1999 Ford Puma 1.7 Track Car

[fiatpower]

I was watching this car on EBay for a few days and managed to get it for £450. Was pretty nervous about it as I bought it totally unseen bar pictures on the advert, usually a no no but thought I'd risk it for this one. Went to pick it up and was pleasantly surprised. Started first time, pretty nice bodywork with the exception of bubbling wheel arches (common fault), nice tight gear change and responsive steering. Had a quick check of the sills (again another area for rusting) and they looked very clean.

Plan to jack it up tomorrow and have a proper look underneath and grind/undersell any surface rust I find. Going to strip the wheel arches to see the extent of the rust as well. Hopefully won't need much welding if any.

[kris1293]

Always had a soft spot for Puma's from the days when I use to sell them new at Ford, now working for myself I'm always looking to buy them

[brianb]

I use to own one around 10yrs ago, great little car, very fun however I always felt it was slightly underpowered

[r1ch]

Looks good, bargain (hopefully) . Would like a go in one of these.

[fiatpower]

Didn't do much work on it this weekend as I had to clear out the garage to fit it in. Took the wheels off with some effort as the wheel nuts were partly seized and also stupidly tightened probably with an air tool. Stripped the wheel arches down and took the back bumper off to have a good look at the underbody.

Here's a picture of the right hand wheel arch which is the worst arch:



Someone had made a pretty poor attempt at fixing the rust by slapping some underbody coating along the edge of the arch:



The actual arches themselves aren't too bad just some rust along a couple of flange edges.

Plan for this week is to Grind off rust from the edges of the arches and flanges inside the arches. Treat it with kurust or something similar. Once that's dry I'll coat the entire wheel arch in underbody protection along with the boot floor.

The wheel arch liners that come with the car standard are made of felt and just hold the water in the arches keeping them nice and damp. I won't be putting these back in, will probably replace with fiesta mk4 plastic arch liners which fit I believe.

[FWDRacer]

"The wheel arch liners that come with the car standard are made of felt and just hold the water in the arches keeping them nice and damp"

If you dry them out and then spray them full of waxoyl or similar they do a pretty handy job of keeping that where it is intended