Discussion
Obviously not content with a fully stripped XR2 in need of a repaint and rebuild over here, I somehow became the owner of a rather sheddy Puma.
It all started with a text from a friend in November last year, as these things tend to. It read something like "I'm going to see a Puma tomorrow. It's £50, should I buy it? I only want the wing mirrors". My reply was along the lines of "That's insane value, just buy it!!". He went to have a look. The previous owner muttered something about a starter motor problem as the car was stranded in a work car park somewhere on a retail estate. A quick look under the cam belt cover revealed that all was well in starter-motor world, but very unhappy in cam belt land. It had snapped. I wasn't present when he went to view the car but I gather the owner went a bit sheepish, accepted the pittance he'd asked for it and my friend was now the owner of a borked Puma.
Here it is beingdumped unloaded on to his drive:
You may be thinking: "Hang on, your friend bought the car for £50, not you? What's going on?!". Said friend, upon purchasing aforementioned car, had it delivered home on a recovery truck. And then his wife found out...
Cue short conversation with moi something along the lines of "Would you like my Puma for £50, the wife won't let me have 2 and this is the third! Oh, I found a spare engine for £30 just up the road and the guy says you can park it in the barn next to the one being broken for bits". One small BACS transfer later, and the rest is history. The car even had MOT til June!
It's December last year. Hmm, so now I own a borked Puma and I have a place to store it, and I even have a good engine to put in to it. Except the engine is still in the donor car, and it's the middle of winter. Perfect for swapping engines in an open-on-one-side barn full of boats and two borked Puma's, right? I seemed to think so at the time. It was definitely -2 C on at least one of the days I spent under the car.
First things first, this car was minging inside and out. Mouldy floor mats, full of rubbish, the works. All the tyres were mismatched ditch finders and the only 'good' one was a worn out Michelin with a huge chunk taken out of the side wall. I seriously considered just weighing it in, and while starting to remove bits underneath I had a good check for rust too. Luckily for the car, there was only 1 smallish hole in the sill, one rear arch was good and the other was only a little rusty, so it just about convinced me it would be worth sorting out!
The owner of the donor car was duly paid £30 and I was told to knock myself out with removing the engine any way I saw fit. The donor had a very minor front ender which literally bent the bonnet, front bumper and pushed the cross member back a little in the middle. The bumper was already off, so my angle grinder made short work of the cross member. Donor engine out, phew. Now rinse and repeat for my car
This was a total budget build. Cost so far: £50 - car, £30 - engine - £40 months' worth of barn space from friendly farmer with big barn.
Owner of the donor Puma wasn't fussed about the gearbox. Both cars had done near identical mileage so it didn't matter anyway, but I had a pool of parts to play mix and match with. I had both clutches off and chose the 'least worse', along with a variety of other bits and pieces not terribly important to how the car works such as coolant hoses and drive shafts
Cue more spannerage and suddenly the car was looking a bit more in one piece again. It was still minging though, and I didn't even know if all my effort had been worth it; I'd never heard the other engine run but I knew it had an intact cam belt and some oil in it. When I say 'some', I mean the dip stick had black on the bottom, much below the min... I filled it up with free coolant my friend found in his shed and turned the key. Then I went home and charged the battery.
With slightly dodgy looking battery of unknown age 'charged' (not really charged according to the indicator on the battery), I turned the key again. [Borat] Great success!! [/Borat] Engine came to life on the first go and actually sounded alright. Unfortunately I couldn't test drive around the farm I was was blocked in by many boats being stored over winter.
At this point, a friend of a friend heard I might be interested in selling the current barge of an Audi A4 Avant TDi with almost 250k on the clock that I'd been using up to this point to carry as much stuff to the tip in one go as possible, and all my tools to the barn of borked Pumas etc. This brought about the thought that I should sell the slightly boring, washed-only-twice-since-I-bought-it, moon-miles-but-totally-reliable-because-I-spent-too-much-money-on-servicing-EVERTHING-on-it Audi, and drive the totally-unknown-reliability-built-in-a-barn-but-much-more-fun-to-drive Puma. I put my sensible hat on, and then threw it away and sold the Audi. Purely because I already know the Puma will be a total hoot to drive and I think the Audi had played host to a rather corpulent gentleman at some point in it's previous life because the drivers seat was rather 'flat' and my back definitely didn't enjoy it one bit.
The Audi received the correct end of a sponge and leather, I even put the front bumper back on properly after not really bothering from when I changed the cam belt 7 months previously. My Puma enthusiast friend gave me a lift to the barn of borked/unborked Pumas and we set about moving boats on trailers to dig the Puma out. At this point I should mention that I've still not test driven the car anywhere apart from about 6 inches forwards and backwards to make sure the clutch and at least 1st and reverse worked. With the boats out of the way it drove out of the barn with no problems. Looks like we're in business!
The drive home was 'interesting'. The tracking was a country mile out, the engine still had no oil, the wiper blades had disintegrated making corners on the dark country lanes by the barn more of a guess than anything else, and the brakes were a tad wonky. I noticed a single new brake disc in the boot; it would seem the previous owner went full retard on the caliper bolts at some point, managing to round them all and leaving me with half a brake change. At least he put new pads on the one old disc... I made it home unscathed with my Puma enthusiast friend in hot persuit with a steel tow bar, you know, just in case my no-expenses spared project should come to a grinding halt. Even with all the faults, I loved it. Such a good car to drive. All this fun and I'm only in for £120!!
Successful test drive over, I decided I should pull out the big guns and spend a whole £30 on a service. I needed this car to get to work in so really it should have some new oil, and probably the correct amount, too. The lower arms were shot to bits, which probably goes some way to explain the tracking problems. I got a reasonable deal at Euro Car Parts for 2 Lemforder lower arms for £66. The tyres were desperate to be changed too, and luckily the guy with the donor car in the barn had a set of wheels for sale in decent condition with good quality tyres all around. All for the grand sum of £80. I got some new wiper blades too and even splashed out £34 I think on some brand new genuine Ford floor mats my Puma enthusiast friend just so happened to have spare!
Less than 2 weeks of being on the road and it was time for a quick trip to Somerset from Kent for an overnight stay away with the girlfriend. I figured that the car had done a couple of hundred miles and nothing had really fallen off, so what could possibly go wrong? I did give in to my own conscience and asked a local friendly garage owner to top up my gearbox oil on his ramp, as I'd spilled a bit during the engine swap and some had also leaked because I'd put the gearbox breather in the wrong way around. Breather was refitted the correct way around and gearbox 'topped up' with almost the full capacity it should take. Probably a good thing I had that checked then. It was literally the morning we were about to head off for our night away, I was dressed in non-greasy, girlfriend-approved clothes and couldn't really be bothered to look at the problem. Good thing I had it checked, I think I avoided a gearbox explosion somewhere on the M25, M4 or M5. That means I'd only be playing cam belt roulette for the trip. Yay!
Long story short; the car performed absolutely faultlessly. Even the gf had a go atbreaking driving it for while and liked how it went. 500 miles in two days, 45mpg achieved and zero problems. Result!
I've been driving the car every day since, and this happened:
Here is the most recent pic of how the car stands, taken earlier today:
I've gone totally mad, and spent a bit more money! £25 on a scrap yard hunt for a couple of trim bits, non-rounded caliper bolts, a working clock, and light stalk that doesn't stick on main beams when you try to flash someone (I got a few confused looks before I realised what was going on). I should proabably fit that sometime soon. I've even spent £11 on an Ebay special heater control valve as the current one chooses a temperature at startup (either boiling hot or stone cold) and there's nothing you can do about it. I still need to buy a rounded bolt undoing tool and then I might get around to replacing that brake disc. To be fair, now the car's in constant use the brakes aren't actually that wonky at all, but it definitely does need to be sorted!
No real problems to report apart from when the front bolt on the passenger side lower arm worked itself loose somehow the other day. Wondered where the rattle over bumps had come from, and the steering was really wandering all over the place! Tightened that back up and all is well again in Puma world. I also managed to get the throttle pedal stuck down on the edge of my poorly placed new floor mats, in the middle of changing gear while joining the motorway! Took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on, meanwhile the engine's bouncing off the limiter somewhere over 7k rpm!! Oops!
Oh, and I'm still playing cam belt roulette - I did have a peek under the cam belt cover eventually (and after the rev limiter incident) and there's definitely a belt there. It's a Gates one, which is nice. Owner of donor car thinks it was changed a couple of years ago maybe. We'll see...
Total cost so far: ~ £425
Hope you enjoyed my little Puma adventure so far.
It all started with a text from a friend in November last year, as these things tend to. It read something like "I'm going to see a Puma tomorrow. It's £50, should I buy it? I only want the wing mirrors". My reply was along the lines of "That's insane value, just buy it!!". He went to have a look. The previous owner muttered something about a starter motor problem as the car was stranded in a work car park somewhere on a retail estate. A quick look under the cam belt cover revealed that all was well in starter-motor world, but very unhappy in cam belt land. It had snapped. I wasn't present when he went to view the car but I gather the owner went a bit sheepish, accepted the pittance he'd asked for it and my friend was now the owner of a borked Puma.
Here it is being
You may be thinking: "Hang on, your friend bought the car for £50, not you? What's going on?!". Said friend, upon purchasing aforementioned car, had it delivered home on a recovery truck. And then his wife found out...
Cue short conversation with moi something along the lines of "Would you like my Puma for £50, the wife won't let me have 2 and this is the third! Oh, I found a spare engine for £30 just up the road and the guy says you can park it in the barn next to the one being broken for bits". One small BACS transfer later, and the rest is history. The car even had MOT til June!
It's December last year. Hmm, so now I own a borked Puma and I have a place to store it, and I even have a good engine to put in to it. Except the engine is still in the donor car, and it's the middle of winter. Perfect for swapping engines in an open-on-one-side barn full of boats and two borked Puma's, right? I seemed to think so at the time. It was definitely -2 C on at least one of the days I spent under the car.
First things first, this car was minging inside and out. Mouldy floor mats, full of rubbish, the works. All the tyres were mismatched ditch finders and the only 'good' one was a worn out Michelin with a huge chunk taken out of the side wall. I seriously considered just weighing it in, and while starting to remove bits underneath I had a good check for rust too. Luckily for the car, there was only 1 smallish hole in the sill, one rear arch was good and the other was only a little rusty, so it just about convinced me it would be worth sorting out!
The owner of the donor car was duly paid £30 and I was told to knock myself out with removing the engine any way I saw fit. The donor had a very minor front ender which literally bent the bonnet, front bumper and pushed the cross member back a little in the middle. The bumper was already off, so my angle grinder made short work of the cross member. Donor engine out, phew. Now rinse and repeat for my car
This was a total budget build. Cost so far: £50 - car, £30 - engine - £40 months' worth of barn space from friendly farmer with big barn.
Owner of the donor Puma wasn't fussed about the gearbox. Both cars had done near identical mileage so it didn't matter anyway, but I had a pool of parts to play mix and match with. I had both clutches off and chose the 'least worse', along with a variety of other bits and pieces not terribly important to how the car works such as coolant hoses and drive shafts
Cue more spannerage and suddenly the car was looking a bit more in one piece again. It was still minging though, and I didn't even know if all my effort had been worth it; I'd never heard the other engine run but I knew it had an intact cam belt and some oil in it. When I say 'some', I mean the dip stick had black on the bottom, much below the min... I filled it up with free coolant my friend found in his shed and turned the key. Then I went home and charged the battery.
With slightly dodgy looking battery of unknown age 'charged' (not really charged according to the indicator on the battery), I turned the key again. [Borat] Great success!! [/Borat] Engine came to life on the first go and actually sounded alright. Unfortunately I couldn't test drive around the farm I was was blocked in by many boats being stored over winter.
At this point, a friend of a friend heard I might be interested in selling the current barge of an Audi A4 Avant TDi with almost 250k on the clock that I'd been using up to this point to carry as much stuff to the tip in one go as possible, and all my tools to the barn of borked Pumas etc. This brought about the thought that I should sell the slightly boring, washed-only-twice-since-I-bought-it, moon-miles-but-totally-reliable-because-I-spent-too-much-money-on-servicing-EVERTHING-on-it Audi, and drive the totally-unknown-reliability-built-in-a-barn-but-much-more-fun-to-drive Puma. I put my sensible hat on, and then threw it away and sold the Audi. Purely because I already know the Puma will be a total hoot to drive and I think the Audi had played host to a rather corpulent gentleman at some point in it's previous life because the drivers seat was rather 'flat' and my back definitely didn't enjoy it one bit.
The Audi received the correct end of a sponge and leather, I even put the front bumper back on properly after not really bothering from when I changed the cam belt 7 months previously. My Puma enthusiast friend gave me a lift to the barn of borked/unborked Pumas and we set about moving boats on trailers to dig the Puma out. At this point I should mention that I've still not test driven the car anywhere apart from about 6 inches forwards and backwards to make sure the clutch and at least 1st and reverse worked. With the boats out of the way it drove out of the barn with no problems. Looks like we're in business!
The drive home was 'interesting'. The tracking was a country mile out, the engine still had no oil, the wiper blades had disintegrated making corners on the dark country lanes by the barn more of a guess than anything else, and the brakes were a tad wonky. I noticed a single new brake disc in the boot; it would seem the previous owner went full retard on the caliper bolts at some point, managing to round them all and leaving me with half a brake change. At least he put new pads on the one old disc... I made it home unscathed with my Puma enthusiast friend in hot persuit with a steel tow bar, you know, just in case my no-expenses spared project should come to a grinding halt. Even with all the faults, I loved it. Such a good car to drive. All this fun and I'm only in for £120!!
Successful test drive over, I decided I should pull out the big guns and spend a whole £30 on a service. I needed this car to get to work in so really it should have some new oil, and probably the correct amount, too. The lower arms were shot to bits, which probably goes some way to explain the tracking problems. I got a reasonable deal at Euro Car Parts for 2 Lemforder lower arms for £66. The tyres were desperate to be changed too, and luckily the guy with the donor car in the barn had a set of wheels for sale in decent condition with good quality tyres all around. All for the grand sum of £80. I got some new wiper blades too and even splashed out £34 I think on some brand new genuine Ford floor mats my Puma enthusiast friend just so happened to have spare!
Less than 2 weeks of being on the road and it was time for a quick trip to Somerset from Kent for an overnight stay away with the girlfriend. I figured that the car had done a couple of hundred miles and nothing had really fallen off, so what could possibly go wrong? I did give in to my own conscience and asked a local friendly garage owner to top up my gearbox oil on his ramp, as I'd spilled a bit during the engine swap and some had also leaked because I'd put the gearbox breather in the wrong way around. Breather was refitted the correct way around and gearbox 'topped up' with almost the full capacity it should take. Probably a good thing I had that checked then. It was literally the morning we were about to head off for our night away, I was dressed in non-greasy, girlfriend-approved clothes and couldn't really be bothered to look at the problem. Good thing I had it checked, I think I avoided a gearbox explosion somewhere on the M25, M4 or M5. That means I'd only be playing cam belt roulette for the trip. Yay!
Long story short; the car performed absolutely faultlessly. Even the gf had a go at
I've been driving the car every day since, and this happened:
Here is the most recent pic of how the car stands, taken earlier today:
I've gone totally mad, and spent a bit more money! £25 on a scrap yard hunt for a couple of trim bits, non-rounded caliper bolts, a working clock, and light stalk that doesn't stick on main beams when you try to flash someone (I got a few confused looks before I realised what was going on). I should proabably fit that sometime soon. I've even spent £11 on an Ebay special heater control valve as the current one chooses a temperature at startup (either boiling hot or stone cold) and there's nothing you can do about it. I still need to buy a rounded bolt undoing tool and then I might get around to replacing that brake disc. To be fair, now the car's in constant use the brakes aren't actually that wonky at all, but it definitely does need to be sorted!
No real problems to report apart from when the front bolt on the passenger side lower arm worked itself loose somehow the other day. Wondered where the rattle over bumps had come from, and the steering was really wandering all over the place! Tightened that back up and all is well again in Puma world. I also managed to get the throttle pedal stuck down on the edge of my poorly placed new floor mats, in the middle of changing gear while joining the motorway! Took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on, meanwhile the engine's bouncing off the limiter somewhere over 7k rpm!! Oops!
Oh, and I'm still playing cam belt roulette - I did have a peek under the cam belt cover eventually (and after the rev limiter incident) and there's definitely a belt there. It's a Gates one, which is nice. Owner of donor car thinks it was changed a couple of years ago maybe. We'll see...
Total cost so far: ~ £425
Hope you enjoyed my little Puma adventure so far.
Edited by Gallons Per Mile on Wednesday 2nd August 21:10
rxe said:
£425 + some effort for a working set of wheels. And, to be clear, not a poverty spec piece of junk, but a decent car.
Brilliant.
Puma's are absolutely buttons these days, it's fantastic. My cousin picked up a 2002 Puma (his second), one owner from new, full service history, 75,000 miles, 10 month's MOT, and everything working including air-con etc, £550! I drove it home for him and it was ridiculous fun. Brilliant.
That would be the only thing putting me off going the route of the OP with one of these- serviceable ones are just so cheap already, providing the rust hasn't got to far. There was another one for sale local to me that seemed very tidy rust-wise, but had failed it's MOT due to head lamp position and two corroded brake hoses, it was up for sale with no MOT for £195!
Fantastic wee read . Welcome to puma land !
We currently have 3 silver 1red and 1 black .
3 standard cars and 2 rally cars . Very cheap and reliable our highest is running 165k now with no problems . Change the oil every 5k and they seam to go forever .
Well dun on your purchase and hard work .
G
We currently have 3 silver 1red and 1 black .
3 standard cars and 2 rally cars . Very cheap and reliable our highest is running 165k now with no problems . Change the oil every 5k and they seam to go forever .
Well dun on your purchase and hard work .
G
Teocali said:
Great thread!
How was the engine swap? Difficult for a first timer?
My engine really needs swapping out and trying to gauge if its diy-able!
Thanks! Erm, well, this wasn't my first time changing a Puma engine! I've had a Mk4 Fiesta with a Puma lump. That decided it didn't want to do 100 mile a day commute at max leptons any more and spat part of a liner out. Still ran it to work for a couple of weeks like that, but it was making rather a lot of blue smoke and using a litre of oil every 300 miles. Swapped that engine in two weekends quite comfortably on my drive - dead engine out one weekend and new one in the next weekend, back to the 100 mile daily grind with no issues.How was the engine swap? Difficult for a first timer?
My engine really needs swapping out and trying to gauge if its diy-able!
I also bought a green Puma with a dead engine a couple of years ago. I must have been bored or something as I saw an ad for the car complete with spare engine in the boot, delivered to my house for £300. I swapped the engines around and then didn't really know what to do with it so sold it on!
I had a mk5 Fiesta Zetec S too, (basically same engine as Puma) that had three different engines under my ownership... the crank doesn't have a key way for the pulley and I messed up a cam belt change. Twice. I remember taking that Fiesta on a tour of Holland and Germany via the 'Ring with a 'fixed' engine only for it to develop a funny 'wobble'. Much oil consumption later, no track action at the ring and a steady cruise home on the autobahns @ only 90ish and we just about made it. I think a bearing took a knock as I'd used the original bottom end and a spare head to make that engine whole again.
Basically, I got pretty good at changing those engines! They're really not difficult even for a first timer though. The worst part is probably getting the thing jacked up high enough in the first place to allow the engine to drop out of the bottom. It's slightly more fiddly if the car has air con. My shed does, but of course it doesn't work! If you're happy to crack out the spanners and need advice, just PM/email me. The green Puma I mentioned earlier; a friend put the clutch back together on the new engine for me while I wasn't looking and managed to put the clutch plate on the wrong way around. Couldn't get any gears, but I only realised this once the car was back together and on the floor again! Took me an afternoon on my own to pull the 'box back off and swap the clutch plate around. 'Flywheel side' label on the plate gave it away once I got the box off! I still take the mickey out of him for that one years later!
Thanks all for your comments. I'll keep this updated. Now, I wonder how well it'll survive a track day? May have to get one booked soon! Oh, and that rev limiter thing I spoke about? I did it again today by accident. REALLY need to use the supplied grommets for the carpet that keeps the mat in the right position!
avenger286 said:
Fantastic wee read . Welcome to puma land !
We currently have 3 silver 1red and 1 black .
3 standard cars and 2 rally cars . Very cheap and reliable our highest is running 165k now with no problems . Change the oil every 5k and they seam to go forever .
Well dun on your purchase and hard work .
G
You're worse than my Puma enthusiast friend! He had a silver one and a Millenium yellow one. And then this silver one which is now mine. The other had to be sold and the yellow one resides in his garage still.We currently have 3 silver 1red and 1 black .
3 standard cars and 2 rally cars . Very cheap and reliable our highest is running 165k now with no problems . Change the oil every 5k and they seam to go forever .
Well dun on your purchase and hard work .
G
Small update from the world of all things Puma.
I finally decided now that the warm weather has sort-of made an appearance, I'd like not to be boiled alive every time I drive the car. Time to change the heater control valve for the £11 Ebay special and see what happens! I don't know why I put this job off for so long because it was ridiculously easy. Having said that, I've still got to secure the mats properly to solve the surprise-rev-limiter-when-changing-gear problem and sort out the light stalks too. I'm currently avoiding letting people out of junctions so I don't have to flash them and then make confused faces at my dash board while they work out whether I'm angry at them by flashing for ages or actually letting them go... The current setup works really well when someone cuts you up though
On to the pics. It all happened so fast I nearly didn't bother taking any, but where would be the fun in that?!
Old heater valve disconnected. The rear facing pipes disintegrated as I took the rubber hoses off. Well overdue replacement, and I'm probably quite lucky I didn't spring a major coolant leak and end up on the side of a motorway having cooked the engine. The other hoses got checked when I did the engine swap so I know they're all ok:
New valve in place. It really is as simple as diconnect pipes, pull off bulkhead and push new one in to place:
Hoses, electrical connector and rubber shroud thing back in place. Hmm, probably should have cleaned in there a bit, but the Puma cares not for being cleaned currently:
Front facing hoses connected back up and that's the job done. Apart from running the car up to temp with the expansion cap off and the heater set to hot just to bleed any air out:
So, did it fix the problem? To coin a phrase - sort of. I can now get cool air but it's rather tempremental and does still go boiling hot of it's own accord sometimes. Also, if I want warm air it seems to have a fit and just give me boiling hot most of the time, and then doesn't like returning to cold when I decide I don't want a tropical climate. Moral of the story? Cheap Ebay valves are w*nk. Should've bought Ford, but they cost as much as the car did originally. I've devised a cunning way of having cool air though. Now it's decided to play ball on the cool setting, just never, *ever* touch it again. Working well so far. Early starts for work are a bit cool though! I'll persevere for now and maybe even spend some actual money on a proper valve one day...
I finally decided now that the warm weather has sort-of made an appearance, I'd like not to be boiled alive every time I drive the car. Time to change the heater control valve for the £11 Ebay special and see what happens! I don't know why I put this job off for so long because it was ridiculously easy. Having said that, I've still got to secure the mats properly to solve the surprise-rev-limiter-when-changing-gear problem and sort out the light stalks too. I'm currently avoiding letting people out of junctions so I don't have to flash them and then make confused faces at my dash board while they work out whether I'm angry at them by flashing for ages or actually letting them go... The current setup works really well when someone cuts you up though
On to the pics. It all happened so fast I nearly didn't bother taking any, but where would be the fun in that?!
Old heater valve disconnected. The rear facing pipes disintegrated as I took the rubber hoses off. Well overdue replacement, and I'm probably quite lucky I didn't spring a major coolant leak and end up on the side of a motorway having cooked the engine. The other hoses got checked when I did the engine swap so I know they're all ok:
New valve in place. It really is as simple as diconnect pipes, pull off bulkhead and push new one in to place:
Hoses, electrical connector and rubber shroud thing back in place. Hmm, probably should have cleaned in there a bit, but the Puma cares not for being cleaned currently:
Front facing hoses connected back up and that's the job done. Apart from running the car up to temp with the expansion cap off and the heater set to hot just to bleed any air out:
So, did it fix the problem? To coin a phrase - sort of. I can now get cool air but it's rather tempremental and does still go boiling hot of it's own accord sometimes. Also, if I want warm air it seems to have a fit and just give me boiling hot most of the time, and then doesn't like returning to cold when I decide I don't want a tropical climate. Moral of the story? Cheap Ebay valves are w*nk. Should've bought Ford, but they cost as much as the car did originally. I've devised a cunning way of having cool air though. Now it's decided to play ball on the cool setting, just never, *ever* touch it again. Working well so far. Early starts for work are a bit cool though! I'll persevere for now and maybe even spend some actual money on a proper valve one day...
Edited by Gallons Per Mile on Wednesday 2nd August 21:12
I fixed the driver mat in place today as it really did need sorting out! I also spent 45 whole pounds on a brand s
ng new set of light/wiper stalks for it as the main beam problem was getting tedious. The set of stalks I picked up at the scrappy were the wrong part - apparently there were two different types that look and fit exactly the same but one set has 20 pins on the electrical connectors and the other has 21. No pics I'm afraid as I did those bits on the spur of the moment, but it's just that little bit nicer to drive now. Over 102k miles now on the clock which means I've done ~2500 miles in two and a half months
ng new set of light/wiper stalks for it as the main beam problem was getting tedious. The set of stalks I picked up at the scrappy were the wrong part - apparently there were two different types that look and fit exactly the same but one set has 20 pins on the electrical connectors and the other has 21. No pics I'm afraid as I did those bits on the spur of the moment, but it's just that little bit nicer to drive now. Over 102k miles now on the clock which means I've done ~2500 miles in two and a half months Small update! In preparation for the MOT, I thought I'd better sort out the passenger sill as there was an interesting hole and some other scabs of rust that looked ominous...
I forgot to take a pic before I started, so here's a lump of sill that's no longer attached to the car:
And here's where that lump of metal used to live:
A close up:
As this is a shed motor, it was a quick and dirty fix. Didn't worry about the inner sill looking crusty. It's actually completely fine as far as I can see apart from the very bit in the pic that you can see. And even that's not that bad. I probably spent a bit too much time to qualify as 'quick' but I'm out of practice with welding - thin metal meant I kept blowing holes through it, and even though I ground down the edge of the sill it just didn't want to weld all that well. Still, I got there in the end, ground all my welding back to resemble something nearly acceptable and went to look for some paint to cover it all up with. I also had a small poke along the top of the sill to see what lurked under where the rubber door seal sits. Wish I hadn't bothered as I found a couple more holes. Duly ground them back and welded those too...
Scabby bit further back along the sill. Pleased to find it was totally solid so I just ground the worst of it back ready for a lick of paint. That'll keep it at bay for a little while:
Ground back:
I found some silver-ish paint knocking around and went to town. Just look at the amazing colour match!!
Told you it was quick and dirty. Well, dirty then. It's all solid now and that's the main thing. I may have to re-do that patch at some point as I'm really not happy with the state of my welding, but it's definitely on there properly and that's the important thing for now.
I forgot to take a pic before I started, so here's a lump of sill that's no longer attached to the car:
And here's where that lump of metal used to live:
A close up:
As this is a shed motor, it was a quick and dirty fix. Didn't worry about the inner sill looking crusty. It's actually completely fine as far as I can see apart from the very bit in the pic that you can see. And even that's not that bad. I probably spent a bit too much time to qualify as 'quick' but I'm out of practice with welding - thin metal meant I kept blowing holes through it, and even though I ground down the edge of the sill it just didn't want to weld all that well. Still, I got there in the end, ground all my welding back to resemble something nearly acceptable and went to look for some paint to cover it all up with. I also had a small poke along the top of the sill to see what lurked under where the rubber door seal sits. Wish I hadn't bothered as I found a couple more holes. Duly ground them back and welded those too...
Scabby bit further back along the sill. Pleased to find it was totally solid so I just ground the worst of it back ready for a lick of paint. That'll keep it at bay for a little while:
Ground back:
I found some silver-ish paint knocking around and went to town. Just look at the amazing colour match!!
Told you it was quick and dirty. Well, dirty then. It's all solid now and that's the main thing. I may have to re-do that patch at some point as I'm really not happy with the state of my welding, but it's definitely on there properly and that's the important thing for now.
Edited by Gallons Per Mile on Wednesday 2nd August 21:13
Ahhh nostalgia
Sickly sweet and delicious.
I feel an impulse buy of a rotty old Ford coming on....
I sincerely hope I can find this thread in c.20 years time. I can see the eyes widen on the young whippersnapper who didn't believe me when I said you used to be able to pick one of these up for the price of a pair of shoes.
Sickly sweet and delicious.I feel an impulse buy of a rotty old Ford coming on....
I sincerely hope I can find this thread in c.20 years time. I can see the eyes widen on the young whippersnapper who didn't believe me when I said you used to be able to pick one of these up for the price of a pair of shoes.
Swampy - I've emailed you!
Mods deleted my whole last post for being 'an advert' but rather unkindly didn't leave the bulk of it giving the most recent update
In summary: Car is still running great. MOT passed with no issues, but I was advised that one CV boot was a bit dead and the flexy brake hoses were past their best. It's my current daily driver so I got them sorted. I'm on 104k miles now and no problems at all. I had a minor hiccup with a slight misfire but that was resolved with a coil pack and leads combination that I had spare in the garage left over from other Fiestas and Pumas I've owned in the past. That fix cost me a whopping zero pounds! I'm moving on to an E46 M3 in the very near future as it's gathering dust and needs to be used. Total cost of running the car to date: £654.06 which includes some labour charges for the flexy brake hoses and CV boot as I was feeling lazy and let MOT man do them for me :-D I've had rather a lot of fun with this car and it's still only cost just over half of shed budget!
Mods deleted my whole last post for being 'an advert' but rather unkindly didn't leave the bulk of it giving the most recent update
In summary: Car is still running great. MOT passed with no issues, but I was advised that one CV boot was a bit dead and the flexy brake hoses were past their best. It's my current daily driver so I got them sorted. I'm on 104k miles now and no problems at all. I had a minor hiccup with a slight misfire but that was resolved with a coil pack and leads combination that I had spare in the garage left over from other Fiestas and Pumas I've owned in the past. That fix cost me a whopping zero pounds! I'm moving on to an E46 M3 in the very near future as it's gathering dust and needs to be used. Total cost of running the car to date: £654.06 which includes some labour charges for the flexy brake hoses and CV boot as I was feeling lazy and let MOT man do them for me :-D I've had rather a lot of fun with this car and it's still only cost just over half of shed budget!
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff