I changed out the fuel vapor solenoid hose that I broke last year when replacing the intake manifold...........sort of

I now know that these fittings are not meant to come off. I just needed to cut the hose off and jam a new hose in its place. My new hose came with the same sorta-style connector, but this one had the plastic strip-collar molded in. Unfortunately, it came rounded off. In order to make it work; I would have to pinch the channels quite a bit; only to have them go back to their original round shape; thus causing the hose to pop back off the intake manifold port. It also came far short of the fuel vapor solenoid; so extra hose is needed to complete the line. I tried to take the connector off the other end of the hose at the fuel vapor solenoid. After breaking the clip and the connector, I realized that maybe they were not supposed to come off; that I needed to remove the hose instead. Which is what I ended up doing. Even broken; it's still stuck on the vapor solenoid. Since I don't have anymore standard 3/8" fuel hose left, I used the next best thing; 6AN hose. It worked well on the vacuum connector fitting I used to join the rubber hose to the 6AN. But the 6AN was a bit too small for the fuel vapor solenoid. So I tried my trick of using the heat gun to get the 6AN really hot; then jam it on the vapor solenoid fitting. Up by the intake manifold end of the hose; I pried the new connector off the hose and jammed the old connector in its place. I used a fuel filter clip to hold it in its place. Seems to work for now. I may have to revisit this in the future. Btw, the old hose was dry rotted and collapsed in a couple spots. Otherwise, I would not have wasted my time on this.

 

I realized last Thursday that I was coming up on 6k miles since the last oil change for the '05 Grand Marquis. So the second I got home last Friday, I changed the oil while the engine was still hot. I put in Royal Purple XPR and will run it for a couple thousand miles; or when the oil starts to get dirty. That stuff has a lot of detergent and will clean the engine after 500 miles. I noticed this morning that my Merc is running very smooth with this oil; and for reasons I don't understand, it's running much quieter through the exhaust. Now even though the Explorer is just shy of 100k; there is no sludge under the valve covers and is quite clean in there. I attribute this to regular oil changes and also to cycling the Royal Purple through it every 4th oil change.

As for the Crown Vic; I will be getting my ECM (A9P) back from foxresto.com. They told me that they performed a standard rebuild as a couple capacitors went bad; which is typical for the early Ford ECMs. I should be getting it back sometime this week. In preparation for its return; I checked my wiring over to confirm that I did the mass air conversion correctly. I forgot that I used a label maker to ID the wires when initially did this. Made tracing the wiring much easier. The only one I am not sure of is the VSS (vehicle speed sensor) wire that I had to splice into. That splice is lower on the main harness and is covered by the engine. I would have to take the engine out to check that portion. Hopefully my problem(s) were in the ECM. We'll see when I get it back. In the meanwhile, I am getting ready for the full exhaust install on my Merc next weekend.

 

I discovered over the weekend whilst working on the Grand Marquis exhaust install; that even with the a/c compressor out of the way and access to the exhaust manifold bottom front passenger side stud; I still have to extend my left arm to get in there with the air impact ratchet. And then have to hold a 10lb tool steady with one hand as I attempt to zip the stud off. I also can't remove the starter. I can't get any tools on that one top bolt in the 2o'clock position. And there is some sort of metal tab thing that I can feel interfering with access to that bolt. So after spending a good amount of time getting to that point; I called it quits. I determined that I need a lift to do this work. Just not young enough to do this on the ground. So I will be hunting down exhaust shops that will do this work for me; or at least just get the headers on there; and I do the rest of the exhaust.

 

So I couldn't find anybody locally that installs headers. The one shop that said they do full exhaust systems, only deal with Audi, BMW, and VW. I did find a local mechanic who will loosen the studs for me; so I can zip them off without struggling. I am going to measure the allen head bolts that I have and see if they are long enough to replace at least that one stud. If that is the case; I will see if I can get the mechanic to replace all of the bottom studs with my allen head bolts. That will make life a lot easier for me.

 

Okay; I think the weather will allow me to make attempt# 3 on the Grand Marquis exhaust install this weekend. Although we're experiencing a local drought (my county), the freakin heat made doing work like this extremely difficult. Normally, I would give myself more time to do this; but since the shop loosened all of the bottom (hence, hard-to-reach) exhaust manifold studs and applied Never-Sieze; they should be no problem to remove. I will try to get as many pictures as time will allow; as I will be trying to get the car running by Monday morning.

Also, I put the Quarterhorse chip back into the Crown Vic ECM. When all is said and done with the Grand Marquis; I will focus my efforts on the Crown Vic. I will start by siphoning as much gas out of it as possible; mixing in some fuel stabilizer with what's left; and fill her up with fresh 93. I will probably hook up the ECM before I do this just to see if it's working. I looked at some old pictures from before I pulled the old engine and got an almost off camera shot of the ECM ground connector. It looked really rough even 8 years ago. I should have ID'd it when I installed the 5.8L. We'll see if this was the problem. Hopefully all goes well this time.

 

Well, that didn't happen. I loosened most of the bottom studs on the driver side. One of the nuts started backing out; which I was hoping not to have happen; especially since it's the stud that sits next to the steering shaft; which is parallel to the frame. So the ratchet would get jammed up against the frame as it loosened the nut. If I get a shorter extension, the steering shaft will interfere and prevent the socket from getting a grip of the stud/nut. So I will come back at it next weekend and remove that portion of the steering shaft so I have better access to that stud. Yesterday I tried loosening the top studs; the ones I thought would be easy. I thought wrong; as they are jammed tight into the head. I rounded the first 2 nuts off and promptly gave up. Spent an hour in the basement hunting up my socket set that is made specifically for rounded nuts. I will buy another set in case I kill my current set trying to remove those studs. I will make another go of this next weekend; weather permitting. I guess this is going to be another one of those long-term projects :-/

 

Not much to show here. I am working from home today. As such, we had a brief morning meeting and not much afterwards. So I got the 30A circuit breaker that I had been meaning to install in the Crown Vic; and glued a divider between the 2 poles. I probably could have left it undivided; but the factory circuit breaker had a divider; so I am doing likewise.

 

The old circuit breaker for the sake of comparison. The rusty box on the left side of the starter solenoid.

 

You did good, Weedhopper. One of these days you're going to be driving that car.

 

I hope for my sake/safety that is the case. My Mom is chomping at the bit to get into her hot rod again.