What did you do to your Town Car today ?

Replaced both parking brake shoes on my 02 Sig Series, ....both sides, adjusted parking brake cable and star adjuster for shoes to get it to hold on a hill in Neutral....... What an absolute pain in the frigging ass. No room to work the bottom spring in at all or the keepers, adjuster kept falling out ....sucked.... I got it, but had to walk away a couple times it was that bad , ended up using a long flat head screwdriver in the hole and needle nose channel locks to guide it in. Absolutely the most frustrating thing I've done on this car since the rear shocks.
I’ve heard some folks slide the rear axles out to access the e brake shoes.
 
Started it up (been sitting for a week) the wheels are “somewhat“ growing on me but will probably look for 18s. Man they cheeped out on this Continental emblem (imo) 😡
 

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If you don't bleed, how do you even know you're doing anything? 🤣 Only a little bit of Resonix CLD (sound deadener) placed in the trunk, today, so there's not much blood.
 

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Does it make a difference?

Not the blood, the Resonix CLD ?
If yes show more pics. (Again not of the red stuff)

Action
 
Does it make a difference?

Not the blood, the Resonix CLD ?
If yes show more pics. (Again not of the red stuff)

Action
This is all I've got in place, so far, so there's not much else to show. Specifically, the Resonix CLD is the best of this type of damping that I've ever used. It's only 1 piece to the puzzle, though. The Resonix site shows the 3rd party testing to prove it works. (In case anyone wonders I don't get paid or anything. My opinion derives from two decades of personal experience.) They're about to have a few different types of CLD available in the near future.

I'll be installing it in necessary spots around the entire car, in time. Also using 3M Thinsulate SM600L, Resonix Fibermat 25, and Noise Grabber MLV (Mass Loaded Vinyl) to surround all non-glass surfaces of the passenger area. CCF (closed cell foam) will also be used to keep any buzzing down from one layer to the next.

My Town Car is to be my SQ mobile listening room. 🤘
 
My Navigator isn't the quietest ride I have ever driven. And it is a huge SUV with a "package" area exposed to the passenger compartment. There is a lot of glass too and not much I can do with that.

Your picture (less the hemoglobin) got me to think may be there are some other measures I can take to reduce the exterior sound.

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My Navigator ...is a huge SUV with a "package" area exposed to the passenger compartment. There is a lot of glass too and not much I can do with that.
...there are some other measures I can take to reduce the exterior sound.
Absolutely! The CLD is for panel vibration and while that does attribute to some level of noise, your best bet for general noise reduction would be MLV combined with a product like the 3M Thinsulate or Resonix Fibermat. I'll explain, further -

You would want the MLV to cover as much surface area as possible (100% if possible) - behind each door panel, the floor (especially at each wheel well), and all the side panels between the doors and hatch. Fill those same areas with thinsulate (but don't compress - that's why different thicknesses are made) And, certainly, more than you'd ever think possible, drop the headliner and give the roof the same treatment. The roof might be the *ONLY* place I would suggest some use of a CLD, because the panel is just SOOOO large, it can't help but cause resonance while running the roads.

An effective CLD product only needs about 30-40% coverage to achieve it's most efficient results. You can't go overboard but anything more than that will give diminished results. But don't even bother with taking the trim and panels off if you're not ready to completely FILL 100% of the area with a sheet of MLV (or lead) and a product like thinsulate!

The analogy that's most often used with MLV and thinsulate is when you crack a house window and your neighbor is running a loud lawn mower... Just that small couple inches brings nearly as much noise as if you opened the window, entirely. If you're not prepared (💲 and ⌛) to close that window completely then it's just not worth getting started, as your results won't be effective enough to hear a difference!

I'll try getting some more pics to you, tomorrow, if work progresses. (weather and health dependent, at this time)
 
Does it make a difference?
.....
If yes show more pics.
That's probably all of the CLD that I'm putting on the trunk. All this will be well hidden, behind the gray cloth trunklid cover. There will be some more, toward the rear of the car, but that will be hidden on the back side of the inner lid skin.
 

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Oil change, lubed front end and inspected everything. Addressed an ABS wire that is starting to rub through then rotated tires.
 
.....

That's probably all of the CLD that I'm putting on the trunk. All this will be well hidden, behind the gray cloth trunklid cover. There will be some more, toward the rear of the car, but that will be hidden on the back side of the inner lid skin.
I just recently rolled inside the doors, the floors and up to the parcel tray; replaced the speakers and the sub; replaced the carpet. Your antenna lays across the parcel tray and if you roll it with Noico you'll lose all radio reception (I figured as much and didn't really care.)

Went with AAC Essex with the mass backing. I failed to take a photo of the floormats but the Lincoln symbol is 7" long, dead center on the mat and fairly atrocious in comparison to stock. The carpet also didn't have the driver's side floormat hook so that floormat is a bit on the move. The carpet is nice though it's a bit loose; I could have tightened it up more but didn't want cuts to start showing.

The speakers are better but the subwoofer didn't do much. I kept the stock radio/amp(s). I added bluetooth via the antenna connector. I might end up putting a stereo in the glovebox as the outcome was meh.

Overall the sound deadening didn't do nearly what I had hoped it would; it did knock down rough pavement sounds such as cobblestone streets or potholes. Somewhere I read its not really a sound deadener as much as it is an accoustic enhancer and I think that person was right. I only put it down because it was relatively cheap and I was replacing the carpet to remove the water anyway; in retrospect I probably should have left the carpet and put a dehumidifier in the car for a week. I did find rust beginning to bubble at the passenger's feet but that could have been addressed without pulling back the carpet very far.

I also had Autobahn (formerly Huperoptik) 22% nanoceramic all the way around, 70% Air ceramic on the windshield with a 5% strip to the A1 line. This is my 3rd time with Autobahn and it is lovely, though the 70% windshield didn't cut total solar energy reduction as much as I had hoped; last time I had 50% and it made a bigger difference.

ETA: Here is the stuff I rolled:
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Recently put on 4 new tires and changed out the fuel filter and rear axle fluid. Opened up the cover and found a nice clean differential. No metal shavings anywhere
 
Do you have any chrome fender trim you'd recommend? Lots of options out there. Looking to add it to a potential '08 gold town car.
There is a Company out of Santa Fe Springs Ca. called tfpusa that sells them on Amazon. That's where I purchased my trim
 
A busy weekend for my '05 (180k). New engine oil, still looked great, zero sludge on plug w/ ~4k miles of full synth, replaced with full synth. Trans filter change, also had never been opened (original install plug still in pan), juice looked pretty good for nearly 200k miles. Diff lube change (no particular wear, there had been an old leak with some build up that I wanted to clean up). Then one of the lighter plug replacement usb power units someone up above had linked to (its pretty sweet). Almost, almost, almost got into Etinpa's idea for automatic unlock, but ran out of time (I'll have to document that too).
 
Just to keep this thread on the front page... This weekend I took the passenger door apart to reattach the lock actuator, a relatively high power thing held to the door by a single rivet (albeit a heavy duty one) that comes loose or falls off over time. Still not to the auto unlock feature, but did bypass the thermo-resistor plate in Windstar doors to correct the lock actuator function (one door was weak, one was no longer working). Holy cow, they're like little rockets now.

Oh, and the pull handles on these, geez, this doesn't seem like good design (both mounting "plates" for the silver trum are broken).
 
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