wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
It's been a VERY long time since I bought a new car, which was a 1995 Ford Probe GT. Loved that car, it had a wonderful twin-cam V-6, handled great, was decently equipped. Lots of power options like windows, locks, mirrors, etc. It had cruise control, intermittent wipers, power seats, blah blah blah. All of that was done with pretty basic electronics, most with plain ol' wires, switches, and motors.
Truth be told, though, I've only had four cars since that one, and all were second-hand (at least) and all were actually older. Again, they were well-equipped, with power everything, cruise, etc. An '86 Olds Cutlass and an '87 Olds 98, both of which were actually hand-me-downs from my wife's family. I also had an '89 Mercury Grand Marquis, bought from a neighbor, and an '88 Ford LTD Crown Vic, bought from my dad's estate when he passed in late 2010 (he bought it new.) The Oldsmobiles both died, the '87 wouldn't go past first gear, the 86 did something bad with a bearing. I still have both FoMoCos. The Mercury was wrecked when someone pulled out in front of my wife, not her fault at all. That was during our divorce, and it was three weeks before I knew she'd been in the wreck. Found out when the shop it got towed to called and asked when I was getting the car out of there, they were gonna start charging me storage. (Seems the soon-to-be-ex was trying to get the insurance, but the car was titled to me.) It still sits behind the house as a parts donor. The insurance totaled it, but since the claim was under 1500 bucks they didn't want the car, or the title. So the Crown Vic has a brake caliper, a trip computer, door lock solenoids, and other various parts from the donor car.
And even though the Mercury hasn't moved in years, and has no brakes because a front caliper is missing, it still runs. I crank it up every few weeks and let it idle for 5 or 10, then give it some revs, and even clunk the shifter into D and R (with NO revs) and let the parking brake and bricks-for-wheel-chocks hold the car. I don't do that as often any more, because another part that migrated to the Ford is the battery, so to fire up the Marquis I have to move the battery back, which is a total PITA.
One day I'll drain the fluids and have it towed to the metal recycling place here. They buy junk cars by the pound, and you can get nearly 500 bucks for a big car like these! First I want to move the heater core over. Maybe. It looks like the entire car is built around the heater core, and since I live in Florida, heat in the car is nice to have maybe 4 times a year. Might not actually be worth it.
And now I have acquired my fifth second-hand car since 1995, again a hand-me-down (of sorts) from the in-laws (well, ex-in-laws.)
OK, I have to digress again..... Sorry.
My ex-wife's family and my family have been good friends, even neighbors, for quite a while, since they moved from Illinois in 1969 to the house next door to ours. My sisters grew up friends with my future ex-wife, and I grew up friends with her brother. Even through the divorce they were very supportive of me, because frankly, my ex left me for another man, a man from our church, and they didn't understand it any more than I did. So I've always still been welcome over there, I see them all the time, my ex's sibling's kids still call me Uncle Walter, and nobody except my ex thinks I'm some evil half-criminal crazy guy. So now you know why I still deal with the in-laws. They're Good People!
This past February my father-in-law passed away after a very long battle with cancer. I'm talking decades. Started as prostate, and stayed there for most of that time. Chemo worked, radiation worked, and it would be in remission for years at a time and then come back. Over the past couple of years it started spreading, though, including tumors in the brain. He passed away early February.
Now the mother-in-law has some excess inventory around the house, including a 1998 Aurora. They got it used as an ex-lease car, so I've been around it already for years and years.
The car's exterior positively sucks, as it's spent nearly its entire life under southern live oak trees. These trees are evergreen, but drop sap and leaves and general "stuff" year-round, and in the spring they actually drop ALL of their leaves as new ones bud. They never really look naked, like elms or maples, but they never stop dropping ****, either. So the paint is stained, cracked, and peeling, with large sections missing. Most of the primer is intact, though, and the hood and deck lid are aluminum anyway. Still, there are some rust spots starting on the roof that I need to take care of.
The interior, though, is pristine! Carpet is good, and clean, and the headliner is intact. Leather is good, and all the stuff works, with a couple of small exceptions that I've been addressing every couple of weekends.
The thing is, though (and here we finally get to the point!) is that the electical system in this car is incredibly complex!!! Everything is under electronic control. Except for the window buttons, cigarette lighters, and the reading lamps, not a single switch actually connects directly to the device being controlled! They all function as inputs to some black box somewhere, which in turn passes on the requested function if permitted conditions exist. There are black boxes for exterior lights, headlights, interior lights, the transmission, the cruise control, the ABS (those last three all talk to each other, too,) for keyless entry, for door locks, for heating and A/C, for power seats and for seat heat. The ******* fuel door button requests the Body Control Module to open the fuel door! (It won't open with the car moving or in gear, see.....)
So as I started troubleshooting the various and few small malfunctions, I decided I needed schematics. Found a set of FSMs on eBay for 25 bucks!! FSM is three volumes. Geez!
So I'm used to seeing fuse boxes in more than one place on a car. My Probe had small fuses inside the car, and it had larger fuses and some relays in a box under the hood. Two of the big fuses in that under-hood box were a 50-amp and a 60-amp.
The Oldsmobiles and the FoMoCos were even simpler, 15 or 20 fuses inside the car.
The Aurora, though..... There are 55 fuses (plus 3 circuit breakers) in four boxes around the car. The battery lives under the rear seat, and there's a starship power distribution system under there. (Note to self: do NOT drive this thing into salt water!!)
The front doors have a HUGE amount of switchgear! The switches for the seats, windows, locks, and seat heat, and the driver's door has buttons for seat memory, and the passenger door has the passenger's temp control for the A/C. I haven't been inside the driver's door yet, but the passenger door has three 16-pin connectors, a ten-pin connecter, and two 4-pin connectors. Some of the big connectors have some empty pins, but still, there are about 60 wires going into each door from the car. Here's a pic with the boot pulled back. (And the boot is good, no tears or weather leaks.) Through the firewall are connectors with 40-some pins, 78 pins, and even one with 116!!
A very common electrical fault with this car is broken wires right there in the door harness, and sure enough, on the driver's side I found this:
Then you get past the simple switch-on-and-do-this type function: there are three serial data buses that I've seen described in the manuals. The buttons on the steering wheel are one such bus. Yeah, they work as a set of resistors, but some controller somewhere converts the meaured ohms into a data signal that goes out to the radio, then to the climate control, then wherever else it needs to go, as command and status packets.
So something happened somewhere in the mid to late '90s and someone decided that a car's electrical system needed some...... help. Not enough electrons were being harnessed for useful functions, obviously. But dayum!!!!! 55 fuses, 5 of which are 60 amps! There are a few 50s and 40s, too. The inside box has your normal 10, 15, 20, 25-amp fuses.
Amazingly enough, electrical troubles have been rather limited! The power mirror on the passenger door didn't move in the up/down direction, which was one of those broken wires going to the driver's door. Yes, the driver's door! Two wires are common to both sides, and both common wires go to the driver's door first, and the splice to the other door is inside the driver's door. If I hadn't bought the FSM I never would have found that!!! One section of the instrument panel was not illuminated at night, but getting behind it and wiggling stuff set it right. The cruise control doesn't work, but all the correct signals appear at the module, so I may be looking for a CC module. It's electronic, not vacuum, but common to almost all of the Northstar-engined cars from '96 on, and according to eBay, salvage yards are full of Caddys and Auroras that have been wrecked.
And yes, I said Northstar. Those weren't just for Cadillacs. Sure, the Aurora is 4.0 liters where the Cadillac is 4.6. The ONLY difference is thicker sleeves in the cylinders giving it a smaller bore. Same block. Different heads to accomodate the bore, of course. Even GM called it a Northstar when they used the 4.0-liter version in the Cadillac LMP at Le Mans in the early 2000s.
It ought to be a separate post, but some things about the Northstar..... Well, first, it leaks!
We as FJR riders know all about twin-cam motors, but GM hasn't had so much experience with those. Valve cover gaskets apparently get brittle, as does the oil pan gasket. This is also a split block, like the case split on bike motors, the Northstar has an upper and lower block joining at the crank. Maybe another leak source. No gasket there, just sealant. And about that oil pan.... Not just one sealing surface, but two!!! There is a baffle plate between the pan and the block! One surface with gasket, and one with just sealant. As for changing the gaskets..... The valve covers are probably not so bad, as they are accessible. Probably easier than my Probe was, actually, as the Probe had a large "folded" intake manifold that laid back over the rear bank and had to be removed first.
But the oil pan has a couple of issues. Step ONE in the FSM for oil pan removal is: "Remove transmission."
Yep. The transmission obscures many of the oil pan bolts, and they are not accessible. Step three for oil pan removal is to remove the exhaust crossover pipe. That pipe passes under the shallow end of the oil pan, and also cannot be removed with the transmission in the car, as it goes up between the engine and transmission to join the Y-pipe to the main exhaust system. The pan cannot drop from the block with that pipe in the way. On the forum I found, people looking to actually fix this stuff are basically dropping the front cradle out of the car and then removing the engine from the cradle. For myself, unless it simply pours oil out as fast as I pour it in, I'll be adding a quart or two (or three or four, whatever it takes) between changes, and the driveway be damned.
Speaking of oil changes, the damn thing take 7.5 quarts!!!!
Anyway, I'm liking the Aurora more than I thought I would. The Crown Vic is fine, everything works, it has cold A/C, gets reasonable mileage for a heavy car with a 5-liter, and it's incredibly comfortable! I can take speed bumps at 35 mph!!!! Thing is, it needs tires, and what I'm paying the M-I-L for the Aurora is less than twice what a set of tires would cost for the Crown Vic. Hmmm.... tires, car... tires, car..... Lemme think!!! If I find the right conditions, I might even be able to sell the Crown Vic for the same money I'm paying for the Aurora, or at least close.
Biggest downside of the Aurora so far is it's supposed to run premium gas. That's kind of painful when it gets 14 mpg in town..... I'm not sure why the requirement, either. It's not just compression ratio, as it's 10.3:1. Our Feej runs on regular gas with 10.8:1 compression. I haven't used enough gas yet to throw in some mid-grade or regular just to see how it does, but that's on the list.
So that's the story of my 5th used car since my last new one, and still just the 9th car I've ever actually owned.
Truth be told, though, I've only had four cars since that one, and all were second-hand (at least) and all were actually older. Again, they were well-equipped, with power everything, cruise, etc. An '86 Olds Cutlass and an '87 Olds 98, both of which were actually hand-me-downs from my wife's family. I also had an '89 Mercury Grand Marquis, bought from a neighbor, and an '88 Ford LTD Crown Vic, bought from my dad's estate when he passed in late 2010 (he bought it new.) The Oldsmobiles both died, the '87 wouldn't go past first gear, the 86 did something bad with a bearing. I still have both FoMoCos. The Mercury was wrecked when someone pulled out in front of my wife, not her fault at all. That was during our divorce, and it was three weeks before I knew she'd been in the wreck. Found out when the shop it got towed to called and asked when I was getting the car out of there, they were gonna start charging me storage. (Seems the soon-to-be-ex was trying to get the insurance, but the car was titled to me.) It still sits behind the house as a parts donor. The insurance totaled it, but since the claim was under 1500 bucks they didn't want the car, or the title. So the Crown Vic has a brake caliper, a trip computer, door lock solenoids, and other various parts from the donor car.
One day I'll drain the fluids and have it towed to the metal recycling place here. They buy junk cars by the pound, and you can get nearly 500 bucks for a big car like these! First I want to move the heater core over. Maybe. It looks like the entire car is built around the heater core, and since I live in Florida, heat in the car is nice to have maybe 4 times a year. Might not actually be worth it.
And now I have acquired my fifth second-hand car since 1995, again a hand-me-down (of sorts) from the in-laws (well, ex-in-laws.)
OK, I have to digress again..... Sorry.
My ex-wife's family and my family have been good friends, even neighbors, for quite a while, since they moved from Illinois in 1969 to the house next door to ours. My sisters grew up friends with my future ex-wife, and I grew up friends with her brother. Even through the divorce they were very supportive of me, because frankly, my ex left me for another man, a man from our church, and they didn't understand it any more than I did. So I've always still been welcome over there, I see them all the time, my ex's sibling's kids still call me Uncle Walter, and nobody except my ex thinks I'm some evil half-criminal crazy guy. So now you know why I still deal with the in-laws. They're Good People!
This past February my father-in-law passed away after a very long battle with cancer. I'm talking decades. Started as prostate, and stayed there for most of that time. Chemo worked, radiation worked, and it would be in remission for years at a time and then come back. Over the past couple of years it started spreading, though, including tumors in the brain. He passed away early February.
Now the mother-in-law has some excess inventory around the house, including a 1998 Aurora. They got it used as an ex-lease car, so I've been around it already for years and years.
The car's exterior positively sucks, as it's spent nearly its entire life under southern live oak trees. These trees are evergreen, but drop sap and leaves and general "stuff" year-round, and in the spring they actually drop ALL of their leaves as new ones bud. They never really look naked, like elms or maples, but they never stop dropping ****, either. So the paint is stained, cracked, and peeling, with large sections missing. Most of the primer is intact, though, and the hood and deck lid are aluminum anyway. Still, there are some rust spots starting on the roof that I need to take care of.
The interior, though, is pristine! Carpet is good, and clean, and the headliner is intact. Leather is good, and all the stuff works, with a couple of small exceptions that I've been addressing every couple of weekends.
The thing is, though (and here we finally get to the point!) is that the electical system in this car is incredibly complex!!! Everything is under electronic control. Except for the window buttons, cigarette lighters, and the reading lamps, not a single switch actually connects directly to the device being controlled! They all function as inputs to some black box somewhere, which in turn passes on the requested function if permitted conditions exist. There are black boxes for exterior lights, headlights, interior lights, the transmission, the cruise control, the ABS (those last three all talk to each other, too,) for keyless entry, for door locks, for heating and A/C, for power seats and for seat heat. The ******* fuel door button requests the Body Control Module to open the fuel door! (It won't open with the car moving or in gear, see.....)
So as I started troubleshooting the various and few small malfunctions, I decided I needed schematics. Found a set of FSMs on eBay for 25 bucks!! FSM is three volumes. Geez!
So I'm used to seeing fuse boxes in more than one place on a car. My Probe had small fuses inside the car, and it had larger fuses and some relays in a box under the hood. Two of the big fuses in that under-hood box were a 50-amp and a 60-amp.
The Oldsmobiles and the FoMoCos were even simpler, 15 or 20 fuses inside the car.
The Aurora, though..... There are 55 fuses (plus 3 circuit breakers) in four boxes around the car. The battery lives under the rear seat, and there's a starship power distribution system under there. (Note to self: do NOT drive this thing into salt water!!)
The front doors have a HUGE amount of switchgear! The switches for the seats, windows, locks, and seat heat, and the driver's door has buttons for seat memory, and the passenger door has the passenger's temp control for the A/C. I haven't been inside the driver's door yet, but the passenger door has three 16-pin connectors, a ten-pin connecter, and two 4-pin connectors. Some of the big connectors have some empty pins, but still, there are about 60 wires going into each door from the car. Here's a pic with the boot pulled back. (And the boot is good, no tears or weather leaks.) Through the firewall are connectors with 40-some pins, 78 pins, and even one with 116!!
A very common electrical fault with this car is broken wires right there in the door harness, and sure enough, on the driver's side I found this:
Then you get past the simple switch-on-and-do-this type function: there are three serial data buses that I've seen described in the manuals. The buttons on the steering wheel are one such bus. Yeah, they work as a set of resistors, but some controller somewhere converts the meaured ohms into a data signal that goes out to the radio, then to the climate control, then wherever else it needs to go, as command and status packets.
So something happened somewhere in the mid to late '90s and someone decided that a car's electrical system needed some...... help. Not enough electrons were being harnessed for useful functions, obviously. But dayum!!!!! 55 fuses, 5 of which are 60 amps! There are a few 50s and 40s, too. The inside box has your normal 10, 15, 20, 25-amp fuses.
Amazingly enough, electrical troubles have been rather limited! The power mirror on the passenger door didn't move in the up/down direction, which was one of those broken wires going to the driver's door. Yes, the driver's door! Two wires are common to both sides, and both common wires go to the driver's door first, and the splice to the other door is inside the driver's door. If I hadn't bought the FSM I never would have found that!!! One section of the instrument panel was not illuminated at night, but getting behind it and wiggling stuff set it right. The cruise control doesn't work, but all the correct signals appear at the module, so I may be looking for a CC module. It's electronic, not vacuum, but common to almost all of the Northstar-engined cars from '96 on, and according to eBay, salvage yards are full of Caddys and Auroras that have been wrecked.
And yes, I said Northstar. Those weren't just for Cadillacs. Sure, the Aurora is 4.0 liters where the Cadillac is 4.6. The ONLY difference is thicker sleeves in the cylinders giving it a smaller bore. Same block. Different heads to accomodate the bore, of course. Even GM called it a Northstar when they used the 4.0-liter version in the Cadillac LMP at Le Mans in the early 2000s.
It ought to be a separate post, but some things about the Northstar..... Well, first, it leaks!
We as FJR riders know all about twin-cam motors, but GM hasn't had so much experience with those. Valve cover gaskets apparently get brittle, as does the oil pan gasket. This is also a split block, like the case split on bike motors, the Northstar has an upper and lower block joining at the crank. Maybe another leak source. No gasket there, just sealant. And about that oil pan.... Not just one sealing surface, but two!!! There is a baffle plate between the pan and the block! One surface with gasket, and one with just sealant. As for changing the gaskets..... The valve covers are probably not so bad, as they are accessible. Probably easier than my Probe was, actually, as the Probe had a large "folded" intake manifold that laid back over the rear bank and had to be removed first.
But the oil pan has a couple of issues. Step ONE in the FSM for oil pan removal is: "Remove transmission."
Yep. The transmission obscures many of the oil pan bolts, and they are not accessible. Step three for oil pan removal is to remove the exhaust crossover pipe. That pipe passes under the shallow end of the oil pan, and also cannot be removed with the transmission in the car, as it goes up between the engine and transmission to join the Y-pipe to the main exhaust system. The pan cannot drop from the block with that pipe in the way. On the forum I found, people looking to actually fix this stuff are basically dropping the front cradle out of the car and then removing the engine from the cradle. For myself, unless it simply pours oil out as fast as I pour it in, I'll be adding a quart or two (or three or four, whatever it takes) between changes, and the driveway be damned.
Speaking of oil changes, the damn thing take 7.5 quarts!!!!
Anyway, I'm liking the Aurora more than I thought I would. The Crown Vic is fine, everything works, it has cold A/C, gets reasonable mileage for a heavy car with a 5-liter, and it's incredibly comfortable! I can take speed bumps at 35 mph!!!! Thing is, it needs tires, and what I'm paying the M-I-L for the Aurora is less than twice what a set of tires would cost for the Crown Vic. Hmmm.... tires, car... tires, car..... Lemme think!!! If I find the right conditions, I might even be able to sell the Crown Vic for the same money I'm paying for the Aurora, or at least close.
Biggest downside of the Aurora so far is it's supposed to run premium gas. That's kind of painful when it gets 14 mpg in town..... I'm not sure why the requirement, either. It's not just compression ratio, as it's 10.3:1. Our Feej runs on regular gas with 10.8:1 compression. I haven't used enough gas yet to throw in some mid-grade or regular just to see how it does, but that's on the list.
So that's the story of my 5th used car since my last new one, and still just the 9th car I've ever actually owned.
