What did you do to your LS today?

[Jim Henderson]

Yes properly torqued and the ground electrode looked fine with minimal wear and it was not bent. Threads were fine. It was a little tighter to remove than I remember it being in the past.

The center electrode was a little bent but hard to determine if due to impact or due to the force of being blow out. The coil was totally sideways under the coil cover and the rubber boot had ballooned a bit. The coil mounting ear was broken off and the electrical plug was 90 degrees out of position.

Today all plugs to be replaced. Autolite platinum are on sale for $3 after rebate at Autozone.

Well off for a brisk new Years walk to the store.

Jim Henderson

 

[Deaconblue]

I drove back and forth from Cleveland to Indianapolis a few weeks ago for a trade show. I was bucking a head wind on the way down plus I had maybe 20 miles of mixed driving on the tank before hitting the freeway. This is what she read when I pulled off the freeway in downtown Indy.

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif

This is what she read a couple of days later on the return trip 100% on the freeway with a tail wind.

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif

Both trips I had the cruise set at 69 MPH, verified by GPS. Not too shabby.

 

[Jim Henderson]

OK, replaced all my spark plugs and during the process I think I discovered what happened to the ceramic insulator that disappeared after my #7 plug got hollowed out. In the driver side valve cover coil area I found a fair amount of gritty sand to kitty liter size white chunks that almost surely was pulverized ceramic insulator. I did not find a similar deposit on the OK passenger side valve covers.

All the plugs were about as tight to remove as the hollowed out shell was in #7. So I do not suspect any issues with the #7 plug other than an extremely rare insulator failure. BTW I use Permatex antisieze on all my plug threads. I have read that with aluminum heads, iron to aluminum corrosion is a big issue, so antisieze helps with future removal.

I am seeing a fair amount of oil seepage in the sparkplug well so I guess my next project is the little O rings at the bottom, and probably part of the full Valve cover gasket set.

Tomorrow I am off to the junk yard to pick up some parts I have been eyeing and I will add the coil valve cover plate and a handful of coils as spares until I can order new ones.

Jim Henderson

 

[RigsLS]

Anything over 2K RPM and the mileage goes out the window. Of course one gets passed a lot at that speed.

 

[milehighmikey]

I removed my rear eibach springs and replaced with stock rear springs today. I've been carrying a lot of tools and equipment and the rear of the car was sitting too low, as evidenced by oncoming drivers flashing me a lot when I am just on low beams. I also hit the bottom of the trailer hitch on occasion if I had any speed at all going over a speed bump. One other thing that has been happening is the snow tires were crashing into the rear fender liners on large bridge transition bumps, or when braking and cornering into side streets or parking lots. I had an alignment shop refuse to align the car from the rear sitting too low, so after a long search for stock rear springs, I finally bit the bullet and got a pair of rear 'struts' (as the junkyards call them, lol) from a local junkyard, and made the transfer today. I look forward to many more safe driving miles. A month ago, I swapped in a rear subframe that I had swapped in the two front bushings into, after buying them from Jaguar parts. What a deal for $45 a bushing. Car is in great shape now with 266,700 miles.

 

[FDR]

Anything over 2K RPM and the mileage goes out the window. Of course one gets passed a lot at that speed.

Every time I fill up, I gun it out out of the station (I usually use a highway gas station) and say "OK, now I'm going to drive efficiently for the rest of the tank"

And then, tunnels, overpasses, entrance ramps, jughandles, BMWs, sounds reflecting walls, Civics, 300s, and unsuspecting friends get the best of me and suddenly my 24mpg drops it like its hot down to 13

 

[jgscott]

Every time I fill up, I gun it out out of the station (I usually use a highway gas station) and say "OK, now I'm going to drive efficiently for the rest of the tank"

And then, tunnels, overpasses, entrance ramps, jughandles, BMWs, sounds reflecting walls, Civics, 300s, and unsuspecting friends get the best of me and suddenly my 24mpg drops it like its hot down to 13

+1. Glad I' not the only one who sometimes get 13. LOL!

 

[RigsLS]

Every time I fill up, I gun it out out of the station (I usually use a highway gas station) and say "OK, now I'm going to drive efficiently for the rest of the tank"

And then, tunnels, overpasses, entrance ramps, jughandles, BMWs, sounds reflecting walls, Civics, 300s, and unsuspecting friends get the best of me and suddenly my 24mpg drops it like its hot down to 13

Hehehe, I just "open wallet", tired of resetting and even trying. I know I can do 27 highway, it's the leadfooting within the city limits that kills it.

Almost didn't make it to the pumps this morning.

Put on some much needed go-juice.​

LOL

 

[Zr0]

Post office decided to give me the day off...then I remembered when I replaced the COPS I mysteriously did not have my gap tool. Figured I'd pull the plugs and replace them, check for oil on the COP boots, and put in for sure gapped correct plugs. It sure is easier the second time around :lol:

Good news though, no oil on the plugs. Stupid news however...all the old plus were gapped correctly. Oh well...

 

[FDR]

Almost didn't make it to the pumps this morning.

View attachment 828461384

Put on some much needed go-juice.​

I think your speedometer was installed upside down with KM/H on the wrong side of MPH. I thought you were Canadian, not Australian...

Post office decided to give me the day off...then I remembered when I replaced the COPS I mysteriously did not have my gap tool. Figured I'd pull the plugs and replace them, check for oil on the COP boots, and put in for sure gapped correct plugs. It sure is easier the second time around :lol:

Good news though, no oil on the plugs. Stupid news however...all the old plus were gapped correctly. Oh well...

I need to regap mine and replace all the COP connectors with the eBay set. It's been too cold, work sucks (too many 12-9 shifts), and too many holiday events.

 

[Telco]

Man I hate it when I can predict that the LS will give me some mechanical failure in the near future. Little did I know it would be a week after my post about replacing the drive train and how happy I was, but fearing the LS would do something new. Well it did, of course. But this time to be fair I probably can't blame the LS. This time it was a spark plug failure. In over 45 years of working on family cars and various mechanical beasts, I have never seen a failure like this one other than stories here and there.

Well anyway, I was driving home on the freeway at normal speed etc. Suddenly I heard an exhaust leak type sputtering. I figured maybe a connection to the EGR or some exhaust tubing had slipped or come loose. When I got home I listened to see if I could pin point the sound. It sounded like it was coming from the Valve cover coil cover on the driver side. I figured a horror story like a blown out aluminum head like was common on many of the aluminum Ford V10 engines a few years back. Helicoil time or worse. My scanner said number 7 misfire and ignition circuit problem with coil G(ie #7)

It was late and soon to get dark, so I waited for today, Happy New Year, yeah.

Took a closer look and noticed the coil cover plate had a foot long crack in it. Pulled the cover and found Coil 7 sitting sideways under the cover and the top of the sparkplug electrode broken off. Fortunately I was able to remove the plug along with what was left of the ceramic insulator and the plug center electrode.

Here is a picture...

View attachment 828471010

Notice the in cylinder nose portion of the insulator is missing. Not a good thing but too late by now, I drove probably 6 miles to get home with the sputtering sound, so the ceramic either blew out the exhaust or maybe the hole thru the spark plug body. Either way if there was any damage from the ceramic bouncing around it is done now. I could not see anything in the cylinder and did not "catch" anything with my flexible grabby tool(saves me more often than I like to admit).

Anyway, Tomorrow I walk to the local parts store since I don't want to go chugging around town. Good thing it is less than 2 miles.

The plug that failed was a Champion(I liked this brand for decades) which I replaced back in summer 2011 and it had about 65k Miles on it. Not expired per manual but maybe should have been done routinely at 50K even though on last inspection before summer this year, everything looked fine. The electrodes looked fine with no unusual wear other than being loose in my hand.

I am guessing this is one of those random component failures, 1 in a million(I have driven over a million miles and never saw one of these), and that the LS was not messing with me this time. If it wasn't a random failure I am wondering what may have caused this, did I suck something into the cylinder that banged into the plug? Probably not but I won't know unless I tear things down or something else bad happens.

Oh well, I was going to the junk yard for the after Christmas sale tomorrow, so I guess I'll pick the cover and maybe a handful of coils to tide me over til I can get some delivered.

Jim Henderson

I wouldn't worry too much about it unless it happens again. I've seen one like that before, just stuck in a new plug and didn't have any problems. This is one of the problems of mass production. Occasionally one makes it through quality control that wasn't quite made right and this is the result. I would vacuum out as much crap as you can though.

 

[joegr]

Found a dark red spot under it on the floor of the garage, about the size of a quarter.
Looks like it is the left (driver side) motor mount.

 

[izzy]

Just ordered my in-channel wind deflectors for the windows. WOOHOO! Should have them by the 20th

I'd like to see a hood deflector. I don't much like the bras on the front end of the LS

 

[RigsLS]

I think your speedometer was installed upside down with KM/H on the wrong side of MPH. I thought you were Canadian, not Australian...

You just jelly my speedo reads 260 hehehe ...

Found a dark red spot under it on the floor of the garage, about the size of a quarter.
Looks like it is the left (driver side) motor mount.

Motor mounts leak fluids?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9oX-kZ_9k


You mean Power steering leaking down onto the motor mount on that side then onto your garage floor?

Trans fluid?

 

[joegr]

...Motor mounts leak fluids?...
You mean Power steering leaking down onto the motor mount on that side then onto your garage floor?

Trans fluid?

Yes, they can. The mounts are fluid filled.
Of course, it could be power steering, as some of that system is above that mount, and it is very hard to see in there. At this point, I am about 75% sure it is the mount itself leaking.
I'll watch it for a while. If it is the mount, the leak should reduce and eventually stop (only so much fluid in the mount to leak out). If it is steering, it should get worse, and the level in the reservoir should go down.

It doesn't look like there is too much to replacing the mount, but it calls for two special brackets ($150ish) to attach the engine to the support bar(s). I wonder if there is a way around that?

 

[regiment1]

Yes, they can. The mounts are fluid filled.
Of course, it could be power steering, as some of that system is above that mount, and it is very hard to see in there. At this point, I am about 75% sure it is the mount itself leaking.
I'll watch it for a while. If it is the mount, the leak should reduce and eventually stop (only so much fluid in the mount to leak out). If it is steering, it should get worse, and the level in the reservoir should go down.

It doesn't look like there is too much to replacing the mount, but it calls for two special brackets ($150ish) to attach the engine to the support bar(s). I wonder if there is a way around that?

I had a slow leak in that general area, that went away when my engine mounts were replaced.

 

[xford]

Replaced my hood gas struts since originals were starting to fail. Went with the Strong Arm brand. Made in USA and appear to be good quality and an exact size match. Took just minutes to swap both out.

 

[RigsLS]

Yes, they can. The mounts are fluid filled... If it is the mount, the leak should reduce and eventually stop (only so much fluid in the mount to leak out).

Is that so? did not know that, was under the impression it was just straight rubber mounts, will look into it, learn something new everyday.


EDIT: Interesting! ... hydraulic shock like.

http://deneau.info/ls/s6x~us~en~file=s6x31030.htm~gen~ref.htm

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/forum/showthread.php?78736-Leaking-Motor-Mount-Important

 

[RigsLS]

Today I did NOT perform/complete a drive cycle relearn procedure! :frown:​

 

[LS4me]

Today I did NOT perform/complete a drive cycle relearn procedure! :frown:​

If you had you would have known the mounts are fluid-filled!! Rookies!!

I know Ford has been using them since at least 1991. I had to replace one on our '91 Sable.

 

[Robot]

Early this morning, I put my Chinese tires to the test on the open portion of the St Petersburg Grand Prix street course. The tires did very well... In the wet. I ran through several times with and without AdvanceTrac. I was pushing very hard really paying attention to throttle to brake transitions mid corner. There were also no one wheel wonder antics.

 

[FDR]

So who'd I toy with in NJ going from the parkway to 287 tonight? It was a gray/green Gen 2. I don't think you were playing back, though, I think you were just speeding :/

You Gen 2 guys never seem to even acknowledge Gen 1s... The one time I got a response was from another black LS after I gunned it behind him under a bridge and then stopped next to him

 

[Telco]

Yes, they can. The mounts are fluid filled.
Of course, it could be power steering, as some of that system is above that mount, and it is very hard to see in there. At this point, I am about 75% sure it is the mount itself leaking.
I'll watch it for a while. If it is the mount, the leak should reduce and eventually stop (only so much fluid in the mount to leak out). If it is steering, it should get worse, and the level in the reservoir should go down.

It doesn't look like there is too much to replacing the mount, but it calls for two special brackets ($150ish) to attach the engine to the support bar(s). I wonder if there is a way around that?

When I did my alternator I loosened the mount on the passenger side and used a floor jack with a block of wood under the oil pan to jack mine up. I could have replaced the mount at that point. The cast aluminum oil pans are pretty tough, and can hold the engine up for a short time so long as you use wood to cushion it. If you aren't comfortable doing it on the oil pan, any other point under there on the block should work.

 

[LS4me]

Ordered the "blend door" actuator for the passenger side, behind the glove box; P/N YW4Z-19E616-AA. It's been clicking for a month or so now so I removed the glove box and watched it try to move and it was definitely sticking. While I wait for it to arrive I shot some dry-lube on the visible part of the actuator shaft hoping that will free it up some before the new part arrives. Got it from a dealer in SFO for ~$45 shipped. The worst part is releasing the soft-close "cable" from the door arm.

Quoting myself.......

Lubing the exposed part of the shaft seems to have done the trick. No more "clicking" from the sticky actuator. Good thing as I still haven't received the part......

Also, got 22.2 MPG on our jaunt to Phoenix and back. I feel pretty good about that considering 80+ MPH (and a couple of forays into triple digits) and the 40ish miles in-town driving over the 770ish miles we drove last Saturday.

 

[jjcool00]

So who'd I toy with in NJ going from the parkway to 287 tonight? It was a gray/green Gen 2. I don't think you were playing back, though, I think you were just speeding :/

You Gen 2 guys never seem to even acknowledge Gen 1s... The one time I got a response was from another black LS after I gunned it behind him under a bridge and then stopped next to him

Wish I could say it was me, but it wasn't. However, I would stop constantly to try to talk to other LS owners. Even helped a handful out who broke down on the highways and what not. The most recent guy I helped out, before I moved, had a Gen I LS with over heating issues and had just replaced all of his cooling components with aftermarket ones and didn't have an air bleed hose or any method to remove air from the system. His degas was also square... like completely square. Not sure what car it was meant for. Long story short, I couldn't help him... but I did refer him here