My 1989 Grand Marquis “Clifford”

[GMUE03]

I remember seeing this pop up on Facebook marketplace a while back. I was tempted but I have too many cars lol. Beautiful color.

I agree with you on working on these cars. They’re very simplistic compared to anything remotely new. Plus they’re cheap and there’s a lot of room under the hood to work with. I’m never getting rid of either my boxes.

Hey that’s neat. It was in Vero. The ad said “power windows, cold ac” LOL. Thank you!

Yea, that list of things in my post totaled out to be a little over $700. Not bad for a laundry list of stuff.

[GMUE03]

Got all of my front end stuff in from Rock Auto. Also rented an internal coil spring compressor for good measure.
So next weekend I’m gonna tackle new coil springs and insulators, shocks, sway bar links, sway bar bushings and possibly upper control arm bushings.

My plan of attack (let me know if I’m missing something here):
•get front end off ground and remove wheels
•put jack under lower control arm to relive spring tension
•remove shock
•disconnect sway bar link
•disconnect upper control arm ball joint
•disconnect tie rod
•slowly lower jack to allow the spring to fully extend
•remove spring from vehicle


Maybe someone could point me in the right direction here. I’ve noticed just by looking at the front of the car that my camber seems wayy too negative.



Camber seems off on both sides, but it worse on the passenger side, which just so happens to sit an inch lower than the drivers side. Could it be possible that my blown ride hight could be contributing to negative camber like what’s shown? I guess worn control arms could cause negative camber like this as well?

After getting the front wheels off the ground and giving them a good tug I don’t feel any vertical or horizontal play in either side. I’d imagine blown control arm bushings would give me some sort of play? I could be wrong.

[Arquemann]

Plan sounds good, internal spring compressor is the key to not getting maimed (and getting springs back in).

I think these cars get more negative camber when lowered. But you should pry on the control arms to see if the bushes are sloppy, giving the wheel a tug isn't that much force on them.
By the pics the camber doesn't look too excessive, but you should definitely get an alignment after you're done changing parts under there.

[GMUE03]

Plan sounds good, internal spring compressor is the key to not getting maimed (and getting springs back in).

I think these cars get more negative camber when lowered. But you should pry on the control arms to see if the bushes are sloppy, giving the wheel a tug isn't that much force on them.
By the pics the camber doesn't look too excessive, but you should definitely get an alignment after you're done changing parts under there.

Thanks for the input on my plan here. I’ve never messed with a non MacPherson strut so this will be my first time pulling coil springs like this.

Also interesting input on the camber situation. I’ll give that a shot. Like I said I have upper control arm bushings just in case, but I’ve heard they’re not fun to change. I was thinking using my vice to press the old ones out and press the new ones in.



Maybe my picture doesn’t do a justice. The car looks like it’s trying to say “KACHOWW!” when you’re looking directly at the front of it haha. We’ll see how it looks after all the new stuff goes on. Hoping the Lesjöfors HD front springs get the stock ride hight back (only option Rockauto had). The front left side is actually hitting the bump stops .

As the car sits now, my alignment is a hot mess. I need to keep the wheel pointed at 10 o’clock to keep the car driving straight, so it definitely needs a good toe alignment at the least. Once I have everything put together I’ll have new tires put on and an alignment done at the same time.