superbuick

Hi all - new member here - I had read an article on the Hagerty website that for whatever reason (it was very well written) made me think - I want to find myself a manual transmission Mercury Milan :-) https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/happiness-is-a-stick-shift-mercury-milan/ I picked up a 2007 milan last december and have been slowly rejuvenating it to look nicer and run better. It was rust free and advertised as "clean and in perfect mechanical shape" when I bought it but had a number of issues. Valve Cover leaking like a sieve Badly worn clutch and leaky slave cylinder Suspension bushings and balljoints, swaybar links and bushings, and shocks badly worn Strange clunk coming from the front end (this created alot of gray hair for me in the coming months) All motor mounts torn Leaking flex pipe Two worn tires (but two brand new!) Torn front seat, steering wheel, and shift boot. Shift knob badly worn Some broken interior pieces. Cracked lower grilles Generally Dirty and gross I picked up the car and trailered it home - my main concern was that it was rust free and not crashed - all the mechanical work I knew could be done pretty easily. I paid $1900 for the car with 150k miles on it. Its a premier with the cold weather package, 2.3 Manual Transmission (my personal philosophy is No manual, No interest ) First thing to address when I got it home was to do the valve cover gasket - there was oil EVERYWHERE - all of the spark plug holes were filled to the brim, it was down all sides of the block - everywhere. Once that was fixed I gave it a general tuneup with motorcraft parts. The clutch slave, flex pipe, and motor mounts were replaced, thinking I could solve the clunk (the clunk was felt when shifting gears, letting the clutch out from a stop, and over tiny bumps). Replacing the mounts solved some pretty massive driveline vibrations (its amazing how smooth the car became - it was so raucous before), and the amount of movement the motor was experiencing witht he bad mounts certainly explained the torn and leaking flex pipe.. But the clunk remained. I moved on to a super thorough interior cleanup (I have a small detailing business and as a result have some good cleaning equipment like a steamer, an extractor, etc). I pulled the seats and was of course horrified by the ooze and filth - cleaned the heck out of everything (about 9 hours worth of cleaning), and let it dry out before reassembly. I sourced as many of the broken interior pieces as I could from NOS sources and replaced them - I was lucky to find a new shift boot but the knobs are literally impossible to find anywhere. I found a nice NOS steering wheel for $50 and replaced that too, and sourced a factory-looking aftermarket knob. The exterior was washed, clayed, wet sanded where necessary, and buffed. It came out ok, but there were a number of scratches and dents that required touchup paint (I hate touchup paint but it was either that or repaint the whole panel - not worth it on a car this old) I moved on to the suspension and replaced all the front control arms, front struts, inner and outer tie rods, front knuckles (found a wheel bearing going bad) and added H&R lowering springs. The rear shocks and upper and lower control arms were replaced and H&R lowering springs installed there also. I replaced the clutch with new OEM. The clunk remained (the new control arms and clutch seemed to almost make it worse!) In attempting to find the clunk, I found noises coming from the steering rack and the axles - both axles were replaced (with OEM axles) as was the intermediate shaft, and the steering rack was replaced with a remanufactured one. The clunk remained. I found a replacement for the torn seat at a local junkyard, put on two new tires, and replaced the rusty brakes (they were half worn but given the state of maintenance on the car, and the cheap price of painted calipers, it was worth replacing them.) Fast forward a few months of driving the car and dealing with the clunk, it was driving me crazy. I'd have the car up on stands or the lift every other week trying to find SOMETHING loose, and I couldnt find anything else. I installed a radio with a backup camera to make my life easier - I used to be one of those "who needs a backup camera???" people but I will admit it - I was wrong - they are helpful and now that I have little kids I am more worried about what I might run over behind me in the driveway. The clunk remained. Finally I had it and tore the entire front suspension apart again - and this time I pulled the entire front subframe out - just to make it easier to access everything (you only need to drop the rear of the subframe to do the lower control arms). I could find nothing loose, nothing worn, nothing bad, so I put the subframe back in and resigned myself to having a mystery clunk forever. Well what do you know it was gone... I'm not sure how/what/why, but taking the subframe out and putting it back in eliminated the clunk - my only guess is it was misaligned slightly or loose slightly or something from work done long in the past, and the noise was masked by all the other worn parts. The car is great now - I love driving it and I think its a great looking car. I may splurge on some refinished stock wheels for it at some point - the ones on it cleaned up nice but have some irreperable pitting and flaking of the clearcoat and some curb rash). The rear trailing arms should be replaced - I have the parts but have not gotten around to doing them yet - they are the only original suspension bits left on the car. Its crazy I guess to put a bunch of work into an old 4 cylinder "basic" car with 150k miles on it, but as the hagerty article mentions ; "The reason is simple, even if it’s hard to believe: This is a great car. As a 2002 Mazda 6 in drag, it hails from that oh-so-brief Golden Age of automobiles after computer-controlled fuel injection and modern safety standards but before the catastrophic bloat that affects virtually all of today’s showroom stock. " I really like the manual combined with the premier package and cold weather package. These are neat little cars - a little bit difficult to work on in some respects, but they look great and drive great too.