The Crown Vics ETC Blog: 176,000 MILES and Door Switch Panel Repair PART 1

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.

Monday, March 20, 2017

176,000 MILES and Door Switch Panel Repair PART 1

Today Vic 2.0 hit 176,000 miles. It is amazing how few problems this car has had in it's life. But it is now 11 years old, and is starting to show/feel it.

Many of you who own these cars are aware of a very annoying issue they have with the driver side switch panel mounting tabs breaking off and thus making the panel pop up. This has annoyed me as well, and I tried adding small pieces of Velcro to the panel and door to keep the thing down. Didn't work. The self-adhesive didn't adhesive as well as I had hoped, and the thickness of the hook & loop halves added too much thickness, so even when the panel DID stay down, there was a "padded" effect. In other words, the panel didn't sit flush like it is supposed to.

So today I was sitting in 2.0 in a parking lot, and used a screwdriver to fully remove the switch panel so I could peel off the Velcro. And what did I find inside the door? Two of the broken mounting tabs. That made me start thinking about repair options. In the past, I have used a plastic repair product that really worked well on a couple of broken Javelin grills, as well as the power/volume knob on Mystery Mechanic's Uniden scanner, which is still in 2.0.

I headed on over to a local auto parts store to see what they had in stock for plastic glue/repair products, knowing they stock some hard to find items. They didn't have anything of the proper quantity and/or price. On my way out, the boss suggested Gorilla Glue. I have never used it, and it didn't cost too much, so I said "ok, but if it doesn't work I'll be back to yell at you!".

Below are some photos I snapped during the "repair". I put that in quotes because I am skeptical, and because the glue takes 24 hours to set up. So stay tuned to see if the repair did or did not work!