kishy's 1991 Grand Marquis

[jaywish]

Fluorescent dye in coolant often works.

[kishy]

Fluorescent dye in coolant often works.

Yeah, suppose it would. I had just sort of assumed that the full complement of usual leaks were all seeping very tiny amounts and that would have accounted for it, but I'm coming to realize the coolant loss seems to be intermittent, and maybe accelerated during short trips vs longer trips where less is lost. Water pump is definitely suspect. It was new a decade ago but that doesn't mean much. It does have a lifetime warranty for which I have the paperwork, though, so if it does let go, I'll be pursuing that.

As for the loud noise, I loosened the alternator and checked the water pump, alternator, and steering pump by hand. They all feel about right. No idea what it was.

[kishy]

Yesterday, this car was the recipient of a long-overdue window tint installation.
As I did with the 84 Town Car, I opted for 20% VLT, which I find to be on the edge of being too dark, but not actually too dark.
In conditions where I may use the mirrors to back up at night, rolling the windows down is helpful.
In conditions where I look out the back window to back up at night, it's really not an issue.
Unlike that car, I spent a little more money and went with a ceramic tint, which should offer UV blocking and heat rejection properties.

I used a local shop which is held in high regard for the quality of their work, plus a friend-of-a-friend is the owner's son and did some of the work on my car, knowing he'd be hearing about it if it was a shit job, which you'd like to think wouldn't matter but it's hard to be sure sometimes. The installation looks to have been done well and there are no defects I hadn't already been expecting - e.g. combination water and UV damaged interior materials that disintegrated when they pulled things back around the rear window.







Phone white balance completely lost its mind here. The street lights are very yellow on that road, and those headlights are not nearly as cold as they look in the pics (note how not-red the taillights also look).

[kishy]

Today, a friend with an '05 Sunfire stopped by so we could try to diagnose a front end suspension/steering noise. He had to go take a quick shift at work from 12-3, so we had a gap in the middle of the work where I decided to wash both of the Grand Marquis: 83 first, then 91.









I really do love this car.

Later in the evening, installed LED reverse lights. I was a little put off by the performance of red Auxito LEDs as tail/stop/turn lamps, but the issues I had with them in that application (hot spot, washed out colour, insufficient delta between tail and stop) do not apply to reverse lights, so I gave white Auxito LEDs a shot here. They seem to work well for this task, their light is pretty truly white, and they throw a good amount of light, which is welcome with the tint now installed.

These were the final outstanding exterior lights that I planned to convert to LED, now done. I'm hanging onto the amber incandescent bulbs for the front turn signals.

While installing those, I realized something. The tail lights on this car are not a matching pair. There is an internal painted surface which blocks light from exiting the top of the lens on the right side, and that is not present on the left side. I'm wondering if this is a model year-specific change and my car has one non-original tail light, e.g. 88-89 do not have the paint and 90-91 do, perhaps.

[jaywish]

I can see why you love this car.

[WagonMan]

I have an NOS right hand lens. The inside is frosted,(rough finish). WagonMan

[WagonMan]

Stupid site won't show pic. WagonMan

[87gtVIC]

Car is looking great. Funny finding things out about a car years later! And now that you see it,it must bug you.


I too have had problems with posting pics lately.

[gadget73]

yeah the host is being glitchy and I don't know why

[friskyfrankie]

yeah the host is being glitchy and I don't know why

Also slow too - on and off but usually on.

[DerekTheGreat]

Did you have the windshield tinted too? I'm a fan of ceramic tint, I noticed a significant improvement with the A/C's performance after I had the Town Car's windows tinted.

[kishy]

This car has been faithfully serving daily driver duty, occasionally split with the Acclaim since that became mobile. The car just works, and I'm pleased that I chose to revive it this year.

My yearly cottage rental vacation with my mom is approaching. My current intent is for this to be the car for that purpose. Fallback is the wagon, which is turnkey ready-to-go if it becomes necessary. The one weak point for this car to pull that off well is the soft rear springs, which compromise its ability to do the ramps at the ferry dock when fully laden with vacation stuff. Sedans are also inherently less convenient with the liftover height thing, but it's not the end of the world.

Tonight, I put a set of Air Lift bags in the springs. They should help with that problem.

I also checked for axle shaft play as this car has a minor oil loss issue at the axle seals (and some brake weirdness to go along with it). If I found catastrophic wear I was prepared (and equipped with parts) to fix the problem, but I found what seems to be an acceptable amount of wiggle (more on passenger than driver, but still very little) so I think I'm leaving it alone for the moment. I still haven't sorted out how I'm dealing with the rear end in this car, or multiple of them - I have all sorts of upgrade parts (different gears, limited slip carriers) but don't have a roadmap for where I want things to end up. Easy button is just fix what it has and figure it out later.