Welcome to the Crown Vics ETC blog!

On April 6, 2000, I purchased a 1998 Ford Crown Victoria LX HPP with 23,490 miles. I decided to start a little website for it featuring a running log of my experiences with the car. Vic 1.0 was retired in 2015 due to rust and electrical issues. Vic 2.0 was a 2006 P71 in Blue Pearl that belonged to my boyfriend. It was a Ford demo and never saw actual police use. It was damaged in September of 2018 with well over 186,000 miles. It was replaced by Vic 3.0 in October 2018, a 2008 P71 in Silver Birch with 120,971 miles. To read posts prior to 2010, click a link at right, or go to Crown Vics, ETC.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

UPDATE: Making Connections...

Yesterday it was 70 degrees outside, so I decided to do something constructive.  One of Vic’s battery cable connectors was acting up.  Every once in a while, I’d try to start it, and you’d get a quick connection, then nothing.  If I opened the hood and just tapped the cable, it would connect again.  Since that connector had already been replaced a while back with a lead one, I figured I’d buy a new, non-lead connector and fix this little issue.

Old connectors... original 14 yr old one at left
It was pretty simple removing the offending lead connector.  The hard part was trying to crimp the new connector to the copper cable.  I tried using pliers, but couldn’t get much bend out of them.  So I just made sure all the copper was inside the new end, and taped the begeebers out of the junction.

Then I looked at the other cable.  That one had the original, 14 year old connector, but half of it had disappeared and was only about the width of a wedding ring.  I decided that it would be too hard to try and replace it, but while I was reinstalling it to the battery, SNAP!!  The thing finally fell apart.  That meant I HAD to replace it.

I cut off the factory insulation, and found out my low budget crimping technique was just that.  The correct way to crimp the non-lead ends was far better than what I could do with pliers… and very difficult to remove.  Long story short, I had to use a small saw I found in the cellar to hack the connector off.  Then I removed a little insulation from the cables, shoved them into the new connector, and taped it all up. 

Then came cleanup, which included putting a zillion sockets away.  Finally, I started the car.  Fired right up, but the car’s clocks were showing different times!  The stereo said it was 1:07, the factory dash clock said 12:07!  It was actually about 1:35PM…

I sure hope my repairs hold up.  Time will tell…

New cable ends... will they work???

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