor are all original. New ones are on the way. 1990!



One last fill, and a brand new Motorcraft radiator cap to top it all off. Pressure wash will happen tomorrow. Also need to buy some more antifreeze to top it off (just a little low) so I can maybe flush it a bit more to get it clearer.

[DerekTheGreat]

LoL nice. I used a garden hose to help with the GMC in the initial flushes. Wow that shit was nasty, chunks galore and what not..

[jaywish]

Yup I usually do the flush with a hose. Even use one of those Prestone t fittings. Might use a short chem flush on a "new" vehicle which may have been coolant neglected. Then add the 100% to proper ratio and top with distilled.

So I wind up with some tap water in the final mix, not bad at all as this area does not have hard water out of the tap. Otherwise I probably would do a final flush with distilled.