1998 Police Interceptor Repairs/Modifications

I have full service records my 1998 ford crown victoria police interceptor since it was bought new in 1998 by a wealthy new england town. The previous owner/police department did a few unexpected repairs during the 70,000 miles that they owned the car. Repairs of note include:

Install a ford remanned transmission at 65,000 miles. Car was towed to dealership, service techs determined fluid was burned and tranny slipped badly enough that car was undriveable.
Many front suspension components replaced over time including a pitman arm, idler arm, a balljoint, a couple tierods and a steering box. (The steering on the car is tighter than many rack and pinion vehicles that i've driven)
Car had an overheating problem at one time. Diagnosis was a burned connector for the electric radiator fan.
Oil cooler lines leaked and the seals were replaced a couple of times
External tranny cooler itself leaked and was replaced
Original plastic intake manifold leaked, replacement installed. Car ran rough immediatetly after intake installation. After scanning codes, monitoring realtime data, and pressure testing coolant system it was determined that the replacement intake manifold had a small leak and was defective. My car was now on it's third intake manifold with less than 70k miles on the odometer. Unfortunatetly, the intake manifold was replaced long enough ago that the revision of the intake with the metal coolant crossover wasn't avaliable at the time.
Both headlamp assemblies were replaced with new ford assemblies. Headlamp assemblies are now around two years old and I can already see a bluish/grey haze forming on them. Polycarbonate (tradename lexan) may work well for items such as prescription eyeglasses, but that crystal clear appearance doesn't last long on items like headlamp lenses that are exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays for several hours a day.

I have owned my crownvic p71 for a couple years. During this time, some repairs/modifications of note include:

Within the first week of owning the car, I made an appointment to have two new tires installed on front. Car had the camber set incorrectly on the frontend alignment for a decent amount of time, tires were run underinflated, tires were out of balance, tread depth was marginal so i replaced the fronts with some V speed rated tires. Used one old tire as a full size spare, disposed of one with gouge in sidewall. Mounted the spare tire on 16" stell rim from a wrecked police cruiser. 16" tires are pricey compared to 15"s. Also, of intrest www.tirerack.com sells 16" steel rims for around $50/each and they are made by hayes, which is one of ford's oe suppliers for rims. Both police and civilian model crown vics with steel wheels have the same rims. Additionally, if you have a vehicle with the traction-lok limited slip rearend, make sure that you've got a full sized spare. If a small undersized temporary spare is installed on the rear of the car, there is the very real risk of damaging the posi unit inside the rear end. This is not a concern for crown vic owners with "open rear" equipped cars.
Replaced the mangled trim on "b-pillar" where the prisoner cage was mounted. Big scrapes on trim, holes drilled in trim, C shaped cut towards top. While I had the trim off, I noticed that the police department had not installed one of the bolts that holds the seatbelt slider track to the body of the car. I had two bolts missing total, one on the passengers side and one on the drivers side of the car. "B Pillar" is the post in between the front and back doors, runs from the bottom floor up to the roof. Glad I caught this issue, could have been a major problem if car was ever involved in a collision.
Replace the rubber seals around the drivers door and trunk. Both seals had tears in them, the drivers door had chunks of material missing from it too.
Tighten the driver's a-pillar spotlight fasteners so that the light doesn't spin off to the side of the car while driving on the highway. Additionally, it looks as though the spotlight was mounted too close to the a-pillar at some point in the past as I can see scrapes in the paint on the pillar.
Replace hubcaps with worn retaining clips. When retaining clips wear the hubcap starts to spin at a different speed than the wheel. Makes an annoying clicking sound at low speeds and concerns of the hubcap cutting into the valve stem arise. People don't usually think of hubcaps as a wear item, but they most certainly are on cars with non-adjustable retaining clips such as recent crown vics. Recently, I lost two hubcaps within a week of each other. I'm not quite sure where I lost the first one at. But the other one went flying off when I was on highway cruise with some other crown vic enthusiasts and nearly hit the vic behind me.
Disconnect big trunk release button in the middle of the dash. Afraid of hitting button on highway when attempting to change radio stations. While I had the dash trim off, I noticed that i had two electrical connectors for the button. The default configuration from the factory is have the button always live no matter whether the key is in the ignition or not. Pull the connector off the button and change over to the other connector and the trunk release button only works with the key in the run position. While inside the drivers door I noticed I had a trunk release connector in there as well, this one is only live with the ignition switch in the run position. If you want your trunk release button on the drivers door on your interceptor: order a civilian trunk release button from the ford dealership parts department, pop the factory plug out of the door, push the new button into the precut hole and connect the electrical connector to the button. An alternate use for the trunk release button in the middle of the dash can be found on the delayed accessory page.
Went to remove the rubber floor mat from the car to look for contraband and run some wires for an electrical project. Broke the heads off two of the three bolts that attach the drivers seat to the floor, the bolt that I did not break the head off of had already been replaced by the previous owner/police department. Drilling out the two broken bolts and tapping the holes turned out to be quite time consuming especially after breaking the tap off in the hole. The car is back together now, but do be aware that the task of removing and reinstalling the drivers seat can be much more labor intensive than you initially think it will be. I was fortunate that the stud towards the transmission tunnel at the back of the seat did not require replacement, this looks like a major chore to replace. Note that my car is originally from a "rust free" enviroment that does not use road salt in the winter.
Acquire and install the actuating rods for rear interior door handles and lock button. Prior to the door connecting rod installation project, backseat passengers would always have to ask someone in the front to let them out of the car because the doors could only be opened from the outside. For more info about this project, click here.
My previous door panel had a 2 inch crack in it towards the front of window control/door lock mounting panel when I purchased the vehicle. But within a year, the crack had grown to around 5 inches long and was causing some rattling sounds when the vehicle was driven. I eliminated the rattling sound by sticking a peice of sheetmetal behind the plastic door panel and using some screws to secure it in place on both sides of the crack. Problem was that this solution was not very eye appealing and the door panel was now developing a new crack at the edge of the metal plate. A new drivers door panel carries a suggested retail price of close to $1000 so I elected to replace my panel with a used one from a wrecked vehicle. Acquiring a used door panel without cracks in it is easier said than done though. Denim blue is not a popular color in civilian 98+ crown victorias, and most of the wrecked 98+ police models I found were as bad or worse than what I currently had. Grand marquis door panels will physically fit on a crown vic door shell but to complicate matters they also have a slightly different design with fake woodgrain and a pull handle. After numerous phone calls over the course of several months, I finally located a door panel in decent shape from a wrecked 25k mile civilian donor but I can now see the beginning of a crack forming in it too. Examining the old cracked door panel prior to disposing of it revealed that I had a couple other cracks in it that were concealed by the arm rest and power window switches. Many of these cracks can likely be explained by the fact that the handle on the arm rest is attached to the door in such a way that the entire door panel flexes each time the door is shut by pulling on the armrest handle from inside the car. I now am using a door panel from a wrecked 01' georgia police cruiser donor on my 98' crown victoria. The 01' interior door trim panel did not fit initially on my 98' because of the reinforcement support bracket towards the backedge of the door panel near the latch was different. But removing the 98' reinforcement and installing it's 99+ counterpart was not difficult. Also, before installing the 01' door panel, I glued the carpeted insert from my old 98' panel onto the 01' panel as the new panel would not look symetric when compared to the passenger door. In 2000, ford eliminated the carpeted insert on police door panels but continues to install them on their civilian counterparts.
Bearings in the waterpump started to make a chirping sound one day. My feeling at the time was that if the bearings in the waterpump are near the end of their useful life, I might as well replace the idler pulleys too since they are relatively inexpensive and are likely near the end of their expected life as well. For more info on this repair, click here.
Install a new Idle Air Control Valve (IAC). One day, the engine decided it wouldn't idle unless I depressed the accelerator pedal with my foot. While holding my foot on the accelerator, the idle was very smooth but as soon as I let up on the gas pedal the engine tachometer reading shown on the connected scantool would drop so low that the engine would stall. The symptoms were consistent with a defective iac valve, so I gave the iac valve a couple hits with the butt of a large screwdriver in an attempt to bring it back to life. Sure enough the symptoms disappeared and the engine idled as it should. The special ordered iac valve arrived a couple days later, and only required the removal of two bolts to install it. Some pictures and other background information on the defective iac valve is avaliable by clicking here.
Out of the blue, I found that no air was flowing from the dashboard vents when the heater or air conditioner was turned on. Connecting a voltmeter to the two terminal electrical connector on the blower motor showed that the motor was recieving power so the the fuses were not blown. Next took out a hammer and gave the motor a couple hits while the engine and air conditioner were running and the motor came to life. Local parts store said they had a blower motor in stock. But when I connected the aftermarket blower motor directly to the negative and positive posts on the car bettery, it ran way too noisy for my liking. So I returned the aftermarket blower motor, and ordered a new one from the ford dealer. Until the motor arrived at the dealer, anytime I wanted to use the climate controls I would start the engine, pop the hood and give the blower motor a couple whacks with a hammer. After the new blower motor was installed, I cut the old one open with a small grinding wheel. Not only had the copper brushes worn down significantly, but the copper commutator was worn down enough in the middle that chunks of it had fallen off towards the edges. The new blower motor (part # 1W7Z-19805-BA) moves considerably more air than the old one did. But this is a mixed blessing as the new blower motor also draws more power than the old wornout one did and I had to rewire the turn signal circuit to get the blinkers flashing at a normal rate again.
The car always looked low in the rear compared to the front. Some investigation revealed that ford recieved a bunch of complaints about the 98' & early 99' "E" code police springs causing the rear to sag like I was expierencing. So I elected to install a pair of "H" code springs that are used in the 2003 PI's. Not a big job to change the rear springs as long as you have some way to support the car by rear the frame rails, but to install "H" code springs you'll definetly need a spring compressor.
Like many other retired police cruisers, the headlamp switch had a little bit of the black paint worn off of it around where the headlight knob is. But this problem was corrected when I installed a new headlamp switch during the automatic headlight (autolamp) retrofit project.
Found a good deal on a pair of black window switches for the rear doors and decided to "black out" the rear switches by replacing the body colored ones with black ones. Also replaced the body colored power mirror switch on the drivers door with it's black counterpart.
As mentioned previously, I had installed the drivers door panel from an 01' on my 98'. 2000 and later crown vics have black lock knobs & grommets on the door panels, 99' and prior ones have chrome. The chrome lock knob grommet on the passenger side looked out of place compared to the driver's black one, so I decided to "black out" all the lock knobs & grommets in the car. The grommets are not sold seperatetly from ford, but I located a couple 00+ crown victoria donors with trashed door panels that had been involved in side impacts. Be warned that although other ford vehicles such as tauruses & f150's have lock knobs that look the same as the crown vics ones, there are subtle differences in the diameter of the hole that can cause parts to bind.
Three of the five nightime backlighting bulbs in the instrument cluster were burned out as evidenced by the uneven lighting pattern behind the cluster at night. Since new bulbs are relatively inexpensive, I replaced all the bulbs in the cluster regardless of whether they were burned out when I pulled the cluster from the dash. Note 168 & 194 bulbs are the same physical shape and will fit in the same sockets. But use only 194 bulbs in the cluster as the 168 bulbs are more powerful and generate too much heat which could melt your instrument cluster.
One day without warning, the car started to buck and shake. Connecting a scantool revealed 10% misfire on cylinder #2 (second cylinder from the front on passenger side). Was rather suprised when I pulled the ignition coil from the spark plug well and found it filled with a greenish liquid. It's not uncommon for water to accumulate in the wells if the boots don't seal properly. But the mixture in the spark plug well was partly anti-freeze, so I blew the fluid out of the well with compressed air and put some leak tracer dye in the coolant system. The spark plug well has stayed completely dry since I replaced the spark plug boot and I have not observed any leakage around the coolant crossover tube on the intake manifold. Perhaps a few drops of antifreeze was not properly cleaned up when the intake was replaced under warranty then a little water leaked past the boot and mixed with what was left. This issue initially left some unanswered questions, but appears to have resolved itself as there hasn't been any new discernable accumulation of water in the spark plug well in a several months.
The air conditioner compressor developed an intermittent light chirping sound when the engine was idling. At first, the noise was faint enough that people tended not to notice it unless I specifically pointed it out to them, and I couldn't hear it myself when I was inside the car with the windows closed. But as time progressed, the noise got louder and I could hear my car squeaking away when I was standing 25 feet away. Since the noise was present with the climate controls set to "off", the pulley bearing was definetly on it's way out. The A/C compressor itself could have a had bearing problem too, so I elected to acquire a used "pre-owned" compressor from a wrecked 2002 grand marquis with less than a 1,000 miles on the odometer. This gave me the clutch, pulley, electromagnetic engagement coil, and the compressor itself. (all 97'-02' crown vic/grand marquis/towncar use the same "swash plate" fs10 compressor and are interchangeable. 03' crown vics use a scroll type compressor which would require new hoses, clutch, evaporator, condensor, etc.). The junkyard unit as expected was in excellent shape, the back of the clutch still had the original black factory paint of the friction surfaces. To avoid having to discharge the a/c system, I installed just the new front clutch plate & pulley onto my old compressor. That eliminated the noises from the a/c compressor area, but the car now had a similar high pitched noise coming from power steering pump area. And like the waterpump and a/c clutch, removing the accessory belt and turning each accessory by hand yielded no clues about the source of the noise since the bearings felt tight in all accessories and wouldn't make noise unless spun at a few hundred RPM.
The pressure hose that connects the power steering pump to the steering box had been leaking around the flare nut on the pump for several months, but it was a very slow leak and rarely left any drips on the driveway. But when I would bang around the hose by driving through a large puddle or changing the oil filter, it would sometimes become a much bigger leak that would leave significant puddles under the car. Then after a day or so, the leak would suddenly slow to the point that it rarely dripped on the driveway. Since the 18mm nut that holds the pressure hose to the pump was seized in place, I had postponed this repair indefinetly.
Then the bearings in the power steering pump got noisy which caused a intermittent high pitched squeaking sound while the engine was running. So I installed a "new" steering pump and replaced the leaky pressure hose too, which quieted things down and stopped the leaks. And as an added bonus, the "new" pump improved steering feel by increasing turning effort to some extent. More details on this project are avaliable by clicking here.
As part of the power steering pump project, a new goodyear gatorback accessory drive belt was installed that has a unique ribbed design to it so it gets a better grip on the accessory pulleys than the factory motorcraft belt did. I used to notice that the headlights would dim, the climate control blower motor spin slowly, and the voltage guage dip for a little while after I'd driven through deep puddles of water. Also used to hear the accessory belt chirp sometimes during hard wide open throttle shifts due to sudden large changes in engine rpm from the firm tranny shift calibration of the police pcm. But both issues seem to have been resolved with the installation of the new gatorback belt.
Replacing all the accessories on the engine one by one because of bearing failure is getting to be frustrating. I've got less than 100k miles on the odometer, but I do realize that my car is from the police world where emergency vehicles idle for hours and sometimes days at a time without being shut off or accumulating any mileage on the odometer. Although most of the engine accessories have needed replacement, the engine itself appears to be in excellent shape. It's important to note here that none of the worn bearings in the front engine drive (fead) accessories caused any problems other than being a little noisy. But if I were to have ignored the sounds and "turned the radio up" for several months like some "penny pinching" vehicle owners would have, it's likely that I would have been stranded on the side of the road with a broken accessory belt when the accessory bearings finally seized and refused to turn anymore.
I had observed a little bit of a misfire a couple of times when cruising on the highway, but it was not severe enough to significantly impact driveability or illuminate the check engine light. But after cleaning the engine bay with a low pressure garden hose and some engine degreaser, I had a major misfire that caused the whole vehicle to buck and shake. So I let the vehicle idle for a little bit and connected a scantool and picked up P0305 which is cylinder #5 misfire. Replaced the coil on plug ignition coil for cylinder #5 and the vehicle idled smoothly again like it should. Have heard similar stories from other crown vic owners about ignition coil failure after washing the engine. And it appears as though a little water will kill an otherwise marginal ignition coil near the point of failure. For anyone else troubleshooting misfires: (cylinder #1 is the passenger side front towards the radiator) (cylinder #4 is the passenger side rear towards the firewall) (cylinder #5 is the drivers side front towards the radiator) (cylinder #8 is the drivers side rear towards the firewall).
The stock v-rated good year eagle rsa's on the rear of the car still had enough tread depth on them to comply with the state safety laws, but they were hydroplaning too easily in the wet weather for my liking. When I dropped the car off at the tire shop, I told the shop owner about my inability to keep the hubcaps from flying off at highway speeds and asked that he install relatively short valve stems and put extenders on them. That way, I lower the chances of cutting off the valve stem if a hubcap flies off on the highway. Sure I may break off the extender, but the schrader valve and valve stem will still be intact and the tire won't deflate suddenly in a second. Tire shop guy did warn me to watch air pressure closely in the cold winter months as the extenders have a tendency to have water freeze on them causing a slow air leak.
The front & rear brake pads still had enough pad thickness left to comply with state motor vehicle safety laws, but I did not like how low the brake pedal felt or the way the car vibrated when stopping from highway speed. So it was time to service the brakes, some notes about this project are avaliable by clicking here.
The headliner in my cruiser had holes cut and impressions in it from police equipment that was previously mounted there. There was no damage to the headlinder from the prisoner cage though. I had initially thought of reupolustering the headliner, but later located a wrecked 98 crown vic LX donor with a dark denim blue interior that caught my eye. Removing the headliner from the donor would be easy as the back window was not present in the donor. But unfortunetly, I couldn't transport the headliner home in my crown vic as it wouldn't physically fit inside and still allow me enough space to drive the car. So another day, I drove different ford vehicle to the yard and to transport my stuff home in. To get my old headliner out and the new one in, I removed the front passenger's seat and center console, then reclined the drivers seat all the way back and slid the headliner out of the passenger's door. After doing some wiring, installing some additional support brackets, and notching the roof bow lateral support, I now have a cruiser with headliner "passenger assist" grab handles, lighted sunvisors, and a "bug eye" domelight with maplights. While the headliner was out, i also resealed the two 3/4" lightbar and antenna holes cut into the roof with some silicone sealent. I also installed the blue plastic push pin that holds ticket writing light to the headliner so the light doesn't slide around anymore when using the on/off button. The old headliner could not use the pushpin since the area to which it attaches had been removed to mount other equipment.
As mentioned previously, I replaced the old single bulb domelight with it's three bulb "bug eye" counterpart that's got maplights in it. The complexity of this project appears to suprise many people. The backing plate that the domelight mounts on is different between the two variants. So are the dimensions of the cutout in the headliner for the light. The electrical connectors are different, and there is an additional demand lighting lead to power the maplights that is not present on the variant of the harness without the maplights.
The old blower motor resistor and connector were "burned" and there was a huge difference in speed between the "high" and "medium high" blower motor speeds on the climate control system. If the problem had progressed much further, the a/c & heater would have been totally inoperative in any speed but "high". The resistor & pigtail are avaliable from ford for under $30, but I elected to remove the entire manual climate control system and install the automatic temperature control (EATC) counterpart in it's place. This project also corrected the issue of the "scratchy" temperature control knob where i'd intermittently get heat when I had actually selected cooled air. More details about this project and some pictures of the burned resistor are avaliable by clicking here. Adding eatc to a car is not for everyone, and if you just want to replace the defective resistor you might consider paying someone else to do it for you. The valve cover, heater hoses and evaporative emissions control valve are in the way when you try to remove it. So you'll get to play around with a small 8mm 12point wrench, 1/4" drive ratchet set, extensions & swivel adapters while you scrape your knuckles.
The emergency brake foot pedal switch had failed, so I no longer got a warning light on the dash when the engine was running and the pedal was engaged. The issue was not that big of a concern though as the car automatically releases the pedal when the engine was running and the gear selector was placed into any forward gear. The wiring was good since if I pull off the uninsulated spade connector and touch it to the metal housing, the light on the instrument panel would illuminate and would also illuminates during the bulb test when the ignition key was turned to start. Curiously, the switch itself was not avaliable seperatetly from ford, and I had to purchase the entire ~$180 pedal assembly to get it. So, I first tried cleaning the switch with a little WD40 which got the bulb to illuminate sometimes, but not always. So I made a trip to the local salvage yard and grabbed the pedal assembly from a wrecked 98' civilian crown vic that still had all it's doors and windows intact.
The drivers seat looked decent cosmetically and didn't have any holes worn through the upholstery. But my car was a fully marked cruiser that had someone sitting in the drivers seat for several hours a day when it was in active police service. So by the effects of gravity, the cushion was collapsed to some extent. Installing the XW7Z-5460001-AA seat cushion repair kit made the drivers seat considerably more comfortable to sit in and was well worth the $50 that it cost for the parts. The seat looks a little different due to the different bolster design. And I now sit a couple inches higher on the seat than I used to. This adds comfort, but it also places my head closer to the roof. And the new foam required more effort to pack under the seat cover during reassembly than the old collapsed one did. The application on the repair kit mentioned above is for officially 1998-2002 police cruisers with bucket seats, but you could likely make it work in 1995-1997 models as well. More information on this topic is avaliable by clicking here.
Replace the F5AZ-5464810-A cushioning in the backrest portion of the drivers seat. It's was collapsed, the upholstery looked loose, and the seat bolsters essentially didn't provide any lateral support like they should have. The backrest cushion in question fits both the passengers and drivers side of 1995-2000 police cruisers (bucket & split bench) and 1995-2002 base civilian crown vics. It will not work in grand marquises due to the different method that the upholstery attaches to the seat cushion. See also: http://images4.fotki.com/v41/photos/4/42438/433449/DCP_5219-vi.jpg
While I had the seat apart, I installed the lumbar support system from a fire damaged civilian crown vic lx donor. One complication here was that the portion of the drivers bottom seat frame where the lumbar switch would mount was cut for the 6-way power seat switch rather than the lumbar switch. But a small grinding wheel and an electric drill were able to correct this problem without too much effort. Curiously, the lx lumbar switch fit into my police cruiser's passenger seat bottom frame without any modification. If you'd like to use aftermarket components, the rostra "extended bladder assembly" lumbar kit (250-1458) is perfectly sized to fit over the backrest flexolator grid that supports the cushion. Interestingly, the universal rostra lumbar kit uses a motor that appears to be manufactured by the same supplier as the original equipment lumbar motor in 01+ crown vics.
The couple hundred dollars I spent for drivers seat parts was well worth it. My seat is feels like a whole new seat to ride in. No more backaches when driving over a bumpy roads. Lateral support is significantly improved so I am much less likely to "fall out of my seat" during cornerning. And the feeling that the entire seat is "leaning" towards the passengers side of the car when parked on a level surface is gone too. I do realize that I could have purchased an entire "new seat" out of a wrecked police cruiser for less than I spent repairing my current one. But I wanted to keep bucket seating, I wanted it to be blue (or possibly black), and I also did not want the 01-02 police buckets with the smaller backrests that had weapons cutouts in them. And sitting in a seat for several hours a day wears it out extremely quickly, so most of the "pre-owned" cop car seats in the salvage yards need new cushioning too (even the late model, low mileage cruisers).

Pending projects include:

Replace shock absorbers. The car is starting to "nose dive" during hard braking (one of the classic symptoms of worn shocks). Rebound stabilization is still reasonable on bumpy roads. The shocks were replaced previously in 2000 by the previous owners, but it's time to change them yet again. Am undecided whether to go with ford motorcraft (made by tokico), gabriel lt, edelbrock ias, or bilsteins. KYB and Monroe shocks are also avaliable for my cruiser, but they have not been rated well by other crown vic owners i've talked to. ACDelco also makes crown vic shocks, but it might be bad luck to put chevrolet parts on a ford vehicle. The fronts shocks on crown vics are easy to change. The upper fasteners on the rears are a challenge though because of the limited clearance between the frame and the body of the car (especially if the nut is corroded to the shock tube). If everything turns smoothly, a ratcheting "gearwrench" and a holding tool for the tube will work. If not, perhaps a torch or a sawzall might be needed. Some other crown vic owners have even gone so far as to remove the bolts from some of the rear body mounts and then jack the body off the frame to access the shock fasteners. Some hacker "mechanics" have cut holes in the floor to get at the top nuts, but that's not happening to my car. Note that police springs are very firm and have a very high rate which prohibits "bounce testing" the shocks by leaning your body weight on them and watching rebound.
The gear selector tube bushings are a little loose. The upper steering column bearing is also loose, so that I can move the steering wheel up & down, side to side a noticeable distance without seeing any movement in the steering column. The bearing is quiet and has not caused any driveability issues, but is getting progressively more sloppy very quickly and I do run the real risk that the steering wheel will bind in place during a cornering maneuver if I postpone the repair too much longer. Around the time that I noticed this problem, a friend of mine wanted a new steering wheel for his grand marquis that's got the radio & climate controls on it. So we split the cost of purchasing a steering column from a wrecked late model low mileage towncar involved in a side impact. He got the steering wheel & clockspring. I got the remainder of the column. While i'm installing the "new" steering column, i'm going to install a new clock spring as a precaution too. The part (F8AZ-14A664-AA) is only around $40 from the dealer. And if the steering wheel has been turned enough times to wear out the bearings, then chances are that the small electrical traces inside the clockspring are near the point of failure too. Note that towncar clock springs such as the XW1Z-14A664-AA & F5VY-14A664-A ones are not compatible with a crown vic dash harness because they've got extra traces in them for redundant wheel controls & switch backlighting. See also: http://images4.fotki.com/v42/photos/4/42438/461361/03994043_4X-vi.jpg and http://images4.fotki.com/v42/photos/4/42438/461361/03994043_5X-vi.jpg
Alter the instrument cluster oil guage to provide actual pressure readings. Currently, the guage can be in one of two positions: the bottom or mid-way between the top & bottom. The actual sender on the engine block is just an on/off switch which opens below ~5 psi. Apparently, ford found that the general car buying public did not like seeing the oil pressure fluctuate as they were driving, so they installed a device that conceals the fluctuations by looking like a guage but functioning like an on/off warning light. This also saved on manufacturing costs to some extent since it's less expensive for a sender that provides an on/off signal instead of one that provides linear resistive readings for the actual pressures. Note: The dropping resistor is internal to the instrument cluster guage, there aren't any resistors hidden inside the oil guage circuit harness.
Upgrade to the newer style 03'-04' headrests. The current ones are too low for my liking and would not provide adequate "whiplash" protection for tall statured occupants if the vehicle was involved in a collision. One complication here is that dark denim blue was discontinued starting in the 2003 model year. So to get my blue interior to match the headrests, I'd have to have the new headrest assemblies reupholstered prior to installation. See also: 03' headrest part # page and http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/crashworthy/HeadRest and http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/rulings/HeadRest/Index.html
The pinch roller on the drivers lower door hinge is worn so that the drivers door often will not stay open without propping it with a jackstand or similar implement. The hinge itself appears to be in good condition since there isn't any noticeable play in the hinges if I try to lift the door up and down while it's open. This car was originally a marked "around town" cruiser, not a state "highway patrol" unit, so there are countless open/close cycles on the latch when the driver got in/out of the car. I'm not sure that I want to correct this issue as it'll put more stress on the drivers door trim panel every time I initially try to close the door. But having a functional pinch roller, will lower the amount of force transmitted to the door panel by slowing deceleration towards the end of the travel range when the door slams into the car body. If I do elect to install a new hinge, the part is less than $40 from ford but it comes painted black and would have to be repainted blue before installation.
The paint on the top inside edge of the door where the a-pillar rubber seal contacts the door has worn off in places exposing bare metal. Not really an issue that needs to be corrected, but this coupled with the wear on the hinge pinch roller and paint near the rocker panel scuff plate leaves me wondering how many thousand open/close cycles the drivers door has on it. Hopefully, the wires inside the rubber boot that connects from the body of the car to the door are in decent shape with all the flexing they've endured.
While I had front passenger door trim panel off for the heated door mirror project, I noticed the plastic is developing a stress crack near the door latch. It's extremely common to find stress cracks on the drivers door panel especially on crownvics that have ever been in active police use. But finding a stress cracked passenger door panel is somewhat rare. But this works in my favor since "good" "pre-owned" front passenger door panels are plentiful in salvage yards.
Wrecked 2001-2003 crown vics and wrecked 1999-2003 mustang gt's are becoming plentiful at the salvage yards. And these vehicles have PI "Performance Improved" cylinder heads that my 1998 crown vic does not. My current engine runs well, has excellent oil control, doesn't have any noticeable external leaks, and doesn't have any odd noises to it, but the lure of a little extra horsepower is tempting. Replacing the factory installed NPI (non performance improved heads) on my police interceptor with a set of PI heads should yield an extra ~50HP at the flywheel, but i'd be tearing apart a good running engine and may run into unforseen complications. I can acquire an entire low mileage "pre-owned" pi headed engine complete with injectors, ignition coils, sensors, intake manifold, and other goodies for around the same price as I could acquire a new set of pi heads, intake manifold and other required headswap stuff from the dealer for. Swapping the pi heads onto my npi engine yields a higher compression ratio and more horsepower than installing an entire engine out of an 01'-03' crown vic, but it leaves me with a 5 year old bottom end on the engine that has close to a 100k police miles on it. Also with the engine project, it would be desirable install the transmission torque converter out of a 99+ police cruiser as it has a little higher "stall speed" and also alter the engine computer (pcm) programming. As another option, allen engine development (AED) manufactures a supercharger for the 4.6L crown victoria. The supercharger makes serious power by itself, and even more if combined with a pi headed engine. See also: http://www.allenengine.com and http://www.jerseyvics.com and http://www.car-part.com
Wrecked 1998+ lincoln town cars are getting more common in the salvage yards. And all of them have leather 40/20/40 bucket seats in the front. Perhaps I'll upgrade from the standard police issue buckets to their more comfortable leather counterparts at some point in time if I ever manage to find a donor towncar with a blue interior in good shape. But this project, like the engine swap project is one that i'm not sure i'm ever going to start.

Other notes about the car:

Parts avaliability for 98+ crown vics is excellent both on dealer & aftermarket parts. Order a common wear drivetrain part and many places will have it in stock. If not, then chances are they'll be able to get it within a couple days. Plus wrecked police cruisers do not usually sell for huge money at auctions, so police cruiser parts are usually relatively inexpensive at the wrecking yards.
In some areas of the country, you'll find certain salvage yards hoard all the late model crown vics because they have maintenance & repair contracts with taxi & police fleets. So you may call a few salvage yards and come up empty on the crownvic parts you're after, but then find a yard that has dozens of late model vics in stock.
Have detonation problems with 87 octane gas, so I usually use 89 and do not notice any pinging at all. The exception is that there is one local Mobil brand gas station were 89 octane causes pinging, but all the other gas stations in the area appear to be fine. The problem with the local mobil station can likely be explained by the fact that it gas station is located in the middle of a swamp so the gas in question likely has a decent amount of water in it.
Crown vics are heavy cars with a large frontal area, but many owners do get above 20MPG on the highway even with 3.27 or 3.55 gears. Some with 2.73 gears have reported getting in excess of 25MPG on long highway trips too. It should be noted that fuel economy will vary significantly depending on driving habits. And during police use, fuel economy would often be better measured in terms of gallons per hour rather than miles per gallon due to the large amount of time these cars spend idling without accumulating any mileage on the odometer. See also: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question477.htm
The windshield wipers work well around town on rainy days. But on the highway, they lift off the windshield at around 60MPH and do not clear the windshield well. Many other crown vic owners have this problem too and the solution appears to be to apply Rain-X to the windshield every 3 or 4 weeks. Rain-X windshield washer fluid works well too, and application is automatic everytime you use the windshield washer. Additionally, once the windshield wiper blades approach six months old, replace them as they will start to streak.
Was having problems with the doors becoming frozen shut during the cold winter months. The first part of the problem is that the door seals are getting water on them which then freezes to the metal of the car. Periodically spraying some pam no-stick cooking spray on the seals does appear to lower the incidence of this occuring, but then my car smells like i've cooked some pancakes or waffles in it. Perhaps i'll start applying canola oil with a rag instead, this would also be more economical and eliminate the aerosol overspray problem too. Second part of the issue is that the latch mechanism on some of the doors physically seizes in place until the temperature warms up. An easy solution to this problem is to start the car by remote control and let the engine run for 15 or 20 minutes until the interior temperature rises sufficiently that the latches become unfrozen. But this is not a practical solution when one is standing in the middle of a freezing parking lot and has a place they have to be in the very near future.
Draining the engine oil is straight forward enough, raise the front of the car to get adequate clearance under the oil pan, then use a 5/8" ratchet to remove the drain plug from the pan. The oil filter is situated in such a way that the pitman arm on the steering box blocks access to it if the wheels are facing straight forward. This has frustrated countless backyard mechanics that have attempted to use "ramps" to change their oil, since the car will be unstable if the wheels are turned off to the side. But if the car is supported under the front frame rails, just open the front driver's door and turn the front wheels off to one side and you'll be able to access the filter without a problem. Additionally, for some reason the o-ring on the oil filter often does not adhere to the can tightly. So make sure that the oil filter you purchased from the store does indeed have a seal on it, and also make sure that old o-ring does not stick to the oil filter adapter. If you start the engine with two o-rings on the oil filter (the old one & the new one) or you start the engine with no o-rings, at the least you'll have a huge puddle of oil to clean up. At the worst, the engine will seize and you'll have to replace it and your $15 oil change will suddenly have become a $1500 oil change.
My vehicle was a fully marked car at one point complete with a lightbar, prisoner cage, antenna farm, headlight flasher (wig-wags) and various decals.
Back of both front seats have an impression from the prisoner cage in them, but back seat passengers tend not to notice this issue unless I specifically mention it to them.
Cuts in the factory headlight wiring from where the wig wags were installed are visible, but they have been cleanly spliced back together and the headlamps work as they should. Police agencies sometimes rush the job though and just leave cut wires dangling to short out against whatever they hit or use crimp connectors but don't crimp them properly. So if you purchase a retired cruiser from auction, make sure to check that the headlamps (both high & low beam) work before you attempt to drive your vehicle during the dark nighttime hours.
The parking light assemblies do not have the characteristic holes drilled into them for strobe bulbs
Front seats are cloth buckets. The rear is a vinyl bench. Putting a center console in front of the car eliminated "grand canyon" gap between the two front seats and significantly improved lateral support in the process. See also: taurus sho console installation page.
The vehicle does not have carpeting and instead has a heavy duty rubber floormat that lays on top of the metal floor. This makes for very easy cleanup if something is spilled or dropped onto the floor, but this also makes the vehicle louder inside than a vehicle that has carpeting in it. The added road and drivetrain noise coupled with the stiff police springs, stiff gabriel lt shocks, quick ratio police steering box, and firm transmission shifts make the car feel faster than it actually is. Every so often I get the urge to install some dynamat or other sound insulation material under the rubber floormat, then I drive another car that's relatively quiet inside and decide against it.
Police cruisers have a little rumble to the exhaust unlike their civilian counterparts. This is due to the fact that p71 crownvics have straight pipe where their civilian counterparts exhaust resonators. If you look at the exhaust pipe after the muffler on a civilian vic, you'll see the pipe enlarge in diameter considerably behind the rear axle then shrink in diameter again. A vic without resonators is not loud enough to wake the neighbors at night, but if you're standing behind the car you'll definetly know if the engine is running.
Engine has excellent oil consumption can go a couple months without needing any oil added
Tranny fluid is bright red and smells like tranny fluid should. Hard WOT shifts are firm enough that my neck snaps back a little, loose items slide around the car, and I can sometimes see the traction control light flicker and hear the accessory belt squeal even on dry days.
4 wheel disc brakes with ABS, traction control, and watts rear linkage make this 4,000+ pound car handle excellent even in inclemant weather.
All four doors had the factory door anti-scuff mouldings on the exterior of them when I purchased the vehicle. Often, one finds the front door mouldings are cut in the middle for department insignias or missing all together. There is an oval hole cut into each of the rear door shells for assembly line use by ford curing vehicle manufacture, so usually police agencies leave the rear door moudlings alone, but sometimes they too get altered for insignias and other markings.
Exterior paint color is some color other than white
The car has not been repainted and still has the original paint that was applied by ford during manufacture. This means that there is no overspray on any of the door handles, lightbulb housings, window moldings, etc. It also means that the paint is smooth to the touch and doesn't flake off and crack like it frequently does on the cheap $400 maaco & earl scheib paint jobs that one often finds on retired police cruisers. Some in the professional bodyshop world joke that the super cheap paint job places generate as many complaints as they do paint jobs. And if you look through the local small claims court proceedings, you'll likely find some degree of truth to the statement.
The paint still has a nice shine to it. There are some scratches in the paint from decal removal but the majority would "buff out" with some wax and "elbow grease" when I first purchased the car. The scratches are becoming more noticeable as time progresses though (especially on the top of the trunk lid). At first, the scratches were barely noticeable at all unless I was specifically looking for them. But after a couple years of ownership, the scratches that appeared at first to be light scratches of the top clearcoat are now evident as scratches in the underlying blue pigment paint coat. And to make matters worse, many of the scratches in the trunklid are deep enough that they have a tendecy to accumulate whitish wax residue in them too. Note that markings on police cruisers such as "dial 911", "unit 54", "to protect and serve" are typically applied using custom made adhesive backed decals (stickers) rather than painted on like they were dozens of years ago.
There are two 3/4" holes drilled in the roof that are covered with black plastic plugs from "CA Plugs" that people tend not to notice unless I specifically point them out. There is also a plugged 3/4" hole drilled into the center of the trunklid, that is sometimes noticed but often not. The large 2+ inch hole cut into the drivers rear quarter panel for the low frequency "whip antenna" is almost always noticed by people looking over the car. None of the holes leak when it rains, and since the paint is a dark color, they don't stand out as much as they would on a lighter color like white. Plugs seem to be a good solution, welding would work too. The main thing here to look for is that the holes don't leak when it rains, second is that they are astecially pleasing. Have seen many retired police cruisers where the owners try to patch the large diameter holes with fiberglass body filler matting, this may look better than plugs for a few months but it'll crack and become very noticeable after a few months when the car goes through a cold winter or a very hot summer. Also saw an employee at the local hardware store that patched the large whip antenna hole in his car using a waterproof stainless steel electrical box cover. Very effective, and it gave me a chuckle when I first saw it too.
As mentioned previously, the roof has holes drilled in it. The roof also has some small dents in it, and some wear in the paint around the "b-pillar" from where the lightbar was. For a formerly marked 5 year old police cruiser that had a lightbar, the roof is in excellent shape though. Since the car was an "around town" cruiser that seldom saw sustained high speed driving and accompying wind resistance, the damage is minimal compared to many highway patrol units. Being an around town cruiser, the hood paint & windshield also lacked the high speed sand & stone chips that one typically finds on "highway cruisers".
The trunk floor has multiple holes drilled into it from where equipment was mounted, but they have been sealed to prevent water from entering. The holes were also drilled in accordance with the police interceptor trunk equipment mounting guide so not as to damage the fuel tank. It's sort of amusing to hear of clueless hillbilly equipment installers that drill straight through the trunk floor into the gas tank, but it's also extermely dangerous as gasoline vapors are very volatile and can cause flash fires and explosions. Sometimes, the self tapping screws they use actually seal the holes that the drill created well enough that gas odors were not noticed when the vehicle was in police service. But when it's retired and the trunk equipment removed, the screws are also removed and the car smells like gasoline anytime it's parked. So if you're shopping for a crownvic that was ever in active police use or one that had some aftermarket car stereo equipment mounted in the trunk, make sure that holes aren't drilled in the big raised area of the trunk floor immediately behind the rear seat.
The front bumper cover does not have the characteristic rectangular slits cut into it for a pushbar
The rear bumper cover is not torn above each exhaust outlet like one often finds on retired cruisers. The bumper cover does have some damage in the center down low where a scrape is evident and the center support is torn. The remainder of the undercarriage of the car is essentially scrape free though, which indicates that my cruiser was not frequently parked on the raised highway median strip or used for offroading adventures. Keep in mind that my 98' police cruiser originally had the saggy "EE" rear springs which ride really low when police gear with some weight to it is placed into the trunk. Ford has revised the rear springs a couple times since 98' to raise rear ride height to provide adequate ground clearance for police activities, but they are limited by federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) rules on bumper height so they have not been able to eliminate the torn rear bumper cover problem entirely. For more information on suspension spring selection, click here.
As mentioned previously, the underside of the car is essentially scrape free. In some rural areas, it appears many police officers think their interceptors are offroading vehicles. Damage here can be obvious like dented engine & transmission oil pans and mangled floor sheetmetal. It can also be subtle like filling the rear axle housing with water via the vent tube or on 98+ interceptors, ripping the enitre charcoal canister off the underside of the trunk floor. If you smell gas, notice vacuum hoses dangling in mid-air in the rear, and have the "check engine" light illuminated due to evaporative emissions stuff, don't be suprised to if you need a new charcoal canister.
No holes drilled in dash
No odors (i.e. ex-K-9 unit)
My vehicle is from a state where police agencies are not required to obtain a "certificate of title" for their emergency vehicles. Looking at the carfax report prior to purchasing the vehicle was interesting in the sense that the vehicle effectively did not exist for the first couple years of it's life and then all of a sudden had a couple of emissions inspection events reported shortly before it was retired. The local state registry of motor vehicle branch personnel were confused by the paperwork on the vehicle too. When presented with the "manufacturer's statement of origin (MSO)", they asked how a ~3 year old vehicle with 70,000 miles on it could be "new" and ended up calling the state dmv where the vehicle was registered previously before they issued the new license plates, registration certificate and "certificate of title". US federal goverment vehicles can appear even more mysterious than my vehicle was as there are not usually any title or emissions records in public databases on them and you recieve neither a "certificate of title" nor a "manufacturer's statement of origin" when you purchase a federal vehicle, but rather a "certificate to obtain title". (basically a peice of paper from the federal goverment that allows you to register the vehicle for use on public roads).
Car was still under factory extended warranty when I purchased it according to the ford oasis network. Only problem was that I did not have any documentation on the warranty and only the original police department that purchased the car could collect off the warranty.
Overall a very nice car for the money. I had initially budgeted considerably more money for repairs than I would have for a civilian car of the same age and mileage. But I was pleasently suprised that most of this money went unused, so I had the a decent chunk of it left over for modifications and other car related projects.

Questions or comments?

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