N19

Near Goodge Street, in this area there's a few older cars that seem to sit and seldom ever move. Presumably owned by somebody with enough money to live locally!

I visited the paint shop this morning and walked away with another tin of matched paint. Fingers crossed it's a better match than the previous one.
I had a bit of time this afternoon to tackle a couple of small jobs.
I re-fitted the battery.

Ignition on but I didn't crank the motor as it doesn't have a water pump fitted and there are stray hoses all over the engine bay. Note the position of the fuel gauge needle. I suspect that's bullshit. 

We have bright lights.

And a full complement of dashboard illumination. 

The driver's door lock was seized. The lock wouldn't budge by key nor by operating the internal button.
I removed the door card. Someone has been here before.

Definitely no sign of any central locking gubbins. So what are the wires extending to the boot lid for???

Repeated squirts of WD40 onto the locking mechanism and a bit of manual toing and froing was all that was needed to ease the lock mechanism. It now works perfectly from the key and from the internal button.
Door locked.

Door unlocked.

Or is it the other way round? 
I've checked all the doors, the other locking mechanisms work just fine. What I thought was a spare key, turns out is a key just for the boot lock. Evidently, the lock has been changed at some point in the past. I need a key cut. Who does old Ford keys nowadays?
I was uncomfortable having a front fog lights switch staring me in the face. 

I've already removed all associated wiring from the engine bay, today I popped the switch off and fitted the blank that @wesacosa kindly provided.

Much better. 
 
 

Bad news first.
Just before I closed my workshop doors yesterday, I sprayed some blue over the primed windscreen posts. The garage was warm and dry, the primer looked dry, all looked good but this morning I found this.


The blue / primer has wrinkled around the edges of the Rust Oleum base paint.
Along the bottom of the rear door, the primer also reacted with the paint below.

My plan was to rub down all the areas that I painted with Rust Oleum paint, apply primer and blow over with blue aerosol. This is not going to happen. Evidently, the Rust Oleum paint does not like to be primed and sprayed over. Sorting out these three patches will be awkward enough but redoing both sills would be a nightmare, especially considering the paint compatibility issues. 
I will rub down the windscreen posts and two door bottoms, remove the Rust Oleum paint and prime and spray over in blue. Tomorrow, I am going back to the paint shop and ask the paint man to mix up a fresh tin of matching blue paint, which I will brush apply to the non-matching blue along the sills and wheel arches. 
Slightly disheartened, I left the bodywork repairs for another day.
Now for some good news.
This arrived last night.

And this happened this morning.

I have now ordered a new water pump and thermostat, which should be with me by mid week.
I fitted the new exhaust. In the first photo, it looks like the exhaust hangs low but it doesn't, it fits nicely below the prop-shaft.

The tail pipe sticks out in the right place, all looks good.

Next, I cleaned up the front of the engine and marked up the positions of the three pulleys.

I removed the crankshaft pulley with a generic puller, it came off very easily. Starting this job reminded me of the massive problems I had with the removal of my R53's crankshaft pulley, something that @gm knows all about. Sorry mate.

Fitting the new cam belt was very easy.

The new cam cover gasket fits nicely.

This bit of metal art fits over the exhaust manifold and provides hot air for the air filter housing to inhale. It needed a good rub down.

Much better.

I also cleaned up some exposed fixings.

I reinstated the cam cover, the air filter housing and associated ductwork and all that is left to do is fit the new thermostat and water pump.

Almost forgot, the replacement oil filter has a smaller capacity than the old one.

But it fits just fine.

I also need to change the engine oil.
More next week. With the new thermostat and water pump fitted, I will be ready to fire up the Pinto. How exciting. 
 
 

The decline of traditional media has caused so many problems. Last time I needed to mask up my car, I had to print out a load of Reddit posts. 

Old Sierras being masked up with copies of The Sunday Times rather than the Mirror demonstrate just how far these cars have risen.

Just a small update today.
I have rubbed down and sprayed primer to:
The two windscreen posts.


The bottom of the front door.

And the bottom of the rear door.

I will apply the top coat tomorrow.

Good news x2.
Neat paraffin removes overspray from plastics. I have cleaned up the front wheel arch liners that someone forgot to cover when respraying the Sierra.

Remember this?

I cleaned up the air filter housing cover and made a cardboard template of the area that needed covering up.

I then cut the lid off an Isopon P38 tin, the only black flexible plastic thing I had in the garage, into shape, fixed it into place with three self-tappers and, hey presto, job done.

The scratches were already there, presumably occurred during the previous repair.
Once re-installed where it belongs, nobody will ever know.

I think I'm winning.
 

Another day spent in the garage but I am making good progress.
I started by coating the exposed areas along the nearside front and rear arches and along the sill.



I gave the spare wheel well and the fuel tank a lick of paint where surface corrosion had taken hold.

The windscreen posts looked nasty but turns out there was nothing to worry about.
Offside first, I scraped off the plebs to find completely solid metal underneath.

I lifted the windscreen seal with the plastic mixer that comes with P38 Isopon, which is ironic as the repair didn't need any filler.

I will sort out the cosmetics once the paint has fully dried.

Exactly the same situation on the other side.



I prepared and sprayed the black bulkhead panel that will soon be almost completely concealed by the battery.

Before removing the cam cover, I marked up the ignition leads. It took 30 seconds and could prevent an embarrassing situation come reassembly.
 
The cam and valve-gear look very clean.

Nothing to see here, certainly no sludge.

I degreased the cam cover with paraffin.

And painted the rusty bits with a high temp black gloss paint. Shame most of the cam cover will be covered up by the air filter housing.

Speaking of which, the air filter housing lid looks awful with this repair.

So I ripped it off. The repair patch was hiding a nasty hole.

Does anyone have one of these?


I put the paint and spray cans down and spent a bit of time tidying up the engine bay, specifically the inner wings and slam panel. The engine bay is remarkably free from rust. The more I look at this car, the more I believe that the mileage is genuine.

Take a look at the front wing to slam panel seams, they are factory fresh. I don't think this car has even been involved in a significant accident. 


I've ordered more aerosol blue paint and a king size bottle of T-Cut. You know what's coming next.
More next week.
 
 

I had another go at removing the fan clutch. I've wrapped an old fan belt around the pulley, secured it with cable ties, squashed it in a vice to stop it from turning and with three of the four bolts that secure the pulley removed (one is enough to keep the pulley in place) I can comfortably get an adjustable spanner on the lock nut.

I'm still not sure which way to turn to get the lock nut off but by applying plenty of force on the spanner, the fan belt snaps before the nut shifts. 

@lisbon_road - can please have your locking tool?
I have made progress with the rust treatment. 
I brushed down remaining dust and  debris from the underside and coated the exposed metal on the floor pan and the rear suspension components with a Rust-Oleum spray on black wax.


It has sealed the sill seams very nicely.

I've coated exposed metal in the offside rear arch.

I used filler to make good the end of the offside sill. Rust plebs on the rear arch were probably caused by scratches (impact damage, which is partially visible towards the rear of the arch) as the inner side of the arch is solid. 

I pained the offside sill.

I painted the exposed metal in the offside front arch.

I painted the underside of the front and rear offside doors.


I painted a section of the offside upper side of the chassis leg, where water has  been pooling and caused surface corrosion.

And finally I gave the battery tray a lick of paint too.

The paint match looks horrendous in the photos. It's not perfect but it looks better in real life than in the photos because I had a massive spot lamp shining on the areas that I photographed and iPhone cameras are not the best. For some reason, my phone's camera has made the original paint look very pale, which it isn't. 
Also, bear in mind that the new paint is shiny and the original paint is flat. I expect the paints will match better once I have cut and polished the original paint.
The arch liners will conceal most of the exposed metal so I am not fussed about the patchy finish.
The plan is to over spray all painted repairs above sill level with the aerosol can that I know is a good paint match.
I am confident that the Sierra will look ok once it's finished. Ideally, it would need a complete respray but that is not going to happen under my watch.

That was back in 2017, so nearly 7 years ago (where the hell has time gone?). Still a 14 year old car then though but worth a bit more. 
However fancy, shiny isn't always what you want when doing crime. I was told that there is often a "community car" that will be used to do low level crime - usually with cloned plates. When it becomes discovered and then a hot car, it gets disposed of. 
If it is an easy steal (e.g. keys left nearby), it'll have a use. They'd come back to a car a week or two later and if it's still there, take it away. 

Found safe!

Caliper replaced with a new one, £39+vat from the factors, no exchange required. Slide pin thread screwed, which is sub-optimal, new ones on order. Nice when things feel a little less crap!

I let the car cool, then filled up with water, ran around locally, then headed for home (I was in WGC at the time) - similar thing happened about a mile north of South Mimms. 
As I'm planning on taking it a long distance soon, I am pondering throwing it at the garage and letting somebody with the time, facilities and brains look at it rather than running myself ragged during a busy week.

Fuck a duck 

The Mondeo has been having a few moments of late, coolant wise. I thought I'd managed to bleed the system again properly, there were a few moments without hot air through the heater but broadly speaking everything was fine. Bowling up the A1 on a test trip, prior to a 400-mile journey next week, and the needle flops into the red. More scarily, presumably the overflow was making it difficult for the alternator to catch up, as everything electrical became that little bit dimmer and slower. Predictably this happened just after a turning, carried on at 50 to the next junction. It's vomited out the expansion cap... Just waiting for things to cool down and see what's going on. 

Slow progress. Reattaching the bonnet is supposed to be a 2 man job, and if the car weren't going for paint soon, I'd definitely have got a second pair of hands doing it!

It's not perfectly aligned by any stretch of the imagination, but as it'll likely have to come off to be sprayed, I'll sort that out further down the line.

With the engine out the car sits nice and noticeably higher at the front!
Meanwhile the wiring loom, bauden cables and so on that go under the bonnet have been wrapped up, hopefully to avoid any damage. Always a little wary with 44 year old wiring, I did worry if it'd cause any issues, but I suppose it's worse if it just floats around under there and invariably gets snagged or whatnot when being moved.

 
Mondeo airlock seems better - did a reasonable bit of driving today and temp gauge sitting reasonably with no wild variation, although the heater was on and off.

I'm fairly sure that's what it is - it began about a month after I changed the coolant. As the garage is at the end of my street and can look at it tomorrow and won't take the pee with costs (but will take the pee if i've overlooked something!). Hadn't looked into vacuum filling, but the cost of the kit to do so is likely more than any labour charge?
 
Yeah, it just has moments of frustration when you trip over a stored exhaust manifold and go "why the hell did I do this, the car went perfectly fine beforehand, I could have been out driving it today" etc etc but, of course, you're right. It'll go together and there'll be the satisfaction of having done lots of it myself.

I'm fairly sure that's what it is - it began about a month after I changed the coolant. As the garage is at the end of my street and can look at it tomorrow and won't take the pee with costs (but will take the pee if i've overlooked something!). Hadn't looked into vacuum filling, but the cost of the kit to do so is likely more than any labour charge?
 
Yeah, it just has moments of frustration when you trip over a stored exhaust manifold and go "why the hell did I do this, the car went perfectly fine beforehand, I could have been out driving it today" etc etc but, of course, you're right. It'll go together and there'll be the satisfaction of having done lots of it myself.

Every so often, as I've been clambering around a Capri in the throes of dismantling, repair and rebuild, over the last 18 months, with yet more being added to the list and no end in sight.... every so often I think to myself, "why am I doing this/ I should have left it as it was!". Then I scroll back to the pictures to remind me of the problems it had hiding below the surface.
 
  
 

Slow progress. Reattaching the bonnet is supposed to be a 2 man job, and if the car weren't going for paint soon, I'd definitely have got a second pair of hands doing it!

It's not perfectly aligned by any stretch of the imagination, but as it'll likely have to come off to be sprayed, I'll sort that out further down the line.

With the engine out the car sits nice and noticeably higher at the front!
Meanwhile the wiring loom, bauden cables and so on that go under the bonnet have been wrapped up, hopefully to avoid any damage. Always a little wary with 44 year old wiring, I did worry if it'd cause any issues, but I suppose it's worse if it just floats around under there and invariably gets snagged or whatnot when being moved.

 
Mondeo airlock seems better - did a reasonable bit of driving today and temp gauge sitting reasonably with no wild variation, although the heater was on and off.

I'm fairly sure that's what it is - it began about a month after I changed the coolant. As the garage is at the end of my street and can look at it tomorrow and won't take the pee with costs (but will take the pee if i've overlooked something!). Hadn't looked into vacuum filling, but the cost of the kit to do so is likely more than any labour charge?
 
Yeah, it just has moments of frustration when you trip over a stored exhaust manifold and go "why the hell did I do this, the car went perfectly fine beforehand, I could have been out driving it today" etc etc but, of course, you're right. It'll go together and there'll be the satisfaction of having done lots of it myself.

Every so often, as I've been clambering around a Capri in the throes of dismantling, repair and rebuild, over the last 18 months, with yet more being added to the list and no end in sight.... every so often I think to myself, "why am I doing this/ I should have left it as it was!". Then I scroll back to the pictures to remind me of the problems it had hiding below the surface.
 
  
 

I let the car cool, then filled up with water, ran around locally, then headed for home (I was in WGC at the time) - similar thing happened about a mile north of South Mimms. 
As I'm planning on taking it a long distance soon, I am pondering throwing it at the garage and letting somebody with the time, facilities and brains look at it rather than running myself ragged during a busy week.

Fuck a duck 

The Mondeo has been having a few moments of late, coolant wise. I thought I'd managed to bleed the system again properly, there were a few moments without hot air through the heater but broadly speaking everything was fine. Bowling up the A1 on a test trip, prior to a 400-mile journey next week, and the needle flops into the red. More scarily, presumably the overflow was making it difficult for the alternator to catch up, as everything electrical became that little bit dimmer and slower. Predictably this happened just after a turning, carried on at 50 to the next junction. It's vomited out the expansion cap... Just waiting for things to cool down and see what's going on. 

Fuck a duck 

The Mondeo has been having a few moments of late, coolant wise. I thought I'd managed to bleed the system again properly, there were a few moments without hot air through the heater but broadly speaking everything was fine. Bowling up the A1 on a test trip, prior to a 400-mile journey next week, and the needle flops into the red. More scarily, presumably the overflow was making it difficult for the alternator to catch up, as everything electrical became that little bit dimmer and slower. Predictably this happened just after a turning, carried on at 50 to the next junction. It's vomited out the expansion cap... Just waiting for things to cool down and see what's going on. 

I let the car cool, then filled up with water, ran around locally, then headed for home (I was in WGC at the time) - similar thing happened about a mile north of South Mimms. 
As I'm planning on taking it a long distance soon, I am pondering throwing it at the garage and letting somebody with the time, facilities and brains look at it rather than running myself ragged during a busy week.