Grogee's spannering (Maestro & Mondeo IV). MONDEO MISERY

[beko1987]

2 minutes ago, S2000 said:

Can you remember who owned the L200 pulling the trailer? It is my old one !! BK07LHZ

Really? Was my ex's sisters then boyfriend Karl! He had it several years but it did a big nasty OMGHGF and cracked something, mostly because he drove it 5 miles to work then 5 miles back between chinnor and lewknor. He is quite high up in bt as an engineer so he'd drive it to chinnor exchange then go do 450 miles in a work van then drive it back to the pub 🤣

He sold it after it was fixed up as he knew it would just happen again, not checked if it's still alive though! 

[S2000]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Really? Was my ex's sisters then boyfriend Karl! He had it several years but it did a big nasty OMGHGF and cracked something, mostly because he drove it 5 miles to work then 5 miles back between chinnor and lewknor. He is quite high up in bt as an engineer so he'd drive it to chinnor exchange then go do 450 miles in a work van then drive it back to the pub 🤣

He sold it after it was fixed up as he knew it would just happen again, not checked if it's still alive though! 

Jo and Karl, it had been sat for two years when I purchased it with HGF and I spent a fair wack to get it sorted as it was a good truck never worked! I still occasionally see them now with their new life’s. I sold the truck a year ago, regret it as it was very sorted but I needed something automatic, if I had the room I would have kept it!

Apologies for the thread hi jack @grogee

[beko1987]

8 hours ago, S2000 said:

Jo and Karl, it had been sat for two years when I purchased it with HGF and I spent a fair wack to get it sorted as it was a good truck never worked! I still occasionally see them now with their new life’s. I sold the truck a year ago, regret it as it was very sorted but I needed something automatic, if I had the room I would have kept it!

Apologies for the thread hi jack @grogee

Aaah so you had it after them, I see! Did tell Karl it would happen again, and I think he'd scratched the itch.

Don't really see either of them now, Jo was always the less mental of the 3 sisters

Its a small world!

[grogee]

Changed the oil and filter in the Maestro, as well as doing a little bit of rust touching up here and there while it was on stands. Topped up gear oil, which is a bastard, and a couple of other bits and bobs. 

Back of the car looks good behind the bumper, mind you it was only repaired a few years ago. 

I gave it a good wash this morning, taking time to get rid of some of the winter grime that had built up. 

Most of it is holding up well, a couple of annoying rust blebs but that's what happens when you clean your car, you get up close and personal and notice stuff that nobody else is going to see. 

Think I need another set of HT leads and a cap, as it's being grumpy during warm up despite a good spritz of WD over the dizzy cap. They were Chinesium Lucas parts though so maybe not surprising. 

Nu_Mrs Grogee and I went out for a bimble around the lanes, lots of villages looking pretty with blossom out. 

New tailgate latch held firm so I'm calling that a win. 

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, grogee said:

Nu_Mrs Grogee and I went out for a bimble around the lanes,

Not heard it called that before 🤣

[grogee]

Decided to splash out £20 or so on a new distributor cap and leads. I'm sure they're Chinese shite but that's all I can get these days. 

The cap I took off was (I'm fairly sure) "Lucas" ie no-name zombie brand wank. Mind you it was probably three years ago I changed it, maybe that's how long they generally last? 

Anyway the centre electrode that rubs on the rotor arm has left the chat, which would explain the misfiring and kangarooing I'd been experiencing during warm up. 

Very tempted to drive it tomorrow but the forecast is wank so maybe I won't. 

[FakeConcern]

TBF I think the Lucas distributor caps, rotor arms and points I fitted to my Minis and Metros back in the 70s never lasted very long so seems about right to me.

[grogee]

Did a bit of Forth Bridge style rust proofing this morning. I'd spotted signs of crustiness coming through on the bottom of the sills so I wanted to give it a seeing to. 

Also, I had treated myself to a litre of Aquasteel, as recommended by @sierraman. 

Gave it a good wipe with alcohol before splashing some onto the bottom of the sills. I even took the rear wheel arch spats off to check behind them for any grot, luckily all clear. 

Nice to see my fixing strategy for the spats is holding up - thread inserts in the sills, with small holes in the wheel arches and stainless fixings all round. Seems to be holding up well. 

Bit bloody cold today, mind. 

[grogee]

Fitted this today. Not much to look at but actually most of the work was in routing a new RCA and amp remote wire to the back of the car. I don't know what went wrong but my previous setup simply lost its continuity from one end of amp remote wire to the other. 

Plus I was having all sorts of popping and crackling issue so I just decided to do it all again. 

Of course it behaved perfectly during the test setup then once I'd tidied the wiring up, the mute wire for the phone kit has stopped working. No matter, it has an 'ATT' button which will suffice for now, no way I'm pulling that back out again. 

Sounds good, works fine and it's (almost) a period upgrade. Mid 90s would be my guess but not entirely sure. 

Wish I had a Panasonic surround to finish it off. 

Photo is upside down, probably Trump's fault. 

[grogee]

FFS, why didn't I just pay someone to do this instead of attempting it myself?

Stupid thing is, I took a day off to do it, which costs me because contractor. 

And I thought I'd get away without needing yet another special tool... HBOL says you need one to release the BJ from the knuckle. Internet lore says use this method,which involves undoing the nut to provide downward pressure onto taper seat, then twat it with BFH. It worked. 

Anyway, Mondeo lower arms. Or arm, more accurately. 

I'm doing this because last MoT highlighted a bottom ball joint, but I figured it would be easier/better to change whole arm which includes the bushes as well. And no point doing one side, so ordered both sides. 

Actually before that I'd ordered a ball joint because I didn't realise they are riveted onto the arm. It was a good job I'd ordered one, because I managed to tear the rubber boot trying to fit it. 

As with many cars, the problem is bending the arm downward enough to line up the hole in the knuckle. It takes a lot of force, and meanwhile you need to carefully align everything for a successful entry. 

First attempt failed and I managed to pop the driveshaft inner joint out of the box. Fucked around with that for a while, then took the arm off again to replace the BJ with the torn boot. 

Fuck me, how does anyone do these in situ? They are a right pain! I naively assumed I could grind the heads off the rivets and pop them out, but no - it was a right war. 

In the process I managed to grind my own thumb with the angry wheel, so there was a period of swearing and "first aid" where I threw a plaster on it and hoped it wouldn't get infected. 

Another problem was inventing a tool to give me enough leverage to pull the arm down and line it up for assembly into the knuckle. 

Fortunately, a while ago I'd mistakenly ordered an anti-roll bar for the Favorit now belonging to @oingy_boingy. It was the wrong one, because it was for a Felicia van which is basically a VW. 

Anyway, after some cutting and ingenuity I fashioned a ghetto arm-bender using the old ARB and an exhaust clamp. This gave me the leverage I needed. 

Phew! Lined up, no driveshaft pop and all good... 

... Until I took a closer look at the newly fitted ball joint, and noticed I'd torn that boot as well. For FUCKING FUCK'S SAKE!!! You absolute wanker. 

Side two is tomorrow's job, with aforementioned sore thumb. 

[FakeConcern]

Much sympathy for you on this. Last year I did the bottom arms on my (much more modern) Volvo and had to whack the absolute fuck out of a fork type splitter on the ball joints. It was only when I eventually got the second arm on that I noticed the two arms were different...

PS I hope the thumb heals quickly!

[sierraman]

Massively easier on a ramp, it’s high enough then that you can get a long bar in to pry it down. Extremely difficult to do that on the ground with probably 10 inch of space. 

[beko1987]

I had the drivers side lower arm go in fine when I did mine on the qashqai on axle stands. 

Passenger side fought me like a bastard, no angle got the bottom ball joint in! If I did the ball joint first, the back bolts were nowhere near, back bolts first and the ball joint was nowhere near. Was almost funny as the drivers side was the bastard to strip down and the passenger side was mega easy so I think someone has been at the passenger side before for things.

Ended up undoing the shock (no tre or drop link fitted at this point), starting the back bolts then another 20 minutes of extreme violence and swearing got the bottom joint in too. I ordered a new fitting kit and realised that 2 of the threads on the passenger side were different and the new bolts didn't fit so I re used the old 🤷👌 

Been fine for over a year now 🤞 

[sierraman]

My local man charges fifty quid an hour. For that I’m not struggling about on the floor with a job like that where you know you are going to struggle because theres just not enough height. He’d have it done in the hour. 
 

As galling as it is, there’s some times where you are better off just paying the man to do it.