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my mondeo (updates when i can remember what happened)
right then, seeing as a few folks want to hear about it, i'll start the tale of my mondeo, and i'll update this page with pics and stuff as i go on, and answer any questions as they are asked
it was back in 2006 and i'd just been rear ended in my 24v granada at a set of lights at the top of my road and needed transport again
i'd got used to the size of the granada and seeing as i'd had previous experience of a mondeo estate through work, so the hunt was on
searching through ebay and auto trader and the like, i spotted one with no price tag a shortish distance away and thought it would be worth investigating, especially as it didn't have a price tag and was "open to offers"
when i asked how much he wanted he said he'd seen similar examples going for between £4,200 - £4,700 and i countered with "i've got £3k in my pocket
to cut a long story short, i drove it away for £3k
it did have some issues though from the off, a flat tyre when i went to pick it up and some scrote had scratched the bonnet but it was a steal so i didn't complain
so, what was the first thing i said i wouldn't do? that's right, i said i wouldn't fiddle with it
in the first few months it went through 2 sets of alloys, the zetec-s 10 spokes i had sitting around and then, later the titty x 7 spokes
and then some angel eyes (great when they worked, but a royal pain in the arse to fit)
somewhere along the line i fancied a different stereo so i bought a double din screen dvd player thing and spent ages trying to fit into in the 1.5 din slot
that was the start of the modifying bug proper as it meant swapping the centre console over, along with the heater controls, hot screen switches, cup holders, even the hazard light switch and air bag warning lights, big changes then were called for
and just after this i discovered that the complete dash was subtly different from early to late, including all the side mouldings, some of the wiring, some of the plugs, even the seat wiring looms so that was yet another mission
it was also at this point that i also wanted to put in the mic for the voice control stuff and phone hands free kit, so it was off with the roof lining, which also gave me the issue of dealing with the curtain airbags
it was also at around this time that i had issues with the central locking and the bonnet not closing properly, the central locking was easy enough as it just needed the master controller changing over, easier said that done, and the same with the bonnet lock, again, easier said that done
at this time i also decided that i had had enough of the shit brakes, they may have been ok on a manual car but they wern't the most inspiring and i'd had several close calls so i started to look around for larger stoppers
i first started by asking around for the focus st stoppers and everyone pointed me to one particular person/company in the birmingham area
big mistake
after about 3 weeks of "wranglings" i eventually ended up on the door step of one mr phil "martin hadland" collins, proprietor of a multi coloured parts emporium of going faster and going slower bits
after about 45 minutes we settled on what i wanted and what he could supply and a week later some wheels arrived at my house and, after fitting them, i travelled up to reyland to pick up my bits
martin was very apologetic that he hadn't had time to fit the bells to the rotors or had any ends to fit to the brake lines, but he offered to let me do everything on site and who was i to argue
brakes fitted, all i can say is that there is no better upgrade to your car that better stoppers, nothing at all can beat upgraded stoppers on any car that you use, be it a track car or going to tescos (which is why the mondeo's old stoppers were then donated to my little fiesta )
i began to look in the rear view mirror a lot more as these stoppers were simply amazing, as you would expect from 362mm discs and 6 pots of ap's finest doing the stopping
stoppers sorted i began to think about the outside of the car, specifically the st kit
parts were hard to come by and they were very expensive, but eventually i got all the parts i needed, bumpers front and rear, under trays front and rear (3 of them are needed), grilles top and bottom, fog lights, fog light loom, side skirts, wings, wheel arch liners, rear tailgate spoiler, all the extra fixtures and fittings, the list went on and on and it took about £1500 and a year to get all the bits together and fitted and sprayed up
and after fitting
finally, things were starting to look good, especially when i added the chrome lined handles
here are the xenons i also fitted, they need lots of CAREFUL wiring before they work
i also fitted power folding mirrors with puddle lights, most excellent additions to the motor
i also fitted a tow bar, and then discovered why they didn't fit tow bars to the st kitted cars
then things went a bit wrong, when i fitted what i thought, was a decent cat 1 alarm
the fitter fitted it, not a problem, but when it starting to unlock the doors when it was arming they didn't want to know
and then it started to drain the battery and they didn't want to know
so it's got a battery cut off under the bonnet and even when i switch it on, some garages are unable to start it
i also fitted a jp stainless steel twin exit exhaust and a k&n filter
and fixed my air con compressor, which went a bit wonky
i even tempted myself with a set of these............
and when it came to trying to source oe headrests to put the bigger monitors into, they were virtually impossible to get hold of, i got hold of one in the 3 years i was looking
and i also had some spare money so invested in a jag flip key
nice one, what actual model is/was it then?
why didn't you go ahead with the focus st brakes?
that was the start of my woes mate
they guy who i spoke to said that they wouldn't fit due to the st being totally different to the mondeo hub design and, me being me who had checked everything out beforehand and knew this wasn't to be the case thought to myself "he's an expert tuner who does this for a living, there is no way he's going to try and rip me off" so i believed him
he then sold me some brakes that were crap and the wrong size, i'll see if i can find the thread, and the rest they say, is history
probably the best mistake i ever made as i then found out who proper helpful people were and who were just all mouth and no trousers
lets just say, martin's reputation is well deserving as a man who delivers
i've done a few small mods but nothing i can remember other than buying some chrome bits for the foglights and then not being able to remove the foglight surrounds and giving up
and then finding out my mum has lost the chrome fog light surrounds anyway
also fitted the secondary under tray to the car, only to find that with that fitted the original frontal under tray won't fit as it's a different spec and from a diseasal st and i have the petrol st rear under tray
Originally Posted by SMILER258
+1^
Some really nice mods done to this
cheers mate
and it started off as a ghia x model so that was a bonus as it had most of the bells and whistles, if i'd started off with a lower spec model i think i would have given up a long time ago
loads of peeps asked "whats under the bonnet" thinking it would be something properly trick, bit disappointed when they find out it's only the standard 4 pot
just need to do something with the gear stick now to complete the look
going to fit the wire to get the auto lights and wipers working next, got the screen coming on monday so it should all be up and running by then, just not enough time in the day to do all the things i want to do AND live a life AND look after the kids during the holidays
if the pics aren't where they are supposed to be then it's "not my fault that it's so difficult to get right"
if they are then "look how expert i am at doing this computer malarky"
time for a bit of an update me thinks, lots of things have been done, even though i said i'd stop spending money on it, it would be cheaper to smoke crack
there's a bit in the middle where i've swapped the pre face lift dash to the face lift dash, but that's a total mission and i can't find all the pics, so i'll slot that one in at a later date, but lets just say it took me 2 months as there is a fuck ton of rewiring to do and it was basically a total interior strip out, including most of the plastics on the left hand side and the roof lining and all the seats and most of the carpet, obviously the dash too, but that's for another day, in the mean time, here's a picture of what i fitted
it needed all the seats stripping as well, right down to the bare frames to run the wires and refix the bases and all the other stuff that you need to do with climate seats
the end result was this
with a rear entertainment system for the kids to keep them quiet on the trip to ford fair
this time around it all started with me trying to fit some chrome roof bars, which meant dropping ALL the roof lining to get to the nuts
then i found out that the bars were different, with different gaskets too, and you can't get them seperate, or the bars anymore, bastard
but the look was worth it i think
then i broke a spring, while the car was parked up so i had to use this much stuff to get it fixed
also needed a tyre
the spring also broke the top mount, as they always do, so some wheeler dealering saved me a few quid, euros wanted £80 for it when ford had them for £18 so they sold me the mount and the bearing for £23 when the mount is another £25 , got my second spring for £18 and not £33 too
and then also a ball joint so i decided to change the arm as it's easier
with the new suspension all fitted it's a bit high at the front, but i'm sure it'll settle
all in all though, the cars like l'oreal, worth it even more so when i was going to get the tracking done and my son was walking home from school with his mates and they all said "wow!! your dads got a really cool car!!!"
new chrome bits too which were a right royal pain in the arse to fit, the chrome strip on the bumper needs about 12 sets of hands and the under tray removing and all sorts, so i also used the opportunity to remove the bonnet lock and fit a new bonnet bar for the key as these are notorious for breaking when you least expect them to break
and now life is all good again as it's been off the road since i started my fiddling way back in october
no major updates as of yet as i've got some more things i want to do, but losing my keys after parking it up when returning from ford fair has meant a distinct lack of being able to do anything
You will need the following ingredients: One prefacelift set of seats One facelift set of ST seats One facelift set of climate seats One facelift set of head rest monitor seats The material the seats are made of is immaterial �� You need the frame, foam and covers from the st seat You need the occupancy and seat position sensors from the preface seats You need the climate stuff and all the electrics and the lumbar from the climate seats You need the loom from the headrest monitor seats
You now need to turn the st base metal plate into a combination of the climate seat AND the dvd player seat, using all the brackets and drilling lots of new holes in the right places
You also need to cut two slots to mount the fans
You then need to drill 10 holes in the foam for the ventilation
Plus you need to figure out how to make the climate seat heater pad fit the st seat base as they are very different in shape, have different plugs for the loom, and have a different control box to control them
And then cut out the foam from the back rest and use the lumbar from the climate seat and some how manage to make it fit the st frame
You can keep the back heater though
Then you just need to make a hole in the leather for the headrest monitor loom plug to poke through, making sure you have an unbroken retaining clip to use to retain the loom in position or else it falls back down into the hole that's already in the seat for it to go into
I've used my full occupancy sensor on the passenger side so it all works
You also need to swap over the air bags as they are coded to the car
And the seatbelt pretensioners
And there's a fair bit of wiring in the car to sort was well, I did that when I swapped the entire dash over
It's another 4 wires you need to run plus swapping some of the loom in the plugs on the seat and the switch
I think that's about it ��
Can't figure out how to edit this stuff on the phone so I'll just add that I've added climate seats with the alcantara inner section to the car these past few days
The driver's seat took me 9 hours all in to swap, as detailed above
But now it's got a dodgy wheel bearing that it's picked up on the way to ford fair today so more time off the road in the near future me thinks
some of you may have been wondering why one of my wing mirrors is black and the other is red
well, hopefully this picture will explain
the lugs on the back of the wing mirror are different and so you can't interchange them
more updates before it goes back into hibernation over the winter
fancy powerflex bushes fitted yesterday at scc in st albans, a good bunch there, very knowledgeable and local enough to be a place i could frequent for my more specialist motoring requirements in the future
but life was life and the usual bastard card was dealt with the issue of no one being able to source me the correct driveshaft
when i changed the wishbones last year i popped the shaft out and it's knackered one of the roller bearing needle things into the tripod joint so there's a horrendous wobble from about 50 mph and over (although a case of italian tuning seemed to make things better than it was the previous year where it was undriveable above 40 mph so that's good)
but contrary to popular belief, these bushes have no downsides in terms of noise vibration or harshness because the car drives just the way it was before, but with a sharper turn in and a more confident steering feel
on full lock it might have a little bit of an issue at the ends of the steering lock where it feels a bit heavier but that's only when parking, driving the car it's great
for the price of all this faffing about though, it's a lot of money, but it's my car so i don't care
22-04-2013, 07:55 PM
my mondeo (updates when i can remember what happened)
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