VicCrownVic's 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

[DerekTheGreat]

Hmm. About the only thing I know about heat range is that you can try hotter if you're fouling plugs due to oil consumption. Can't help ya with much else.

[Mainemantom]

If the Motorcraft plugs had blue stripes on them, then they are from the factory.
I like the Bosch plugs however there are fake ones floating around. There is some information on how to tell on the internet.

[VicCrownVic]

Oh, the Motorcraft plugs do have the blue stripes. Not surprised since I acquired this car with 63K miles on it. As for the new Bosch plugs, they came from RockAuto and appear to be genuine.

[VicCrownVic]

So the cruise "Set" button has not worked for a while. It was not working at first, before I bought the car, when I test drove the car until I man handled the "Set" button to potentially break through corrosion. That did the trick and it worked ok after that for a while but was hard to get it to register a button press until it quit all together (last Summer). Since then I've just been hitting the coast button which works for the initial set function, but have been living without the "press the SET button while cruise is on to increase 1MPH" feature (probably what did the original "Set" button in! )

I picked up a new-to-me cruise button assembly months ago from the JY with the intent of de-soldering one of the momentary switches (I assumed at least one had to be good) and transferring it to my cruise button assembly. That is just what I did. I took the JY assembly apart a few days ago and de-soldered the switch that tested best. The first switch I tested (Coast) tested good. Tested Res and Set and both would not register until I man handled them a bit. So the Coast button won the short straw to be the donor. Finally finished the job today and got to test drive. Cruse "Set" button now works as it should.

I also tested the old momentary switch and could not get it to register a press no matter what I did.

And, because everyone loves pictures, here is a picture of the JY board (missing the donor switch that is now in my car) and the old switch from my car (dime for scale).

[Giraffe]

Good work! I like these kinds of fixes. I would assume that the coast button simply gets used the least.

[VicCrownVic]

Before I picked up the spare button assembly, that was my thought as well that buttons other than "Set" would be used less meaning I should have a good chance of at least one momentary switch being good. Figured at least the "Set" button would be bad on any any button assembly I picked up. This one turned out that "Set" and "Res" weren't too bad, but there is no good way of replacing the whole assembly without splicing at least on of the wires. Once I figured that out, I stuck to the original plan of just replacing the momentary switch on the existing board. That and my "Res" and "Coast" button work every time so there was no sense in trading down.

[Arquemann]

I broke apart and cleaned up the cruise/ left stalk on my Volvo as the cruise didn't work. Had to fix the cruise in the MGM aswell. I need cruise control.
Then there's my mom who commutes 45min x2 mostly on the highway everyday and hasn't even touched the cruise.

[DerekTheGreat]

My dad is that way. Has to have luxury cars, but never uses a single damn feature on 'em.

[VicCrownVic]

Tpms

Added another gizmo, finally mounted it today after riding around on the cup holder/ashtray for a week or two.



Cheap (under $30) TPMS from eBay. It actually works well enough for me. Need to adjust my tire pressures but I'll get to that eventually.
The sensors with this kit are external valve stem cap sensors. Per the instructions that came with this unit I should be able to install internal sensors; the factory kind on the bottom of the valve stem inside the wheel.

The first day I set this up the pressures were higher, possibly because the outside air temp was higher. (PV=nRT, if T is higher P must also be higher since V, n, R are either constant or see negligible change). The right rear was at 38 and the left 2 were at 35 and the front right was 31 that day. I set the max pressure alarm at 40 PSI and when I drove that day RR went to 40 (around 45 minutes of driving) and set the alarm off. Neat to know that function works. I did later lower the presser in that tire to about 35 like the left tires. I also know low pressure alarm works since I tested the first sensor in the house on my nephews scooter the night before putting it in the car.

Charged it fully by micro USB when I first got it a week or two ago and haven't charged it since. The mounting base has a solar panel and even riding around on my cup holder/ashtray it got enough solar energy to remain charged.

When it sits still it will shut off after 3 minutes. It will automatically turn back on when it senses vibration. Instructions say when you open your door, but that's not enough in may case. (How hard do other people open and close doors to trigger this thing? ) I haven't gone for a drive yet with it mounted, didn't even start the engine although I should have to see if it would turn on automatically. It does turn on when I wiggle/tap it. (Holding the power button will turn it all the way off with no auto on ability in that off state.) When it was on the cup holder ashtray I never actually noticed it off, but I have verified that the auto off (standby?) feature does indeed work.

This unit displays in white light, but I ordered some green headlight tint and put 3 layers of that on to make it green enough. Not quite a match to the other gauges but good enough to fit with the green theme that it doesn't bother me. One more layer of tint might have been the right shade of green but I was afraid it looked too dark to be readable in the car. The clock portion has blue tint from the manufacturer, but it wasn't something I could remove and if it all was one color the display might be a bit too busy. The blue contrast breaks it up a bit, and the clock sort of matches the compass .

TPMS:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/154834625583

Green Tint:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/161994370256?var=460954538169

[87gtVIC]

That is pretty cool.

[VicCrownVic]

Went to the junkyard today in Pontiac.
Found a 2000 MGM with a factory power port right of the trans tunnel above the passenger's left foot. I didn't know that was an option, but now my car has it.

'98 seems to have all kinds of weird things that are different from previous model years that later model years ditched in favor of the old setup. This panel under the glove box being one of them. '98 partial panel on the left, 2000 full panel on the right like the full panels found in previous years before '98 ('91 for sure.) Time to add this feature in The Scab. The white splotches I think are the result of me washing this panel... I'll find a nicer one to match the condition of my original '98 weird half panel and this panel can go into The Scab.



Pic of it installed. Now my wife can leave my cords alone. I get the top center port in the ashtray, kids/backseat get the lower port under the cup holder/ashtray (long cord reaches back there just fine) and wife gets this new port.



Because '98 had that stupid weird half panel thing, the third Christmas tree clip (upper left corner of the power port area) doesn't have a hole to go into, so plugging into the port moves the port a bit. I'll get under there and drill a hole for that clip eventually.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

That's funny that '98 had an attenuated panel. Wonder what their thinking was.

Some similar stuff happened with that outlet. My '97 didn't offer the extra 12v outlet, but in '96 it was available.

[Mainemantom]

If anyone finds an extra factory option port/panel for an aero, please get it for me. It will be useful.

[VicCrownVic]

Picture from the heater core write up, the panel from a '91 MGM (The Ice Car) looks to be minorly different from the 2000 panel. The 2000 panel has a larger electrical connector to cover so that piece on the right (left in the pic of the 2000 because it is upside down) is larger. So putting a '91 panel in a 2000 would not fit well but a 2000 panel in a '91 looks like it will fit like a glove. The retainer (red arrow in pic below) is even in the same spot.
Making the power port functional in a '91 would be the only real work and that's simple for me. I wired the one in the '98 pretty quick after I got home from the JY this afternoon.

Tom, same should go for an aero, the panel is nearly identical '91 and 2000, so a 2000 panel should fit your aero.

[87gtVIC]

I understand the dashes changed around the 90 model year for the cv and gmq's..I wonder how off this panel is on the older box dashes. Never seen this panel before (never looked into the interiors of the newer models much at all) and think they are kinda cool. Looking good!