Junkyard Dog

Some people choose their daily drivers by comfort or performance.

There's another factor in our equation.

The junkyard.

If your gonna have an Armageddon vehicle,

cheap plentiful parts is key!

The check engine light was glowing on the wife's car.

Thankfully she warned me early on,

the car had a shudder and the light would blink.

Holey Chit...

With some family troubleshooting help,

The first thing checked was the fuel filter.

 I could barely blow through it.

Easy fix!

Nope...

It did seem to drive better,

but there was another gremlin.

After reading the manual and researching online,

the problem was one of 24 things.

For $20,

a local shop ran a diagnostic.

First time at a mechanic in 20 years!

Supposedly there's an OBD2 code reader that plugs into an iPhone,

I may look into that.

A definite timesaver,

the code pinpointed the problem to a misfire on cylinder 4,

The Ford 4.6 uses a separate ignition coil for each cylinder,

a trick design,

however they do burn out.

It was time to make a judgement call.

The part isn't really expensive,

$45-75 depending on the brand,

but there was a principle to uphold.

Our Mercury Grand Marquis was picked for multiple  reasons,

lotsa space,

and mass produced for cheaper parts.

The Ford Crown Victoria is used as taxis and cop cars.

There are literally tons of them at the junkyards.

We had to go.

The perfect donor was found,

a beat up P71 police interceptor.

Definitely on my next car to own list,

these are built way beefier then our cruiser.

I hoped a government car would have had better servicing then an old taxi.

The remaining coils were tested and pirated,

a whopping $60 for 5,

including the rubber boots!

Motorcraft brand not aftermarket junk.

Here's the bummer.

I really wanted Jakob to check out the place,

but no minors were allowed inside.

He was a trooper though and napped for the 20 minutes.

We had a good cruise regardless.

I ended up swapping out a couple coils.

The car ran great for the test drive.

So far our $1800 car has given us about 20k miles,

and besides 2 smog checks and a couple oil changes,

this was the first issue.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

TP