1968 Mercury Park Lane Brougham from North America - Comments

I bought a 1968 Mercury Park Lane Brougham brand new in 1968. It was a fine car for its day.

Back then I owned a repair shop, and was quite annoyed when I changed the heater hoses that you had to partially disconnect the inner part of the right front fender to do it. It was an all day process under the best conditions.

Another Mercury Model of the day I recall, had to have the engine mounts loosened to allow for the engine, a 428 cubic inch in a Cougar Eliminator to be jacked up, so you could get enough room to change the spark plugs.

A more puzzling problem was when a good customer brought her 1972 Cadillac Sedan Deville in for a performance problem. The Cadillac was only a couple of years old, and the ignition and carbueration was perfect. So why then did it not go any faster than 55 mph and with considerable surging at that speed. We were baffled for awhile, but then realized the problem was that the silicone lubricate that Cadillac had installed in the inner exhaust extension pipe had worn away, and was backing up the exhaust and choking out the engine. After we installed the new exhaust extension pipe the Cadillac 472 cubic inch engine performed flawlessly.

Another habitual problem for Chevrolet Impala and Caprice built between 1965-1966 was premature excessive wear on lower front ball joints. Back then I had an inspection station and we had to fail many a Chevrolet of that vintage because of poor ball joints.

Finally in 1968, Chevrolet went with an Oldsmobile type ball joint design on its larger models and solved the problem.

General Motors water pump failure during the years of the late 1960's and early 1970's was excessive in the 350 V-8. Problem was even the new replacement waterpumps were no better and had to be constantly changed, due to bearing failure and leaking. Now I'm talking about water pump failure in less than one year or 20,000 miles.

Not to be undone Chrysler, had a severe ignition problem during the early years of electronic ignition. All models from Plymouth to Chrysler from roughly 1971-1977 had a ballast resistor design, which was like a large fuse that would fail frequently and prevent total ignition modular burnout, but also prevented the car from starting. The fuse was a plug in device that fitted easily into the ignition modular. It was a $10 item and we kept one in the service truck at all times for disabled Chrysler products. GM and Ford did not have ballast resistors, so when the ignition failed, it was a $100 ignition modular that needed to be replaced.

Unfortunately for myself I bought a one year old Dodge Coronet (1973). It was a former Chrysler Lease vehicle and I paid $2600 for it. It only had 9,000 miles on it. I soon regretted purchasing the vehicle as the carburetor failed within a few months, and then every carburetor I replaced it with (all new) ended up with flooding problems. I believe there was 8 of them spread over a seven year period.

Finally I traded the Dodge in, but only later learned that the carburetor manufacturer admitted to massive carburetor failure on Chrysler products made from 1973-1977.

Thank you for the info. Very interesting.

The 1968 Mercury Parklane 390 engine referenced by the author had a very pain-in-the-neck coolant bypass hose that caused mechanics of the era to tear their hair out and loudly offer up earthy observations about Henry Ford II's maternal ancestors. The 3" long hose fit between the water pump and the intake manifold with barely 1/2" gap between the two.

In order to replace the break-prone short hose, the mechanic had to remove the water pump. In order to remove the water pump he had to remove in true "the toe bone's connected to the foot bone, the foot bone's connected to the heel bone, etc." style: the alternator and bracket, two idler pulleys, the power steering pump and bracket, the AC compressor and bracket, the fan, the fan shroud, all belts, and the water pump pulleys. Frequently, when the water pump's bolt holes had corroded into mere rust, the radiator and AC evaporator and upper and lower hoses would also be removed to allow tools in to install helicoil repair of the block before reassembly could happen.

Grown men would cry and curse while replacing the bypass hose, and other grown men would cry and curse when presented with the bill for replacing the bypass hose.

Incredible. But how can this be? If you believe the numerous comments on this site (almost certainly coming from the same posters over and over), old cars are designed and built better than the new ones!