Got the Marq back. $328.14 later. He didn't charge me for the hour he spent going to parts stores looking for flange gaskets. Sounds pretty damn awesome. Notable difference in pickup to. It's quiet when you need it to be but loud when you start to step into it. Like, echoing off of houses loud. I'll have a video soon.
As soon as I get my center caps on and the paint looking a little better, I'm probably gonna put this car on Craigslist for 3k, and if someone pays me 2500 they can have it. I'm not overvaluing it, am I? Surely not; if you ignore the fact that it used to be a police car and has almost 300,000 miles of engine wear, it's a pretty damn nice car. I mean, I really, really love this car. I enjoy working on it and driving it, and it's awesome to just get to see it in the driveway or garage on a daily basis. It's just that I don't turn 16 until may so it's just kinda gonna be sitting around until then, and I figure I may as well make some money on it. Its the perfect car, though. Carpet, 3.55 traclock, no traction control. I'm worried it'll be hard to find another one just like it next spring.
Why don't you keep it, daily it for however long, and then sell it for that same amount in a couple of years?
My car has developed a weird problem. Lets say I'm entering a highway flooring it (because 89 hp) for like 10 seconds. If I shortly after leave the highway and let go off the throttle, the engine electronics light comes on in the dash and I basically have no idle at all. Then I can just turn the car off for a few seconds and turn it on again and it works perfectly. Seems like my car doesn't like full throttle...
Because that's far less profit. I'd be making close to 1k if I sell it for $2500, give or take. Of course, if I sell this one I'll buy another one immediately after to fix up and sell just like I did this one. Its extremely easy money. Next spring I'll buy a nice one to fix up and daily, while continuing to flip them on the side. I wanna drop it off at a paint shop and get them to fix the paint chips, which'll probably cost 100 or 200 bucks. It also leaks trans fluid from the pan, so it needs a new gasket. I'm reluctant to do that, though, because it just got topped off with fresh trans fluid 2 weeks ago.
Well, in 2 years, more and more Vics would be the way of the dodo, and the demand is higher and higher. Even if you put 10k miles on it or so and keep it clean, you'll still make a decent chunk.
It'll be at least 5 years before they disappear from government auctions. The median year that my local sheriffs department is auctioning is '05, and the city is selling mostly '07s. They are everywhere for really cheap, and it'll be that way for a while. I don't have my license and I won't for 10 more months. I don't need to keep this one car sitting around for that long when I could be making money on it. I'm gonna try and flip as many as possible before next May, and continue after I get my license. I'd make so much fucking money if I could move one of these a month.
I thought it would be a good idea to hold onto this one at least for a little while, a Vic that nice is one in a million.
You've got a point, but it's not really that hard to find them this nice. Pretty much all of them easily become this nice with a little work. Also, my center caps just arrived. - - - Updated - - - Cleaned the caps up and put them on the car. They had black overspray on them, I guess because some dipshit didn't take them off when they painted their wheels. Used acetone to clean them up. Got them all shiny.
I've been really thinking about joining the little Panther platform club we have going on here. I'd probably get a Grand Marquis or civilian Crown Vic (I can't stomach the looks of the rear end on the Towncar), if I got an ex-cop Vic I'd probably end up with one of the few lemons that pops up. My firebird is edging me to my limit, I absolutely love the way it looks, it's reasonably comfortable and fun to drive, and even though it's a V6 the 3.8 is a great motor, but everything else is getting on my nerves. I think the transmissions control valve body is worn out, resulting in hard shifts after ive been driving for about an hour. One of the gears in a headlight motor is stripped which results in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv0RtrLXiAg (not mine btw) any time you lock/unlock or turn off the the headlights. There's actually a laundry list of other junk wrong with it but I just realized i'm rambling, so back on topic. Changed the transmission filter, gasket, and fluid on the Firebird to see if my occasional hard shifts were just from a clogged filter, haven't driven it enough to find out yet. And the other week I added a glasspack to my truck, which sounds pretty amazing. It's noticeably louder, but not to the point that it's obnoxious. Oh and it got an oil change as well.
Police crown vics at government auctions are steals, as long as a little bit of paint work doesn't scare you away. They're run hard but are maintained very well. I discovered that mine has brand new rotors and brake pads all around shortly after I bought it. You can find cars with decent paint that only need a little bit of patching here and there, but you'll pay 100 or 200 bucks more for it. Worth it imo. I've grown slightly attached to this car. I don't know if I'll be able to just sell it in a couple of weeks.
Did pretty well. Maybe one more slidehammer session to get that taillight nicely aligned. Already tried putting spacers in between the light and the body, but that just pulls the threaded rods too far out for the nuts to bite in. If the hammer doesn't work, I'll just pop into a bodyshop and borrow a pulling bay for a bit (imported from here) (imported from here) Still a nugget, but much less of a nugget now.
Dried the inside and pushed it into a garage.. Have had to leave mine at my grandparents due to a house work being done, but after yesterdays storm I decided that it needed to go in their garage. Tried to start it and it ran fine for a few seconds but the tacho didn't work, then the tacho started to smoke and the engine cut out. Bugger.
Ever since the exhaust work was done on my truck I'd hear and occasional jingling sound, I found the cause, the inside of my exhaust tip had rotted to the point where all that was left was a rust ring and it would vibrate around in the exhaust tip and make noise. It was built similar to a glasspack muffler, the outside of the tip is thick chrome plated possibly stainless steel, then there was the inner part that was thinner steel that had small baffles in it, and in between the pieces was packed with fiberglass. Here's what was left of the insides.
Taking another go at restoring my passengers side headlight. Going well so far. Edit: alright, done. It's definitely clearer than it was, but I still can't tell of it's as clear as the drivers side light. I'll have to get it outside during the day to really tell.
