daverbmxer

My mom bought a 2000 Grand Marquis and said she can give me the '94.. It's been a great car, we bought it when it was only a few years old and has had 250,000 problem free miles for the most part.

However.. now that it will be mine I want to address a couple things that haven't been serious enough for my mom to bother with. The first is that it pings and surges going up hill.. It's more than a pinging (although it does that too when lugging in OD up a steep hill when hot). It will buck kind of hard if you get on the throttle hard while in OD. Well a few years just after it first started, my dad took it to the local shop to ask if they knew what would cause it to do that and the mechanic said it sounded like a stuck solenoid. The mechanic came out and used a long screwdriver to tap on the solenoid, and that freed it. Oddly it was good for another couple years, but the problem did return. My dad can't remember where the mechanic tapped.. do any of you guys have any ideas? It has the 4.6L DOHC.

I'm going to have to do do at least a basic tune up on it, as nothing has been done for years. I'm planning on taking it on some less than ideal gravel roads in BC, and the last thing I'd want is a breakdown.

The last few years it's had a bit of an oil burning problem too. It will go through a quart of 10w30 every 300 to 500 miles. What oil would you guys recommend for it? I was thinking possibly 15w40 Rotella.

I should be able to pick up which cylinder(s) are burning oil by the looks of the plugs right? (they do have 50,000 miles on them afterall!) When I find out which cylinders are burning it, would it be best to do a leakdown test on them? I know if the compression remains poor during the leakdown with oil added to the cylinders it's the valves, and if the compression stays longer then the rings are shot. I'm just wondering how this would work on a V engine.. it seems like the oil would flow to the low part of the cylinder leaving 90% of the ring unsealed with oil. Is there any chance it could be the headgasket leaking oil into the cylinders?

These are the items I'm planning on replacing before I do a 2000 mile trip with it in a few weeks:

$87 - park plugs wires
$20 - spark plugs
$9 - fuel filter
$8 - air filter
oil/filter change
clean fuel injectors
seafoam
differential drain and refill
tranny flush
$3 - pcv valve
serpentine belt

Would any of you recommend Restore or Rislone? I know the dangers with them, when they dislodge chunks of carbon or oil build up and plug drain holes or the oil pump screen. I'd hope that these could free up the rings though. I'll probably also SeaFoam the car through the brake booster.

I hope that made sense, I pieced it together from other posts on a ford truck forum.

Any info helps, thanks.