Project Holey Mint! Abracadabra...

19,690 · November 14, 2024

On 12/11/2024 at 15:14, Marshall2810 said:

Nice to see it's growing on you Moog. I had a blue one a few years back which was a nice car but the ride was far too firm for round these parts.

Also found it very unquick for what it was

Did yours have the Recaros? The seats in this one are the normal ones and I find them ok, didnt know if the recaros were a step up.

2,834 · November 14, 2024

1 hour ago, The Moog said:

Did yours have the Recaros? The seats in this one are the normal ones and I find them ok, didnt know if the recaros were a step up.

Yes mine did. Incredibly comfortable and recommended

19,690 · December 8, 2024

The focus was running like a bag of nails.

Code scan showed misfire, O2 not working, dash cluster loses connection, Imrc stuck open.

Swapped in a new coil pack

That was the misfire dealt with. The guage cluster was acting randomly including fuel gauge being all over the shop. Rather than repair it, I bought second hand one cheap off eBay.

Old one was in 105k and had MIL

Swapped the clusters over

Adds 60k to the clock but at least the MIL has gone. Misfire disappeared as well. Surely that is all fixed.

Erm nope. Code scan still has Imrc fault and O2. It looks like someone has fixed this previously by removing the MIL bulb.

Oh well.

It needs a cambelt doing, the O2 sensor (on order), IMRC resolving (tempted to buy a secondhand one and see if I can check if in advance plus the smell of antifreeze investigating.

If course instead I have ordered camo grafixs for the bonnet, rally mudflaps and some other non essential bits.

Was thinking about knockhill track day last week but with the weather plus all faults put paid to that.

I also want to source some 16 inch wheels for spares

27,552 · December 9, 2024

Is the IMRC some kind of inlet manifold actuator?

A guy at my work has one of these and has had loads of aggro with that on his.

19,690 · December 9, 2024

2 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

Is the IMRC some kind of inlet manifold actuator?

A guy at my work has one of these and has had loads of aggro with that on his.

Yep inlet manifold runner control. There are people on eBay who will fix them for £250.

You can get secondhand one for £100 and then fix that before fitting - which is likely my plan.

3,831 · January 12

Sorry missed this at the time, I will follow with interest now. If it's not already too late I would recommend trying to lube up the inlet runner mechanism and the cable as I suspect the actual control module might be OK- if you cleared the fault code with the engine warm it tended to stay off which is how I got the car through several MOTs. Apparently if the control module can't move the runners satisfactorily quickly when it does a self-test on startup it throws the fault code immediately. I've only ever driven that one but it didn't seem to be lacking in power at any point in the rev range so I suspect the runners are moving, just a bit stiffly.

I tried redoing the solder joints on the main clock connector to see if it would stop the flickering but no joy. The fuel gauge never gave me any trouble, though I did have to replace the fuel pump a few years ago so it's possible I disturbed the float mechanism somehow.

19,690 · February 9

This week has been prepping for autotesting.

All going well until started getting only 11.7v when driving. Checked battery and it is fine, so alternator it was.

I tried pulling the smart charger plug and that made no difference. So set about the engine.

What an utter twat. The knock sensor wiring will need *improving* at some point

19,690 · February 9

Getting the alt out was almost best part of an hour.

In the end the bracket that was stopping the alternator coming out succumbed to BFH. Then once the new one was fitted it was bent back into shape.

End result much charging even with full load.

19,690 · February 9

And after a day autotesting the to do list has been updated. The IMRC fault has cleared itself.

I need rear brakes and pads, hydraulic handbrake, skid plate, proper mud flaps and timing belt.

I need to find why the rear boot well is wet. Plus get two spare smaller tyres for back for autotesting.

7,657 · February 9

All the best tools there, claw and club. Good work.

11,380 · February 9

54 minutes ago, Rustybullethole said:

All the best tools there, claw and club. Good work.

You missed ball pein. Man's hammer 🤠

19,690 · February 9

1 hour ago, Rustybullethole said:

All the best tools there, claw and club. Good work.

27 minutes ago, Matty said:

You missed ball pein. Man's hammer 🤠

It was incredibly cathartic smacking the shit out of that bracket! I needed the big bad boy though ....

19,395 · February 10

6 hours ago, The Moog said:

two spare smaller tyres for back for autotesting

for moar mad skidzz ? with all that cow shit on the track, I'm sure you'd be sliding round like a drifto king !

sounds like great fun, if I wasn't a soft bloody southerner now, I'd be up there joining in

19,690 · February 10

9 hours ago, gm said:

for moar mad skidzz ? with all that cow shit on the track, I'm sure you'd be sliding round like a drifto king !

sounds like great fun, if I wasn't a soft bloody southerner now, I'd be up there joining in

Yep always need more!

The turning circle on a focus is shit, so really need a way to get the back round quicker.

2,834 · February 10

Great work Moog I'll be doing something similar with my citroen soon

19,690 · March 3

Had a spare 30 minutes so decided to do something about headlights.

They had done the usual clouding trick.

Temu box arrived for not much moneys

Masked and then sanded with the enclosed 800,1200,2000 and then 3000 grit paper.

Then a polisher with goop, and finally a wipe over sealing coat.

10,533 · March 3

That's an excellent result.

26,878 · March 3

Good effort!

19,690 · March 10

Bit more fiddling today.

Fitting new number plates from @Kiltox the old ones were starting to delaminate.

To thank me the boot spoiler fell off. my learned friends say that sikaflex will see me right!

13,361 · March 10

i do miss my focus, what the road tax on this?

19,690 · March 11

11 hours ago, stuboy said:

i do miss my focus, what the road tax on this?

About 400 quid.

It has become a dog wagon/autotesting car for me. The back seats are in the loft so now is a two seater.

Next thing to deal with is the smell of fags in the car. It really can pong!

19,690 · March 11

Last night the ozone generator arrived.

I bought this from eBay with little hope it would work.

As it was dark there are no pics.

It was a case of place on car, turn it on for 10 mins ensuring the windows and doors etc are closed. Once finished air the space for 30 mins.

OMG - What an amazing machine! Fag smell has gone! Even missus Moog said it smells lovely and fresh in the car.

Highly recommended if you have a bit of a whiffy car.

19,690 · April 6

I luckily* won the VW Polo being roffled on here.

The timing couldn't have been better. It was literally on my home from Skegvegas after a hard weekend partying.

It's a nice enough car, as always been sorting out the niggles.

First off was a new battery saving @robt100 some shekels.

Did the 300 miles home no problem. Since then added another 700 and it has been faultless. Currently showing 50 mpg on the board computer.

The two things on my list to fix before moving it on were the door open dash light and egr mil.

First up was to get the ECU number to see if I can get a remap/egr deleted one.

Had to drill out the bolts to help protective casing be removed. Now waiting to hear back from a few places to see if they can do remap and or egr deleted.

Might need a bit of a service as well before it goes judging by air filter.

19,690 · April 6

Next up was passenger door lock. It had decided to give up the ghost and I assumed that it was the cause of the door.open light.

Once I had got it open (thanks for the advice on here) it wasn't too difficult a job. Bit fiddly at times and many swears

All back together... And guess what . Light is still on!

Scanned the car and it shows right rear is the issue. Round two is coming. !

April 6

Nice to see you've had the time to fix up the old girl. Ironically I think the rear right lock is probably the only one that I've never had an issue with 🙈
I think that air filter is around 12k old, must be dirty round here! As for the EML, a remap/egr delete will sort it, the bosch EDC15 is pretty common for mapping so shouldn't be any bother for most. Sorry to see the moving on part though, the Mrs not take to it in the end?