£0 Puma: Return of the Puma
Discussion
The last time I owned this car, it cost £50 to buy and had a broken engine. This time, it was £0, and yes, you guessed correctly, the engine is broken again... 
Doesn't everyone like a small, light, nimble car without too much power? I certainly do, and when you can pick one up for free then why on earth wouldn't you?! I sold this car to my friend who runs a garage as I'd decided I needed a Diesel Machine for a longer commute to work. I sort of regretted it as the Puma is rather fun to drive, and a Mk4 Golf isn't. But the Golf has performed well and done everything asked of it with minimal fuss, albeit in a slightly 'good but not brilliant at anything save fuel economy' way. My garage-owning friend sold the car on to his friend who apparenly had a wail of a time with it, taking it to the Nurburgring and generally driving the wheels off it. Until it broke. It overheated and died on him one day, so it was towed to my friends garage. And it's sat in the corner of the yard ever since.
I went to the garage to have the Golf MOT'd one day and accidentally came home with the Puma too
I noticed it had been sitting in the corner for a while and asked what the story was. The friend of a friend didn't want to spend the money having it fixed so it was just sitting there. I enquired how much it would be to buy it back, thinking that would kill my desire for a broken but fun to drive car, and was told that he just wanted rid of it and I could have it for nothing. Oh, and my garage-owning friend happened to have a spare Puma engine for £100... Deal done!
Here it is, rotting slowly in the corner:
The plugs had been taken out yonks ago for a compression test, which didnt even get done because the engine obviously has 0psi on all four pots, and shot water out of the spark plug holes...
The interior hadn't fared well
A bit of a biohazard, that one:
Clearly, this car had zero redeeming features these days, but of course I had to have a go at saving it. After all, when's an engine swap and interior deep clean going to get in the way of a sweet driving old Ford?
Recovered back to my drive, things didn't look much nicer!
The head lights had gone cloudy too:
Many spiders had taken residence. This is just some of the cobwebs I discovered. The engine bay was thick with them!
Oh, and nice mouldy sound deadening too:
Generally looking a bit sorry for itself:
What's that I spy? A REDEEMING FEATURE! Someone has rather kindly left some good condition track day tyres on the car
They've got plenty of tread too, and only one tyre from memory had lost pressure but still wasn't anywhere near flat. Result!
General ingrained dirt all over the car, shown up quite well in this pic:
That mouldy interior didn't look any better on my driveway either. I had to throw out two mouldy copies of Evo magazine I found on the rear seat, which was a shame. I'd have probably enjoyed reading those!
I think I found the source of the overheating problem. The spring clip for the radiator top hose had corroded and broken.Such a simple thing and yet it's killed an engine.
That'll do for now, I'll sort out pictures of the project and post them up soon. Enjoy!
Doesn't everyone like a small, light, nimble car without too much power? I certainly do, and when you can pick one up for free then why on earth wouldn't you?! I sold this car to my friend who runs a garage as I'd decided I needed a Diesel Machine for a longer commute to work. I sort of regretted it as the Puma is rather fun to drive, and a Mk4 Golf isn't. But the Golf has performed well and done everything asked of it with minimal fuss, albeit in a slightly 'good but not brilliant at anything save fuel economy' way. My garage-owning friend sold the car on to his friend who apparenly had a wail of a time with it, taking it to the Nurburgring and generally driving the wheels off it. Until it broke. It overheated and died on him one day, so it was towed to my friends garage. And it's sat in the corner of the yard ever since.
I went to the garage to have the Golf MOT'd one day and accidentally came home with the Puma too
I noticed it had been sitting in the corner for a while and asked what the story was. The friend of a friend didn't want to spend the money having it fixed so it was just sitting there. I enquired how much it would be to buy it back, thinking that would kill my desire for a broken but fun to drive car, and was told that he just wanted rid of it and I could have it for nothing. Oh, and my garage-owning friend happened to have a spare Puma engine for £100... Deal done!Here it is, rotting slowly in the corner:
The plugs had been taken out yonks ago for a compression test, which didnt even get done because the engine obviously has 0psi on all four pots, and shot water out of the spark plug holes...
The interior hadn't fared well
A bit of a biohazard, that one:Clearly, this car had zero redeeming features these days, but of course I had to have a go at saving it. After all, when's an engine swap and interior deep clean going to get in the way of a sweet driving old Ford?
Recovered back to my drive, things didn't look much nicer!
The head lights had gone cloudy too:
Many spiders had taken residence. This is just some of the cobwebs I discovered. The engine bay was thick with them!
Oh, and nice mouldy sound deadening too:
Generally looking a bit sorry for itself:
What's that I spy? A REDEEMING FEATURE! Someone has rather kindly left some good condition track day tyres on the car
They've got plenty of tread too, and only one tyre from memory had lost pressure but still wasn't anywhere near flat. Result!General ingrained dirt all over the car, shown up quite well in this pic:
That mouldy interior didn't look any better on my driveway either. I had to throw out two mouldy copies of Evo magazine I found on the rear seat, which was a shame. I'd have probably enjoyed reading those!
I think I found the source of the overheating problem. The spring clip for the radiator top hose had corroded and broken.Such a simple thing and yet it's killed an engine.
That'll do for now, I'll sort out pictures of the project and post them up soon. Enjoy!
Northbrook said:
Wow. Good luck!
Thanks! It's not as scary as it seems, at least not to me. I've pulled waaay too many engines out of Pumas and Fiestas in the past StuntmanMike said:
I remember my brother having one of these new, an exceptional drive.
Will follow with interest.
Cheers! Yep, they're brilliant to drive, especially given how cheap they are.Will follow with interest.
p4cks said:
Love seeing recommisioning threads like this, so I'm looking forward to the updates.
Thanks Me too, so I thought I'd better put my project on here to keep it interesting for you folks!exgtt said:
Dammit, back to the classifieds for pumas.... and a welder. Amazing cars
You'll probably spend more on a welder than the car, but it'll be worth it Mine will need some fantastic bodgery or a new passenger sill to pass the next MOT...egor110 said:
Awesome story , are you the guy who's parents live on the nc500 or the puma guy who used his cheap puma as kind of the pool track car for friends a family ?
I'm the first one; parents live in Northern Scotland. This car's been up there and back when I owned it first time around. I was up there last week but in my M3 this time Mercury00 said:
The Puma is one of a few cars I wish I'd owned.
There's still time, assuming this message isn't coming from the after life You just need to be savvy with a welder or know someone who is these days because it doesn't matter how clean the car looks, it'll have rust somewhere...mrtwisty said:
I spent yesterday afternoon pulling a very clean cloth interior out of one of these (for a track car build). I'm sure my mate would give it you for free if you're anywhere near Leicestershire?
Thanks for the generous offer but my garage-owning friend already gave me a free pair of seats from a track car build he was doing for someone else with a Puma! I'm swimming in Puma interiors 
MDifficult said:
Please save it. My very first 'new' car was one just like this and I loved it. They're all heading to the scrapyard at a rate of knots so time they start getting saved. 
That's a huge decline for a car so many people like. How difficult is it to repair the rust on these? Is it normally cosmetic, or does it get structural? Cambs_Stuart said:
That's a huge decline for a car so many people like. How difficult is it to repair the rust on these? Is it normally cosmetic, or does it get structural?
As I understand it, if you catch it early enough (i.e. just arches) then it's pretty simple to resolve. The issue is more that, as the cars got close to worthless, people just wouldn't spend the money getting it sorted and would instead take a few hundred for chopping it in, or slap temporary repairs over the top, ultimately making it worse.
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