Tez, Irish poverty spec dog wagon of neglect (Mondeo Mk4)
Discussion
First stab at this and its certainly not glamorous so bear with.
Few months ago I swapped a perfectly sound but dull Sandero for a nice new Astra, I was bored of the tin can drone of the Sandero above 60 on the commute to work and initially the Astra seemed like a great choice.
Quicker, quieter and comfortable but ultimately its soulless, dull and the interior is like some sort of OCD derived torture, never been in a car that rattles and creaks so much its awful. So fell out with it pretty quickly which wasn't something I had planned on. Had to think what I wanted to swap it for, maybe something I could flex my spanners on...
My old man recently picked up a Mk4 Mondeo, nothing special with the old 1.8 Lynx lump in but I liked it, I liked the old school dagdag sound that modern diesels lack and the fact is has a nice lazy torque band all down low and doesn't have to be worked. Seemed to suit the car well. Got me thinking.
Closer to home I found one in Edge spec, all the things you would normally want bar alloys which for me is preferred for what this car will be used for. Odd numberplate I think is from it being NI registered, came to our shores a few years ago.
Was going to swap it to a standard plate then I thought about changing my name to Terrance then I thought about just calling the car Tez.
I knew there was a slight problem with these cars with regards to timing belts, this engine has two, the lower one is under a timing cover and is oiled. This did not used to be so much of a problem when Ford used a Chain for this lower belt but in 2008 they swapped to a "wet belt".
This belt is not particularly hardy, and despite its 125K / 10 year interval for both belts the lower one is known for going well before then. This car was 9 years old and on 99K. Tried to negotiate with the seller to get the work done but his mechanic quoted a price so low I would have no faith that he was actually doing both belts. I called another couple of garages and neither had much experience of this engine and one even argued it didn't have two belts as he had never seen the second
This is the reason eBay is full of 1.8's mondeos being broken.
So I offset the buying price and set about doing it myself.
This is where the stress started.
On the drive back it was clear that the car wasn't particularly happy, on WOT would hesitate and bog down like it was starving of fuel. I was fairly confident a service would help so rather than take it back I broke out the spanners.
Set about buying all the bits I knew needed doing.
This car had a fair service history of 6 or 7 stamps but oddly none at Ford. I read up that because there is no lift pump on these and no priming pump changing the fuel filter is a bit of a pain and needs to be primed by hand with a siphon and a bit of quick reconnecting before air can get into the lines and housing again.
That is a Ford Genuine filter with 99K miles on it. Which goes to show that service history means bugger all, lazy lazy b
ds.
Air filter was new because that's a easy job.
Oil was fine, all 5.5 litres of the stuff, new filter spun on refilled and took her for a blast, no more hesitation, job jobbed.
Next little problem was to sort the lack of fan positions, only 4 worked full blast.
Glovebox out, £6 resistor back in. Also did the pollen filter which, yep you have guessed it was original.
Working fans and I found the remote button for the Nokia Bluetooth module shoved behind the radio, happy days.
So Tez was to have a new set of belts before being pressed into daily duties.
I had no idea that the car would be stuck like that for nearly a week. Nor did my Mrs who Said I was making the street look council
There are a couple of excellent tutorials on the web for this which explain the installation of a new belt or chain. What they do not do is reflect on how much of a absolute nightmare it is to get to the stage where you can get to the belts and the associated timing and tensioning parts.
In no specific order:
Aux belt off (again original FoMoCo one which was shagged)
The power steering pump needs to be removed.
The bracket for the power steering pump needs to then be removed, this has the Aux belt tensioner on it.
Now this gives access to the wet belt tensioner.
To set the crank timing pin you need to remove the Alternator clutch.
To get the Alt clutch off you need to remove the AC compressor.
As access to the tiny little hole on the side of the block for the timing pin is through a small gap on the Alt mount bracket we didn't realize you didn't need to take the alt itself off, so that added to the work and my god is that awkward and tight to get back.
So once all that is off you can start to strip the top belt covers off.
Rear seal of the fuel pump sprocket which both belts are connected through was leaking from the wet side into the dry side, this looks to have been effecting the top belt and the tensioner is quite slack. Not good.
Further striping.
You can see the mess the leaking seal was making here.
And there she is after a day and a half of graft to get to it.
And it is indeed cracking up.
I had the help of a friend for a few hours on the Sat stripping the parts off but Sunday I was on my own and I must admit tiredness and the enormity of the job kind of got to me and when tightening the wet belt cover on I snapped a small 8mm headed bolt with next to no force.
Luckily it is very close to the Aux belt pulley bolt which goes through the cover so I don't feel it will be a problem so I continued on stitching the car back up and will drill it out another day.
At this point it was as much as I could do will my next free day.
A few days later I again had the help of a friend and it took us several hours to get things like the Alt and coupling back on with a new Aux belt and various bits. Far far longer than it should.
Went to give it a test and the immobilizer had kicked in. Brief panic, took bat off for 5 minutes and tried again.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/241152362
yay!
More to come sadly
Few months ago I swapped a perfectly sound but dull Sandero for a nice new Astra, I was bored of the tin can drone of the Sandero above 60 on the commute to work and initially the Astra seemed like a great choice.
Quicker, quieter and comfortable but ultimately its soulless, dull and the interior is like some sort of OCD derived torture, never been in a car that rattles and creaks so much its awful. So fell out with it pretty quickly which wasn't something I had planned on. Had to think what I wanted to swap it for, maybe something I could flex my spanners on...
My old man recently picked up a Mk4 Mondeo, nothing special with the old 1.8 Lynx lump in but I liked it, I liked the old school dagdag sound that modern diesels lack and the fact is has a nice lazy torque band all down low and doesn't have to be worked. Seemed to suit the car well. Got me thinking.
Closer to home I found one in Edge spec, all the things you would normally want bar alloys which for me is preferred for what this car will be used for. Odd numberplate I think is from it being NI registered, came to our shores a few years ago.
Was going to swap it to a standard plate then I thought about changing my name to Terrance then I thought about just calling the car Tez.
I knew there was a slight problem with these cars with regards to timing belts, this engine has two, the lower one is under a timing cover and is oiled. This did not used to be so much of a problem when Ford used a Chain for this lower belt but in 2008 they swapped to a "wet belt".
This belt is not particularly hardy, and despite its 125K / 10 year interval for both belts the lower one is known for going well before then. This car was 9 years old and on 99K. Tried to negotiate with the seller to get the work done but his mechanic quoted a price so low I would have no faith that he was actually doing both belts. I called another couple of garages and neither had much experience of this engine and one even argued it didn't have two belts as he had never seen the second
This is the reason eBay is full of 1.8's mondeos being broken.So I offset the buying price and set about doing it myself.
This is where the stress started.
On the drive back it was clear that the car wasn't particularly happy, on WOT would hesitate and bog down like it was starving of fuel. I was fairly confident a service would help so rather than take it back I broke out the spanners.
Set about buying all the bits I knew needed doing.
This car had a fair service history of 6 or 7 stamps but oddly none at Ford. I read up that because there is no lift pump on these and no priming pump changing the fuel filter is a bit of a pain and needs to be primed by hand with a siphon and a bit of quick reconnecting before air can get into the lines and housing again.
That is a Ford Genuine filter with 99K miles on it. Which goes to show that service history means bugger all, lazy lazy b
ds.Air filter was new because that's a easy job.
Oil was fine, all 5.5 litres of the stuff, new filter spun on refilled and took her for a blast, no more hesitation, job jobbed.
Next little problem was to sort the lack of fan positions, only 4 worked full blast.
Glovebox out, £6 resistor back in. Also did the pollen filter which, yep you have guessed it was original.
Working fans and I found the remote button for the Nokia Bluetooth module shoved behind the radio, happy days.
So Tez was to have a new set of belts before being pressed into daily duties.
I had no idea that the car would be stuck like that for nearly a week. Nor did my Mrs who Said I was making the street look council
There are a couple of excellent tutorials on the web for this which explain the installation of a new belt or chain. What they do not do is reflect on how much of a absolute nightmare it is to get to the stage where you can get to the belts and the associated timing and tensioning parts.
In no specific order:
Aux belt off (again original FoMoCo one which was shagged)
The power steering pump needs to be removed.
The bracket for the power steering pump needs to then be removed, this has the Aux belt tensioner on it.
Now this gives access to the wet belt tensioner.
To set the crank timing pin you need to remove the Alternator clutch.
To get the Alt clutch off you need to remove the AC compressor.
As access to the tiny little hole on the side of the block for the timing pin is through a small gap on the Alt mount bracket we didn't realize you didn't need to take the alt itself off, so that added to the work and my god is that awkward and tight to get back.
So once all that is off you can start to strip the top belt covers off.
Rear seal of the fuel pump sprocket which both belts are connected through was leaking from the wet side into the dry side, this looks to have been effecting the top belt and the tensioner is quite slack. Not good.
Further striping.
You can see the mess the leaking seal was making here.
And there she is after a day and a half of graft to get to it.
And it is indeed cracking up.
I had the help of a friend for a few hours on the Sat stripping the parts off but Sunday I was on my own and I must admit tiredness and the enormity of the job kind of got to me and when tightening the wet belt cover on I snapped a small 8mm headed bolt with next to no force.
Luckily it is very close to the Aux belt pulley bolt which goes through the cover so I don't feel it will be a problem so I continued on stitching the car back up and will drill it out another day.
At this point it was as much as I could do will my next free day.
A few days later I again had the help of a friend and it took us several hours to get things like the Alt and coupling back on with a new Aux belt and various bits. Far far longer than it should.
Went to give it a test and the immobilizer had kicked in. Brief panic, took bat off for 5 minutes and tried again.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/241152362
yay!
More to come sadly
Edited by bungz on Friday 3rd November 11:31
Edited by bungz on Friday 3rd November 11:33
i had one, and at that time in my life it covered a lot of motorway miles, with zero maintenance, and no hassle. It was dead when caught off-boost ( logical I suppose) but the engine was quite a bit more dependable than the 2.0 TDCI I had years later
- edit, it was a Mk1 TD I had ( 90HP intercooler TDDI). Years later I had a mk3 TDCI 130HP which was rather less reliable
Edited by fin racer on Friday 3rd November 21:41
I've nothing to add other than that you have my sympathies. When I had my fiesta even getting the stretchy aux belt back on was an absolute nightmare, of course at 4pm on a Sunday with the prospect of a train journey to work the next day looming. Keep us posted 
I assume 'High Tenacity' on the belt kit box refers to the installer rather than the part itself
I assume 'High Tenacity' on the belt kit box refers to the installer rather than the part itself
Tez has been used all week for my commute and seems happy.
Left the engine cover and the drivers side wheel arch off to check for leaks and other than a leaking power steering rez cap Tez seems oil tight which is a relief after all the work.
I had visions of it being like a sieve after all the seals I replaced!
I have now replaced both the Header tank cap and the PS cap, must be a Ford thing...?
Rear tyres were originals and were showing sidewall cracking, the front had had a new set of Landsail LS388
Having used them for a week and not ended up on fire in a ditch I decided I would play devils advocate and reshod the rear of the car in a matching pair of China's finest. If nothing else it would be a good test bench for what are supposed to be good tyres as far as Chinese specials go.
Both came in at 80 quid fitted
Will see if I regret this!
When I got home the new mats had arrived
Needed genuine mats as they have the fixing clips, odd arrangement on the Mondeo and the clips are about 6 quid each themselves.
And clipped in
So next up I cracked on and did the brakes, had noticed they were a bit worn on the front but the rears were shot. I think its nice to refresh all these things so you aren't guessing in the future.
Comlines finest came in at just under a 100 all corners.
The front caliper braket had obviously been off before in its 99K miles and whoever put them on is a fking sadist tt. The crank pulley bolt came off a doddle compared to these. st ton of locktite and torqued to within a inch of their lives, I thought my halfords Pro breaker bar was going to be defeated!
Old rears, possibly original pads?!
In typical Tez fashion not all is straight forward.
Piston is fine just needs a new seal, or may just swap the whole caliper out for a scrappy one.
Getting closer!
Left the engine cover and the drivers side wheel arch off to check for leaks and other than a leaking power steering rez cap Tez seems oil tight which is a relief after all the work.
I had visions of it being like a sieve after all the seals I replaced!
I have now replaced both the Header tank cap and the PS cap, must be a Ford thing...?
Rear tyres were originals and were showing sidewall cracking, the front had had a new set of Landsail LS388
Having used them for a week and not ended up on fire in a ditch I decided I would play devils advocate and reshod the rear of the car in a matching pair of China's finest. If nothing else it would be a good test bench for what are supposed to be good tyres as far as Chinese specials go.
Both came in at 80 quid fitted
Will see if I regret this!
When I got home the new mats had arrived
Needed genuine mats as they have the fixing clips, odd arrangement on the Mondeo and the clips are about 6 quid each themselves.
And clipped in
So next up I cracked on and did the brakes, had noticed they were a bit worn on the front but the rears were shot. I think its nice to refresh all these things so you aren't guessing in the future.
Comlines finest came in at just under a 100 all corners.
The front caliper braket had obviously been off before in its 99K miles and whoever put them on is a f
king sadist tt. The crank pulley bolt came off a doddle compared to these. st ton of locktite and torqued to within a inch of their lives, I thought my halfords Pro breaker bar was going to be defeated!Old rears, possibly original pads?!
In typical Tez fashion not all is straight forward.
Piston is fine just needs a new seal, or may just swap the whole caliper out for a scrappy one.
Getting closer!
Bit more tinkering while on daily duties.
Decided that I wanted DAB back and after some messing with crap aerial splitters decided to drill my roof out and fit a Amazon 20 quid DAB special.
Works very well and trebled the signal I was getting previously.
Was made all the more interesting as there is no switched live in the ISO loom on this car
Also stuck the speakers and tweeters out of a Titanium X in as both my original drivers side speakers decided they couldn't be arsed any more.
Sounds fantastic now, no distortion or rattles. Will deaden the doors in nicer weather.
With the cold weather hitting I noticed Tez was a bit lazy to start when there was a frost, usually the 2nd start would work but would run rough and smoke for a bit.
Came in at just under 30 quid, was tempted by the 15 quid sets on eBay but thought better of it.
Luckily the 1.8 tdci is not a hard engine to change the plugs on, they are all along the front of the block, they have their feed connected by a single loom and a small 7mm bolt secures this, hardest part is not dropping the little bolt with fat fingers.
None of the plugs were hard to remove which was a nice surprise. Plugs that came out were Beru, I presume these are oem. One plug looked spent/darker but I didn't waste time checking them.
Once in it was typically mild for a week till the other day, car fired up first time so thats sorted the cold starts.
While doing the glow plugs I noticed the front of the block was wet. I had noticed that the car would sometimes struggle to keep its temperature up with stop start driving, so I was wanting to have a gander at the thermostat anyway.
The leak appeared to be from the rear seal to the block so ordered a new housing and thermostat.
Housing off and this is where the thermostat sits.
With a not so easy to get off hose clip on very short pipe behind the injector spider the housing comes off to show a shagged seal on the rear of it.
Can see where it was leaking on the block here.
Banged the new housing on and noticed the new thermostat seal was smaller than the recess in the housing. The seal that came out was much bigger but needed to be replaced as it was now too flat to seal. This was a problem as unless it was central the housing would never be tight but you could not get the thermostat central as it was mounted vertically. I could have taken the whole lot off and tried to close the top housing with it flat but the seal still looked to be too small a diameter. Even a trip to the ford dealers they supply a seal thats smaller than the one that came out!
In the end on eBay you can get ready assembled housings with new top lid and thermostat inside, I guess its a common/known problem.
Anyway that was fitted in the snow today and looks to have solved it! Must have drained the coolant 6 times!
All done!
Finally Tez liked to drift to the right a little, well quite alot really and while I had the basic tracking checked as fine it wasn't right.
Took it to have a four wheel alignment at A-Line in Dudley and it now drives as I would expect. Great set up there, more than happy to talk to you about the ins and outs of your car if you have a M5, a shagged Sprinter or in my case a old Mondeo.
Thats all for now see what breaks next!
Decided that I wanted DAB back and after some messing with crap aerial splitters decided to drill my roof out and fit a Amazon 20 quid DAB special.
Works very well and trebled the signal I was getting previously.
Was made all the more interesting as there is no switched live in the ISO loom on this car
Also stuck the speakers and tweeters out of a Titanium X in as both my original drivers side speakers decided they couldn't be arsed any more.
Sounds fantastic now, no distortion or rattles. Will deaden the doors in nicer weather.
With the cold weather hitting I noticed Tez was a bit lazy to start when there was a frost, usually the 2nd start would work but would run rough and smoke for a bit.
Came in at just under 30 quid, was tempted by the 15 quid sets on eBay but thought better of it.
Luckily the 1.8 tdci is not a hard engine to change the plugs on, they are all along the front of the block, they have their feed connected by a single loom and a small 7mm bolt secures this, hardest part is not dropping the little bolt with fat fingers.
None of the plugs were hard to remove which was a nice surprise. Plugs that came out were Beru, I presume these are oem. One plug looked spent/darker but I didn't waste time checking them.
Once in it was typically mild for a week till the other day, car fired up first time so thats sorted the cold starts.
While doing the glow plugs I noticed the front of the block was wet. I had noticed that the car would sometimes struggle to keep its temperature up with stop start driving, so I was wanting to have a gander at the thermostat anyway.
The leak appeared to be from the rear seal to the block so ordered a new housing and thermostat.
Housing off and this is where the thermostat sits.
With a not so easy to get off hose clip on very short pipe behind the injector spider the housing comes off to show a shagged seal on the rear of it.
Can see where it was leaking on the block here.
Banged the new housing on and noticed the new thermostat seal was smaller than the recess in the housing. The seal that came out was much bigger but needed to be replaced as it was now too flat to seal. This was a problem as unless it was central the housing would never be tight but you could not get the thermostat central as it was mounted vertically. I could have taken the whole lot off and tried to close the top housing with it flat but the seal still looked to be too small a diameter. Even a trip to the ford dealers they supply a seal thats smaller than the one that came out!
In the end on eBay you can get ready assembled housings with new top lid and thermostat inside, I guess its a common/known problem.
Anyway that was fitted in the snow today and looks to have solved it! Must have drained the coolant 6 times!
All done!
Finally Tez liked to drift to the right a little, well quite alot really and while I had the basic tracking checked as fine it wasn't right.
Took it to have a four wheel alignment at A-Line in Dudley and it now drives as I would expect. Great set up there, more than happy to talk to you about the ins and outs of your car if you have a M5, a shagged Sprinter or in my case a old Mondeo.
Thats all for now see what breaks next!
We have an estate with this engine and spec at work and it is bomb proof, the only big bill it has run up was a new set of bushes on the back axle. It currently suffers from the lazy starting you describe so it will be due some new plugs soon.
It gets some serious hammer and is hardly driven in a sympathetic fashion but it takes it all in its stride.
It gets some serious hammer and is hardly driven in a sympathetic fashion but it takes it all in its stride.
Glad its of some enjoyment to someone it serves as a bit of therapy and a reference point for me.
The Edge spec is a bit odd with its wheel trims, the parking sensors are a factory option, they work well and are a welcome addition but the rest of the cars spec is great, heated mirrors, front screen, leccy windows and mirrors etc huge boot and a full size spare, perfect work hack.
Sadly the Mk5 doesn't do such a utilitarian spec
Car still is a bit light on following the slightest camber of the road to the right, I feel the poverty tyres maybe to blame....Will rotate the fronts and see.
Also the dash told me that I had a low beam out which was nice as I did't know it could do such a thing but also a bit annoying as I need to stump up for bulbs now
The big cost for the rear is rear arm bushes, mine don't look great lol
it serves as a bit of therapy and a reference point for me.The Edge spec is a bit odd with its wheel trims, the parking sensors are a factory option, they work well and are a welcome addition but the rest of the cars spec is great, heated mirrors, front screen, leccy windows and mirrors etc huge boot and a full size spare, perfect work hack.
Sadly the Mk5 doesn't do such a utilitarian spec
Car still is a bit light on following the slightest camber of the road to the right, I feel the poverty tyres maybe to blame....Will rotate the fronts and see.
Also the dash told me that I had a low beam out which was nice as I did't know it could do such a thing but also a bit annoying as I need to stump up for bulbs now
The big cost for the rear is rear arm bushes, mine don't look great lol
Edited by bungz on Monday 11th December 16:15
I had 2 x company car Mondeo estates, both in the Edge spec. I loved them personally, although they were both the 2.0 TDCi versions.
The interior is huge, well specced for such a povety version and they both wore very well internally.
The only down side to mine, the first one lost its DMF and clutch, locked me up suddenly at low speed without even hinting that it was about to fail.
The 2nd one broke its cambelt in the outside lane of the M40 at approx 70mph and destroyed the engine. The cambelt interval is supposed to be 120k, my car was on 80k!!!
Overall though, I still recommended a colleague of mine buy one and he also loves his too.
The interior is huge, well specced for such a povety version and they both wore very well internally.
The only down side to mine, the first one lost its DMF and clutch, locked me up suddenly at low speed without even hinting that it was about to fail.
The 2nd one broke its cambelt in the outside lane of the M40 at approx 70mph and destroyed the engine. The cambelt interval is supposed to be 120k, my car was on 80k!!!
Overall though, I still recommended a colleague of mine buy one and he also loves his too.
GIYess said:
Following this with interest! I've just bought one myself with the same engine and few less miles.
Belts!markirl said:
With my mileage increasing, I may have to step into one of these soon. How are you getting on with the ditchfinder tyres?
Not sure.Apart from Friday evening when the first snow froze they have handled the snow and ice fine.
However I am having odd wandering issues still though the alignment is bob on ( was not out much to start with).
I suspect the Chinese tyres may have some form of oddity in the profile causing this, will see if the problem follows a wheel swap from side to side before I condemn them.
I am not a advocate of cheap tyres normally.
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