Yah, I tend to ignore problems for other projects or more important problems. Like the brakes. I managed to replace the hoses and rear calipers. I still have the same issue, but it takes a bit more traffic to make the brakes drag now. Still waiting on my GT500 rotors to come in. Once I have them; I can start disassembling the front brakes and install the modded system. I made a pleasant discovery a couple weeks ago. When we had all of that rain, the backyards in our neighborhood become one big lake. So my neighbor's play house collapsed and a piece of it floated under the Crown Vic. I noticed it whilst cutting the grass a week ago. Climbed underneath to fish it out and looked at everything under that car. I was surprised to see that there isn't much rust under that car; or at least no more than what I had when I parked the car 7 years ago. Was pleasantly surprised/reminded that I had used -4 AN hose when I replaced the flexible section of brake line. Since I have -4 AN PTFE hose for my Grand Marquis brake upgrade; I will use the leftovers for the Crown Vic. And I will replace the rear hard line while I am at it. Then the Crown Vic will have brand new brakes except for the rear drums. I was hoping to get some time to work on the Crown Vic before summer hits, but I don't think that is going to happen.

As far as the wiper motor goes; I already installed the new wiper motor to the lower cowl. I also want to avoid cracking the new motor open and keep the seal intact. I will just need to be a bit more consistent with cleaning the cowl area; in order to keep the replacement motor running longer. Now it's off to Home Depot to get my bolt so I can finish this project.

 

Got the wiper motor finished a day after the last post. The motor stays put and is quiet when it is wiping the windshield; and I have all wiper speeds now I will need to take the upper cowl back off, as I broke the fitting that feeds the washer fluid nozzle. I also finished off the wiper motor box cover. It's a pain to get it to close right; and during my first attempt at cleaning the box; I broke the cover. Duct tape solved the issue at the time. This time as I tried twisting it back into its channel, it completely broke in half. So a junkyard trip is in the distant future for the whole upper cowl assembly. I also discovered that whilst attempting to remove the wiper motor out from below the cowl (unsuccessfully), I hit the fuel injector plug with my elbow and broke the catch. So this passed weekend, I replaced the fuel injector connector. Looks like the green wire terminal was burning. Don't know if it's because of the elbowing or if it had been like that for a while. When I finally get around to installing the electric cutout on the exhaust, I will pull the rest of the fuel injector connectors and check the condition of their terminals.

 

All my trucks are ordered with daytime running lights, so with the 2011-2016 Super Duty Fords near 10-13000 hours I replace a lot of headlight connectors. The three wire plug has the ground in the middle and the middle turns black especially with the better Gold Top Napa headlights. We also change a lot of tail light socket for the same reason.

 

I did that with the Crown Vic a while back. When the headlight switch began to fail, I took the headlight relays that were meant to be used for my Chevy C20 quad-headlight upgrade, and installed it in the Crown Vic. Worked beautifully. The headlights were much brighter afterwards and the switch didn't completely burn out. When I get that car running; I will replace that switch.

 

Spent last weekend travelling back and forth from New Hope PA in my Mom's Explorer. Very glad I took that vehicle. Some of the roads would not be friendly to the suspension of my Grand Marquis. But most importantly, on my way back to Jersey on Sunday evening; I ran into a massive thunderstorm coming onto route 22. Flooded out the highway in a few spots. I got through 2 bad spots; but there was a section in N. Plainfield that looked to go halfway up my door in depth. I avoided that and took the side roads the rest of the way home. Had I been in any of the cars; I would have had to turn around and find another highway to take home.

The weekend prior; I used to prep the Explorer for the trip. I attempted to change out the fuel filter, but found that one of the bolts for the heat shield around it, was cross-threaded; or bent. It would start to unthread; and bind up solid. Soaking it didn't help. Since the exhaust runs right next to it; I will have to drop it in order to get an impact tool of some sort in there. Hopefully that will get that heat shield off.

 

We had one of those in the fleet, brilliant location. Especially when hot off the road like most of my trucks are for service.

 

Fix Or Repair Daily. 'nuff said?

 

I'm probably going to spend this weekend at my parents house. I have to install their window a/c units and do some cleaning since my Mom hurt her back. While I am there, I will recharge the a/c system in my Grand Marquis. I don't think I posted it; when I was installing the headers, I saw an oil leak in a place nowhere near any source. When I removed the lower air dam; I uncovered the a/c accumulator, which was covered in oil and dirt. I replaced it while installing the headers; but it was November and I didn't feel motivated to charge the system.

If I have the extra time, I will try to install the single electric cutout (the one that I can make fit) for the exhaust on the Grand Marquis. Even though it would be ideal to install both electric cutouts, at least I will only have to manually cap up one side rather than both sides.

And I will probably look at the Crown Vic and say to myself, "One day I will finish this project. One day.........."

 

Finally got my GT500 rotors for my daily Grand Marquis last Friday. Had been on backorder for 2 mos. They fit up against the Moog hub/bearing with no problem. I was afraid that I would have to find somebody to machine them if they didn't fit. I took some time off a couple weeks from now for the big brake install. Hopefully it isn't too bad. Couldn't come sooner though; my driver side hub is trashed.

 

I made attempt# 1 at installing these. Pulled the driver side caliper and caliper bracket off in one-piece. Used the puller to get the rotor off as it's very tight. With all of that out of the way, I made an attempt to remove the wheel bearing, which is also bad. Like the idler pulley, I can feel it rotating when I spin it. Spent an hour and a half tapping and pulling on it (short stud and a coupler nut). Went on YouTube and discovered that I need to cut a wheel stud off and use a bolt and nut to do what I was trying to do. Then I saw the worse case scenario of pulling the spindle off and pressing the wheel hub/bearing off. That wasn't happening; as I would end up bringing my car to the mechanic anyways to do that. Might as well have them change out the wheel hub/bearing themselves. That was Thursday afternoon.

Friday rolls by with a T-storm in the morning to make the driveway nice and wet for this work. I get out there in the afternoon and re-tighten the hub/bearing bolts and start assembling the big-brake bracket. Unfortunately, the bracket was unfinished, and I had to file it down a bit to get it to semi-fit. By the time I figured that out, another T-storm rolled through. I went in and ate a late lunch and fell asleep. Woke up to sun. I was told that the T-storm didn't last too long and it had been sunny for a hour as I slept. So I ran out and played with the bracket some more. This lasted 45 minutes before another T-storm rolled through. In that time, I filed the casting flash off the spindle flange to get the bracket to fit.

More rain early this morning made the driveway more wet. I had some engagements this morning anyways, so I waited until the early afternoon to mess with this a little more. I mounted the GT500 rotor and caliper. Discovered that the caliper was hitting the spindle in the same area where its bracket was hitting. I took everything off and put it back together about a half dozen times to file it down for fitment. When I finally got the caliper mounted clean, the rotor was locked against the caliper on the piston side when everything was tightened down. I started shimming with thin washers and pushed it away a little, but still had contact. And that is where it ended as 2 T-storms rolled through. At this point, I am giving up and putting the old stuff back on; and hope it lasts another week or two. I'll see if I can source replacement calipers as the stock driver side is not wanting to back out when I lift the brake pedal.

If I had 1 dry day, I could have figured this out. I know/knew going into this that it wouldn't be a bolt up and go deal; as most projects tend to not be. This time the freakin weather was killing me. They do look good mounted up; just not happening this time :-/