Okay, I finally got tires on the car this spring. I got a great deal on some Pirelli's from www.tires.com With the $100 rebate I got on them, the total cost with installation was under $300.
The car rides so much better and is so much quieter. The bad news with the new tires is with the smoother and quieter ride, it has revealed undlying sounds and vibrations that I wasn't able to distinguish before.
1st example is the passenger side front wheel bearing was "roaring" but I couldn't hear it because of the bad tire. The kit I got included both bearings and the seal for about $75 delivered. I got it from www.mc2racing.com
I was very fortunate in being able to pick up a speciality tool kit made for the Scorpio on Ebay.
This made the actual process of removing and installing the wheel bearings much simpler.
Now that the roar was gone, I turned my attention to the vibration coming from the rear. It felt like the drive shaft. I had replaced a u-joint in the car last fall, but there was definitely a vibration. Recently I swapped in the drive shaft from the parts car. It was still in good shape, and a lot of the vibration dissappeard. After a test drive I think the balance of the sounda and vibration is coming from the driver side cv-halfshaft. It is the original one and the boots are ripped on it. I was waiting for it to start that "clacking" sound they make on failure, but I will just replace it.
Unexpectedly I had the upper console fall apart. The two plastic tabs that attach it to the roof of the car broke. This is common on these cars, bad design. So I set about fixing it. I came up with some metal plates and used a connection point in the existing set up. Pictures below.
Finished Product