fiestaturbo.com

[garyhurn77]

under floor heating is a forte of mine lol

[heeman10]

my mate had the same problem with his ap paddle clutch on his cossie.he sent it back 3 times and in the end it was there mistake and the clutch fingers werent releasing enough.hope that helps

Thanks for that It has only just come back from AP and they cleared it for any defects though, so I'm back to the release bearing travel issue.

[BUTRE]

WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!
WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!
WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!
WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!
WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!
WE WANT FAST GEAR SHIFTING!

[heeman10]

SO DO I!



I haven't forgotten about the car. I noticed that the turbo oil return hose and breather return hose (both silicone) were both showing the beginnings of cracks in the surfaces, and I think they're coolant hoses as opposed to oil hoses (oil hose costs double because it has a fluorosilicone lining). Got hold of Roose a couple of days ago, and will have a length of hose sent out to me on Jan 2nd. So I'm just taking my time rebuilding the car, aiming to complete it all on Jan 3rd/4th in time to chop the hoses, fit them, and run it up.

1. Clutch fitted
2. Gearbox full of oil and fitted
3. Turbo/manifold fitted
4. Clutch pedal fitted, cable fitted at both ends
5. Engine oil drained, will refill when the hose arrives

I just need to fit the nearside driveshaft, wishbone and strut to finish really, so will do that at a leisurely pace also. Need to check the front camber then check the tracking over too.

Had a look at fitting the flat-shift switch on the clutch pedal today, and decided the best way till be to drill a hole in the side of the clutch pedal at the top and fix a bolt through it, to use as a trigger for the switch. Sinced I'd only just re-fitted the pedal, I decided to leave it till a later date

Having difficulty finding any shorter Ford clutch lever arms, so if the gearchange is still slow with everything I've done (which I'm expecting), I'll have to get a lever chopped down and welded by someone, then try that. Fingers crossed THAT will solve the problem. Will update when I've finished and have some pics and stuff, probably Jan 4th or 5th

[jimmyesh]

Funny you should say that about the flat-shift switch on the clutch pedal- The focus (all models i think) have a clutch pedal switch which is of a "normally open" type and the contacts make when you depress the clutch.

I haven't fitted the switch yet on mine (REALLY can't be bothered getting all the pedals out again ) but wondered what its function was if anyone knew??

I thought it was maybe an emissions thing to cut fuelling when the clutch is down but not sure any ideas?

The car drives fine without it so was wondering if it was even worth my while fitting it

[heeman10]

I bet it's a ghey modern car thing where they seem to LOVE maintaining high revs when you depress the clutch to change gear It's maddening! By all means fit it and see if it DOES do that, it'd be interesting to see, but it isn't half annoying If you get POP POP BANG and flames from the exhaust...hats off to Ford for being trez-cool and fitting flat shift to the ST as standard! But yeah, it's a "make" switch rather than a "break"..wish I could be arsed fitting it

[krsi]

Hey man,

Haven't been on FT for quite, hope all is well. Looks like your having a few teething problems as it were I think hydraulic is definately the way to go, be then you do have the hassle of mounting the clucth cylinder etc and plumbing it all up, still much better in operation IMO

Where's the turbo blanket gone you had on the exhaust housing? Are you not using that anymore? I just ordered one for my SX, now you'll be telling me it was crap and I shouldn't have wasted the pathetic amount of money if was

Also, you said about the oil return hose, Mine has split when I removed the manifold and turbo Didn't happen to be 16mm ID, did it? I need some hose thats about 6 inches long and flexible enough for just over a 45 degree bend

Good luck with it anyways mate

Kris

[heeman10]

Ello Mr Dolton These aren't teething problems at all. This two month off-the-road period began the day after it was on the rolling road, where I found the actuator bracket to be too weak to withstand 15psi boost. I took the turbo off and went to Fusion, where the bracket was stiffened up. I decided that since the roads were rank anyway and I had nothing better to do, I might as well have a really thorough go at eradicating my sticky gearshift problem. I'd rather the car wasn't on the salty roads anyway really, so it was better to make use of the time than sit around twiddling my fingers, and cursing all through NEXT year when I could drop under 6 seconds!

The turbo insulation kit came off a while ago when the turbo came off. It's stayed off as I'll need to tweak the actuator to get boost back up to 15psi now the actuator bracket's stiff enough to take it. It'll be replaced next time the radiator needs to come off, or before if I can be bothered to remove the turbo just to fit the kit, which is quite likely.

All the oil hoses are 16mm, yes. I'm afraid I don't think I'll have more than about 60mm of the nomex high temp oil hose left, so can't help you out there. Give Roose Motorsport a call and he'll send you some

[Raymondo]

A bit off the current topic here, but how is your brake balance now that youve got the rear discs on? Did you fit the valves in at the master cylinder, or have you got a bias valve?

[krsi]

Ello Mr Dolton These aren't teething problems at all. This two month off-the-road period began the day after it was on the rolling road, where I found the actuator bracket to be too weak to withstand 15psi boost. I took the turbo off and went to Fusion, where the bracket was stiffened up. I decided that since the roads were rank anyway and I had nothing better to do, I might as well have a really thorough go at eradicating my sticky gearshift problem. I'd rather the car wasn't on the salty roads anyway really, so it was better to make use of the time than sit around twiddling my fingers, and cursing all through NEXT year when I could drop under 6 seconds!

The turbo insulation kit came off a while ago when the turbo came off. It's stayed off as I'll need to tweak the actuator to get boost back up to 15psi now the actuator bracket's stiff enough to take it. It'll be replaced next time the radiator needs to come off, or before if I can be bothered to remove the turbo just to fit the kit, which is quite likely.

All the oil hoses are 16mm, yes. I'm afraid I don't think I'll have more than about 60mm of the nomex high temp oil hose left, so can't help you out there. Give Roose Motorsport a call and he'll send you some

Cool I wasn't trying to ponse some from you, just didn't know who Roose was lol. I think I've just found out that Forge also sell some silicone hose suitable for Oil. I have a short piece of rubber oil hose coming from APEX performance but knowing my luck it wont be flexible enough and kink or something silly I know its a cheek asking and I always seemed to hi-jack your threads but When yours arrived, could you tell me if you think it would be flexible enough for about a 45-65ish degree bend?

That actautor bracket looks cool BTW I agree about the cars being better off the road this time of year, its the only thing im greatful that my parts haven't arrived

Good luck,

Kris

[heeman10]

Raymondo (or should I say, Alec Baldwin?) - The brake balance is pretty darn good really. Far more braking at the rear than would normally be apportioned in a road car, but I'm happy with it. The rears locked up on me once at about 110mph in the rain changing down the gears, braking hard entering some corkscrew camber (on the track), but I was braking harder than normal in an attempt to find the limits. I'd done it from higher speeds in a straight line about ten minutes previously, and pressing harder and harder I couldn't get either end to lock, it just stopped dead If you're happy moderating your braking force, being mindful of the possbility that the rear end could lock in certain attitudes, you should be safe without a bias valve. I did fit the pressure valves to the bottom two holes though.

Kris - That all depends entirely on the radius of the bend! Take a pic or something

[Raymondo]

Ah thanks for that Osama, or should that be Freddy Mercury

I suppose braking going into a bend is always going to increase the chance of the back end locking up, just as long as it doesnt happen in the dry in a straight line.

[krsi]

I'll take a piccy of the old one if I can find it Cheers dude

[heeman10]

Raymondo - Precisely. I did quite a lot of heavy braking during all sorts of manoeuvres when I first fitted them, just to get a feel for what I was up against, so I'm fine with the way they are. People will blatantly read this now and in the future and wonder what the hell the names are about, including us!

Kris - Good, that should give an idea of the sort of bend we're talking about. It won't be massively flexible, I'd guess at about a 40mm bend radius, not much smaller.

[krsi]

Kris - Good, that should give an idea of the sort of bend we're talking about. It won't be massively flexible, I'd guess at about a 40mm bend radius, not much smaller.

Me being me, has 'mis-placed' the old one 40mm sounds flexible enough, looking at the oil return design doen't look like even if there is a very slight reduction in diameter will cause any problems due to the bends in return not being mendrel anyways and its not as if the return is under any sort of pressure Thanks for the info!

[nick050]

its looking good mate good luck with finding out the problem with the clutch. Is your clutch fork ok? is there anyway in getting one that would push your clutch release bearing further? Or would this just change the starting point?

not sure if anyones asked about the clutch fork but thought id mention it

[mattyboy-si]

Just read through all of this thread! Looks spot on, loving the launch control video!

[heeman10]

nick050 - Do you mean the fork that acts as the release bearing carrier? If so, then yep, changing that will only adjust the starting position of the action, it's the lever ratio I need to alter. I expect the gear changes to feel exactly as they did before all this investigating I've done, and will be changing the lever ratio by shortening the clutch lever arm

Update

I finished off the last few fiddly bits over the last few days, including:

1. Fitting passenger wishbone/driveshaft/damper strut/caliper/disc/ARB etc

2. The exhaust was still occasionally coming into contact with the crossmember, even after my first modifications, so I ground about a further three critical millimetres off it, and heated/hammered some more material down out of the way. I then re-wrapped the exhaust and crossmember where they were coming into contact. Re-fitting showed there are 5-10mm clearance now, plus they're cushioned if they do touch.

3. Found that one wire had juuust about escaped its spade connector on the AMAL valve, so have replaced that and sprayed the AMAL valve bracket as it was rusting a bit.

4. Nudged the ride height up a touch.

5. Fitted all parts of the inlet system again - it's bloody nice to see it all in there again instead of rags and compressor inlet covers blocking off all orifices!

6. Drained oil and fitted new oil filter ready for another helping of fresh oil once I have my oil hoses (tomorrow).

7. Fitted a very low mileage header tank to replace my scummy brown one (thanks to the overheating TDI escapades!).

A few random photo's...not really much to show as it's all pretty much the same bar the few photo's I've shown of the reconditioned clutch and rebuilt gearbox etc.

Old tank vs. new. Many thanks to Chris (h196jne) for rootling around in a scrapyard and sending this to me extremely quickly!!



And a bit more old vs. new action:



Car pretty much back in one piece again:



Ahhh I have an inlet again!



All that's left is aligning the gear linkage (3 mins), chopping the new hoses down to size and fitting (20 mins), filling it with oil and water, then checking the tracking. So all being well, it'll be out on the road tomorrow afternoon so I can check what boost it's running. It seems like forever since I had fun driving a car, I can't wait!!

Also had a look at fitting the camcorder on the parcel shelf, but the cage blocks off most of the view, and the lens isn't quite wide-angle enough for it to be worth it I think...dunno, may do it at some point

[jayrs]

damn that old header was skanky
thought my old one was bad

[heeman10]

It suffered about 6 boil-overs in the last 150 miles or so of the TDI's life before I removed it. One boil-over lasted the 40 mile trip to Lancaster to see a mate, then the 40 mile return trip Good to see it go and be replaced by the spangly white one!

[Ram]

makes me want a new header so bad! but i cant be bothered to wonder around my scrappy in this weather

[cosmagedon]

Try ford, you may be surprised. I got a brand new one for my mk5 escort about 12months ago. Cant remember exactly how much but it wasnt expensie.

[heeman10]

I didn't buy one from Ford because I was quoted £25 + VAT! Sorry, but I refuse to waste 200 miles worth of petrol money on a bloody plastic tank!

[jayrs]

It suffered about 6 boil-overs in the last 150 miles or so of the TDI's life before I removed it. One boil-over lasted the 40 mile trip to Lancaster to see a mate, then the 40 mile return trip Good to see it go and be replaced by the spangly white one!

when you do things you make sure there done dont ya

[TIL13R]

Looks so much nicer with the new tank!

always nice to see blue fluid in there rtaher than skanky brown mess!

Tiller

[heeman10]

Jay - I was still diagnosing it at the time, I can now say with full confidence that it was shagged

TIL13R - Definitely, unfortunately they're still selling the pink crap at Halfords I'll make the effort to look around a bit for some blue stuff next time I do a coolant change, it's easier to see in the tank when it's dark too.

Both hoses have just arrived, time to get it fired up again!

[jayrs]

Jay - I was still diagnosing it at the time, I can now say with full confidence that it was shagged

[TIL13R]

TIL13R - Definitely, unfortunately they're still selling the pink crap at Halfords I'll make the effort to look around a bit for some blue stuff next time I do a coolant change, it's easier to see in the tank when it's dark too.

I thought you would like pink stuff!

Tiller

[heeman10]

Are we still talking about anti-freeze?

All hoses are now on, just drying the breather pot out after a good flush through. I wanna driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive Fingers crossed the actuator's in roughly the right position for 14-15psi!

[knuckles]

I didn't buy one from Ford because I was quoted £25 + VAT! Sorry, but I refuse to waste 200 miles worth of petrol money on a bloody plastic tank!

Headlight protectors £43.50 with vat

[heeman10]

Headlight protectors £43.50 with vat

And that is why I bought one set "as new" for £20 and a pattern set for £25!

[knuckles]

Sorry, but I refuse to waste 200 miles worth of petrol money on bloody plastic !

Headlight protectors £43.50 with vat

And that is why I bought one set "as new" for £20 and a pattern set for £25!

That aint a come back from my original point ....
because you still spent £20 + £25 = £45 on 2 sets for plastic covers

[heeman10]

I bought the second set because my dad cracked one of the originals by dropping the bonnet

Update

It got dark at about 3:30 Since there always a few fiddly bits here and there to do, (and I wanted half an hour after lunch [which finished at 2:15] for my food to go down ) I didn't feel like rushing to get on the road. I prefer to be able to visually examine fluid-carrying hose connections etc when it's just been put back together, so bar priming the turbo, connecting the oil feed and letting it run for a while to bleed the coolant system through tonight, I won't be doing anything else till tomorrow when I get hit the road and check the boost.

One bonus was that once I'd clamped the gear selector rod up after aligning it, I went to see if the gear lever position felt right position-wise, and it was slickly gliding in and out of all the gears! Felt smooth as hell Before all this, it was fairly good with the engine switched off and the clutch in, or just ticking over with the clutch in, but tonight it was better than either of those situations So it's given me some hope! :D:D

[mike_wall15]

If you'd been up and ready before midday you wouldn't have problems like the dark!

How about an 8am start tomorrow so you can be out at 9am This is what'll be happenening EVERY day when you get a job - if you ever get one!

[heeman10]

You know I was up and ready before midday, there is myspace proof! I'll be up "early" again tomorrow, i.e. wearing socks before 11 Mind your own bee's wax Wall