DirtMuppet

Hi all, I thought I'd start a thread on my Fiesta as it has a long way to go and should help give me more motivation as to where I'd ideally like it to be a year or 2 down the line as a track car. The plans for now though are to tidy her up and add some nice things here and there.

So I picked the car up in April for £300 with 89K on the clock and some crash damage here and there and someone had tried breaking into it at some point too. This is how it looked when I got it:



I got it trailered home and stuck it in the garage for a few days whilst i collected a few bits.

I found a really good deal on some Toyo Proxes on ebay, set of 4 at £144.00 free postage so had to have them!


I also took delivery of a Zetec S/ST rear bumper, it has a few cracks/splits but is repairable.


I got straight on to stripping down the rear end, (bloody rivets holding on the back bumper ), and did a quick dry trial fit.


More to come later tonight...

gjh

Looks like a good project, keep us updated!

DirtMuppet

Cheers mate.

...Carried on from first post...

Once I'd dry fitted and checked the alignment for gaps/twists etc, I gave it a quick wash down as it's had years of dirt on it from being sat around and the previous owner had never washed it in the 7 years he'd owned it!


There's a few scrapes up the nearside where it's had an arguement with a low wall at some point in the past. The wing will be replaced as they can be picked up for around £30, I may see if I can have a go at tapping out the dents in the door, failing that, it'll get replaced too.


I'd previously gotten some '04 Focus Estate, Flat faced Ronal 8 split spoke 15" wheels ET52.5 for a bargain with relatively new tires on (even though they're the wrong size), so stuck them on as one or 2 of the originals has a slow puncture.

The Focus Eco tires will get sold on cheap when I decide to swap them out for the Toyo Proxes. I'll be selling off the 5 spoke Zetec alloys as-well as I hate the things!

I took the bumper off and had noticed the whole offside rear corner had been pushed in about an inch or so, from the bottom of the light down, where it had been rear ended, luckily the chassis rail is still straight.


So I bought a new rear beam from an ST that was being parted out as the original was rusty and bent anyway and started pulling out the crash damage to the rear corner. Rubbed down the rust spots and paint chips back to bare metal and sprayed on some etch primer.


In the meantime I'd also been repairing, rubbing back and fibreglassing the splits in the Zetec S/ST rear bumper, then gave it a quick skim of filler to make sure it stayed rigid.


I'll continue to update tomorrow as it's almost 3am

Ford_Rich

Little project you've got yourself there mate. Look's like it's had a hard life before you owned it Not washed in 7 years? I cry when I haven't washed mine for 7 minutes.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Bargain for 300 quid.

DirtMuppet

Yeah mate, it's a complete mess really. The inner arches had around 5/6 inches thick of road dirt/mud/grime/dead animals etc...! The inside was literally growing white fur mold!

It was a good find indeed! It turned over first time on the key after being sat for a couple years or so too, more on that in later updates though.

DirtMuppet

...Continued from post #3...

So I got a bit bored and nothing happened with the car for about 2 weeks. In that time I wrote myself a to do list with rough cost estimates here and there and realized what I may have let myself into! This didn't sway me into giving up though, I found more motivation. Gave a mate of mine a buzz to come over for a look and this happened:


The interior (for sale £65 - some scuffs here and there, PM me if interested) got stripped and we pulled out all the sound deadening. I removed the triple stack radio, (selling for £25 with code, if anyone's interested PM me), and replaced it with a single din JVC head-unit.
I fitted it that way for now, as I need to make a bracket mount to bridge from the inner mount to the back of the head-unit for it to sit higher. (Looks like a face which is always a good laugh! ) Serves its purpose whilst I'm working on the car though.
I'll probably end up replacing it with a double din when I decide whether I want an ST dash or not instead.

The dash will be coming out this Monday anyway as I need to clean up the firewall/bulkhead and brace bar as I've noticed some surface rust underneath. Other than that though the shell appears to be completely rust free.

This is how the car sits at the moment.

Next update to come will be a little bit about the engine, that'll be sometime this weekend possibly.

gjh

Coming on nicely!

DirtMuppet

Cheers mate.

The Dash removal is delayed for today as something else has gotten in the way as it always bloody does. Hopefully I can find some time this week and get it out.

As I'd mentioned before, about the engine. A humble 1.4 Zetec SE, kitted out with fuel injection , throttle bodies and fly by wire as standard.

When I got it started the first time it ran lumpy ( bearing in mind it had been sat a few years) and sounded horrible. So I drained all fluids and fuel and replaced with fresh and gave it a new oil filter and some new spark plugs which I gapped to around 1.3mm.

I started her up again and found that there seemed to be an air leak somewhere as she wasn't idling properly still so I pulled off the air-box and all intake pipes, (sold that within a day!), and realized the throttle body must be playing up. So I read the codes off the obd2 port and was right, the throttle was apparently stuck open. I removed the throttle body, gave it a soak in carb cleaner over night and cleaned out the loom connector with some contact cleaner. Bolted and plugged it all back in and started her up again. Ran the obd2 reader again and it appears to be sorted!

This is how she runs now:

Bearing in mind this was recorded quickly with a phone the tappets/lifters seem to sound louder than they actually are although they could do with replacing. (Anyone here able to confirm that they are solid lifters rather than mechanical and if I'd be able to swap them out for mechanical ones of the same size instead?)

As you will notice in those videos I focused in on 2 odd noises, which had me baffled for a few days, one a rattling type sound near the cambelt end, which actually turned out to be a loose bit of heat sheild that had gotten wedged between the sub-frame engine and lower pulleys. Ripped it out and it's sorted. The other was a loud sucking noise (which you can hear) coming from the water return pipe, its badly corroded and looks like its been slowly leaking water. All hoses will be replaced anyway so I'm not too fussed about it right now unless it decides to piss all over the place. I also noticed the water/coolant expansion tank is split which explains why I have to fill it up almost all the time!

DirtMuppet

Progress has been a bit slow lately due to other things in life, but the dash is pretty much out, I just need to find a 24mm socket to get the steering wheel off. I haven't taken pictures of this yet.

On the other hand a mate of mine popped over the other day and we pulled the whole front end off!


Once I get the wheel off and the dash out, I'll be getting it primed up inside ready to be repainted. I'll also have a new NSF wing arriving soon to replace the dented one!

sridgett

Cool project mate. Im looking forward to more updates