1996 Grand Marquis Advice?

Hello Everyone,
I found this forum through a search and I've been amazed at the depth of knowledge exhibited by the members of the forum. I'm hoping you can help me too.

Here's what I have:

96 Merc Grand Marquis LX. All stock. 104K miles. I'm second owner. I bought it with 82K miles. Gorgeous car.

Recently I had problems getting it to start. It would fire and turn over as usual, just wouldn't fire. After some cranking, it would finally fire and run rough for the first minute or so then it would run fine. One day, I drove it to work and at the end of the day, I fired up up (after the now-normal cranking) and it fired and ran as usual. After about a 5-10 minute trip, I lost power. The car would run, but wouldn't take gas and wouldn't run over about 18 mph. I finally found somewhere to pull off and shut it off. My father in law came and got it started and held the throttle to the floor for a while and it started to run smoothly again. He felt that it was flooded? I was able to drive it home and it ran just fine. I parked it and started it a few days later and still have the trouble getting it started and it will not take gas so I parked it. Today, I fired it up and it literally didn't want to take gas over an idle.

It has not had a tune up. I suspect the plugs? I've had others tell me they think it's the fuel pump, which they say is actually located in the gas tank itself?

I'm looking for ideas/suggestions.

Here are my challenges:
Money is VERY tight for me right now so taking it to a shop may be my last resort . I'm not extremely mechanically inclined, and I don't have access to a shop, just my driveway. I need to see if this is something that perhaps I can handle myself and perhaps with the help of a friend.

My hope is to try to get a pretty definitive idea of what is wrong so that I don't waste money replacing things only to find that they didn't solve the problem.

I appreciate your help/advice/insight in advance.

Thank you.

Hey Cubbie:

Surely you have some MIL codes...have you pulled them....that's the clue...

Without the engine codes....you are just guessing.
Swapping parts...running rabbit's down the hole...not likly to happen..

I am sure form the detail description many will have suggestions...however
until you run these to the ground...a lot of water will have passed ...in many ways.

When you had it running...you should have gotten it to a parts retailer like AutoZone
Advanced or others. ...they offer to read code for 1994 and newer OBD2 's

That will save you wasted time and parts swapping...

Hang in there...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it to a parts supplier for a code check before it gave out on me. Argh. I'll have to see if a friend of mine has one that he can bring by my house to check it. I'm just not used to these new computer cars. I long for the old days when you could reach stuff under the hood and there weren't a ton of wires and crazy connections to have to deal with. AND you didn't have to be Bill Gates to understand what was wrong.

Thank you for your post. I'll try to see if I can somehow get someone to bring one of those reader things by.

And if you don't see the yell "Check Engine" light on the display, it is possible the light burnt.

I'd start by checking fuel filter canister along the left frame rail in front of rear axle. Cheap to replace, and probably needs it.