I love Crown Vics! A few of my friends had P71's growing up. We thrashed on those things.
Just watch out for the spark plugs blowing out of the heads on those 2v. If you plan on doing a tune up and changing them, be very careful removing/installing them! The plug insert kits are a headache to install.
Yeah I heard of problems related to that. I'm going to leave the plugs in there since it seems to run fine. When/if I get around to a tune up I'll be really careful.
Yesterday right after buying it I drove directly to O'Reilly and changed the battery and wiper blades since both were bad. The battery needed to be jumped every time and the wipers were literally solid plastic not pliable rubber lol.
Mine is a P73, so it's the civilian model - not the cooler P71. But, it was a fleet car for a local transit district. I'm thinking it was just to shuttle around bus drivers or something because they never/rarely drove the car at night. How do I know? Well, I changed the headlights because I drive at night a lot and the old bulbs had a 1998 date code on them. Just goes to show how good Sylvania's regular bulbs are (their BS overpriced Silverstars and zXe bulbs have super short lifespan)... 141K on a single set of bulbs! The new ones are definitely brighter though. I have to restore or replace the lenses though because they are foggy.
I want to put the black honeycomb grille on there so maybe when I get to pick-n-pull I'll do that. A friend who has a newer P71 told me to get the air box from an 06+ P71 as its a straight across swap (though I have to keep my original MAF as far as I can tell) that should get me 10HP supposedly.
I was also considering a push bumper to make it look more coppy but my friend talked me out of it because apparently it weighs like 60-100lb and interrupts air flow which decreases MPG and would be counter-productive.
Sooner than later I'm going to do an oil change with a full synthetic 5w-30. That's what I use in my 99 Suburban and it definitely likes that. I'll be using the Motorcraft filter since it's cheaper than the Wix (which is what I use in my GM) and it's supposedly the best option.
In the near future I'm also going to have the transmission serviced because the fluid isn't in great condition. At 30-40mph under light throttle it seems to shift a little weird so that should help it out.
The engine is super quiet even on a cold start on whatever old oil is in there. Surprising for a Ford as every older F150 I hear sounds awful on a cold start. I did notice negative fuel trims when I hooked up my scantool but I'll troubleshoot that later.
Biggest issue is it makes awful clunking noises when turning the steering wheel at low speeds (like in parking lots). Any ideas on that? It started doing that like 100 miles after I bought it. Oh well :/ hopefully it's nothing major, because it drives just fine.
