5-Day Resurrection: My '97 Town Car is finally alive, but I need some car gurus to explain this absolute wizardry.
Hey everyone, so Edmonton finally decided to start warming up around May 10th, so I eagerly pulled my 1997 Lincoln Town Car out of the garage. Gave it a solid 20-hour trickle charge beforehand (probably overkill, but hey) and happily cruised to work. The engine sounded absolutely silky smooth on the drive in.
But of course, because it’s that project car life, when it was time to clock out, the old girl refused to start. My coworker brought out a 2000A boost pack, and then we tried a massive 4000A one. Neither could get her to fire up. Had to take an Uber home.
Day 2: Showed up to work and borrowed the shop forklift to give it a proper jump. Still nothing. Now I'm deeply questioning my life choices. If it's not a dead battery, what else could it be?
- Did the classic Ford fuel pump inertia switch in the trunk trip? Checked it—completely normal.
- Did I flood the engine? Did the standard Ford clear-flood routine (gas pedal to the floor) twice. Still nothing.
- Is it a bad starter? No, the starter was cranking strong.
- Is it the anti-theft (PATS) messing with me? Nope, the anti-theft light was off. Ubered home again.
Day 3: Brought my BMW smart trickle charger to work. Plugged it in for 2 hours while hooking up the 4000A booster at the same time. Still a hard no. Ubered home again (at this point, I'm practically an Uber VIP, they’re drowning me in discount coupons).
Day 4: Totally fed up, I ran down after work to sign up for an AMA Plus membership. Called 5 local repair shops—got rejected by 4, and only one agreed to eventually squeeze me in. To make things worse, AMA told me there's a 72-hour waiting period for towing on a new membership. Awesome.
Day 5: I was ready to throw in the towel. I was literally browsing Facebook Marketplace to see how much I could sell this thing for. But as a last-ditch effort, I hooked up my trickle charger again during my shift for a solid 5 hours. At the end of the day, I threw the shifter into Neutral instead of Park, gave it a crank... and holy crap, it fired right up on the first try! Absolutely unbelievable.
I know I need to replace the battery ASAP anyway, but can any mechanic or Ford Panther-platform expert explain what the hell actually happened here? Why did it reject a forklift jump and two massive boost packs for days, but a 5-hour trickle charge and shifting to Neutral did the trick?
Help a fellow Edmontonian out!