kishy's 1983 Grand Marquis 2dr

[Tynnerstroem]

What a handsome car this is. The color combination is outstanding and the turbines finish it off so good.

[DerekTheGreat]

That back seat area! Looks both comfy and private. Love the rear window treatment two door cars got. That red velour is dead-sexy too.

[gadget73]

Not sure what it is with these particular front calipers but I've definitely had issues. The Conti had one start to hang up for no reason, found a bit of rust in a caliper with not a lot of miles or years on it in a car I'd flushed the brake fluid on. The ones on the Mark VII were sticky but they were original at nearly 240k. No rust, just the seals were ailing. I had problems with calipers on my previous Mark VII, and way back a long time ago when I got the Towncar, it came with one bad caliper which I changed in order to get it home and the other seized up 2 days later.

There isn;t very much clearance between the bore and the piston, and on the ones I've taken apart even without the seals the pistons can get stuck down in the bottom of the bore. Not sure if the phenolic swells or what. Steel pistons are an option but it needs different brake pads, and finding the steel calipers or pistons will cost a bunch extra for usually a more limited pad selection.

[kishy]

With my failure in the Acclaim transmission reassembly, I decided I needed a 'win'...some sort of demonstrable progress for the weekend.

I set about re-assembling the interior of the 83 MGM. This involved putting the interior trim for the back seat area back in the car (some wire tucking, a couple new trim retainers, a couple screws), also the pieces that run along the bottom of the door openings, and the kick panel trim in the foot wells. I then vacuumed out plenty of old leaves, put back the lower seat cushion, and vacuumed the seats. I screwed the cluster back in and the column trim, but can't figure out where I put the panel that covers below the column and the fuse box, or the little threaded trim knob thing for the headlight switch.







I aired up the tires and went for a drive. First, to a gas station, where I filled the tank, and it drove great minus the toe alignment problem that's existed for quite a while.
Then, onwards for a little leisure drive, but that went sideways pretty quickly. Front left caliper hung up on me and I had to stop, lest I set the car on fire. Those of you with good memories may remember that this is not the first time this problem has happened.

Limped it to a nearby friend's house, soaked it with a garden hose for a good while, then drove home. The brake did unseize and I drove carefully to avoid needing to brake heavily, using manual downshifting and just the lightest bit of pedal to try to do all of the braking on the drums.

Obviously, the car is parked until the problem is solved. Maybe I said that last time, but this time I mean it. 95-97 brake swap is the eventual destination here, and maybe sooner rather than later if I have all the parts on-hand. The expense to replace all the stuff that needs to be replaced at this point would be the same either way and I already have most of the brake swap parts.

[kishy]

Bought a couple new things for this one: ignition module (Motorcraft DY-893) and ignition coil (Standard Blue Streak FD476). As I have effectively ran out of spares, but know that my spares are working, I wanted to put new on the car so that I have a pair of spares again.

The carb/EEC-III coil bracket is very irritating to deal with. I ended up breaking the pinch screw that retains the coil in the bracket, and drilled the hole out larger to use M6 hardware that I had hanging around.







The coil that had been stuck in the bracket was surely the factory original part. The coil that has been running the car most recently was a black Standard part just sitting on top of the intake nearby. That coil is the one that's becoming the spare again.



The old Motorcraft coil went into the scrap pile because I don't trust that a coil fault (e.g. shorted windings) didn't encourage the previous module failure.

Car starts and runs, so that's good. The new Motorcraft module is incredibly light and much lower profile than the vintage ones. I'm also fairly sure this part is being manufactured by Wells, which means there is a chance that the Autozone Duralast version may actually be the same thing but with the bonus of a longer (indefinite) warranty.

2024-07-24, 65,297km

[kishy]

Washed, twice in a row due to dirt level. This was a proper wash with soap and a microfiber sponge. Realistically, the car does need some paint work, but it does clean up alright.









I can't believe the no spark issue got the best of me for so long. Even after sitting for days, this will now start easily with a couple pumps of the pedal, as it should.

[Tiggie]

The 87 T-Bird has that lovely not constant hot fuel door release, along with the trunk release that is constant hot. Side by side switches, you'd think they could source power from the same source.

[1985crownvicltd85]

Both of mine have the fuel door popper. Grand Marquis came with it and the Crown Vic I added. Both are constant hot too. I didnt know fox bodies were key on to pop open the fuel door (or manual override in the trunk) That sounds pretty annoying.

[gadget73]

They aren't constant hot on Fox cars.

[kishy]

heh, if you think the key-on to open the trunk is annoying, just be glad you don't have an electric fuel door release car.

At least those are always hot. The wagon has it and it hasn't messed me up yet, somehow.

Most annoying, by far, is no power decklid release at all and having to take apart your keys to quickly access the trunk, or shut off the engine in conditions where you didn't feel so inclined to for whatever reason. e.g. in line at customs to re-enter the country and realize some piece of paperwork you need is in the trunk, so send your passenger to the trunk to get it while you're still inching up in line.

I do find it odd that these cars never had a manual decklid release at all, but I suppose not having designed that mechanism for the car at all was a cost savings in the original engineering phase.

[gadget73]

heh, if you think the key-on to open the trunk is annoying, just be glad you don't have an electric fuel door release car.

[kishy]

Good idea bypassing the key on feature to use the trunk release. I can see why they wired it that way, but its pretty annoying at times.

Did you find anything under your back seat when pulling it up? So far I've found about $1 in change, baseball cards, and just recently tucked away in the quarter panel area (under the small quarter windows) a screwdriver.

The sequential turn signals look nice on these. It reminds me of the 60's Thunderbirds and Cougars.

Nice job.

It was easier to wire it this way, since the car wasn't equipped with the power decklid release at all. The wiring wasn't there from the factory so I guess there's some sort of sub-harness that got added at the factory if the car was going to have the option. This car is weird for being an LS with basically no real options. Power windows and cruise are the only things we usually think of as options that it has.

I found only one thing: a brand new, never used wheel arch trim screw. The chrome plated self-drilling type.

This was a one-owner car before me and I'm not sure how often, if ever, the back seat really got used. There isn't a lot of wear back there, but the materials in our cars are pretty hard-wearing in general.

[1985crownvicltd85]

Good idea bypassing the key on feature to use the trunk release. I can see why they wired it that way, but its pretty annoying at times.

Did you find anything under your back seat when pulling it up? So far I've found about $1 in change, baseball cards, and just recently tucked away in the quarter panel area (under the small quarter windows) a screwdriver.

The sequential turn signals look nice on these. It reminds me of the 60's Thunderbirds and Cougars.

Nice job.

[kishy]

Further achievements with this car:

The other day, I pulled the driver side interior stuff along the floor/into rear quarter apart and ran 3x 16ga wire from the trunk to the steering column. With those wires, I then tapped into three wires at the turn signal/multifunction switch: left turn, right turn, and brake. I attached the left and right turn wires in the trunk to the turn signal sequencing modules, which eliminated them sequencing when functioning as brake lights. I did nothing with the brake wire I pulled from the front at this time, intending for it to be used for a CHMSL alteration in the future.









Trivia: the carpet is stapled down around the outside in this car, and isn't in my others. I suppose that's either an early year thing, or a St. Louis thing.

I then recorded this video demonstrating the then-current state of things:

Today, I took apart the passenger side and pulled two wires from the trunk, one 12ga and one 14ga. The 12 gauge wire is the power supply for the trailer light power module I also installed today. The 14 gauge wire is for the power decklid release which this car was not optioned with, but for which I added both the latch assembly and glovebox button a decade ago.





Early and low-option cars have such little body wiring.





The 14 gauge wire taps into the 12 gauge one for constant hot power and detours up to the glovebox button. This feature is long overdue as needing to use the key to access the trunk (particularly when the engine is running) has been annoying for a long time.

I then snipped both of the wires for the universal CHMSL (two 12V inputs, one from each brake light) disconnecting them from the combined brake/turn circuits, and then attached them together to the brake wire I had previously pulled from the steering column. The CHMSL no longer flashes with the turn signal in the specific scenarios that caused it previously.

I finished up the install of the trailer light module, verified it works, and came inside for the evening. The interior is still torn apart but that won't be too hard to deal with another day.

[kishy]

Did more spark testing and parts-swapping. The was-briefly-working spare used unknown DS module has died. On with the next questionable spare. Now it's time to buy a couple to keep on the shelf. If this one also quits quickly, I'll know I have a coil problem.

The charge light was indeed resolved by simply wiggling the stator wire connector. Probably a little corrosion on the terminal like was discovered on the Ranger.

The driver side power window quit some time ago. It did work, and then it didn't, and attempting to operate it did not cause a visible load on the electrical system. Today, I rolled it in the garage and opened up the door (the very large door). Drilled the holes to get access to the bolts, took the seemingly factory original motor out, and had a look.





Water ingress strikes again. Cleaned it up pretty well but noticed the wire feeding one of the brushes was totally black. Put it together enough to test and found it did nothing. Started parts-swapping with another motor I had kicking around but couldn't get an adequate result, so I pulled a new ACI-brand motor off the shelf and installed that. Recall that one of those recently had a gear failure in the wagon. With the giant 2-door window, I imagine I'll have the same happen, and in relatively short time on this car, but we'll see. I think those are lifetime warranty parts.





Pretty good condition doors, thanks to some sort of undercoating spray done decades ago by the original owner.