kishy's 2005 Focus

[kishy]

I know it's not our core content here, but it's nice to know it's appreciated. The sooner this thing gets out of my garage, the sooner I can work on my Panther projects...and I have a list of those waiting to go.

Yesterday, I decided to tackle a couple items before going to see a late movie.

First up, made final mock-ups and cuts to exhaust, then slapped it together with band clamps full of RTV gasket maker. Professional solution? No. Elegant? Also no. Works? Who knows? Guess we'll find out. Put the clamps on loosely and used jack stands to position things while allowing the RTV to set up a bit, then set about removing the alternator.

Getting a tool on the tensioner was...fun. Clearly designed to be done from below, and there's a special access cover for that purpose, but I didn't want to do it from below and I fought with it as a result.

Got the belt off, then got the alternator unbolted. One bolt, two studs with nuts. One of the nuts came off its stud, the other one brought the stud with it.

Alternator came out the top with minimal drama. Not normally possible to do it this way, but I have a bunch of stuff moved out of the way, and the exhaust heat shield isn't there, so it worked.



Wiring checks out visually; the main charge cable is not corroded past the crimp and the corrosion on its terminal was typical and minor; not reducing charging capacity meaningfully. The regulator connector looks good and its contacts are clean. There is a pinhole in one of the wires, probably from a piercing probe for some previous diagnostics, which makes me wonder if the charge light issue has maybe been an issue for a long time and multiple owners. Sort of irrelevant and it's all just guessing anyway. I'll make sure to seal up the hole in the wire.

















While looking at the alternator wiring I found a torn/disconnected single wire on its own nearby. It seems to have ripped out of the nearby noise suppression capacitor. Looking into the hole in the capacitor casing, the green crusties have gotten to it. A junkyard replacement will be located.



Opened the alternator to get the regulator out and looked at the slip rings and brushes. They don't look awful, the brushes have good spring tension, couldn't identify any issues visually. New whole alternator is going in regardless. Removal effort is way too high to try parts-swapping just the regulator as a first step.







After getting that out, I checked on my RTV and found it was starting to cure. I did some final exhaust positioning, including replacing two of the isolators at the rear cat with parts I've had since 2013, and cranked the clamps down tight. Seems to have worked, everything is clamped together tightly and if I rock any part of it back and forth, the rest all goes with it. No droops/sagging at the clamp points either.













Got out in time to catch my 9:45pm date to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I'm not historically a comic nerd, but the recent Marvel movies have pretty successfully sucked me in.

---

Today, I started out trying to figure out how the exhaust heat shield is going to (or if it can) work with the new mani-cat. Alterations will be required but I should be able to make it work. There is a steel collar thing that goes around the body of the original cat, acting both as a support mount to the block, as well as a bracket to attach part of the heat shield to. I had to remove a very corroded bolt, but got it out, and came up with a hardware solution to be able to mount the heat shield to it. The collar/mount assembly will not function as a mount because the new cat is skinnier, but it will provide me a place to mount the heat shield, so it's going back in.







I then tried to find a bolt that I could use to plug the air injection pipe. I don't want to modify it in case I have to warranty it. I recalled from one of my Panther projects having a partially-used Walker "air injection tube connection kit" hanging around, found it, and used a piece of that hose for it. The only bolt that worked well for this was actually a seatbelt bolt, so I cut the threaded part off (too narrow) and used the remaining stub as my plug. I don't know how reliably that will stay in there given it's smooth metal, but I guess we'll find out.





I stumbled upon my stud removal tool, and used it to remove the stubborn nuts from one exhaust stud that came out, and the one alternator stud that came out. Cleaned up the threads and then reinstalled them where they belong. Useful tool. Also nice that studs on newer stuff like this have an e-torx head on the end so they can be put in without playing with stacked nuts locked together.





Next, the bottom/rear engine/trans mount aka torque strut.
On a previous day, I tried to unbolt it, and the bolt which anchors it to the subframe broke approximately halfway through the mount. The bolt goes upwards, through subframe, through mount, then into a nut that is integral with the subframe. There is no physical access to the top side due to the steering rack being right there. The block inside the mount which the bolt passes through is aluminum; the bolt and surrounding subframe are steel. It's a bad set of circumstances.

I decided I wasn't messing around with this. I put a new Milwaukee blade on my M18 Sawzall, put the 5Ah battery on it, and went to town wrecking stuff.

Even with the mount completely destroyed and removed, the bolt was still seized in its threads extremely effectively. A fair bit of heat and penetrating oil was used and a small fire did result; no damage.













I won.



Gotta go get a bolt for this now. Probably going to run a tap into the nut if I can, and anti-seize it liberally when the new one goes in.

Not done for the day yet, that's just where we sit right now.

[kishy]

I successfully picked up an appropriate bolt and got the new mount installed. I tapped the hole through the nut after making sure it didn't look like it was a locknut, and everything went together pretty well after that. Anti-seize was used liberally. As much as I don't want it to wiggle loose, I also don't want it to be a pain to change, because these cars have a reputation for eating mounts.

Installed the new alternator, taped up the pinholed wire, and re-taped the part of the charge cable I opened up to inspect.

Looked at the manifold, gasket, and cylinder head, and realized that I didn't need to block off the air tube - the tube openings on the manifold flange don't connect to anything. California emissions cars must get different heads.

Put the manifold on and tried to mock up the heat shield to figure out how to make it fit. Cut a section out of the heat shield which made it a lot easier, but even doing that, I don't think it's going to work overall. I don't really want to leave it totally off, but I don't see a way to make it work. Maybe fresh eyes in the morning will find a solution, though.

[kishy]

Stared at the heat shield a bit today. Determined it just isn't feasible. This is largely my own doing, because the aftermarket mani-cat does not have provisions to mount it, and even if it did, having selected the California emissions variant (which was done because it was the cheapest) has caused the upstream O2 to be in a different location than the heat shield allows. That being said, it's an aftermarket cat, not factory, and it isn't CARB-approved, so it may very well be cooler than the factory one was. I consulted with a friend for his input and his vote is to delete the heat shield.

Nearby items of primary concern are the alternator and its plastic cooling air duct, the heater hoses, and the shift cables. The heater hoses and shift cables already have factory-installed heat wrap stuff on them, so maybe not a big issue. The alternator, well, I guess we're going to find out what temps that plastic duct assembly can handle.

Eh. Guess we'll see what happens.

Today, I replaced both front side window glass with the ones from the parts car. If this will be driven by my mom, she will appreciate the ability to see. Ridiculously easy to do on these cars. 20 mins per side.



Forgot that the fuel system was open when I turned the key on to move the windows. Shot a fountain of gas across the engine bay. Oops. Pulled inertia switch after that.

I replaced the broken HVAC control cable. The topic of how and why these controls fail could be its own dedicated thread. Basically, the doors in the plenum to control temp and vent selection have rubberized edges, and as they age they become sticky. When the door is at the limit of its travel in either direction, it can become stuck in place. The torque required to pop them free from this condition is more than the knob and cable assembly can deliver, so the thing just breaks. There is no viable way to correct the cause without removing the entire dashboard, draining the cooling system and evacuating the A/C, and removing the whole plenum assembly. Not going to happen. So I'll just always keep a spare cable around, and consider it a wear item, as well as educate the user.



I also replaced the passenger side dash register/vent. It had been broken, probably due to something like an air freshener being clipped to it, and I sourced a junkyard one ages ago now. In the process of doing this, I "upgraded" it to the style with the ability to shut the air flow off. Mildly mismatched, not really a concern.

I had forgotten about the HVAC stuff, honestly, and also had forgotten about how pulled apart the underside of the dash was.

[kishy]

Tonight's achievements:

Heat shield compromise reached. I installed the lower section, which works without conflict on this converter. The upper section is not possible.
Not super pleased with the O2 sensor wiring doing what it does, but I guess we'll see what happens. I'll likely build an extension harness out of some clippings from the junkyard. One body-side connector and one chopped off sensor pigtail ought to do it, with some good quality low-resistance soldered joints.



Re-replaced the passenger side trans output shaft seal (CV axle seal). Whether this time or last time, I gouged the bore it sits in. The leak was not from outside of the seal though, it was around the shaft through the actual sealing part of the seal. Used RTV on the outside diameter of the new seal to fill the gaps. I do think I may have had the trans overfilled which certainly wasn't helping. Car was raised in the front only when filling it before, and the fill instruction is "to the bottom of the fill plug" like a rear diff, so car angle makes a big difference.





Changed the engine oil and filter. 113k km.
Oil: 4.5L Motomaster (Canadian Tire store brand, produced by Shell in Canada) full synthetic 5W20
Filter: Motorcraft FL910S



Reconnected the stuff I took apart at the top of the engine bay. Fuel line, purge solenoid (I think that's what it is). Put the belt back on from below (much easier but still stupid design).









Put the exhaust together, hopefully for the last time.



Still had some Ultra Copper RTV setting but decided I couldn't wait. Started engine. Verified it sounds the way I want it to. Satisfied with that, shut it back off.

The to-do list now sits as follows:

• Adjust the parking brake lever
• Re-bleed the brakes
• Consider replacement of outer tie rod ends and sway bar end links; they are in passable condition but looser than I prefer.
• If tie rod ends changed, get an alignment
• Evaluate condition of remaining 2 engine/trans mounts, and replace if deemed appropriate. Parts on-hand, but since these have a reputation for eating mounts, I'd rather not replace unnecessarily.
• Acquire an appropriate M18 O2 sensor threaded plug for the centre O2 as this vehicle doesn't have one but the cat has a hole for it. Currently plugged with a used Panther O2.
• Rebuild the shift tower with M6x30 12.9 cap screw in place of the current roll pin
• Delete the intake manifold runner air flaps. Might skip this, as post-oil-change, the noise I thought may have been related seems much improved. Top ends like good oil, who knew?
• Figure out how to make the clutch switch engage slightly less mashed into the floor

Mom's birthday is next week. Think I can pull it off? Feeling optimistic.

[friskyfrankie]

Some serious rust in that last photo. Got to hand it to you - all in all a LOT of work put into this car. I believe you mentioned it is Mom's car so you are doing a good thing!

[kishy]

Some serious rust in that last photo. Got to hand it to you - all in all a LOT of work put into this car. I believe you mentioned it is Mom's car so you are doing a good thing!

You must not live somewhere that there's salt...that's what we call surface rust.

Additionally, the camera flash always lights up rust worse than it looks to the eye.

[87gtVIC]

At the rate you are moving currently you have a shot at reaching that deadline.

[friskyfrankie]

You must not live somewhere that there's salt...that's what we call surface rust.

Additionally, the camera flash always lights up rust worse than it looks to the eye.

Lived in NY and Northern Vermont in addition to cold climates all over the world. Quite familiar with rust.

[kishy]

Took mom out to dinner tonight, so didn't do a whole lot to this car. After dinner, I did knock out a few things though:

• Removed sway bar end links and then reinstalled and greased them, because I determined they're still tight. Not sure what made me think they weren't.
• Re-bled the brakes on all 4 corners (did get some air out), achieved excellent pedal feel and no more warning light when pushing pedal hard.
• Test drive! (due to lack of license plates, this was done strictly on private property and all movement there and back was clearly done on a flatbed tow truck)

Couldn't find my OBDII cable for my laptop, but the ABS and traction control lights cleared themselves after a short distance rolling, so evidently I got the rear tone rings on properly and undamaged. Brake performance and feel is great. The charge light did not turn on once. The non-tinted side windows make it possible to actually see the mirrors at night, which was not really possible previously. The exhaust sounds quiet but healthy and power is great. The engine does not rock on its mounts so they are probably fine.

Got a little scared when I was listening to it idle after the drive; there's a rattly sound that I couldn't pinpoint with the stethoscope but it's definitely inside the powertrain somewhere. Eventually determined that it goes away with the clutch pedal down, so it's something inside the trans, maybe input shaft bearing wobble...not doing anything about that until it's catastrophic. I'll double-double check the oil level in that to be safe, but it shifted great.

[Tiggie]

Sounds like progress to me. Always good to have some fixes actually fix stuff. Stuff like this really helps my mentality.

[kishy]

OMG.



Safetied.
Insured.
Plated.





50km shakedown drive tonight. What a fantastic car to drive, really. It puts up a fight to work on it, but man, it drives nice. Late evening cruise with the windows down and moonroof open...top notch stuff.



Some discoveries in that time:
I think one of the rear wheel bearings, which came over from the parts car pressed into the drums I swapped over, is starting to fail. There is an occasional chirp and sustained driving at specific speeds can bring it out. My torque wrench doesn't go high enough to properly torque the spindle nuts (wrench goes to 150, spec is 170-something), so it's entirely possible I've introduced this problem.

Speed/cruise control does not work; no function and no indicator light. Wondering if it's because there would be a stored DTC for the ABS+TC; the condition has been cleared but I never cleared the DTC, so if the computer says no cruise when there's a DTC, that explains it.

A very thorough wash is required, inside and out.

I wouldn't call it "done", but it's pretty close. I wouldn't feel bad handing this over after a good wash at this point and just say that I'll take it back from her in the coming weeks to tackle more.

It drives so nice.

For those wondering: hovering somewhere around $1900 Canadian into it, including original purchase price, and purchase price of parts car, without taking any off for scrap value (as I let my friend who towed it keep the scrap money). A very expensive "$500 car" but I doubt I could have bought it for 2k as it sits now.

[DerekTheGreat]

...For those wondering: hovering somewhere around $1900 Canadian into it, including original purchase price, and purchase price of parts car, without taking any off for scrap value (as I let my friend who towed it keep the scrap money). A very expensive "$500 car" but I doubt I could have bought it for 2k as it sits now.

Don't forget to add your labor into it. Skill and ability too, those are all items of value which most don't factor in when they reveal how much they have into a vehicle.

[Giraffe]

Thanks for posting the progress on this. I enjoy your thoroughness.

[kishy]

I don't recall if it was established in this thread yet, but the original goal had been to make the car a Christmas gift. As you've all seen, I kinda overshot that. A lot.
The next most sensible gifting occasion was Mothers Day, and well, didn't make that work either.
Next up is her birthday, Tuesday. I'm feeling 100% confident that I can present it to her that day, but I'm almost equally confident that I really should hang onto it after doing so to put some finishing touches on.
It needs a thorough detail and it's not clear to me I'm going to have time.

Yesterday, returned the unused flex pipe (RE: evaluated fitment of both 52488 and 52489; ended up using 52489). A hundred bucks back in my pocket.
Last night, I swapped the winter tire+wheel set back off, and put the original ones back on. I drove around a bit then called it a night.



Today, I went to a junkyard in Detroit in the Focus. This is a really decent car to drive. Power is good, steering is weighted about right, it's just nice. Junkyard trip yielded me some Focus items: the noise suppressor I mentioned recently above, a set of axle nut dust covers, a couple axle nuts, an inertia switch (mine works but I broke its mounting ears), more spare climate control cables, and a driver interior door handle. The door card I removed it from was already laying on the ground, so the effort was minimal. I've been warned that they are a failure item.

After the junkyard, I made a return to Harbor Freight. While there I noticed that they carry R134A. My next stop had been intended to be AutoZone for that exact thing.

I ended up buying an 18oz can of R134A plus stop leak, with included charging hose. A snag in the use of the hose I already have: it is the piercing style, but new USA-market R134A cans have a self-sealing valve and use a new type of can tap design. The all-in-one solution just made it easier. Now of course, being uncertain about if I am allowed to even possess the stuff in my own country, I went to a friend's house (in the US) and refrigerant became present inside the car. It now produces reasonably cold air, consistently. It was a fairly hot day, high of 82, and the car was quite comfortable. Clutch still cycles periodically, could probably use more refrigerant, but the intent here was to try to get the stop-leak into the system and then monitor over some time to see if the clutch cycling frequency increases, indicating an active leak that stop-leak can't handle. No point putting more in if it leaks rapidly enough to need another can so quickly; more proper repair is justified in that case.



The location of the low side port is kind of sucky. Inside a cavity within the front bumper cover, below the right side headlamp. You can run a hose to it from above through the engine bay, but you must go in from below/behind (wheel well, inner fender liner) to actually put your hand on it and attach anything to it.

The cycle looks approximately like this:
Compressor clutch engages. Cool air is produced. Low side pressure increases.
Cooling fan comes on near the top of the green/filled section of the gauge on the hose.
While fan runs, low side pressure drops until it dips just into the low section of the gauge, at which point the clutch disengages.
Low side pressure increases to the top end of the yellow section of the gauge.
Repeat.

The (probably) wheel bearing scream is becoming more consistent. This is one of the reasons I can't truly give it to mom yet.

Put gas in it today. The light had just turned on minutes before. 10.1 gallons to fill.

I swung by a place I'm rather fond of, which is a favourite of many in the Urb Ex hobby. To understand how far Detroit and area have fallen, you have to understand how high they once were. This is a decent read with some neat photos: http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/...phs/index.html

It was recently the victim of arson, destroying the auditorium.

[friskyfrankie]

Usually after adding any Stop Leak you want to immediately add refrigerant so that the port does not get "jammed up". Of course, we car discuss using Stop Leak at all but I do understand your need/wishes.

[kishy]

Usually after adding any Stop Leak you want to immediately add refrigerant so that the port does not get "jammed up". Of course, we car discuss using Stop Leak at all but I do understand your need/wishes.

The product in question is a can containing both, so there isn't much choice in the matter of which order they go into the system.

I do not know the history of the vehicle; e.g. does it get annual recharges or is what was in it before today the remains of the factory original charge?

I am a strong believer that A/C systems are not supposed to be leaky, but some loss over the course of 17 years is to be expected. This was really just an exercise in trying to determine next steps (if any).

[Lutrova]

It's a damn shame about that auditorium.

Old buildings are a lot like classic cars. The new ones may be better mechanically, safer, less polluting, but they'll never match the beauty and charm of what came before. Not because we can't reproduce the work, but because the society that made them no longer exists. Today safety, comfort, and ecology leave no room for aesthetics, decorum, and ambition.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but if today's bureaucrats had preceded it, it never would've been built at all.

[Tiggie]

At the risk of going well off topic in this thread, that high school was amazing, in design but also programs offered. We offer nothing nearly as great as that. A high school that actually prepared you for a career. How far we have come, and how far we have wondered from the original goal.

[friskyfrankie]

Didn't see the can had both so you're covered. My statement was more of a general admonishment for those that choose to use it separately. As for the low amount of refrigerant, especially the older systems (R-12), a small amount of seepage is allowable to keep the front compressor seal from drying out. Even using the "cheapie" gauge that comes with some cans, you can now establish a base point and monitor the drop, if any. Kudos for taking it on and getting the car comfortable for Mom!

[kishy]

Walking the halls of that place as it stands today (well, maybe before the fire) is something else. It's very nearly in ruins, and with multiple generations of HVAC retrofits, multiple generations of lighting and multiple layers of drop ceilings just hanging all over the place, it isn't as pretty as it would have been when new, but it's a very special building. Of course, all of that is secondhand knowledge. Probably.

Today, I headed to my friend's shop to try to get the detailing work done on the car, and also brought my bike (admittedly for the opposite sex and aging not gracefully) so we could do some riding. The bike rack performed splendidly.



The detailing tasks include:

• General interior vacuuming for pet hair and debris removal
• Clean seats with carpet shampooer
• Clean carpet and floor mats with carpet shampooer
• Clean door cards, dash and console with alcohol (hard plastic, seems any usual interior products may make them feel mildly sticky)
• Thorough exterior wash
• Exterior clay bar
• Exterior polish
• Exterior wax
• Thorough glass cleaning inside and out
• Possibly apply Rain-X to windshield

I put in about 5 hours and somehow only managed to get the seats, carpet and floor mats done. Super bummed about that. Decent results were achieved though. No real before/after shots as I didn't think the interior colour would really show results, and I was kinda right, but it is way better after regardless. Still a lot of pet hair I couldn't get out, it's embedded itself into the fabric in a few areas, not much to be done about that unfortunately.







Hoping to knock out the remainder tomorrow evening, but that seems optimistic. Gotta try though.

I did also install the junkyard-sourced noise suppressor and inertia switch today.