McCloud 85

Cheers mate!

rooos

^^^ i totally agree!
the drain plug on the diff is also a very smart move...

McCloud 85

Thanks very much. Sure beats talking the diff out each time! I also fitted a dimplex magnetic fill plug to it so hopefully with regular oil changes and that plug, it will keep the life in it.

McCloud 85

Quick update to get this to where I am now with it..

Drove to the petrol station.. Filled up. It leaked everywhere!! Now this is my own stupid fault and if you read the details on packets of sealing compounds it gives you all the information you need. I didn't and looking back on it now I'm really not sure why I thought it would work in the first place!

One leaking sender unit.. Basically the blue sealant I had used, is only for small gaps and threads not a gap of a few mm. So as the tank filled the fuel was able to 'creep' and push the sealant out and then just empty on the petrol forecourt. Why I didn't test this at home in the garage who knows. Lesson learnt!





So sourced a length of viton cord and the glue to seal it together into an 'o' ring and did this




This fits snugly in the groove on the sender unit and squashed down nicely when bolted to the top of the tank.. Decided this time to test at home.. Turned upside down and filled the tank half full and left for a few hours!



Result all good this time! Drained the tank, bolted back to the car and filled fully.

I can also report that the input seal on the rear diff is leak free now, so must have just been the wrong oil causing it to seep.

Moving on... For those that might remember when I made my new steering column linkage I had to 'shave' some material of one of the UJ's to stop it binding, whilst this worked fine I wanted to get a more precise/machined UJ made. Back in contact with the company that made the original and they made this




I also decided to shorten very slightly the end of the link shaft to give maximum clearance inside the UJ



This has now stopped all binding at this point and just leaves a little rub on the down pipe to sort at a later date. I have a sneaky suspicion that at some point I will need to lift the bulkhead bearing in the bulkhead panel to give a better angle, but for now the rubbing on the down pipe is manageable.

After this I drove it about for a fair few miles, covered around 300 odd miles and during the good weather earlier in the year was even using it daily! Took a couple of pics, forget how wide it is..




So it was happy driving miles for a while.. Until I got a burning rubber smell on full boost. Quick check on a suspicion revealed the doughnut was knackered. I think this is possibly down to me fitting the tripod through the wrong set of three holes, giving it a slight oscillation as it turned. This was the damage to the old one which hadn't actually been on that long.




I had a spare in the garage which seems to be a much stronger rubber and hard to flex, fitted the tripod through the other set of three holes and seems to rotate more true than before, so I'm hoping this was the problem.

For those that have a 4x4 is this common place to be replacing these regularly? Is there a type that's better than others?

That's me up to date! The car is still in the air from replacing the doughnut and whilst it is I'm going to fit the front diff plate I've had lying around for a while and maybe a couple of other bits.

Will post any progress.

Thanks for looking.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Nice to hear you have been using it. What car is under the cover in your garage.

McCloud 85

Hi Glenn, yeah it's nice to be able to use it once in a while. I just tend to get the feeling it's too good to be true and something will have to show its ugly head soon!

That car is my brother Ben's puma. He has a thread on project puma of its progress (below) - it's fitted with the mk1 focus rs engine and box of which the engine has just had a full rebuild. Fitted with road slicks it's a quick car!

http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=16847

Thanks

Dan

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Your brothers puma is class. I bet it just spins the wheels for fun

McCloud 85

It's a nice bit of kit. The slicks have made a huge difference and once warm it's pretty much pedal and go!

rooos

well done.

can't wait to see smoke 'em tyres on that 4x4 of yours...

McCloud 85

Thanks. That might have to wait.. I'm on borrowed time with my gearbox I'm sure.. At some point I'll look into making it stronger.. There's still more to do before then unfortunately!

Little_Hoss

Love this car get the splitter repaired and refitted

xr2john

Just sat and read this from start to finish and your doing an excellent job fixing all the bodges. Seriously can't believe half the things you have uncovered. I would have said a couple of pages back the loom must have been the worst but that fuel tank was beyond belief. Will be keeping an eye on this from now on to see what else you find. Should start a thread with a link to this saying beware of pumabuild haha

McCloud 85

It's on the to do list! Though its a fairly long list and that's quite far down.

Cheers mate. That would have taken some time to read through my essays haha! Yeah it's been an interesting journey with this car, like you say once you think you've seen the worst there's something else that tops it. I'm currently doing some actual upgrade work at the minute and fitting a front diff plate so will get progress up on that soon.

Just for the record it was pumaspeed that built the car not PumaBuild. But yes areas of the car weren't a great example!!

McCloud 85

Little update..

Whilst the car was up on the stands I did a little job that I'd been meaning to get around to for a while. Had bought a strengthening plate for the front diff so it was about time it got fitted. Also gave me the opportunity to get a drain plug fitted like the rear






Diff plate



All fitted and back together



I also at this point changed the engine oil and moved on a FUCHS 15w50 ester oil. Was running a 5w50 before which I believe was a little thin, if nothing else it smells nice!

With that done went out on a drive and car seems nice and smooth still and this time with no burning rubber smell!! So the doughnut is behaving.

Seem to have a wobble on the steering wheel under braking which I don't remember before. I have just had the wheels balanced as a weight must have come off and was giving a wobble between 45-70mph, that's now gone but have noticed this new one. Could be discs but I think unlikely, could be tracking so will investigate.

That's all for now.

rooos

as usual... another top work ,
that's really inspiring mate!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Did you fit them solid steering rack bushes or am I thinking of someone else??

McCloud 85

Thanks mate, appreciate it.

You're right Glenn, I did fit them with the new rack. Is this what the wobble could be?

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

It could be matey. Cause with these fitted the rack is solid and on mine i get a loot of feeling through the steering rack. Even when my engine is idling the steering wheel wobbles lol.

McCloud 85

Yeah you may be right. I just don't remember it being that bad when I first fitted them. I may get the tracking checked again (will be the fourth time since October!) as I have swapped out a UJ on he ateering linkage. They were like for like so can't see it being that, just didn't want to pay to have it checked when I still want to remake the track control arms. But with Ford fair coming up and a 200 odd mile round trip it might need to get done.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Better to be safe than sorry.

M K

iTrader: (9)

Nice to meet you today mate

Look forward to seeing the car in person at some point

Here's the link for the people who done my shafts

http://www.cpsdrivelink.co.uk/friction-welding/

McCloud 85

You too Marc, always good to have a nose about the Fiesta too.

You'll hear me coming down the road with that new box fitted!

Thanks for the link, watched the you tube videos and I'm dead impressed with that process. Will look at some point to get new shafts made for the front of mine.

Cheers Dan

McCloud 85

Well this is long overdue an update I've realised.. not much has happened on the car as unfortunately I blew 3rd gear to bits on the way home from its MOT last October. It's been sat in the garage ever since.

Do have some more bits to show from before that so will get that up, and then I've just started getting the car/garage ready to get the thing fixed and back out again.

Will update over the next few days.

Thanks.

visa_broke

look forward to the updates

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Get some pics up then matey.

McCloud 85

So as promised an update on the car..

I had a busy week leading up to Ford Fair last year and looked into the front TCA's which were a mess to say the least.. the plan was to remove and repair and fit new poly bushes..

Old arms..












So got the pair shot blasted at my mates ready for some repair works



So the plan was to carefully TIG weld more material back on the arms and then carefully shape them to what I wanted. These arms were 'made' to accept puma ball joints on the end which allows the hub to end up in the right place and also makes them easy to be replaced and fit










Add some paint and poly bushes




And the end result..





So with those looking finished I got them fitted back and the car (stupidly didn't get any photos) - car feels much tighter on the front end now, which is no surprise seeing the state of the old bushes!

That's all for now, will get a little more up soon. I briefly improved the breather system before ford fair too so I'll get some pics up of that.

Thanks for looking.

visa_broke

nice update, those old bushes was shot!

original

oh god not those lower arms....they make me shudder just to see pics of them!

McCloud 85

Yes well you you lucky chap got to see them in all there glory before I dumped them in your blast cabinet!

McCloud 85

Managed to get a couple of pics of the TCA's fitted to the car to show the difference..




Thanks

Caddyshack

Did it take much to track them up? Much difference?

McCloud 85

They weren't far out to be honest but did need adjusting which I expected seeing how bad the old bushes were. The difference is like night and day though, the car doesn't feel as soft on the front end and has made things more positive. So all in all a worth while upgrade.

McCloud 85

Looked into making the breather system a little better as well whilst doing the TCA's.. the return to the sump was a mess and just leaked so that was the main aim, along with replacing the pipes for something less sharp around the edges!!

Pot off the car



Leaky drain



Old pipes



Drain pipe changed for a smaller pipe on the pot to allow a smaller rubber hose - also welded a bracket to the pot so I can fix it to the strut brace rather than the fuse box as someone had before !!






No more leaks



Decided to fit oil gauges to the car so I could keep an eye on things until the one comes for better management that will do all this for me. With a couple of stepper motor stack gauges lying around it made sense to fit those. Which meant needed to fit a sandwich plate to give me the take of points.



The annoying thing with this was the middle threaded tube was too long and wouldn't clamp the rubber seal on the sandwich plate tight so made an aluminium spacer and some instant gasket and it worked really rather well.





With that done Ford Fair 2016 was the next day and the car drove faultlessly there and back. Was again a really good and enjoyable drive. Fuel tank made a huge difference to the journey than the year before!

Night before, cleaned and ready to go



At the show



And safely home again





Thanks for looking

Caddyshack

Wow...looks VERY wide in those pics...love it!

McCloud 85

Yeah it's quite noticeable when it's parked next to a standard shell puma!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Glad your still making good progress with this car.

McCloud 85

Over the last few months of last summer the car ran well and was quite enjoyable to drive..

Few pics of the car






Then came it's MOT in October which on its own was no real issue at all.. the journey home and the fact 3rd gear didn't want to play ball anymore meant that I now had a rather large repair on the car. It drove home no problem as long as 3rd gear wasn't used.. it basically just rattles like crazy when engaged.

So the car went back in the garage and the hunt for a new gearbox that would cope with the power began... and luckily for me found a straight cut Bara Motorsport box that had recently had a rebuild.. a trip over to Essex and the box was on its way home to the garage.




Whilst busy with other things a fair few months passed and the car slowly became 'buried' in the garage.. but a few weeks ago now I decided that it was time to get on with it as the good weather was here again.. so I got the car uncovered and up on axle stands..



.. yes those are door cards in the engine bay!!



So with that ready it was time to get the old box out..





That's where I am up to as of tonight... plenty more to come as I'm going to change over to hydraulic clutch while I'm at it.. also going to look into the shot bushes on the rear beam during this stint.

Thanks for looking.

McCloud 85

Cheers Glenn

Caddyshack

What are you doing with the old box? I am looking to buy just the gear selector cradle on the back, I have an oppliger short shifter at the moment but Bara has recommended going back to a normal one as they think it MAY be the reason my 4th gear selector fork has bent which makes my oppliger long box jump out of 4th. Please let me know if willing to sell.

McCloud 85

Hi Toby (hope that's right!), the plan is too keep the box as at some point I may have a semi-helical gear kit fitted if the straight cut is too noisy. When I took the reverse switch off I was expecting to see some chewed gears but all seems ok through that hole. The cradle I am going to transfer on to the straight cut box and fit a 'short shift' pivot bar in it as the one I have in there at the moment appears a little home made.

The B&M quickshft might be available but I'm guessing that may not be of much use to you. Sorry!

Thanks Dan