White Sierra, the ongoing story.........

[purplebargeken]

Ok, knuckling down to this now.

 

You may recall that the engine bay of the Sierra was sprayed with black paint. Whilst this may have been protective at some point it was really bugging me.

 

So this has been happening:

 

 

 

 

It is a slow, laborious and mucky process but it is starting to pay dividends. I really could not bear to leave it.

 

 

[purplebargeken]

They had even painted the wiring, the coolant bottle and the screen wash bottle. 

 

Bollocks, forgot to look for the battery clamp hiding in the door pocket.

 

When the weather warms up a bit I will take the vax to the seats as there is room for improvement in the clean department.

 

Just need to order front shocks and to see if I can get hold of a glass sunroof panel somehow. Then work out how to swap them over.

[fordperv]

The hard work will pay off in the end, I am having an overload on all the sierra love on here at the minute

[danthecapriman]

Looking good Ken. My Transit engine bay is covered in similar black gunge. It does come off but it's bloody hard work.

[purplebargeken]

^^ Tell me about it.

[purplebargeken]

Spent a few hours cleaning, cutting and polishing the very, very, very, very flat paint on said Sierra. 

 

God it was flat.

 

Took ages to do the passenger door, the hatch bit of the hatch back and a section of roof. 

 

Looking more nicerer now. Took some piccies showing the flat v shiney paint. Went to upload them and deleted them in error. 

 

I is stupid twat.  Hopefully more pics on Weds now. Sigh. 

 

Steering rack gaiters arrived, awaiting exhaust manifold fixings and a pair of front shocks.

[purplebargeken]

Shocks arrived

 

Gaiters

 

Manifold studs, washers and brass nuts

 

Yay!

[laser wheels]

Yes, that black paint bugged me to, but it is probably the main reason it is still in such solid condition so it did the job! Paint was indeed flat as the witch's proverbial. It was even worse when I got it and had a go at claying and polishing it. It had a layer of muck on it that had seemed to have become ingrained, like dark streaks in the paint. Really dirty!

 

Looking forward to updates.

[purplebargeken]

Thank fook I have about a million clay bars to hand.

[purplebargeken]

Sorry but camera forgotten so you'll just have to take my word for it. 

 

If you have a look at the above piccies, imagine a section of the inner wing fully white from the edge of the coolant bottle down to the back of the headlight!

 

The washer bottle was taken off, cleaned inside and out, all connections sprayed with contact cleaner, washer tube cleaned (even that was painted black) and refitted using new stainless screws and washers. Looks smart. 

 

Fecking shedloads left to do. Grrr. 

 

Battery clamp deffo gone walkies. If anyone is near a breakers........   

[MarvinsMom]

is that just boggo paint or is it ziebart underseal stuff?

 

if its just paint, why the hell put it all over the inner wings?

 

looks better i guess cleaned off, good work that man!

 

now if only i can get my mojo back for tinkering with cars.....

[purplebargeken]

It is just ordinary matt black literally sprayed everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Ziebart would have been an utter nut ache to remove.

 

I am amazed that it did anything really when you consider that matt paint is not water proof or whatever.

 

Looks much better white

 

Mojo is a funny thing, mine varies almost weekly. Hope yours is reclaimed soon

[purplebargeken]

Can anyone tell me what size the bolts are that secure the headlights onto the slam panel please. I feel the need for stainless. 

 

Ta

[purplebargeken]

Worked out that they will either be M8 or M10, so 10 of each ordered. They will come in handy anyway, even if wrong.

 

More Sierra fiddling tomorrow folks. Yes, I will take the camera. 

[purplebargeken]

Just totalled up the cost of bits for this month............

 

Stainless bolts, manifold studs, washers and nuts, shocks and steering rack gaiters: £74.50. Not bad I guess. 

[purplebargeken]

Sadly DMB don't have a dealer set for Glebe Garage in Widnes. I can't seem to find anything on the web in relation to what a dealer sticker looked like either

 

I have followed an older link and found a place that will do the correct font for the Sierra and will allow a longer footer, again in the older font. I will put the Glebe Garage details on there instead. It's the best I can do.

 

Oh for a bloody sticker, grrrrrrr.

[greengartside]

DMB can do the plate for sure!

 

Take a picture of the rear one and they can replicate it for the front. That's how they did it for my Zetec-S.

[purplebargeken]

Ah, ok. That makes sense. Will do

 

Cheers

[purplebargeken]

T'other side which reminds us all how black and dull the engine bay is.

 

 

Some residual stuff which is quite hard to shift.

 

 

Progress.

 

 

 

 

You can actually see the bottle in the engine bay now!

 

 

 

[purplebargeken]

Some bits of white will need a dusting of paint but I guess that it was pretty thin there anyway. Progress indeed but it is so slow.

[danthecapriman]

Looks really good though, well worth the effort in removing it.

The original paint looks pretty good too. Whatever the black stuff was it's protected everything very well.

 

When you've done this you don't fancy doing the same on my Transit engine bay do you...!

[trigger]

What a transformation! 

[purplebargeken]

When you've done this you don't fancy doing the same on my Transit engine bay do you...! 

 

Yeah, no problem. If you just take out everything from the engine bay first.......

 

Cheers Trigger

[danthecapriman]

They've done the exact same thing on the Transit, all the fluid bottles, wiring loom everything has been over sprayed in the black stuff.

I've got a big tub of cotton wipes soaked in degreaser fluid from work, they are meant for dissolving and wiping away grease and bitumen etc so I might give these a try on mine at some stage. I've used them to clean decades of oily gunge off engines before and they seem to cut through it ok. I've also got a bottle of the degreaser chemical so might poor some of that on first then give it a good scrub.

[purplebargeken]

It is a ball ache but I actually like to be able to see what I am doing in an engine bay. This is much improved.

 

Good luck. That is all I can say