1987 Ford Sierra Sapphire 1.8L - Completed it mate - see page 46

61,337 · March 7

1 hour ago, Shite Ron said:

I remember swapping a few passenger side to driver side door barrels in these as after a few years use the barrels failed and you could not get in

interesting, when I was looking at paperwork earlier as above, I found a receipt for a door lock replacement...

7,033 · March 8

early sierrors used flat tinacorner type keys then they swapped (with much hoohar) to tibbe

embarrasingly a "thief" broke into the later lock faster than the old one

the chubb keys were granada 3

4,437 · March 8

I remember old 80's Fords having additional locks fitted to the doors beneath the original lock.

36,890 · March 8

Those tibbe keys were fucking terrible but then Sierras were a doddle to pinch anyway, no double locking etc so the thief would just bust the back window, reach in, unlock it, give the steering lock a hard tug and bust the steering column shroud off.

March 8

Bet the Sierra's steering felt very loose and sloppy after forcing the lock.

9,510 · March 8

I acquired this key fob years ago and hitherto had no use for it.

It will be put to good use until I find something more appropriate. I’ll be going to Beaulieu Autojumble and the Enfield Pageant in May, where there should be a good choice of bargains.

6,680 · March 8

I'll have a look. My mum had an E-reg Escort and I kept the key ring from it. I haven't seen it for a while but think I have it somewhere. Just a plain key ring with a Ford logo and obviously era-appropriate.

If I can find it, it's all yours if you want it

9,510 · March 8

32 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

I'll have a look. My mum had an E-reg Escort and I kept the key ring from it. I haven't seen it for a while but think I have it somewhere. Just a plain key ring with a Ford logo and obviously era-appropriate.

If I can find it, it's all yours if you want it

I'm yet to say no to a free Ford related gift.

Yes please!

12,684 · March 8

My G ref 1.6 pinto 'laser' no rev counter, no central locking ans very stingy spec

9,510 · March 8

@stuboy

Love it! A proper Sierra. Apart from the facelift rear lights and wrong colour front indicators.

9,510 · March 9

I made good progress with the bodywork repairs today.

I got the Sunday Times out again and had another go at spraying the windscreen pillars.

Success, this time no more chemical reactions. The paint match is approx 95% correct.

I had a third attempt at spraying the bottom of the offside rear door. This time everything went ok.

I used a 240 grade padded sand paper to take the shine off the sills. Messy business.

But a good result.

I painted both sills with the new paint I bought on Monday. The previous colour was too loud, it looked more turquoise than blue. This shade is darker than it should be but looks less offensive.

As previously advised, my iPhone's camera struggles to correctly present the original blue paint. The flood light doesn't help either. The paint match is actually a lot better.

Next, I had to sort out these storage scars.

I rubbed down the corrosion down to fresh metal.

I masked up the scars to keep the repair patches as small as possible.

I then squirted blue aerosol paint into a pot and used a small sponge to dab multiple thin coats of paint over the masked off patches.

I did this wherever the paint was damaged.

With the masking paint removed, you can see where the paint was applied, however once cut back and polished, the repairs should look ok.

There was a deep scratch in the middle of the offside rear door.

I applied masking tape close to the edges of the scratch.

And applied numerous thin coats of aerosol paint.

With the masking tape removed, the scratch is almost invisible and will look better still once the paint is cut and polished.

The rear screen side plastic panels were also damaged during storage.

I dabbed some matt black paint onto the plastic. The paint was still wet when I took this photo.

Last week I found out that acrylic primer and aerosol paint reacts with oil based paint and causes wrinkles and cracking. Today, by chance, I discovered that dabbing the blue aerosol paint over the oil based paint that was applied 3 hours earlier, without using primer, does not cause any problems. Very odd. I dabbed paint over the offside rear arch, which now looks a lot better.

The fuel filler panel seal was covered with blue overspray.

Five minutes with a stanley blade got the old paint off. Much better.

That was it for today.

I will leave the paint repairs to dry overnight and tomorrow I am getting busy with this stuff.

I hope the paint will respond well to a good cut and polish.

Can't wait to see the Sierra shine.

9,510 · March 9

The fuel gauge is reading way too high, I think.

The sender unit looks like this.

Aa the boot floor doesn’t feature any access hatches, it looks like the only way to get to the sender unit is to drop the fuel tank, which could be a world of pain.

I’m not going to bother doing this for now. Once I start using the Sierra, I will know more about the fuel gauge’s behaviour and chances are that a few full to empty tanks may wake up the sender unit.

March 10

Would there be access under the rear seat base?

9,510 · March 10

9 hours ago, GagaStan said:

Would there be access under the rear seat base?

I'm not sure that the fuel tank extends under the rear seat, it's located towards the rear of the car, under the luggage compartment.

9,510 · March 10

I've been looking forward to this day since I bought the Sierra.

I used T-Cut and water to cut the paint where it was faded but not scratched.

And this stuff where the paint was badly damaged.

And then this stuff to polish the paint after cutting.

The cutting made a huge difference.

Looking better already.

Another before / after photo, spoiled by a crappy iPhone camera.

Job done. The paint responded well to the cut and polish. The deepest scratches remain and I did not try to get them out as I didn't want to risk cutting through to the primer. I almost did along part of the bonnet. Under my workshop LED light, the scratches are still obvious but under a halogen light and, most likely, daylight, the paint should look ok.

Since my first inspection of the Sierra, I knew that the paint was bad and getting it to this standard wasn't quick or easy and I am happy with the results. The nearside front door is not a good colour match and there are various flaws around the car where it was previously painted. Doesn't matter, it looks ok.

It will look better outside, in natural light.

Then my wife brought me lunch.

After lunch, I had to do something with the two tone sills.

I masked off the bottom of the doors and sprayed both sills with the blue aerosol (no primer). Again, no chemical reactions, no cracking or wrinkling.

Much better.

I'm getting there.

3,115 · March 10

14 minutes ago, Peter C said:

I'm not sure that the fuel tank extends under the rear seat, it's located towards the rear of the car, under the luggage compartment.

It does not extend under the rear seat. You're right that you have to drop the tank to access the sender. There are three screws that go through clips. It isn't that bad but certainly one to avoid without good reason. I think people sometimes used to make a hole in the floor to access but probably best avoided especially on such a clean car.

Petrol tanks. I fitted a new one to my Sierra and patiently painted the outside. The inside was bare steel and went unbelievably rusty very very fast. I replaced it (again!) and used an expensive tank sealant on it. This seemed a bit mad, but I reckon it was the right thing to do. The tank sealant sticks really well to the fresh metal.

Just sharing this as it was so painful finding a newish tank basically full of rust so I don't want you or anyone else to end up the same way. Not that you've mentioned any problems with the tank.

61,337 · March 10

It looks more than alright, looks fantastic. At least with the Mondeo they solved* the fuel pump/sender issue by putting it under the rear seat.

3,115 · March 10

2 minutes ago, egg said:

It looks more than alright, looks fantastic. At least with the Mondeo they solved* the fuel pump/sender issue by putting it under the rear seat.

It does look very good now. And so does your tidy garage!

9,510 · March 10

1 minute ago, lisbon_road said:

your tidy garage!

Don’t, my garage is absolutely filthy and my OCD is in overdrive. First opportunity, I’m kicking the Sierra out of the garage and I’m giving everything a deep clean.

39,702 · March 10

On 09/03/2024 at 16:51, Peter C said:

I made good progress with the bodywork repairs today.

I got the Sunday Times out again and had another go at spraying the windscreen pillars.

Success, this time no more chemical reactions. The paint match is approx 95% correct.

I had a third attempt at spraying the bottom of the offside rear door. This time everything went ok.

I used a 240 grade padded sand paper to take the shine off the sills. Messy business.

But a good result.

I painted both sills with the new paint I bought on Monday. The previous colour was too loud, it looked more turquoise than blue. This shade is darker than it should be but looks less offensive.

As previously advised, my iPhone's camera struggles to correctly present the original blue paint. The flood light doesn't help either. The paint match is actually a lot better.

Next, I had to sort out these storage scars.

I rubbed down the corrosion down to fresh metal.

I masked up the scars to keep the repair patches as small as possible.

I then squirted blue aerosol paint into a pot and used a small sponge to dab multiple thin coats of paint over the masked off patches.

I did this wherever the paint was damaged.

With the masking paint removed, you can see where the paint was applied, however once cut back and polished, the repairs should look ok.

There was a deep scratch in the middle of the offside rear door.

I applied masking tape close to the edges of the scratch.

And applied numerous thin coats of aerosol paint.

With the masking tape removed, the scratch is almost invisible and will look better still once the paint is cut and polished.

The rear screen side plastic panels were also damaged during storage.

I dabbed some matt black paint onto the plastic. The paint was still wet when I took this photo.

Last week I found out that acrylic primer and aerosol paint reacts with oil based paint and causes wrinkles and cracking. Today, by chance, I discovered that dabbing the blue aerosol paint over the oil based paint that was applied 3 hours earlier, without using primer, does not cause any problems. Very odd. I dabbed paint over the offside rear arch, which now looks a lot better.

The fuel filler panel seal was covered with blue overspray.

Five minutes with a stanley blade got the old paint off. Much better.

That was it for today.

I will leave the paint repairs to dry overnight and tomorrow I am getting busy with this stuff.

I hope the paint will respond well to a good cut and polish.

Can't wait to see the Sierra shine.

Great progress ! Plus great newsprint, which as someone else has said, IIRC , shows how far the sierra has come value wise.

11,270 · March 10

The Ford '100,000 Mile Club' key fob, leather, was a globe with 4 silver rings round it 😎.

No longer in my possession [Cortina III or fob] 😐

🚙💨

9,510 · March 11

I had a bit of time this afternoon to complete a couple of small jobs.

I wanted to remove the redundant front fog light brackets.

I, incorrectly, assumed that undoing the two nuts and bolts would enable me to remove each bracket. Yes and no. The bracket also forms part of the bumper support, which is fixed to the chassis above. In the end, I just bent back the parts of the bracket that secure the fog light.

Lying on the floor looking up at the bumper, I realised that if I am going to re-spray the rear bumper, which is a must, I might as well do the front.

Next, was a simple job of refixing the rear number plate. Or so I thought. Turns out, whoever fitted the replacement number plate drilled two new fixing holes in the rear panel and the one on the right side is located exactly where the jack abuts the inner side of the panel. This explains why the screw that I removed was angled at 45 degrees. I put it back as it was for now but to sort this out properly, I need another rear number plate.

Note the reflection in the boot lid of the E46 parked outside.

I re-fixed the non-factory aerial. It fits ok but to make it fit, the mast leans towards the front of the car. I might have another go at aligning it but ideally I would like to source a Ford factory aerial.

As the paint in and around the arches was now dry, I wanted to replace the arch liners.

I spent a fair bit of time cleaning them and removing overspray but they still look shit. I cleaned the front ones with a pressure washer, a stiff brush and soapy water and with neat paraffin to remove the overspray. I am not happy with how they turned out. I know that they won't be visible with the wheels back on but that's no excuse to leave them looking dirty.

Any ideas what else I can try to make them look cleaner? I don't want to paint them as the paint will flake as the wheels kick up stones etc.

All being well, I will respray the front and rear bumpers this weekend.

3,468 · March 11

Hot air gun treatment on the arch liners?

9,510 · March 11

5 minutes ago, Rod/b said:

Hot air gun treatment on the arch liners?

Won’t get the dirt off.

20,983 · March 11

Back to Black or similar?

9,510 · March 11

9 minutes ago, Hertz said:

Back to Black or similar?

That would cover up the dirt and attract dust.

9,510 · March 11

My wife has suggested a 50/50 water and vinegar mix to get the dirt off.

6,535 · March 11

Hot water, fairy liquid, green scouring pad, elbow grease.

21,543 · March 11

Put the wheels on and forget about them.

9,510 · March 11

22 minutes ago, cort1977 said:

green scouring pad

Scratchy scratchy!

1987 Ford Sierra Sapphire 1.8L - Completed it mate - see page 46

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