In the summer of 1993, my car life was in fine shape: We had the stalwart ’88 Accord sedan and the ’86 Marquis Wagon (the smaller one, like a Fairmont) that was still new enough to be semi-respectable, had gobs of utility, and which I really liked driving. Then I got The Call. It was my mother. She was in the home stretch of buying a new car, and asked if I would want her old one? So here came that question again: Another car had found me – do I buy it? Yes or No. What could I do but say “Yes”.
I had remembered her search for this one – it was the summer of 1985 and she was ready to move beyond “Economical Plush” that had seemed like such a good idea in 1980 when she bought a nicely equipped Plymouth Horizon. 1985 was the middle of the “Reagan Boom” and she was a fifty-something lady who was ready for “Real Plush”, or plush without the compromises. I had expected her to revert to an Oldsmobile, but Consumer Reports convinced her that a Crown Victoria was a better choice. The one she chose was one of the prettiest of its generation – the triple navy blue hid some of the awkward lines and really set off the plentiful chrome trim. I remember driving it right after she bought it – “What a cute little big car” I thought to myself as I prepared to leave her house in my ’77 New Yorker. But once back in that New Yorker, I didn’t yearn for the new navy blue Crown Vic one bit.
In truth, I had never loved that car. It was very well equipped (with a sticker in excess of $14k, which was in WTH territory for me at the time. “For a Ford?”) and had been quite trouble-free through the 8 years and 72k miles she had owned it. An a/c compressor and a power lock actuator had been the only real problems she had experienced, making it one of the best cars she had ever owned. I really liked my Marquis Wagon. But the Crown Vic, though a year older, had far fewer miles, was bigger, and was in better condition. And did not have couch-fabric covered pieces of plywood where the armrests belonged. So I did the adult thing and answered with a “yes”. We agreed on a price and I bought the Crown Victoria.
But one thing had not changed – I still didn’t love this car. Mom had replaced it with a new ’93 Crown Victoria, and after driving the new one I experienced that disappointment again. Just as I had not liked the way the ’85 drove compared with my 77 New Yorker, I also found it wanting in comparison with both Mom’s new ’93 an even my high mile Marquis Wagon. There was so much good there, and I really wanted to enjoy my new (to me) car, but there was a problem: it was irritating in so many little ways.
Not long after Mom bought it, I went with her for a trip to eastern Tennessee for a cousin’s wedding, and I did all of the driving. Remember that my first car was a ’67 Galaxie 500 convertible and my soul still harbored some love for big Fords. I was tickled that she had bought it and I looked forward to the experience. It was smooth, it was quiet and it was reasonably roomy. But that powertrain was just unpleasant in almost every situation besides flat ground at steady speeds over 60 mph. Which was not the terrain common to eastern Tennessee. With every hill came the lugging followed by an aggressive kickdown to 3rd so that the engine engine would announce “I am woman, hear me roar.”
During the entire time my mother owned the car and the entire time I owned that car, I said that there was nothing wrong with it that either a 351 V8 or a C6 automatic couldn’t fix. But it was saddled with the 5 point slow (or LoPo 5.0) V8 from right before Ford started improving its power output, mated with a too-tall axle ratio and the Ford AOD – Automatic OverDrive transmission.
The 1985 Crown Victoria as a brand new car.
The problem: The design of the AOD made it do two things at once – at the shift from 2nd to 3rd, the torque converter locked up. Which was usually at a speed that was well under the engine’s happy place on the torque curve. The car was fine over 65 mph (except that it would still downshift on hills even at that speed) and under 30, as long as you did not need to accelerate. In that range from 35-45 you were stuck if you needed to accelerate – either listen to the engine lug, or force a downshift and listen to the engine get really loud for any improvement in speed. Overall, it was a decent car, except that it made me grit my teeth at every run through the gears as the torque converter smacked into lockup at what felt like 350 rpm. Did I say “every run through the gears?” I meant EVERY run through the gears. Yes, I was shouting.
In early 1986 I stopped in to visit my old car-mentor Howard, and he showed me his brand new Mercury Sable. He invited me into the driver’s seat for a short spin, and within the first three minutes I recall thinking that Mom had bought a year too soon. Where the Crown Vic had been set up almost purely to eke out those last few elusive fractional MPGs by too-tall gearing and an aggressive torque converter lock-up, the Sable was the complete opposite. It was set up for driving, with sprightly acceleration and a transmission that didn’t constantly smack you in the face and shout “Hey, I’m shifting gears now”. Fortunately, I didn’t have to drive that Crown Vic every day. Until I did.
Another thing, though a minor one, was that I never liked the dash much. If I was going to be stuck with a GM-style “speedometer and a gas gauge” kind of instrument panel, at least my Marquis had dressed it up a little with silver instruments reminiscent of those I had recalled from my father’s last decent Lincoln (a ’78 Town Coupe). And I had remembered a fairly robust little trip computer in the VW GTI I had purchased a couple of months after Mom bought this (more expensive) car. This one had a sorry little digital clock that gave you the date too – yippee.
The other thing I never liked was that velour seat upholstery that looked like velvet. I thought of the childrens’ book “The Velveteen Rabbit” every time I tried to slide in, because that seat was the velveteen grab-it. Normal entry would get you halfway onto the seat, where further movement was arrested by the velcro-like fabric. Some fairly high-effort scooting was required to get all the way behind the wheel. My Marquis had a much more pleasant fabric on the seats. The other un-fixable problem with the car was the structure. Where my Marquis Wagon had been as tight and stiff as could be, the Crown Vic was not. The structure shivered a little and the doors never felt as nice when closing as they had in my little Fox-body wagon. This was not something that caused problems, but it was one more thing on a growing list of irritants.
But the car was in gorgeous condition and was quite respectable. Other than the old man vibe, but I was OK with that. It hit my sweet spot – it was a nice car that didn’t cost a lot. And for a soft-riding and wallowy Ford, it had an amazingly nimble feel about it. We now had two dark blue 4 door cars, Marianne’s ’88 Accord and The Vic as I came to call it, after watching too many episodes of Law & Order. This pairing offended my sense of how a car fleet is supposed to work. When you have two cars, each should do something the other cannot. The pairing of Fury/Accord: Fun classic and Normal. Colt/Accord: Fun economy hatch and normal. Marquis/Accord: Useful station wagon and normal. But here I had normal and normal, only one normal was bigger than the other.
It was right after Memorial Day of 1994 that something else happened – something did didn’t really involve our cars, but that made this not a favorite time of my life. While still in law school I had landed a job as a law clerk at a small 5-lawyer law firm. That turned into an associate’s position after I passed the bar exam and eventually partner status in probably 1992 or so. The firm was small but well regarded, and mostly handled insurance-related litigation. This meant either defending those sued in auto accidents or litigating matters of insurance coverage when there was a significant dispute over someone’s claim. But after a decade of stability and the glide into retirement for one of the older guys, fissures developed between partners and two of them announced that they were leaving for a larger firm.
My problem was that I had spent most of my time there working for firm clients and not generating much business of my own. Now the firm clients were going in two different directions, following those who had made the rain. The short version is that, for various reasons, neither of those directions was a fit for me so I would have to make some new plans. I didn’t bear them any ill will – as they said in the Godfather, “It’s not personal, it’s strictly business.” But that did not change the facts: I had a new house, two little kids, a stay-at-home wife, and an impending income implosion. At least my method of choosing cars had paid dividends because we had two good cars and no payments.
I spent the summer working contacts and interviewing with several area lawyers and firms. By July or August I had gotten things settled. It was another small firm that did the same kind of work I was used to and had more files than they could handle. The difference was that I would now be genuinely self-employed, paying a monthly amount for my share of expenses, getting a percentage of my billings on other lawyers’ files plus 100% of billings on anything I generated on my own. I figured it would work – which was good because I had four other people (and a mortgage company) who were counting on it working. From that point, the Vic and I settled into a longer daily commute to a parking garage downtown. I had plenty to think about during that transition and neither of our cars added to my burden.
The first real problem I had with the Vic was the trip to Dallas. In October of 1994 things had settled down to where I could take a few days off, and we decided to head south to visit Marianne’s sister and her family. We had two little boys, each about three months short of the January birthdays when they would turn 1 and 3. We had two car seats in the back and the Vic’s commodious trunk packed to the gunwales with luggage and supplies. I realized right then why the big American sedan was quickly disappearing from the market as a car for families. Here I was, driving nearly the biggest sedan on offer. And it was a complete pain.
There was no room in the car for kid supplies or much of anything else beyond the occupants. If we needed some nourishment from the cooler or another item of clothing (ask me how often that happened), I had to find a place to stop the car, rummage through the trunk, then get underway again. When (not if) someone in the back seat began squalling for Mom, there was no Mom-room there. I had to unbuckle and move car seats around so Marianne could sit in back next to the unhappy tyke. In my youth the big cars were bigger and people slid freely about on seats. And I don’t remember my youth in the early 60’s requiring the kinds of equipment that seemed mandatory by the early 90’s. The end result was a vow that I would never again take a family trip in that car.
I can remember only two mechanical issues with the Vic during the time I had it. The first (a minor one) was a water pump that started leaking. I was too busy to do it myself. Or had I reached the stage in life where I no longer had to do unpleasant jobs in a cold garage. It was some of both, but more of the second one. To this day I have never replaced a water pump on my own, and I harbor no regrets about that at all. I had not yet found a decent indy mechanic so decided to take the car to the nearby Ford dealer that had fixed the transmission line leak in my Marquis so quickly and reasonably. After the job was complete, I went to pick the car up and looked at the price on the service order and – holy crap! I had not asked for the platinum water pump, but that was evidently what I got.
It was actually the amount of labor that seemed really high. A call to the service writer and service manager were no help – “Sorry, that’s what the flat rate manual says.” The lawyer in me kicked in and I decided to call the service manager for another Ford dealer. He was actually quite helpful, and looked up the job in his flat rate manual. The first guys were right that the figure was in the manual. But it was the rate for an Escort, and not for a Crown Vic. I went back with the evidence and got my refund. I like to think that it was an honest mistake. But it was also right before Christmas and I understand that service writers are paid on commission, so who knows.
The bigger problem came around the time of our Texas trip and was that the dipstick started showing evidence of coolant in the oil. I have since learned that this was likely an intake gasket problem that was relatively common and an fairly easy fix. But I did not know that at the time, and decided to keep changing oil frequently until we figured out what to do. Years earlier, I had dumped money into the engine of my ’77 New Yorker. But I had an irrational love for that car, and harbored no such feelings for this one. The “what to do” problem was solved once Marianne turned up pregnant again with Cavanaugh #5. Four people traveling in the Vic had been a total PITA. Five? Not doing that.
The next car would be found and it would finally supplant the ’88 Accord from its long-held “Good Car” status in the JPC garage. And instead of selling this one myself, I let it go in a trade. It was at the same dealer that had tried to overcharge me for the water pump, so I felt no compulsion to help them out on the antifreeze-in-the-oil thing. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell. The ’85 Vic had not been a bad car. But unlike the Colt and the Marquis Wagon, I harbored no regrets when it left my life. There was a lot to recommend it, but then again there was a lot of things about it that I found grating in the 18 or so months I had owned it. Most of all I was happy to get that miserable damned AOD out of my life. It had caused me almost no trouble at all, and yet an infinite amount of irritation. The Vic’s replacement would be its opposite in many ways.
A CCer’s awareness of a less than perfect engine/transmission/axle ratio combination is the price we pay for being aware of what’s going on in a vehicle. This is the curse of being a car-geek; sometimes not knowing is better than knowing.
The Tacoma’s 2013 5-speed automatic is as smooth and gentle ask one could ask for in any truck (newer models have a 6-speed automatic) but I often wonder if it is too smart. Or, at least smarter than I am. OK, admittedly not a high bar. Driving along in what I think is 5th I plan to make a turn in a couple of hundred feet and put on the blinker signal and I sense a delicate down shift. Maybe even two down shifts.
I do not think the transmission is connected to the signal switch. I do take my foot off the gas before touching the brake, but the down shift seems to happen at the same time, or even before I start to slow down.
All this thinking and awareness of an automatic’s behavior occupies my mind in a space that is completely unoccupied in the Miata. Shifting up or down in the Miata often happens without thinking, sort of, er, automatically.
There are millions of people who drive automatic transmission cars in a blissful state of not caring and not knowing what gear they are in, if the engine is lugging, or if it should have shifted sooner or later, or if it is reading one’s mind. These people just get in, drive, and enjoy. Even as a passenger in a blissfully driven vehicle, I look for and sense the automatic transmission’s behavior when I really should be looking out the window or engaging in sparkling conversation with the driver or other passengers.
I’m really not a fan of sparkling conversation.
What I can say is no matter how well or not well these “newer” automatics work, they are eons better that the Dynaflow, Prestomatic, Unltramatic, Fordomatic, and Tempest 2 speed units of my past.
Well, I kind of can’t complain about the behavior of the old 4 speed Hydramatic in the 1957 Oldsmobile, but 8 miles per gallon was a hefty price to pay for blissful smoothness.
This 1985 Crown Vic is beautiful; it was built to be driven blissfully.
You are absolutely right – there are two kinds of people. Many of us here are always sensitive to what our cars are doing as they are doing it. Most people “out there” couldn’t care less and never notice what the car is doing until it stops working.
Quite a few years later my eldest son bought a 1989 Grand Marquis. I tried to talk him into one of the 1992+ versions because I considered it a far superior car, but he liked the “old car vibe” of the 89. That one had a more advanced FI system and was somewhat more powerful and the transmission tuning seemed to engage in that nasty 2-3 shift at a little higher speed. I found that one more pleasant, and by then thought of the drivetrain in terms of being a quirky old car. It was easier to deal with as a quirky old car than as a modern daily driver.
Very well said, RLPlaut. I have the Tacoma with the 6 speed AT, and while it isn’t as terrible as the Interwebz would have you believe, I do find myself wondering what it’s going to do, or wondering why it did what it just did, which was sometimes nothing, even when an upshift or downshift was needed. When I briefly drove a 6 speed MT version of my exact truck this summer, I didn’t think about shifting, I just did it. despite having to more hand and foot work, it was actually easier on my mind.
Sometimes it works the other way too. My wife has never really liked our ’10 CRV. It was the right car at the time, since the back seat was a lit bigger than its competitors’. But she often complains how underpowered it it. Thing i, it’s a classic Honda engine: the power is in the revs not the torque. I know that so I don’t particularly mind driving it, but she just can’t bring herself to rev it when it feels slow to her.
Totally agree about conversation while road-tripping though.
I think your opinion on these 80’s Panther’s reflects mine as well. They were good cars, but nothing that I came close to falling in love with. I can’t say I ever missed the box Panther after I no longer had one in my fleet. My ’88 Grand Marquis had the MPFI Lo-po 302 and it was a pretty good engine overall, at least in comparison to the earlier iterations. They were tuned for low end torque, supplying 270 lbs-ft, and I found even with the AOD’s “unique characteristics” it didn’t ever lug down so much that it was an annoyance to me. That car also had 3.08 gears, so that may have also helped compared to those stuck with 2.73 gears. The 302 MPFI was considerably more peppy than the 307 Olds in my ’85 Olds 88 I had around the same time. So even though the TH200-4R didn’t lug down the engine as badly, the 302 made up for the AOD with its much better real world power.
Speaking of the AOD, it doesn’t actually lock-up in third – well at least not in the traditional sense. It is a split torque transmission, where the transmission actually has two inputs driving it simultaneously. One of the input shafts has a direct mechanical connection to the fly wheel (the “lock-up”) and it supplies about 60% of the power in third. The other input shaft is driven by the torque converter turbine, and it supplies the the other 40% of the power. The end result is not quite a full lock-up, but much less slippage than a conventional non-lock-up torque converter. In overdrive, only the direct drive mechanically driven input shaft drives the transmission, so there is no slippage at all. Ford abandoned this concept with the AOD-E going to a electro-hydraulic lock-up clutch like GM had used on its OD transmissions. The AOD was really a bit of a compromised design IMO. I plan to have a full article on the AOD out later this month.
Also interesting that you note the body structure after Paul’s perimeter frame article. The original 1960’s theory of using a flexible frame was no longer so cutting edge by the 1980s, especially when compared to the much tighter modern unitized cars. Ford would eventually stiffen up the Panther chassis with the next generation, which made a considerable improvement in ride and chassis dynamics. The all new chassis for the 2003 Panther was the penultimate version, and it had a considerable improvement in chassis torsion rigidity and bending resistance.
I look forward to your article on the AOD. Back when I first got the car I remember making a trip to the public library to read a little about them. I was sure that there was some kind of way to adjust the shift points upward, but the manuals I got ahold of all said that there was no such adjustment. There may have been some way to adjust the cable that attached to the throttle linkage, but I never did.
The mechanism you as you describe it is kind of a head scratcher. I would like to drive one now to see if I could detect any slippage at all in 3rd gear as opposed to OD – I know I never detected it at the time. The 1989 Grand Marquis my son later owned was better to drive but still nowhere near as nice as the 1993 Crown Vic I had by then.
The structure of those perimeter frame Fords has always been another mystery for me. The 1965-70 cars were really taut. The 1971+ cars were decidedly not, though I think they were improved with the 1973 models. These 1979+ cars had far less satisfying bodies than older big Fords.
I also wrote about the AOD transmission a few years ago (along with more than you probably want to know about split torque transmissions).
One of its various dilemmas was that it was sort of a matter of contriving a four-speed with overdrive out of the older three-speed FMX, so neither its ratios nor its controls were exactly ideal; fourth was 0.666:1, which was good for CAFE numbers, but meant the gap between third and fourth was in the “yawning chasm” realm. According to the brochure, an ’85 LTD Crown Victoria had a 3.08 axle except with the towing package or Traction-Lok, which meant overall gearing in fourth was a mere 2.05:1, and the AOD was set to upshift at about 45 mph. The way AOD created fourth-overdrive meant that that was a purely mechanical gear, not unlike the old Borg-Warner DG: Once you shifted to fourth, the converter was just along for the ride.
Ford went to weirdly elaborate lengths to avoid using a conventional lockup torque converter, presumably in that awkward late seventies period where they were lurching toward bankruptcy. The AOD and ATX used split torque layouts instead (the ATX had a very different layout than the AOD, so they were alike only in general principle), and some cars got a centrifugal lockup clutch with no hydraulic controls.
Thanks for this additional info. You are surely right on the axle ratio – I had assumed that the axle was taller but that the OD ratio was shorter, so this makes sense. The thing might not have been so bad if they had left 3rd gear alone and went from torque converter to full lockup in the shift to 4th/OD.
Of all the manufacturers, it was probably Ford that had the lease experience at engineering transmissions. The old FMX had been derived from the Borg Warner designed Ford O Matic of the 1950s. Were the C4 and C6 autos of the mid-late 60s the first automatics they did in-house? It doesn’t surprise me that the AOD was such a kludge job internally – not a lot of great things were happening at Ford around 1980.
I should have mentioned in my first comment that earlier cars with the AOD used 3.08 axles as standard. When the MPFI engine was released in 1986, the standard gears were changed to 2.73:1, but performance was better than earlier cars with the CFI engines and 3.08 gears.
I don’t think that you would have noticed much slippage in the drive range with these cars, unless you compared the calculated RPM to actual RPM. The cable you mentioned that needs to be adjusted is the throttle valve cable. It controls the shift points and line pressure, so it is crucial that is is adjusted correctly. This system was also adopted by GM, and it replaced the old vacuum modulator and kick-down rod setup.
You are right that Ford’s first automatic it designed not based on the old Borg Warner transmissions was the C-4 and then the C-6. These both utilized Simpson gear sets, which meant you could not add an OD gear without adding another gear set. GM did this with the Simpson gear set based TH200-4R, and Ford later did this with the C-6 based E4OD. However, with the AOD using the Ravigneaux gear set, Ford could add on the additional OD ratio using the same gear set as the FMX – no additional gear set was needed. Side note, although the AOD used a Ravigneaux gear set utilizing gears with the same tooth count as the FMX, to my knowledge, no parts interchange between these transmissions. This is unlike the E4OD and C-6, where many use the E4OD parts, such is its gear set, to modify a a C-6.
On the ratios, Ford wasn’t as bad as GM in this regard. The TH200-4R was the most common OD transmission in the GM full sizers and it too had a .67 OD ratio. GM most often had 2.73:1 gears as standard on their cars with OD (even the heavy wagons for some years). This resulted in an overall ratio of 1.82:1. However, since the GM OD transmission had a lock-up clutch, the transmission had the ability to unlock in OD, then down shift to drive, which made the 4th to 3rd drop not as bad as on the AOD. Ford later revised the gear rations with the 4R70W, used by the 90s Crown Vics, to have a lower 1st gear and a 0.70 overdrive.
This all closely describes the experiences given by the ’85 Crown Vic my parents had – except the reliability part. Their’s was a turkey.
Even the velcro seats hit home as their’s was also a highly trimmed one – vent windows and all, although their ’85 was white with the aluminum turbine wheels. My father fussed about getting in and out of those seats relentlessly. Then again, he frequently wore dress pants and got stuck; I wore jeans and never did. So it’s hard to know.
Emission control devices were the huge Achilles heel on their’s and it was traded for a Dodge Dynasty at about the mileage in which you bought yours. Some emissions piece would fail and get repaired only for another one to fail in short order. The final straw was one that caused black smoke to pour out the exhaust and it being over $700 (in 1990) to replace.
I liked their car as it had actual room in the back seat. It had been purchased used with like 5k on the odometer and my dad had what seemed like heart palpitations during price negotiation as it was going to cost over $10,000! It seemed like his world might come to an end.
About the drivetrain – yep, a 351 cured a lot. That’s why I liked my ’86 Vic although downshifts could still be accompanied with a lot of drama.
Your Vic was a really nice one.
When you mention the back seat, I remember another quirk of the car. The rear seat belts retracted into a little pliable plastic sleeve. The sleeves cracked while my mother owned the car and the buckles would retract so far in that they were hard to reach. Mom was pretty resourceful and attached a small wooden thread spool to the place where the belt folded through the metal buckle tab. It didn’t interfere with wearing the belt, but the spool kept the belt from getting lost in its holder.
I recall that late in that car’s life with her Ford offered to install shoulder belts for the rear seats, and she had that done. It has been a long time and I have forgotten exactly how those worked. We never really used them because our child seats were fastened down with the rear lap belts.
I knew a lot of people of our parents’ general age group who owned and loved these cars. I wanted to love these but could never get there. There was certainly not enough good in these to outweigh repeated problems like the ones your parents had.
I bought a 1984 cv for my wife in 98 white with that weird limo roof? (Padded full vinyl with a extended rear) it had that velour interior which I loved. But the 5.slow (first tie I heard perfect) was miserable. A real dog. And lousy mileage to boot. One day j saw in the Want Advertiser (like Penny Pincher) an NOS Full dual exhaust system for like 150… Well of course I bought it it went in pretty easy and I didn’t expect really any improvement other than sound. It did sound a little better but to be fair it sounded a lot like my dad’s 72 econo line. Well I got serious and eventually did the following improvements. 1990 Mustang GT Motor And it’s proper wiring harness feeding into the stock Mustang GT computer. Had a proper muffler shop replace those stock mufflers with stock Mustang GT mufflers that were Left over from a Mustang guy doing an upgrade. Mild shift kit.. Tires just a little bigger than stock. Stiffest shocks I could find and the front and rear anti rollbars from an equivalent year cruiser. It would be an understatement to say That wasn’t quite a weekend project.. However when Done it was a very pleasant ride. I would never think to call it fast but it was hugely faster than before . The 1st Time on the road with the hood still off and me looking quite grungy and driving around at 1:00 in the morning I floored it Leaving a stop sign And it laid a very satisfying strip of rubber. The cop around the corner was not as satisfied but he let me off with a warning. I told him what had just happened and how excited I was that the car was running better and he laughed. With the suspension improvements the car of course would not Chase miatas But was quite comfortable and stable when cornering. And on the 1st long trip I got 21 miles per gallon. All of this while sitting on a comfy blue velvet throne with fingertips staring and my wife sitting right next to me on the bench. Pretty successful
A lot more info was available on these around 2011 or so when my eldest kid bought an 89 Grand Marquis. I was amazed at how different the H.O. versions of the 5.0 were from the LoPo in these cars. I remember that the upgrade required a set of heads from a later model Explorer and that the firing order was completely different, among other things. And even then the H.O. engines for the automatics were always detuned to keep from blowing up the stupid AOD. I can only imagine how satisfying the car was to drive after you go done with it.
Oh most truly satisfying. I forget what the rear end ratio was probably a 308 but with the AOD transmission that translated to 2000 RPM at 80. Funny thing is what you mentioned is what I heard from ford technician when I started the job. I bought the motor as a complete unit. All accessory’s right back to the bell housing, Shorty stock headers included. It also had the factory wiring harness still intact. The slight issue (!) Was that the mustang have been involved in a fire. The motor looked OK had some soot on it Nothing melted or scorched But at the end of the wiring harness before it got to the computer it was cut The guy who is local agreed that if I couldn’t get it running he take it back. Even wrote out a bill of sale to that effect. So then I went to the Ford dealership and went into their manuals and made about eight pages of photocopies on the 1990 mustang engine schematic. That is when some cocky technician told me it won’t work because it’s a different firing order. In a rare example of me having the right comments at the time, I told him that it was a complete engine Wired correctly and frankly it didn’t know where it was.My intention was to run it before putting it into the car. My dad had a nice heavy pallet on some heavy duty casters and I ratchet it down to that. I also used my five.slow crown Vic as a blood donor and disconnected the fuel lines to my motor and ran it to that one. What I have to mention now though is how to get it all wired. I got a compatible engine computer with the harness cut in the other direction with the intent to find all the wires and match them up. I am an engineer and worked on a lot of electrical stuff I know how to read a schematic and how to ring wires out. What I didn’t anticipate and it’s actually kind of funny in retrospect is that the point with the wires were cut was getting closer to the heat of the fire. I could tell a black wire and a white wire but they were numerous yellow with blue stripe or green with red stripe that has shifted their colors! That when it comes down to it I don’t think there are more than Maybe 30 wires going to the engine. And all you really had to do was stick a pin into the wires you knew on the engine, cylinder three for example, And search the usual suspects to you gotta beep. And of course this process gets faster with each successive one. When done it started up really without any drama Putting it in the car really was basically a winch in the garage. Very little drama at all it was my first motor swap and probably like leave my last. The only thing that gave me a moment of dread was realizing that as I was inching it into place the Intake manifold was going to hit the wiper motor and would probably end up with almost an inch or two of interference. As you mention this was back in about 1999 and we didn’t have all the information we have at our fingertips. At one point going to a junkyard for some other reason I saw a 1998 crown Vic with a 5 L motor and an intake manifold that looked just like mine except for one difference. Some of you already probably know what this is. This intake manifold has a box shaped Plenum slightly offset from the centerline of the engine. On the crown Vic it’s on the passenger side on the mustang it’s on the driver side all I had to do was flip the manifold around and make some minor changes to the throttle linkage. Well it’s getting late and I got a fly tomorrow. I can tell two small tales of good judgment from wisdom and wisdom from bad judgment later. Good driving to you all
I can relate to this on many different levels.
“Neither of our cars added to my burden“: That’s 100% my current position. I’m glad that our current cars are undramatic, from both a financial and repair perspective. Part of me longs to drive something more exciting than a silver minivan, but I often think how glad I am that our cars aren’t adding to life’s other problems.
Crown Vic as a Family Car: We bought a Crown Vic shortly after our first daughter was born in 2007. It some ways it was a good choice, but like your experience, and especially after Kid #2 came along, I found myself driving Detroit’s biggest sedan, and it was a complete pain. We take a lot of long-distance driving trips, and we realized quickly that something other than a sedan would suit us much better. After we bought an Odyssey in 2010, we joked that going somewhere without the minivan was like losing a limb. As much as I like traditional sedans, I had to face the reality that minivans have them beat as far as traveling vehicles.
Small Firms as Employers: I had a similar experience to yours – I worked for a small consulting firm that broke apart in a similar fashion. Fortunately, I sensed the bad vibes from that place and was able to switch jobs before they closed, but that was a close call for me. I remember thinking at the time, when I was worried about future job prospects and income, how glad I was that I didn’t overspend for my car. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.
It is true – the older I have gotten the less I have craved excitement in my cars and the more I have appreciated the lack of drama.
Law firms have a habit of blowing up, with people moving around to other firms or starting their own. Someone once joked that the reason for this is that law firms are made of unstable elements. 🙂
No personal experience with 1st generation Panthers, but I get the job dilemma. My first job after retiring from the Army was for a small company.
The owner who hired me summed up the situation quite well:
Big company job = Decent business security. Less job security.
Small company job = Decent job security. Less business security.
He sold me on the small company idea. I was luckier than many with my choice. The small company grew. Those of us who started with it when it was small ended up with the best of both worlds. It doesn’t always work out that way.
It’s coincidental that your Coal comes at the same time that I’m exercising my ’85 C/V prior to the snowflakes flying. Mine is a Canadian spec 351W, 2.73 rear, dual exhaust and 14 inch wheels. I didn’t notice the same drive-ability issues as your did, and it would take a steep grade to drop it out of overdrive at highway speed. The original V/V carb has been replaced with a two barrel, so performance is likely lessened over original, but running around town nets around 18US, with highway around 23US. A GM transmission and Quadrajet would improve things considerably.
I cannot help but think that if the US had not been saddled with that silly CAFE system that assessed fines unless cars hit certain MPG targets that Ford would have 1) offered the 351 in these cars in the US and 2) would have given it the same kind of fuel injection systems that the 5.0 cars got instead of that troublesome VV carb. I found that the basic EFI in my 5.0 (a throttle body setup, as I recall that was not improved until later in the 80s) made for a good running car. An EFI 5.8 would have been even better. But I agree that the GM transmission design was more pleasant in its operation.
I had forgotten that you had this one- I still cannot decide if I like the 2 tone paint treatments on these or not.
I inherited my Dad’s ’90 G/M, which gives me the opportunity to compare the two. The newer 302 f/i is a lot more friendly for starting/idling/pulling when cold than the older ’85, and I can’t really tell if there is much of a performance difference between the two. The overdrive on the ’85 kicks in around 50mph, whereas the ’90 is around 35mph, really helping more with economy around town and in suburban driving. The ’90 tends to rev more off of the line than the ’85. It’s interesting to see how Ford continued to develop these cars through the ’80’s, whereas GM had really coasted with their B/C platforms in the 80’s.
The AOD was a kludge job. I had very little exposure to that one, but the ATX in my mom’s Escort was not a pleasant thing at all. It reminded me all-too much of the Roto-Hydramatic. If you’re going to have aggressive torque split, you need more gears, so that the (partial) loss of the torque converter is compensated by more gear ratios, like the old 4-speed HM.
“I had very little exposure to that one”
Consider yourself lucky! That miserable unit made the cars unpleasant to drive when they were newer, and eventually became the cars’ glass jaw as it got old. If the throttle cable linkage got out of whack (like if the plastic tip disintegrated with age/impact) it was game over for the transmission, which would quickly chew itself up.
I drove a 1981 Mercury Lynx with the ATX. It was the worst automatic transmission I have ever experienced. The AOD was gem in comparison.
The GM 700R-4 was way better but we always replaced them with a THM350, which was an extremely reliable until.
I got so good at rebuilding the THM350 I could do it in half the book time.
The Roto Hydra-Matic really had a different set of sui generis issues, stemming from the fact that its 1–2 and 2–3 shifts involved emptying and then refilling the converter. Also, the converter was set up so that it wouldn’t provide torque multiplication once the vehicle was moving at more than a walking pace, because the Accel-a-Rotor was linked to the output shaft rather than a stator shaft fixed to the case. So, first gear ratio split the difference between first and second in the four-speed Hydra-Matic, with the Accel-A-Rotor giving a little extra push off the line only.
Second gear was very similar to third in the four-speed Hydra-Matic, although where the latter had torque-splitting in both third and fourth, Roto Hydra-Matic was completely mechanical in second. Its big functional limitation was not its torque-splitting so much as how slowly it shifted.
It was also a kludge, as was the AOD, but in different directions.
I’ve always been a fan of cloth upholstery, but definitely not that sticky velour that your LTD seemed to have.
You also make a good point about the difficulties of a large sedan and road trips with small kids. I think that when I had little kids, and was flogging a minivan on such trips, I used to wish that we could have been driving a “regular” car (like your LTD) and that the kids and their stuff could just accommodate to the vehicle…which is what would have been required when I was a little kid and we all shoehorned into something like a Simca or at best a mid-sized wagon. I think in retrospect, I understand the value that extra room to move about and carry stuff brings. But overall, lord, I am so thankful that the years of strapping kids into car seats are way in my distant past.
I still remember it – before that trip to Dallas, I was smug about what a great family car it would be for travel. We made that drive in one very long day. It was around 2 pm when my attitude finished its 180 degree flip.
Another effect of that trip (one not specifically about the car) was that our almost-1-year-old tolerated it well. But after that long day in the car the kid would fight with every ounce of his strength to keep from going back into that seat. This went on for several months. And we even stopped multiple times to let them run around.
Much relatable here. Some tweaks to the story allowed me to enjoy my experience a bit more.
I purchased a 1987 Mercury Grand Marquis LS in 1991. Elderly one owner car with just a bit over 40K on the clock. So, a bit newer, and yes, the tweaks to the Mercury trim and interior over the Ford, plus its status as the highest Panther you could get before going Lincoln were little nonsensical joys for me.
From Wiki, your carb car had 140hp, and 250lb ft of torque. My fuel injected power plant had 150hp and 270lb ft. Considering I had spent a few years in a 110hp Olds 307 powered 88, this was a downright zippy post malaise big car.
I’m totally on board that two vehicles with the same mission statement just doesn’t do it for me. My Marquis was soon paired with my fiancée’s 1989 Ford Thunderbird LS coupe. Suddenly, I’d gone from a nearly all GM life to an all upscale Ford household that had some of Ford’s Better Ideas.
My MGM was replaced by a 1995 Chrysler Concorde sedan before we had children. With one child, and only relatively short road trips (longer trips required a flight), the Concorde served us pretty well with one child.
Not surprisingly, the second child doomed the Thunderbird to a replacement by something very different.
The 302 used in the 1983-85 Panther’s were rated at 140 hp, but they used CFI not a carb. The 307 Oldsmobile V8 was rated at 140 hp, not 110 hp; that was the 3.8L V6 hp rating. I agree that despite the 10 hp difference, there was a big difference in performance when comparing the 140 hp 307 to 150 hp MPFI 302, both of which I owned simultaneously.
It’s true – going from zero kids to 1 kid doesn’t require much change in cars – unless your only car is a 2 door. 1 to 2 requires getting out of a sedan, but most any SUV or wagon will do. 2 to 3 moves you up a division in SUVs or you need a van (mini or otherwise).
I understand the dilemma a growing family poses for car enthusiasts, especially sedan owners. We, too, traded a car for something larger when Child #2 arrived, as the rear-facing baby safety seat barely fit in the back seat without moving the front seat forward to a position uncomfortably close to the dash.
I confess to not being a fan of Panthers, but I find the velour interior of your Crown Vic very attractive, despite its Velcro-like grip. Probably not the best upholstery for families with young children, either.
The tipping point for a three-seat vehicle seems to be a third child, so I’m interested to see whether the arrival of Cavanaugh #5 pushed you into an SUV or minivan.
“I’m interested to see whether the arrival of Cavanaugh #5 pushed you into an SUV or minivan.”
The answer shall be revealed next week. 🙂
Great article, Jim, and thank you for the considerable time you put into it.
We tried exactly one Crown Vic as a taxi. It was box version, and I think a 1986. It was a 351 police model. It was a Canadian car with the emissions exemption for the RCMP. It went quite well indeed.
The AOD was a complete and total dog. We could never train the drivers to use, “D” instead of “OD.” Often, they’d shift to “2” and get only one gear, Ford style. It was such an issue that I ended up driving it. I richened up the LPG mixture and got a very punchy 351. With one can per side, the exhaust sounded great!
We found the Ford cost a lot more to run than GM car. The electrical system was not bulletproof like the fabled GM 21 pin wiring harness.
We only ever had one.
As time has passed I have realized that it was the stupid AOD that completely ruined these cars. These were short of GM B bodies in several ways, but had some benefits over the GM cars too – the deep trunks were fabulous and with some sway bars and the right shocks could be really good drivers that felt lighter on their feet than the GM cars did.
Other than their susceptibilities to body rust, these were great long-lived cars except for that terrible transmission.
Drove a “79” full size “Ford”, 2 door, on a road trip. Was ten years old at the time.Ride was good. Rather a lot of rattles as I recall, horn was activated by a “turn signal like” stalk. Never did adjust to that. Was a rather nice green color I believe.
Lol Car was ten. I was pushing @ twenty nine. Lol I’ ll proofread better I hope.
Like another reader above, I came across this post just when I was planning to take my ‘89 wagon out for its first exercise in weeks. (Shameful but my health, plus California fuel costs, means I don’t drive it or any other car much these days. I really should sell the Crown Vic.) I had forgotten just quite how nice it is to drive: good steering and not-bad handling, all things considered. Plus the smoothness and power are great.
I have never understood all the many, many complaints about the 4OD transmission. Do I not have one in an ‘89, am I too sluggish a driver to notice, or what? My only reason for sometimes using D instead of O is that in O the car readily gets too fast for around-town traffic!
By 1989, the AOD was much better. The early iterations were awful.
Not only that, but the 302 was much better by then too. The later MPFI versions had improved low end torque and more horsepower meaning the shortcomings of the split torque operation were not as noticeable. The AOD in my 88 GM was ok despite its shortcomings in design, and it’s powertrain I would say was better overall than the GM 307/TH200-4R combo IMO.
One thing that always irritated me about the Panther was the extreme curvature of the trailing edge of the front door. It made the bottom of the front door very long and the bottom of the rear door very short. It also made a very pointy corner at just the right height to hit one’s shin.
First car I ever worked on was my dad’s ’83 LTD dirt track car. I am now 32 and own a 1985 Ford LTD Crown Victoria and teach my kids, age 5 and 2, how to work on it for their first experience. So far, we have built and installed a 331 stroker, installed a Lentech Street Terminator AOD, swapped the 3.08 to 3.73 and added a posi-trac, and many other little mods. Drive it daily.
My sister’s first vehicle with an automatic was a new V8 F150 with an early AOD. First car with more than four cylinders and 1600 cc, for that matter. I remember my first time riding in it as a passenger, and it always seemed to be in the wrong gear. She was a good driver and realized that, based on her stick shift experience, but just assumed that since it was an automatic she should let it do its thing. When I suggested she just put it in 3rd (D?) for a long freeway grade instead of letting it shift up and down incessantly, she was amazed that it worked. As I recall that truck rusted away (eastern Canada) with no mechanical issues.
For a tinker car, in fall 2002, I got an ’87 Colony Park wagon, with Towing Package. A 3.73 rear end with Trac-Loc differential. Note: “Posi” is a Chevy product name, lol.
Accelerated well and got through snow like nothing. Also, the 302 had newer EFI. With towing springs, suspension, was like a Police Interceptor’s handling.
For fun, I got an ’87 CV with 2.73 open rear end, since it was spotless. But, it drove slow as you described for your ’85, just smoother, no jerky trans shifts. The flat bench seat was hard as rocks and body lean was awful. Got rid of it after 6 week, and said “no more than 1 tinker car again”.
Unfortunately, I was laid off in 2003, and had to sell the wagon, 🙁
In conclusion, towing package made a difference,
My dad had an ’85 Crown Vic LX, loaded fully. It was the fastest car I’d ever driven from Point A to B… if you were in a hurry and in Connecticut at that time.
Reason: when overtaking on a highway, the left lane cleared immediately as one approached. The CT State Police had dark blue Crown Vics, and anyone with a rear view mirror thought that was who was coming up on them. Would often get the single finger salute while passing, when the alloy wheel and vinyl top became obvious.
Your description of the driving experience rings loudly for me; it reminds me of my folks’ ill-bought ’80 Stinkoln Clown Car. That AOD transmission, situated between an underpowered 4.9-litre (thank you very much, since we do real math like grownups rather than make-believe math like Ford marketeers) V8 and a much-too-tall rear axle, was a severely inadequate, deeply unpleasant “power”train. It even sounded awful, with the underhood sounds dominated by the drone and grind of the air and power steering pumps, respectively. Just ugh.
Another fine chapter. A friend’s father bought one of these new, and because he towed a camper trailer every summer he got the 351 and had the rear gears changed to something like 3.42 before he took delivery.
I definitely should have had my father do that with his 81 Impala, perhaps you’d have been happier with it too.
My Dad never had a Crown Victoria of this vintage, but in ’78 when he was looking to replace his ’73 Country Sedan Wagon, he did look at the new at the time ’79 LTD (before it became Crown Victoria)…this was the fall of ’78, and I don’t remember the reason, but he didn’t care for the LTD, and instead bought a leftover ’78 Caprice Classic Wagon right out of the showroom…it was probably the plushest car he was to own (well, maybe colored by options at the time that are now standard). It did have the 305 instead of the 350, but otherwise had everything including the trailer towing package (we did have a small pop-top trailer at the time). And…it had the “Ford-like” 3 way tailgate, which my Father liked a lot better than the clamshell gate they’d used before this. Maybe a Ford wagon would have been more liveable on trips than the sedan?
By ’89, he was back to Ford, for the first of 3 Sables in a row…I think the first two were 3.0 Vulcans, they seemed like nice cars…the last was a 96, which had the 3.8, I didn’t care for it as much as the ’94 it replaced. Those ended up being the last Fords he was to own, he bought 2 Impalas after that.
Commenting on a small part of your post, I had an ’86 GTi, which was similar to your ’85 and also had that same unit, which usually worked great…3 odometers, lots of other functions…until it stopped working and you lost all 3 (there was a mechanical problem where the speedometer cable broke at the back of the unit that housed the odometers). I kept my GTi till 2001, overall it was a good car (comfortable but not durable seat fabric that I got to redo twice, once when the bolsters wore out with tons of foam dust underneath the seat no longer in place to support the fabric) which gave me a few problems but overall was a good car.
You mention the desire to have a car you love, and I’ve found that can actually go to far as with my current car, which really is “me” but is now 22 years old, and they don’t sell it anymore…guess I could go back to a GTi, but I’m no longer target audience (way too old and no longer a scrambler). And…next car needs automatic, since no one in my family can drive my car. This leads to denial, even when it makes “sense” to get another car you can’t find something you like as much as you already have…so you keep it, even when you know you’re really marking time, just hoping something comes out that you can related (better) with. Maybe that’s why I’ve only owned 5 cars in almost 50 years as licensed driver.