Friend of mine had this thing sat on her drive for a few years, finally decided she wanted rid of it and I stepped in, she was all set to pay someone to take it away so I literally got it for nothing.



Took some welding to patch up a rust hole and a new lower arm on the back (thanks eBay) to get through the MOT, got it properly home end of August.

First thing to go were those horrid wheel trims, there were only two left and they were just the nasty ones Halfords sell. Chucked a new headunit in (already had an old JVC CD one so the new one was a plug and play job) and some new door speakers as the original ones were shot. Got the central locking to work again and revived the electric front windows (switches had been taken apart and were missing most of their innards so there's generic ones on for now), and the alarm wasn't working other than to flatten the battery, so I've ripped that out and bypassed it where it cuts the starter circuit (with a switch so I can immobilise it). Much as I was worried about electrical gremlins it's actually been alright on that front

Powerplant-wise it's pretty sound, only done about 75000 miles (assuming this is it's first time round the clock...) and the rust isn't as bad as it could be. Revs up to about 4500, most of the power's around 3500 once the turbo spools up. Think someone's messed with the on boost fuel advance on the pump as it puts out a lot of smoke on boost, although that did get a bit better once it'd had some injector cleaner through it. Gearbox was like stirring cake batter until I changed the oil but is actually a lot better than I'd expected now. There's some sort of mysterious Lucas ECU box behind the glovebox and wiring on top of the fuel pump, which I'm assuming is aftermarket as the internet's led me to believe these Endura-D engines were all mechanical in Sierras, and didn't get any electronics at all til the newer version that turned up in early Mondeos and Escort vans.

Handling's not so good - pretty much every bushing on there has gone stodgy so it squats spectacularly under power and rolls like nobody's business around corners, and there's no power steering so any kind of maneuvring isn't much fun. Tyres are a lot skinnier than I'd like as well, but I can't do much about those til I've sorted power steering, I'd need arms like Popeye to get it anywhere!

Current plan is a polybush kit and then trying to figure out what to do about dampers and springs, followed by power steering if I can source the bits, so I can park it without getting an upper-body workout. It's getting an intercooler too at some point to try and help with the smoking on boost, as well as some sort of replacement filter for the same reason. New bumpers might be in order too, as they're both cracked.

More pics to come when I get a chance to take some good ones!

 

i would love an estate - if you want to sell let me know mate

 

Found a shot of the pressure washing in progress. Driver's side of the bonnet's been done, passenger side hasn't


Never worked on a car so scuzzy I could draw on it with the pressure washer!

 

Looking like some sort of flying car from an eighties sci-fi show! This is during the diff oil change, couldn't be bothered dropping the entire diff to get the back plate off (and I'd have needed to, no way to get the rear mount off without doing that and no way to unbolt the plate without pulling the mount) so I ended up drilling and tapping a drain hole in the diff casing to go with the one in the gearbox.