Good luck with your new ride.. Sorry to hear the Suburban took a dump on you. Last year, my son's Suburban became a money and time sponge. Various sensors, fuel pump, 2 distributors, timing chain, brake system etc. He too threw in the towel. A shame, because the truck was really decent looking.
I took it on about an 80-mile critter run up through the woods & back on the interstate. No ATF loss at all. Zero. Nada. Zip. No oil loss either.
The headlights absolutely suck, but I knew they were yellowed & hazy, so no surprise there, and it has a slight miss, so I need to check the plugs.
There’s also a slight vibration around 80mph. It might be a bent rim, or something in the front suspension. I noticed the upper ball joint boot on the driver’s side is torn, but didn’t have time to check the joints on either side yet.
Small victories are still victories. Try rotating the tires, just did mine, and my slight vibe at 80 or so went away.
In reply to John Welsh :
I am on my third Panther body... there are two star bolts that hold the shifter in, and they tend to vibrate loose. drop the bottom panel, unscrew the metal plate and then just reach up and tighten them up and youre good to go. This is how I got my second panther dirt cheap, as the guy selling it thought it was busted and needed a lot of work so he sold it for $500. I traded it later for a Mustang GT.
In reply to Kasstastrophy :
Wow, thanks!
With the trouble/drama over our broken van starting Sunday(it’s now fixed) I forgot to post any updates from last weekend.
The P.O. offered to let me rummage through his P71 parts, since this was his last car. I ended up with a cruise-equipped steering wheel, spare fuse boxes(primarily for the fuses), radiator assembly, trunk lid, new marker light, and a black grill. I’m also going back to grab front & rear bumper covers sometime.
Before: 
After:
I also found this piece of fine artwork in the back seat of one of his parts cars, so I had to bring it home too.
I was rather surprised to find a TJ Max price tag stuck to the back of it.
In reply to Pete Gossett :
Are the chicks eating a rat?
In reply to Stampie :
I thought it was a crawdad?
A prawn obviously
I’m presuming crawfish being ex-Nola PD cars.
I thought the chicks looked a bit demonic. They sort of called to me. Sounds a bit like my love life now that I think about it.
just to move things along, I like the black grill better
In reply to sleepyhead :
Thanks! It definitely makes it look less civilian.
I agree...the black grill looks nice. (I like mine, too...it was on there when I got it)
The more miles I put on this car, the more it’s becoming my favorite vehicle in the fleet.
They really feel at home on the rural twisty blacktops we have around here. Hopefully you have some of that there. Of course...they're also good at just eating up interstate miles.
In reply to ClemSparks :
Once you get north of I-10 it’s the Desoto National forest. Everywhere around it is twisty wooded backroads, and they were all paved/ repaved post-Katrina.
No major(or photo-worthy) updates this weekend, but I did make a bit of process.
After I got the car home I discovered the battery hold-down was missing. I’d had the same problem with the Suburban & bought a “variety pack” of hold-down hardware for it. Conveniently one of the leftover pieces fit the P71. Unfortunately it seems this battery is smaller than stock, so I had to shim the battery with random junk to get it secured, but it seems to be holding now.
I also pulled out the spare tire & confirmed it’s brand new and holds air. Unfortunately it doesn’t match either the BFGs on the front or Firestones on the rear, but I figure the 4 new tires are worth over 1/2 of what I paid for the car, so I’m not complaining(much).
With the long weekend I hope to get the blend door motor swapped and/or re-epoxied, and get the car in the air to check out the shocks, brakes, joints, bushings, and try to find the loose/damaged ABS sensor that’s causing it to intermittently engage.
Oh, and I was searching for new shocks too. I was disappointed that neither Koni nor Bilstien make shocks for it. However I did find QA1 coilovers for either $650(single-adjustable) or $850(double). I think I’ll settle with KYBs though.
I had a new windshield installed yesterday. Not exactly pic-worthy, but for $186 I no longer have to peer between the cracks when I drive it.
My dad still drives his ‘06 PI. My brother and I have tried to talk him into getting a pickup, but he won’t budge. He has no intention of getting rid of his Crown Vic. I just wish he’d stop dumping money into it.
This is what our 06 P71 looked like Saturday. Even after putting a transmission in it, I'm amazed at the durability of this thing. My middle son isn't nice to it at all. I'm glad I didn't have to clean it.
SyntheticBlinkerFluid said:My dad still drives his ‘06 PI. My brother and I have tried to talk him into getting a pickup, but he won’t budge. He has no intention of getting rid of his Crown Vic. I just wish he’d stop dumping money into it.
The trunk in the P71 probably has more cubic feet of space than most modern short pickup beds.
In reply to Toyman01 :
I don’t need(or even want) a clean car, but there’s no way I want to deal with that much mud again. I organized a winter rallyx once that started with 5” of snow when we setup & turned into about that much mud by the time we were done. I thought I’d blown up my transmission, but it ended up I destroyed an outboard CV joint - I couldn’t tell until after I’d power-washed off all the crud.
Pete Gossett said:SyntheticBlinkerFluid said:My dad still drives his ‘06 PI. My brother and I have tried to talk him into getting a pickup, but he won’t budge. He has no intention of getting rid of his Crown Vic. I just wish he’d stop dumping money into it.
The trunk in the P71 probably has more cubic feet of space than most modern short pickup beds.
Probably and he tows with it regularly. We are just tired of him getting nickel and dimed to death, the car has like 220k on it now and it’s his DD.
And when I say he tows with it, he tows with it. 
In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :
How does this jive with "I'd rather tow my Chevy than drive a Ford"???
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