VicCrownVic's 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[VicCrownVic]

Got a hood today. It's not perfect, but better than what I had. The color of the new-to-me fender seems to match this (re)sprayed, not original to the donor car, made in Taiwan, hood. So, the touchup paint that I got for my car is a perfect match for my car, but not the parts that I touched up. Complete repaint of at least the front end will have to be something for next year if I decide to go that route.
As mentioned, this hood is made in Taiwan, not an original hood. It sounds like an old hood when opening and closing. Definitely made different from the original. The hinges and supports are were not swapped, it's the hood itself and how it is constructed. Also, I swapped the hood right there in the parking lot of U-pull in Pontiac, then took my original hood back in for the $5 core charge.

You can see the color difference between the original(?) color of my car and the donated parts, and if you look closely you can probably see the darker touchup that does not match the fender but would match my presumably original color.

The bumper cover does need a little attention still, it's not quite lined up right. Although I will NOT do it the same way that the hood donor car had it done:


Yes, body filler over the 3 inch wood screw.
You can maybe see the end of the screw in the second picture.

Also, what I've learned about whale fenders, CV fenders and MGM fenders are not the same '98-02. CV fenders appear to be the same '98+ as '03+ MGM fenders. As far as I can tell they should mount the same, it's just the cornering light area that is different. Also, MGM and CV header panels are different. Again, should mount the same, it's the area around the grill that is different. CV has body color header panel area visible around the grill while MGM does not. Didn't really study aero fenders, but MGM appears to possibly be the same '92-'02, while CV appears to possibly run '92+ the same as MGM '03+.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Also, what I've learned about whale fenders, CV fenders and MGM fenders are not the same '98-02. CV fenders appear to be the same '98+ as '03+ MGM fenders. As far as I can tell they should mount the same, it's just the cornering light area that is different. Also, MGM and CV header panels are different. Again, should mount the same, it's the area around the grill that is different. CV has body color header panel area visible around the grill while MGM does not. Didn't really study aero fenders, but MGM appears to possibly be the same '92-'02, while CV appears to possibly run '92+ the same as MGM '03+.

One can certainly do a bit of mix-n-match on front end parts depending on the year, but your findings are generally concurrent with some of the lists that are floating around about what works where.

IIRC, '92-'11 CV and '03-'11 Marquis fender is the same, '92-'02 Marquis fender is the same. The only caveat is any '92-'94 fender will have a hole for the radio antenna, and in rare instances a delete plug. The header panels are different given the different headlight/grille designs, but you can swap them interchangeably if you have the correct fenders to match whatever nose/style you're going for.

My '97 has been wearing a '93 Marquis fender on the passenger side for several years after the original got caved in. I found one of the radio antenna delete plugs and tossed it on, so it's the only obvious tell something's off.

At least your front end has gone back together pretty quick and well. At least everything is close enough in shading for the time being to be passable until/if you decide to go about getting everything sprayed to match the rest of the car.

[VicCrownVic]

Neat to learn new things. I had based all of that on just what I saw. No verification by part numbers or anything. The reason I ended up learning all about this sucks, but it's also hard to learn when everything just goes according to plan. I did notice that about the headlights, grille, and header panel; have to match the correct headlights and grille to the header panel.

I can definitely live with the slight differences in shades for a bit, even the blue header panel isn't that bad. It will bug me but not enough to be compelled to do something about it. This hood was definitely not sprayed in a professional paint booth. I see so many little things in it, but you really have to be up close to notice. It also needed at least one more coat of base color since the black primer(?) is faintly noticeable here and there. Pretty sure this is a reproduction hood, made in Taiwan, from some place like eBay or even Rockauto. You know, the ones that come to you in black primer.

[Tiggie]

I think it's looking pretty darn good considering you haven't painted anything. Most people wouldn't notice. Hopefully the deer will notice and get out of the way next time.

[87gtVIC]

Holy wood screw and body filler!

Its great finding stuff close in color.

[DerekTheGreat]

That "Black primer" is actually ecoat. It's just black instead of gray to differentiate between OEM and aftermarket. Epoxy based, so that's why you see them all chalky and rusty around here. The boys in Detroit tend not to paint them because "they're already painted" and so that's the result.

Nice job on the installation of the body panels, gaps look nice. When I put the front end together of that Mark VII I bought off Stidman, the gaps were horrible. I clearly didn't know WTF I was doing, but at least the car was assembled. Someday another Mark VII will be in my life again.

[VicCrownVic]

Reading through the WAYWO thread reminded me that I haven't posted in my RR thread in a while.

I swapped the Winter wheels and tires on at the beginning of the month. Tires need a good cleaning. Actually the entire car does, but I cleaned the wheels up while I was swapping them on. Had my Krown appointment today.
Picture from earlier this month:


The TPMS sensor batteries are beginning to die slowly one by one. The first one died on the way up to my parent's place the day I went up there to swap wheels. The second one died last week. So I'm expecting the other 2 to die soon. Ordered a 5 pack of batteries after the first one died. I'm sure the original batteries were the cheapest Chineseium money could buy, Comsan brand (yep: http://www.comsan.net/index.htm).




Off topic, found an interesting mushroom the day I swapped the wheels in the woods in the background of the car pic above. Yellow variant of Fly Agaric. First time I've seen one.



Went on a trip up north, almost 200 miles one way, this past weekend and found another mushroom that I had never seen before. This one is a coral mushroom, but I'm not confident enough in my ability to identify it as edible to try it.
I had picked the large part the day before but didn't get a picture. Took pictures the next day and put the large part back next to the smaller pieces for the first pic. It looks like it might be crown tip coral which is edible but, as I said, I did not want to chance it.



I also found some small puff ball mushrooms but they had already gone to spore way past edible.

[DerekTheGreat]

Shrooms. Aren't those an indicator something is rotting under them?

Had the Tahoe and K1500 Krown'd last month. Since I bitched last year about a subpar job, the owner let me inspect both before they came off the hoist. First time I didn't have to invest in cans to touch up their work, they even hosed down the exhaust systems..

The one "new" dude there was butthurt, tried to tell me I should have taken my issue up with the person who sprayed my vehicles, not the company. Like, uh, I'm a consumer, not a detective. If the consumable sucks, I go after the business. It's then the business owner's job to tidy up the employees. He then tried telling me my truck was a rusty piece of shit, but with "soft" language. I fixed that pretty quick, dude had nothing to say after I was done with him. Kind of a first for me, usually everyone wants the last word and it never ends..

[VicCrownVic]

Story time. A tale of how I'm not too smart sometimes.

Car wouldn't start (crank no start) when I went to go to work yesterday morning. I just drove it the night before after work to a dental appointment with no indication of any issue. So I ended up working from home yesterday.

My first thought was this was a self-induced problem caused by the addition of my tach adapter (a year and a half ago). So after hooking up FORScan and finding no codes, I figured that bypassing my tach adapter was the best starting point. I spent way more time than I should have bypassing my tach adapter only to find I still had the crank no start. A neighbor of mine that often helps when I need a hand came over to look at it with me. We had fuel, we had spark (after messing with my hack bypass of the tach adapter), and it sometimes seemed like it wanted to start or maybe fired on just one cylinder. I even grabbed another key to see if my securi key had gone bad, but still crank no start with another key.

At this point I gave up for the night and decided to forum browse to see what common causes there were for crank no start. The most common consensus seemed to be crank and cam position sensors. Although the fix did come from my forum browsing, it was not crank or cam sensor as I'll get into.

So today, I ducked out of work (from home) early and my aunt came from about 5 miles away to help take me to a local place where I grabbed both sensors. Replaced the crank position sensor, still crank no start. Replaced the cam position sensor, still crank no start. I did not see anything security related when I had looked in FORScan, and I know from using a non-securi key (regular mechanical key) that it will show something logged in there about the key not being authorized. I decided to hookup my ARA3 anyway to see if it would start with that PCM. It still would crank and not start, so it was not likely PATS related issue. At this point a comment in a thread in another forum, a comment that I really didn't put much thought into, popped back into my mind. I decided to do what that commenter said and tried to start the car while pushing the accelerator, and sure as stink on a turd it started right the F up.

Unhooked the ARA3, put everything back the way it was, verified same results with the stock PCM, then proceeded to go with my aunt to grab a TPS locally. Of course, I ended up stripping the Phillips heads on the TPS bolts, so my aunt took me to the hardware store to get some proper hex head bolts and now I can use a 1/4" ratchet with 8mm socket like a normal setup should have.

Now, I "should have done this" or I "should have done that" but keep in mind that I probably left out some details here and there and may have done some of those things that you're thinking of. Still, I'm not too smart sometimes, so any education is appreciated.


In other uninteresting news, the 4th and final TPMS sensor battery died about 3 weeks ago. The chinesium batteries didn't even last a year; we'll see how long the Energizer or Duracell (whatever I got) last. The monitor itself seems to have a bad connection to the screen causing half of it to go dim, but it comes back if I touch it so I think it's likely a bad solder joint that I probably will never get around to fixing.

[Tiggie]

Give yourself some credit. You worked your regular job and still fixed it without hauling it to a mechanic. Glad you got it running.

[VicCrownVic]

Give yourself some credit. You worked your regular job and still fixed it without hauling it to a mechanic. Glad you got it running.

Lol, thanks. I just felt really silly after all the effort I went through, all I had to do was push the accelerator pedal.

[friskyfrankie]

Sometimes the best fixes are the easiest and cheapest!

[VicCrownVic]

Out with the old:


In with the new-to-me:


Not a whole lot of direct plans for this car this year. The main plan for this car is easing up on the workload, which means focusing on making the boxes reliable backups capable of splitting the workload. I've owned this car a little over 3 years now and have already put over 40K miles on. Of course, the boxes will not be seeing winter duty unless absolutely necessary, but the annual Krown treatment this car gets is doing what it should.

[VicCrownVic]

It only took me 3 years to swap in a driveshaft that I bought long before I bought this car.
Finally got it done over the weekend.

[DerekTheGreat]

Well, it's not like it NEEDED to be done. Notice anything different?