What did you do to your Mark VIII today?

Scratched my quarter panel with a snow shovel. Busted the sunroof rear cross bar/drain climbing into the drivers seat from the passenger side. Chained it to my Bronco, and ripped it out of the snowbank it's been trapped in. The passenger side door handle broke when my wife tried to open the door. I've been careening through the snow, with worn out 255 tires on the back and 4 year old all season tires on the front. It's not getting much love.:(
 
LSC CE 82 said:
Lownslow- Gotta love our crappy winter this far. You'll all be happy to know the Mark hasn't seen any of it yet. I did fire it up today, then test the coolant, so when it hits -25 degress Monday night, the motor doesn't crack. I hate Wisconsin winters. I think "hell" would be a better name for my state. I wonder if my air bags will deflate at -25?
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Geez, tell me about it. The cold hit really early this year, lets hope for a warmer then usual 2nd half.

Keep us updated on those airbags. :)
 
dnsherrill said:
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here's what I'm looking at, both sides the same, seller is not a Mark VIII owner, has never used these
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View attachment 828464491
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those aren't adapter rings. Ford put those on there from the factory.
those look just like they did when Ford put them into the LSC in 1996.
only thing missing is the halogen high beam bulb.

you will need adapter rings for the low beams like with all HID Mark VIII lenses.
 
chris2523 said:
those aren't adapter rings. Ford put those on there from the factory.
those look just like they did when Ford put them into the LSC in 1996.
only thing missing is the halogen high beam bulb.

you will need adapter rings for the low beams like with all HID Mark VIII lenses.
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can those 96 factory ballasts wiring be spliced right into the base model low beam lines with no additional transformers or electrical converters needed?
 
slowmkviii said:
Spree he can learn with his pocket book.
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What pocketbook? Full time college student with part time minimum wage job. Maybe when he starts making six figures a year he'll buy me a nicer one. Wishful thinking anyway.

OchoMarko said:
Spree, I'm sorry about your Mark Viii, I hope everything works out. Did the kids apologize profusely or offer anything to fix it at least?
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He said he was sorry and I know he is. He know's how much I like that car. Hell he likes it too.


dnsherrill said:
Spree, sorry to hear about the wreckage; kids tend to disregard property....but definitely don't beat em with a belt, that just guarantees they'll beat your grandkids
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I've never hit the kids or even yelled at them. There's always a calm way to handle everything.

Markviiiedrea said:
That just means it's a track car now. Just take a .45 to his Xbox or something.
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lol :) I have a 357 and he does have an xbox. No wait...that would just be wrong. Today were expecting another foot of snow but I'm going to still try to get some pics of it up so I can get everyone's opinion (good or bad) on the damage.

I've been fixing car's all my life but never attempted or even played with body work before. Some of you Mark VIII owners are artist when it comes to stuff like that.
 
What do you think, worth fixing???

Damage (5).jpg


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Damage (1).jpg
 
Man, the way you described it I thought it was way worse. It looks like a good suction cup or heat gun and upside down can of compressed air could pull most of that dent out. Its definitely a keeper!
 
I'll assume It looks worse in person than in pics, I know my car did.

Hell when I bought my Lincoln it looked like this. My wife is friends with the body shop owner, and does custom airbrushing for them so I can't give you any estimate on what it might cost in the real world:cool: But it didn't take very long to do once he got around to it.
frontpassenger.jpg


dent2.jpg
 
dnsherrill said:
it can driven like that, right? my guess is 1k to repair to LN cond
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I haven't drove it yet but the door still opens/closes good.

OchoMarko said:
Man, the way you described it I thought it was way worse. It looks like a good suction cup or heat gun and upside down can of compressed air could pull most of that dent out. Its definitely a keeper!
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It looks worse then that in person. Below the trim looks like bondo from previous accident fix. Nicked the door too right at trim level. You can't see that in the pics. I hope your right about the keeper, not ready to let this car go yet! What is the compressed air method you speak of?

Sorry everyone! I guess I should have made a thread for this instead of putting it under this title. I appreciate everyone's thought's on this.
 
Spree, I'd take the interior panel off and try to pop it out as much as you can. Since you were going to do paint this summer anyhow it wouldn't hurt to try.
 
Spree: Try a pneumatic dent puller. They are near magical for a nice fat pock like that. At the very least, pull out as much as you can and let a body shop get the rest perfect. It would shave off a lot of cash, and you get to keep the fun toy. You can get them cheap at Harbor Freight tools. I love mine. It's too much fun. I got it for my birthday a few years ago. First thing I did to test it out was found a friend with a beat up work truck.... but she told me to stop after a while so it didn't get so nice she would feel like she'd have to be careful out in the bush. I only wish I could find smaller suction cups for it.
http://www.harborfreight.com/pneumatic-dent-puller-69718.html
 
Since owning the car, it has leaking a quarter sized drop of oil overnight, but in the last month it was dumping so much oil that it was burning on the exhaust and I named her the Exxon Valdez.

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What a miserable job, but luckily others posted some tips and tricks (I wouldn't have thought of removing the inner fender) and it was a 3 hour job including cleaning up and changing filter and oil and dealing with the coolant. Burping the cooling system was also more of an ordeal that I am used to on the 4.6.

I did first check the oil sender, it was fine. I have 250,000 miles on my 2000 Grand Marquis and it doesn't/hasn't leaked like this, nor did my 97 Cougar, so not sure what is special about the Mark VIII/DOHC that make it flatten out that spacer with gaskets on both sides. The Coolant part still had a bump, but the oil passages were completely flat.

I hope to see this for a long time:
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Yesterday I bought a mark viii, today I washed and scrubbed it, and repaired the multifunction switch (I had no right turn signal)
 
Spee, fix it there is no other option. As said before, you were doing paint anyway so it is a no brainer. I had one of those dents in my 1972 Capri when I was 17. I took the rear interior panel out and took my time and got the dent out gently. Take your time and you will fine it will move for you. use something to spread the dented area like a block of wood that you can hit and stay away from the metal until you get it as far as you can and then just some more time with a BODY hammer. Do not use anything too heavy hammer wise when you are in direct contact with the metal.

Watch You Tube videos, anything to get familiar with what you are going to do. You do a lot with this car and you have learned over the years how to do it this is just something new to learn. This is a fairly easy fix to get it back into shape even if you leave the bondo skim to a pro you can get it there for them and save yourself a great deal of money.
 
Lownslowlsc said:
Well I gave it a test run and she didn't blow up or catch fire. :) This will be a blessing for the next couple days.



:cool:
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She started up no problem, didn't even make all those lovely noises it likes to make when it's <5 degrees. Car said it was -16.
 
chargerxr said:
Bangster, did you ever figure out your scil problem?
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I believe I did, and it seemed to be the ground at the battery. I cleaned them up again, and made sure they were solidly connected and tight, and no issues again at all. I drove with my headlights on all the time for 2000 or so miles and never had the issue again.

I miss being able to use auto lamp, so I am building a relay harness with resistors so that I can use auto lamp but also not have the check headlamps message. I don't think this is issue was directly related to the swap to new HID setup other than it was when it was drawing the most amps, but will continue to make that part better.
 
Thank's everyone for the comments on the dent. It makes me feel better there are no negative ones and no one sees this as a major fix.
I will do as suggested and remove interior panel/speakers and see how much I can take out myself. I know there isn't much room in between the two walls. I like the tool Dreamie posted and will have to add this to my tool collection.
Unfortunately this will have to wait till warmer weather. Thanks again for the comments!

Dan
 
Well, the Mark is down for a minute. Had to drive the Mountaineer today. I think something may have come loose underneath. I have a severely horrible grinding noise coming from under the car. It does it taking off and when I take my foot off the gas. Under load it's quiet. And in reverse it's really loud. I'll be putting it on the ramps this afternoon and checking everything out. I think it has something to do with the exhaust but I don't know what it could be. I hope it sounds worse than it is :(

Also, having a wierd issue with the car. After I park it and it sits for about 30 minutes, the keypad stops working and the interior lights won't come on when I open the door. But if I push the unlock button on the remote everything comes on like it should :confused: Never seen that happen before.
 
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