Ford Crown Victoria | Mercury Marauder | Grand Marquis | P71Forum for discussion of the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Marauder, Mercury Grand Marquis and P71.
I have a 1998 CNG powered p71 that has a squeek which I suspect to be a wheel bearing on the drivers side of the car. When I roll through above ground parking lots with the drivers window down, I can hear noises that sound like rolling balls inside the hubcaps. When I get to speed outside it makes an squeek-squeek-squeek sound kind of like brake wear squeekers. Its definitely not the brakes, because the sound doesn't go away when the brakes are used. When I jacked up the car and manually spun the wheel, I don't hear any noises. The drivers side front tire has unusual wear on the outer edge. Its really hard to tell if the noises are coming from the front or rear of the car. I was thinking of ordering a front wheel bearing and change it, since its not that hard to do. Otherwise the car is great, it has no other issues. I find that the power is fine with the natural gas. I've heard other people complain about the power, but I find it to be OK. Gasoline is expensive here in Canada, so my fuel expenses are cut in half!
Take it there is no wear / play or roughness in wheel bearing when checked ? With the unusual wear on tyre I would get the wheel alignment checked out and adjusted first rather than fit a wheel bearing that might not be needed .If the alignment is out , the wheel wont be running true .Just make sure there is no excessive wear on steering , suspension that may be causing tracking to be out of spec in the first place before checking setting.
Did you check for any up and down play at the wheel? Jack it up and put your hands at the 12 & 6 o'clock positions, rock tire in and out to check for any play. Should be tight. If you have any play you'll need to determine if its at the bearing or a ball joint. Sounds like a bearing to me.
Yes, I did check for play in the ball joint and there wasn't any when I had the car jacked up. No noticeable play in the steering either. The car doesn't pull or anything. That is a good suggestion to get the alignment checked. The tires have at least 80% tread on them except for the drivers front wearing thin on the outer edge. The sooner I get that checked the sooner I won't have to buy a new tire.
Might be just real bad toe-in. As a quick check, I'll take a string and tie it to a heavy object (cinder blocks are a backyard mechanic's best friend), bring it across the rear tire and see if it hits on either the front or back of the front tire first. I'll do this to both sides without touching the steering wheel, then get one side to touch off on both sides of one wheel, then check the other. Takes a little patience, but I've actually gotten front ends to an acceptable alignment, but I still take it in to have it checked. Camber's alittle different, requires a really flat, level floor and a very accurate level of the right length.
Cat , you've just fried my brain trying to figure out your Heath Robinson wheel alignment / geometry checking !!! Thanks ,I'm going for a lie down ! Never heard of that method before though heard of people using string across front for a rough , start off setting .The camber , castor , alignment is so critical nowadays on modern cars you must use the correct equipment and get someone who knows how to set it up correctly , very important .You must also check calibration of the gauges frequently .With the state of the pot holes in our UK roads this is a big problem here .The number of times I've seen tyre depots wrongly align steering is frightening .
Like I said, it's a rough-in until you get to the garage for a correct alignment. Beats tearing up tires and having the car trying to pull all over the road.
I had the front wheel allignment done today. That solved the problem. He said that the one wheel was pigeon toed and he adjusted that. He also said that I was running too low tire pressure. He said 30 pounds was too low, and he increased it to 45. He said the ball joints are ok. The noise is gone and the car handles better.
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